Unblinking photos on Flickr

www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/annibale-carracci-bologna...

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Annibale Carraci - The Virgin in prayer by Pau NG

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Annibale Carraci - The Virgin in prayer

The Virgin in Prayer is a previously unknown, newly discovered painting by Annibale Carracci and a major addition to the corpus of one of the supreme masters of the Italian Baroque. Its beauty, delicacy and refinement make it among the loveliest and gentlest paintings of the artist’s early maturity. Prof. Daniele Benati, Nicholas Turner and Keith Christiansen have confirmed the attribution to Annibale after examining the painting in the original, and have dated it to the1580s. Benati specifically places it at 1584-1585, when Annibale introduced a more graceful style in his work that reflected his admiration for Correggio, and Christiansen dates it slightly earlier, c. 1582-1584, the moment when the style of Annibale and Ludovico Carracci's work most frequently overlaps.

The painting is striking and original in the intimacy and humanity of Annibale’s rendering of the mother of Christ. More than a decade before Caravaggio’s artistic debut in Rome, Annibale, his elder brother Agostino (1557-1602) and their older cousin Ludovico (1555-1619) championed an art that extolled a new naturalism and communicated deep emotions through the rigorous and unblinking observation of the world around them. Of the three, Annibale would push this naturalism – the so-called ‘Carracci Reform’ – to its farthest limits. His first mature paintings, made when he was in his early 20s, thoroughly rejected the desiccated Mannerist conventions that prevailed in Bolognese painting at the time. The Bean-Eater (Galleria Colonna, Rome), The Butcher Shop (versions in Christ’s Church, Oxford and the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth), and The Boy Drinking (versions in Christ’s Church, Oxford, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and a private collection), were inspired by the low-life genre paintings of his probable teacher, Bartolommeo Passarotti. However, Annibale introduced to these humble subjects an unprecedented directness and sympathy, an intensity of naturalistic observation (born of relentless study of live models) and a keen interest in the meticulous rendering of the optical effects of light in nature. When he transposed this same bold naturalism from genre scenes to his first major religious work, the Crucifixion with Saints (1583; S. Maria della Carita, Bologna), there ensued a public scandal. The young artist’s decision to paint the central image of Christian contemplation – Christ’s sacrifice – with the rough simplicity that he had applied to the depiction of bean-eating peasants and to do so in an altarpiece destined for a public location, deeply offended the local art establishment and subjected the artist to vehement attack.

Furthermore, as was noted by Annibale’s biographer Carlo Cesare Malvasia, Ludovico also came in for criticism for allowing his young cousin to stray too far from the path of decorum. It may be that Ludovico subsequently decided to rein in Annibale, or that Annibale, his brother and cousin all realized that if their newly established joint enterprise, the Accademia dei Desiderosi (popularly known as the ‘Carracci Academy’, founded c. 1582) was to succeed in attracting pupils they would have to moderate their collective challenge to the established artistic orthodoxy. In any event, Annibale pulled back somewhat from the harsh naturalism of his first paintings, as Keith Christiansen has observed, introducing a sweetness and sfumato that reflected his admiration for Correggio and a brilliant, rich palette that he had discovered in the paintings of Titian and Veronese.

It seems likely that the greater refinement and warmth of the present Virgin at Prayer represents Annibale’s response to the attacks he endured over the Crucifixion. Its composition does not overturn the acceptable canon for depicting the Virgin, and the painting displays a respectful sense of decorum toward its subject. The Virgin, kneeling at a prie-dieu, clasps her hands in reverent contemplation of the open prayer book from which she reads. She is appropriately beautiful, reticent and full of humility, and the dry, chalky paint, the poetry of light enveloping her figure, the delicacy and tenderness of feeling conveyed by the fleet brushwork all signal that The Virgin at Prayer comes soon after Annibale visited Venice and discovered Titian; that is, around 1582/5, when the three Carracci embarked on the collective frieze decorations for the Palazzo Fava. The painting is in a beautiful state of preservation, enabling the viewer to fully appreciate the presence of the artist’s variety of touch and dexterity of brushwork, inspired by Titian, and the wide range of paint textures, iridescent glazes and dense white impasto in the veil and pages of the open book. The composition of The Virgin at Prayer is close to that of the Madonna from the Martello Collection in Florence (see D. Benati in M. Boskovits, ed., The Martello Collection, Further Paintings, drawings and Miniatures, 13th-18th Century, Florence, 1992, p. 116, cat. 42), although that painting is slightly earlier in date and displays the rougher manner of the Crucifixion of 1583.

The present painting bears marked similarities, however, to the larger, ambitious Annunciation, another recent rediscovery of a major, previously unknown work by Annibale, which was sold in these rooms (fig. 1); indeed the disposition of the Virgin, kneeling in prayer with the downward cast of her head, is remarkably close to the Virgin of The Annunciation, as is the chalky paint handling and slightly otherworldly illumination. To a greater degree than is found in The Annunciation, the prominently arched eyebrows and rounded eyelids of the Virgin in the present painting reflect the idealized physiognomic types found in Correggio’s early ‘Leonardesque’ Madonnas, seen through the lens of Ludovico Carracci and Federico Barocci; Annibale employs a similar facial type for the Virgin in his Holy Family in the Egerton Collection, Taton Park (fig. 2). Indeed, the parallels in physiognomies and handling establish beyond doubt that all three paintings were executed in quick succession, almost certainly not later than 1585.

Nothing is known of the painting’s earliest history, but it is first recorded in the mid-19th century hanging in the Palazzo Gnudi Scagliarini, a 16th-century Renaissance palace at 77, via Riva Reno in Bologna that was much altered and enlarged over the subsequent centuries.

Our thanks to Prof. Daniele Benati, Nicholas Turner and Keith Christiansen for examining the painting in person and confirming its attribution to Annibale Carracci.

Pinnacles by Bill

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Fathomless stars and unblinking stone. In between, a layer of life as thin as a spring frost.

Strawberry Pinnacles, Utah on April 3, 2020.

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"City Kids" Brief for Week 6 of Folio Focus! www.unblinkstudio.com

[KL] A Candle Gone Out by Olyvia Stratten | NOX.

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Luke Baratheon returned with a solid nod to his brother, “Enjoy your walk.” Luke turned to Alysandria, “Let us go back into the office, so we can have word...” He'd stumble to find correct words, “...it's personal.” The young stag looked over to his half brother, “I see you have a woman to take care of,” he'd remark with a cackle. Luke's arm reached out to wrap around Aly, herding her into the next room. Once they were inside, “Take a seat..” He'd point to a chair beside the table.

Leofric Storm tips his head forwards.. draping his hair down an almost claw like wrenching occuring on the table when he heard his wifes voice.. "Women..." he mutters under his breath and leans up to look over his shoulder, seeing her mouthing and simply stares at her, unblinking. Only removing his attentions when he heard his brother speak.. "I'll see you soon, Kane." he nods and looks back to his brother.. "It seems i'm to leave you to this little brother.." he mouthes 'marital duties...' he then passes a sort of... pitiful smile to Alysandria and then turns.. offering his arm to Sylvia. "So I promised.. So I keep."

Alysandria Baratheon looked sort of confused as her uncle made his leave. He was the one who had called her in here, was he not? She also looked quite startled at the woman who entered, now surrounded in a room with kin she wasn't hardly as close with. Alys had a strange feeling about this, and began to feel anxious, even more so when her Uncle wished to lead her back in to the office. It was good that Luke chose to usher her in to the room, as she may not have gone by her own will at this point. As he motioned to the chairs, she'd give Luke a curious look, arms folding across her chest. Though it didn't stay this way for long, as a single hand went out, grabbing the back of a chair and spinning it about to face Luke. "Well..." she started, her words holding a hint of agitation. "Out with it, already. My Lord Uncle is upset with me, isn't he? I tried to get a hold of the Arryns! I really did. But honestly, they do hold true to their sigil. Flitty folk, just like a bird." She'd continue to quietly ramble on, thinking this was the source of the talk they were about to have.

Luke Baratheon moved himself to the adjacent chair, scooting to to face Aly, Luke wasn't well with emotions but he'd suck it up and behave like his father, channeling his behavior as best as he could. Finding inspiration as he spoke, “ Little niece Aly,” Luke rest his hand on her knee, “We are long past getting familiar with other families. Tea parties and get-togethers are not our concerns. Kane is not upset with you at all...Trixie brought news the other night.” He'd whet his lips carefully, “I don't know how to tell you this but I'll be forward with you as you deserve so. There was an accident, your father is dead..” Luke heavy gulped, hand still resting upon her knee as he offered the girl comfort.

Alysandria Baratheon was even further confused when he said this wasn't to be about her failings in inviting the Arryns over. She tried to rack her brain, thinking of anything else she might have done wrong recently. Nothing instantly jumped out at her, and the confusion would be plain on her face. When he says that news was brought, her interest peaked slightly, now a mixture of both confusion and intrigue taking over her features. Blue eyes scanned over him, trying to pick up on anything she could that may point to what this was about. But as soon as he said 'I don't know how to tell you this', she knew it could be nothing good. And then it came, what this short suspense had been leading up to. Alys didn't believe him at first, and actually let out a hearty laugh, her hand patting his that rest upon her knee. "Good one, Uncle. Though a bit morbid, don't you think?" It was denial in its finest, which almost made it all the more sad; this cheery face staring back at him in the presence of such terrible news.

Luke Baratheon gazed upon Alysandria with a strong look, “It would be cruel of me to say such things in jest. This isn't to be laughed at. Your father is no longer with us. Kane is now Lord of our house.” His words were solid and unyielding. “He was my brother, and I am sore with his loss, look at me? Does my face say that I would lie to my own blood?” The man's features were as of stone and earth, that of which had been beaten by the wrath of the storms such as the cliffs of Storm's End. “You are his only kin left.”

Alysandria Baratheon's smile remained for a few moments. That is, until her uncle began to spoke once more. Was this really happening? Were his words true? She blinked a few times almost in a disoriented fashion, head shifting to look about the room, as if she was searching for something. "But he..." she trailed off, not even knowing what she wanted to say. "I..." it happened once more. And then she felt it, the sting of tears welling up in her eyes, the seizing up in her chest. "How?" she asked, meekly at first, the question not exactly precise. "How?!" she asked a second time, the anger in her voice rising. Alys jumped up from her seat then, it tumbling backwards as she did so. And before she knew it, she was in a rage, hands coming out to sweep the contents of the table on to the floor, letting out a cry of sheer pain before she dropped to her knees. "How could he leave me?" she asked through her sobs, her hands now hidden in her palms.

Luke Baratheon stood upright the second Alysandria made quick to swipe the table clean with her arms, Luke wasn't about to have any of this. “A snake scared his horse, it flipped backwards and his skull slammed onto a rock,” he'd speak plainly before resting his hand on her shoulder. “You are of age to be on your own Alysandria. He knew this, I'm sure he departed with faith in you.” Luke gave another pat to her shoulder. “I would seek the same faith, but I have my own issue with your handmaiden at the brothel. Alas that can be dealt with another time, or I may speak with Cyril myself. Wear black, for we mourn his loss as one.” The young stag nodded, “I will leave you to yourself. Be sure to not make a mess of the place. I will tell Nellie to comfort you with whatever you need. I am not the man to do this.” Luke moved out of the room with haste, not looking back regardless of the girls actions. Even if she were ta his ankle begging him not to leave.

Alysandria Baratheon was angry more than anything at this point, especially at his cause of death. Her father dying by stone to head. She never thought that would be his way of death. He was more of a man than that, and deserved a much more noble death. She barely heard his words before his parting, only a sharp ringing in her ears, her eyes going fuzzy. She feared she might faint, or perhaps it was just her rage that conflicted her so. Though as he turned to leave, Alys quickly got to her feet and whirled around, hands clenched in to fists as her sides. "Fine!" she screamed after him. "Just leave me like the rest of them!" She didn't want Nellie, she wanted her family. She wanted those that knew her father, knew his bravery and his kindness. She wanted to be close to them, not some servant whom she could care less for. Perhaps she was being selfish, given the timing of her father's death, but she couldn't help but feel alone. And as Luke left the room, alone she was.

Jenny Greenteeth by Giles Watson

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Another super-naiive illustration for this collection of songs:

SOUL CAGES

Lyrics about

Merfolk and other Water-Creatures

by Giles Watson, 2000

Hywel and the Mermaid

On the rocks beyond Gwbert where white seagulls fly,

With nothing before him but grey sea and sky,

Sat Hywel the fisherman, whistling a tune,

Whiling away a quiet afternoon.

He cast his blue eyes o’er the deep, swelling sea,

And watched the birds wheel, unfettered and free.

He looked down the shoreline, and she caught his eye:

A soft-singing mermaid, sitting nearby.

Her voice was like waves lapping pools in the sand,

Her tresses were long, with a comb in her hand,

And shellfish and sea-stars clung to her hair.

“I’ll take her home with me,” cried Hywel, “I swear!”

He carried her bodily back to his shack,

And Modlen the mermaid wept, “Sir, take me back!”

But he took her inside and he bolted the door;

She wept and she sobbed on the fisherman’s floor.

But Hywel’s friend Maredudd frowned when he heard,

Dark was his countenance; stern was his word:

“When a man takes a mermaid to be his fair bride

The end’s always tragedy - let her go at high tide

She’ll cast a spell on you; you must let her go!”

But he kept her his captive ‘til the rains turned to snow,

And she pleaded, “Dear Hywel, take me back to the sea,

And I’ll warn of all danger, and watch over thee.”

In the surf then he waded, Modlen in his arms;

The shells in her hair like trinkets and charms.

Her hand trailed in water; her tail threshed the foam;

She slipped from his arms and swam back to her home.

One day Hywel’s fishing, he’s wiping his brow,

When Modlen appears at the end of the prow;

Crabs scuttle about as they fall from her hair;

The look in her eyes tells him, “Hywel, beware!”

“Hywel, Hywel!

Draw in your net!

Hywel, Hywel!”

Her hair’s lank and wet!

“Hywel, Hywel!”

Her eyes stare with fear

“Hywel! Hywel!

For danger is near!”

“Hywel, Hywel!”

Yet calm is the sea.

“Hywel! Hywel!

O hearken to me!

Hywel! Hywel!

The winds may be calm,

Hywel! Hywel!

Yet you’ll come to harm!”

“Hywel! Hywel!”

He hauls on the ropes,

“Hywel! Hywel!”

And for the oars gropes.

“Hywel! Hywel!”

For the shore does he steer.

“Hywel! Hywel!”

Other fishermen jeer.

“Hywel! Hywel!”

She touches his hand.

“Hywel! Hywel!”

As his boat reaches land.

“Hywel! Hywel!”

The mighty clouds form.

“Hywel! Hywel!”

The oncoming storm.

Bewildered then Hywel stood on the shore,

Beholding the lightning with wonder and awe:

Capsized the boats and their owners all drowned,

And gone the sweet woman with sea-creatures crowned.

“To Modlen the mermaid, whom I took for wife,

Do I owe my repentance, my love and my life.”

He turned for his home, weatherbeaten and cold,

Now no one will ever his mermaid behold.

Source material: Welsh folk-tale, from Eirwen Jones, Folk Tales of Wales, London, 1947, pp. 94-97.

The Mermaid of Zennor

His voice enticed me, in my green ocean bower;

I looked up, through the waves, at the church’s dark tower,

He lured me at last from my cave ‘neath the sea

For the song of dry land was beckoning me.

My hair lank and dripping, I crept into the nave;

My soul rode his song like the crest of a wave,

Cockles and scallops were clenched in my hand,

But I was bewitched by the song of dry land.

By a stained-glass window darkened by yew,

He sang of a strange god, and nothing I knew

But the sight of the hymn-book, clutched by his hand,

And the longing and pain of the song of dry land.

Then as he knelt, and he drank the rich wine,

My fingers grew smooth with the drying of brine,

I waited and watched, by the font took my stand,

And I swore I would steal the song of dry land.

I clutched at his hand when his worship was done,

And we ran to the cove, ‘neath the drying white sun;

I dragged him at last through the dunes and the strand,

And I stole his sweet breath and the song of dry land.

Source material: The mermaid of Zennor, depicted on a bench-end in Zennor Church in Cornwall, was, ironically enough for a mermaid, enticed onto dry land by the singing of a chorister named Matthew Trowhella. She came into the church on several occasions in order to listen to him, until at last she persuaded him to follow her to her home in Pendour Cove, and from that day onwards, the lad was never seen again, although his singing may apparently still be heard, issuing from the mermaid’s underwater bower. See Marc Potts, The Mythology of the Mermaid and Her Kin, Chieveley, Berkshire, 2000, pp. 105-107.

Treasure from the Deep

She brought him treasure from the deep

Every time they met;

Golden torcs and doubloons bright,

All sea-worn and wet.

But mortal men are faithless all,

Heartless men and cold;

He courted women of the town

And gave them all her gold.

And oftentimes he went with them

While his lover waited,

And he who’d gained a mermaid’s love

‘Ere long was rued and hated.

She met him, in her boat of pearl,

And took him to her cave,

She showed him hoards of crusted gold:

“So this is what you crave?”

And he slumped, swooning on the rocks,

He writhed with stinging pains,

The treasure swam before his eyes,

He woke in golden chains.

“Never shalt thou leave this cave,

Nor find your way to shore.

I gave the riches of my heart –

You loved this treasure more.”

Source material: Caithness mermaid legend, recorded in Marc Potts, The Mythology of the Mermaid and her Kin, Chieveley, 2000, p. 129.

The Mermaid of Knockdolian

Upon my rock I sat by night and combed my tresses gold,

Where sea-spray tinged my mouth with salt and moonlit breakers rolled,

And long I sang into the night, amid the phosphorescent light,

Of porpoises and sunken treasure, mariners’ delight.

But on the cliffs above my perch, where skuas mewl and whirl,

There lived a wicked woman and her little baby girl.

She said my singing woke her child; how she cursed me and reviled.

My song, which seven schooners sunk, left her unbeguiled.

One night I swam out with the seals, as lightning streamed and flashed;

When I returned, I found that my beloved rock was smashed;

By men with hammers, sent by she who loathes the music of the sea.

Broken ‘neath the waves it lies, and ever more shall be.

I’ve found her baby in the crib; I’ve dripped brine on the floor;

I’ll leave the doll’s house upside down, smashed against the door.

That woman, fast asleep in bed, little knows her child lies dead,

And I shall swim away to sing upon some distant shore.

Source material: Folk tale from Girvan, Ayreshire, in Marc Potts, The Mythology of the Mermaid and her Kin, Chieveley, 2000, p. 131.

Soul Cages

Chorus:

Soul cages for mariners drowned in the deep,

Kept where the stalk-eyed crustaceans creep,

Soul cages for men from the tall ships, who died,

And only their white skulls shall roll in the tide.

I am a merry Merrow, I live in the Irish sea;

No denizen of darkest deep is friendlier than me,

For I’ve shared many a cask of rum, and many a woman’s bed,

And I have a fine collection of the spirits of the dead.

I line them up like lobster pots upon the ocean floor,

To catch the souls of mortal men who’ll never see the shore,

Before their spirits float away like bubbles in the blue;

Those whose lungs are filled with brine, and those the pirates slew.

I’ll drink a glass for each of them, each spirit in a pot,

Whiskey if they’re Irishmen, good brandy if they’re not,

And if they’re from a Russian ship that happens to capsize,

I’ll drink their health in vodka as the fishes eat their eyes.

I’ll keep their clay pipes in a chest, a tobacco pouch from each;

I’ll lay it in the sun to dry and smoke it on the beach,

And as the starfish span their skulls, watched by octopi,

I’ll drink to dangers of the sea, which helped them all to die.

And when the sea is very still, I watch them in the night,

Each soul inside its lobster pot, a little glowing light,

I hear them softly moaning as they bid me set them free;

I smile and say, “Not ‘til I’ve drunk ten thousand draughts for thee.”

Source material: Adapted from a folk tale related by Thomas Crofton Croker in Fairy Legends and Traditions of South Ireland, (1825), and also recorded in in Marc Potts, The Mythology of the Mermaid and her Kin, Chieveley, 2000, pp. 118-124. A Merrow is an Irish merman.

The Skinner and the Seal

A fisher stunned and skinned a seal,

Thinking she was dead,

For twenty times he’d beaten her

About her whiskered head;

He struck her with a driftwood club

While she flailed and squealed;

He slit her skin and pulled it off,

As the blood congealed.

He threw her body in the cove,

But rolling in the sea,

Her carcass moaned and breathed again;

She cried most piteously.

Her skin-stripped body stung by salt,

In agony she sank.

The fisher tucked her skin away

And with his friends he drank.

A mermaid found the bloodied seal

Upon the ocean floor,

“You’ll have your skin and be avenged,”

The water-woman swore,

And when the men cast out to sea

The next day in their boat,

The mermaid called a raging storm

And nought was left afloat.

The fishermen breathed stinging brine

And all of them were drowned;

Their bodies swayed in murky depths

By spiny urchins crowned,

And deeper sank the seal’s skin

Where mud-crabs make their home,

And as the wreck smashed on the rocks

Seals frolicked in the foam.

Source material: A selkie tale from Shetland, adapted from Marc Potts, The Mythology of the Mermaid and her Kin, Chieveley, 2000, pp. 135-136.

Lutey’s Song

Stranded by the tide, she was, the first bright day I saw her,

Cockles climbing through her hair, her tail draped before her,

And though I wore another’s ring, when I heard the woman sing

I could not but adore her.

“My children will be missing me,” with coral lips she told me,

I lifted her above the strand, no earthly care could hold me,

And though I owed another love, I heard her hair cascade above,

And felt her arms enfold me.

And as she slipped out from my grasp, she said, “I have not paid you,

Remember, Lutey, I shall come, with but one call, to aid you.”

And when, that night, I held my wife, my soul belied me, “By my life

I sorely have betrayed you.”

For seven years I saw her not, though oftentimes I sought her,

Yet when she called me to the deep, with bitter tears I fought her,

But one taste of her briny lips could couple foes and scupper ships:

No earthly love could thwart her.

I know what they have said on land: “It was the sea that took him.

He’s not the sort to break his bond; temptation never shook him.”

But I am Lutey, he who pales before his mistress’s gleaming scales,

Since faithfulness forsook him.

Source material: The tale of ‘Lutey and the Mermaid’ was recorded by William Bottrell in Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall, (1870), and is repeated in Marc Potts, The Mythology of the Mermaid and her Kin, Chieveley, 2000, pp.107-108.

The Doom Bar of Padstow

I have lived in Padstow harbour

Since before the town was born;

I have floated in the evening calm,

I’ve frolicked in the morn,

I have eaten oysters in her tides,

Their bodies bathed in brine,

And when a clipper comes to grief

The blame is always mine.

Land-loving Jimmy shot at me,

His musket filled with lead,

He took nought but a lock of hair

And left me there for dead,

But I awoke, with one dread thought

Swimming through my mind:

The sea would give me my revenge

On all of humankind.

I swam to where the sand dips down

Through waters cold and deep,

Where sea-stars span the dappled depths

And spiny creatures creep;

I beat my tail against the sand

And clouded all the sea,

My hand clutched to my bleeding breast,

“O Neptune! Pity me!”

And by the dawn a sandbank rose,

The harbour choked with silt,

For thus I served all Padstow

Knowing Jimmy felt no guilt,

And when a clipper sailed for land

At wealthy Padstow pier

She came aground amid the squalls,

All hands were seized by fear.

And as the lifeboats touched the sea

I pulled them all far under –

The gold doubloons and seamen drowned,

I took them all for plunder,

And so shall any clipper end

That sails in Padstow Bay,

For Jimmy shot me in the breast

But all mankind shall pay.

I have lived in Padstow harbour

Since before the town was born;

I have floated in the evening calm,

I’ve frolicked in the morn,

I have eaten oysters in her tides,

Their bodies bathed in brine,

And when a clipper comes to grief

The blame is always mine.

Source material: Marc Potts, The Mythology of the Mermaid and her Kin, Chieveley, 2000, p. 109.

The Drowning

Among the pools where chitons clasp

And limpets clench the stone

She climbed, and watched the blennies dart

Beneath a salt-bleached seagull’s bone.

Anemones would grip her skin,

And periwinkles trace

The edges of the ocean wrack

Which undulate like mermaids’ lace.

A hermit crab hid from her sight

Inside its crusted shell,

And she saw threshing in the foam

Of the rising ocean swell.

With that, she dived into the sea,

Her parents cried aloud:

“O now our daughter shall be lost,

And only kelp can be her shroud.”

But she swam laughing to the shore,

Radiant and wild,

And after that, wise women said,

“Beware, she is a changeling child.”

And none grew lovelier than she

On any Cornish land;

Like lapis was her glinting eye,

And white as sea-foam was her hand,

So Walter Trewoofe courted her,

And carried her to bed;

She sickened with the growing child,

But Walter scorned with her to wed.

Betrayed and spurned, she pined away,

And died on birthing bed,

And hearken how much Walter cared:

He never learned that she was dead.

But he walked, drunken on the shore,

And she, with blood-drained face,

Walked beside him on the sand

And wrapped him in her damp embrace,

And as a storm rose on the sea,

She dragged him through the waves

To where the shipwrecked seamen lie

With only squalls to mark their graves.

But in the pool, where blennies dart,

And crabs lurk in the gloom,

Anemones as red as blood

Shall grow, like roses on a tomb,

And though her mother moans and grieves

A child nought can replace,

By night, the surface of the pool

Reflects a changeling’s face.

Source material: Cornish mermaid legend, normally set in Perranzabuloe, recorded by Robert Hunt in his Popular Romances of the West of England (1881), and repeated in Marc Potts, The Mythology of the Mermaid and her Kin, Chieveley, 2000, pp. 108-109. The girl’s name was Selina.

The Inheritor

My mother left home when I was but ten

Forsaking forever the discourse of men;

For the call of the sea she turned tail to the land,

And left me to weep in my web-fingered hands.

Where the white horses surge, my father looked out,

And into the wind, in vain did he shout,

Though nothing returned but the swell of the sea

And the sound of the seagulls a-calling for me.

By night and by day I have wandered the strand,

My face turned to seaward, my back turned to land,

Her song on my lips and her blood in my heart,

And I feel the sweet urging that bade her depart.

So naked I’ll slip out, far into the sea,

And I’ll touch not the land until death sets me free;

I’ll look back on my father, the cliffs and the town

And I’ll seek my dear mother once more ‘ere I drown.

Source material: As Marc Potts observes, “Procreation between mer-folk and humans seems to be a common motif in folklore.” Indeed, some Cornish families claim descent from mer-folk. The Mythology of the Mermaid and her Kin, Chieveley, 2000, p. 110.

The Pond at Childs Ercall

At Childs Ercall there lies a pond

With duckweed overgrown,

Where yellow irises bend low

By springtide breezes blown.

Two men walked there one balmy day,

And whistled as they went;

They saw a single mermaid rise,

Her hair green and unkempt.

Duckweed clung upon her skin;

She gazed with fishes’ eyes

Which glinted with a deep azure

Reflected from the skies.

And both the men turned around to flee;

She stopped them with her song

And both were rooted to the spot

For all the morning long.

She drew them deep into the pond;

The weed crept to their chests,

And they disputed, side by side,

Which one loved her best.

“O, I have gold,” the maiden said,

“Come, take it from my hand,”

And both came forward, deeper still,

‘Til they could barely stand.

She dived into the murky depths;

Her tail arched above,

And when she held the gold aloft

Both men were filled with love.

“By Christ!” quoth one man to the other,

And both of them turned wan,

For at the word, she screeched with rage,

And maid and gold were gone.

Source material: Marc Potts,The Mythology of the Mermaid and her Kin, Chieveley, 2000, p. 110-111 remarks that “Whether the man swore and offended the mermaid, or uttered a holy oath and so frightened such a pagan creature is a matter for speculation”. Childs Ercall is a town in Shropshire.

The Kelpie

Chorus:

The rushes swaying by the river,

The water rippling in the breeze,

Scattering the wan reflections

Of the gaunt and budless trees.

“Take me, mother, to the river,

Where it runs cold, dark and deep,

To seek the soul of my dear brother

Where his body lies in sleep.”

Autumn pale was ending, a chill was in the air,

His mother sternly told him, “My little boy beware!

Never wander by the river, my dear darling child!”

Yet he wandered ever onward, deep into the wild.

Turgid was the water, dim and dark with peat,

Black was the mud that clung to his wee feet.

Dismal was the day, the rushes dripped with dew,

And dire were the auguries, if only Mother knew.

Chorus

A horse stood in the river, silent as the night,

And up tripped the little lad, joyful at the sight.

Darksome, motionless the mare, hair soaked by the rain,

And like the feathers of a raven hung the dripping mane.

He touched it on the muzzle, the eyelids open wide;

He reached to put his little hand upon its clammy side.

He grasped it by the fetlock, he tugged it by the tail,

Yet still the horse unblinking stood amid the evening pale.

Chorus

The boy stood up to his knees amid the stagnant mud;

The horse turned round to look at him with eyes as red as blood.

“Mummy warned me not to do it. Mummy said beware!”

Yet still he climbed upon its back and grasped its lanky hair.

He cried and trembled as the horse let out a lowly groan

And where the eyebrows should have been he saw a ridge of bone.

The boy let out a sharp shrill scream that echoed in the gloom;

The Kelpie sunk into the depths and dragged him to his doom.

Chorus

Autumn pale was ending, a chill was in the air,

“Don’t go where your poor brother went, I tell you girl, beware!

Never wander by the river, my dear darling child!”

Yet she wandered ever onward, deep into the wild.

Source material: Scottish folk tale, as recalled by Judith Reid.

The Selkie

The kelp and wrack strewn on the sand;

The rockpools at low tide

Held brittle-stars; crabs crawled the strand,

While seagulls wheeled and cried.

A fisherman walked on the shore

Collecting urchins spiny,

And creatures washed up from the floor

Of the ocean briny.

Claw of lobster, head of eel,

Yet onward did he roam;

The empty skin of a seal:

He carried it back home.

Chorus:

Salty, salty is the brine;

All’s not as it appears.

The selkie will no more be thine,

But swim amid her tears.

“I’ll hide the skin away from sight,

I’th’ chimney, for safe-keeping.”

And then, amid the windy night,

He heard the seals a-weeping.

He went to where the waves were washing

Cold ‘neath moonlit skies;

He saw a naked woman standing,

Forlorn the dismal cries.

She looked at him with wide, grey eyes;

He took her by the hand.

It seemed the sea was filled with sighs

That echoed o’er the sand.

Chorus

He led her to his lodgings poor

But naught the woman said,

The water dripped upon the floor;

He took her to his bed.

And when she was softly sleeping

He kissed her pallid cheek,

Then to the chimney went a-creeping

The seal-skin for to seek.

By night he nursed the empty pelt,

By day he put to sea.

That evening, at her side he knelt,

And said, “Make love with me.”

Chorus

She bore a boy, she bore a girl,

Silent in travail.

The girl had skin as white as pearl;

Her eyes were grey and pale.

The little girl stayed behind

While man and boy went boating,

And child and mother with one mind

Went where the wrack was floating.

Her mother knelt upon the sand

And cried into the sea;

The daughter held her clammy hand

And sat upon her knee.

Chorus

Six grey seals upon the water,

Six grey seals calling,

Mother hand-in-hand with daughter,

Silent tears a-falling.

That night she saw her father take

The skin from out of hiding.

He knew not she was awake

And in the dark abiding.

When they went fishing in the morn,

Her mother’s tears unending

Fell down from her cheeks forlorn,

O’er the sea a-bending.

Chorus

And so her daughter rushed outside,

The skin draped o’er her shoulder,

Came to the place where mother cried

And laid it on a boulder.

Her mother touched her pallid face,

She gave her kisses three,

And then she plunged without a trace

Deep into the sea.

Seven seals in the water,

Seven seals a-calling,

And on the shore his grey-eyed daughter,

Silent tears a-falling.

Final chorus:

Salty, salty is the brine;

All’s not as it appears.

Thy daughter will no more be thine,

But swim amid her tears.

Source material: Caledonian folk tale, as told by Judith Reid.

The Undine

‘Twas in the morn that first he saw her,

Slumped amid the reed and sedge;

Her flickering eyelids stopped him short,

Dismounting at the water’s edge.

Her silk gown clung to her swan-like form

Her hair lay damp across her face;

He touched her with his trembling hand,

A woman fair, of matchless grace.

“Water,” breathed her parted lips;

He helped her to the mossy bank.

He put a wineskin to her mouth

And thirstily the woman drank.

One moment then he turned away;

He heard a gentle splash and swirl,

He turned to see the water rippling,

And at his feet there lay a pearl.

Chorus:

Oh I must have you back again

However great the cost may be,

Oh Lady of the waters come

And let me pledge my love to thee!

Oh I would give my very life

For nothing more than this:

To put my arms about your waist

And taste your tender kiss.

And in the evening he returned,

The pearl held in his palm.

A solitary evening star

Reflected in the waters calm.

“Oh, I have brought your pearl,” he said,

Beneath the waning moon.

The woman came up from the water,

Saying, “Nay, it is thy boon.”

“But I desire another thing

More fine than jewels or gold.”

She stepped beside him and her hair

Dripped with beads of water cold.

“Oh what is it that you desire?”

Her languid eyes a limpid blue.

He felt the quavering of his heart

Which overflowed with love anew:

Chorus

She snatched away her hand from his

And turned away her face,

“Thou wouldst do well to ride away

And leave me in this place.”

“Am I unsuited to thy tastes?

I meant not to offend thee,

But I am yearning for your love,

And nothing less will mend me.”

Slowly then she shook her head

Their lips met in a kiss,

He said, “I’d give my very life

For wine as sweet as this.”

He felt her sweetness in his arms,

The star glowed far above.

Amid the eddies she was gone,

A-whispering, “My love.”

Chorus

And in the evening he returned,

He sent his horse back home,

He watched it cantering away,

And by the waters did he roam.

“Oh Lady, without you I die!

He stepped into the pond.

And the reflection of the moon

Wavered in the pool beyond.

And naked then but for her pearls,

Once more the sprite drew nigh

She led him through the forest green

The wind was cool and dry.

She took him to a clearing wide,

And mirrored in her eyes

He saw the image of his love

Beneath the gleaming skies.

Chorus

He felt her soft mouth at his throat,

His hands entwined in hair,

His armour fell about his feet,

He banished fear and care.

Cold her hands upon his shoulders,

But her kiss was rich and warm,

He put his hands upon her waist

And in the moonlight watched her form.

They lay among the soft, thick grass,

Her body smooth and cool,

And about him dripped the waters

Of the Undine’s reedy pool.

As breath and life went out of him,

She held him with a sigh

And the crimson light of dawn

Glowed warmly in the sky.

Oh I must have you back again

However great the cost may be,

Oh let warm winds of summer come

And I shall leave this world for thee!

For I will give my very life

For nothing more than this:

To put my arms about your waist

And taste your tender kiss.

Source material: Short story by Judith Reid, based on a Polish legend.

Assipattle and the Mester Stoorworm

A King there was, a sovereign lord,

Who, all his enemies overawed,

Dispensed justice in the land,

Fair and firm his ruling hand.

He had a daughter, sweet Princess

Gemdelovely. He loved each tress

Of her fair and silken hair,

And on this child he lavished care.

A little lad, Assipattle,

Lived on a farm, and tending cattle,

His brothers laboured all the day.

The boy frittered time away,

Sitting in a heap of ash,

And dreamed of armies, swords that clash,

Trolls and elves and goblins grim:

His parents had despaired of him.

But in the deep, there dwelt a Worm

Who made the ocean froth and churn:

Like glowing furnaces his eyes,

Like howling winds his groans and sighs.

The Mester Stoorworm, so they said,

Liked lovely maidens, live or dead:

He rarely chewed them into pulp;

He liked to gobble ‘em with one gulp.

Among the scribes there was debate:

How long the Worm would be, stretched straight?

With tail in Iceland, would the leech

To Scotland or to Norway reach?

How wide exactly was its girth?

And what price would its skin be worth?

These questions, somewhat hypothetical,

With retrospect were quite prophetical.

For one day, when our noble King

Had ordered for his bards to sing

And celebrate his birthday feast,

This vermiform and vile beast

Put its head up on dry land,

And to be fed made loud demand.

Drool dripped from its toothy grin;

It was impatient to begin.

This noble King’s second wife

Delighted oft in causing strife,

And when the Worm showed its head,

She went before the King and said,

“You cannot bargain, come to terms

With this awful, loathly Worm!

But I know a sorcerer whose advice

Might be helpful, at a price.”

And so the sorcerer, justly feared,

Gaunt and grim with grizzled beard,

Came before the anxious King.

He said, “Alas, there’s but one thing

To make the serpent go away:

Feed it maidens every day

For a month or two, and see if it

Can be persuaded thus to quit!”

Then the King made lamentation,

And made it known throughout the nation

That seven maidens once a day

Would make the serpent go away.

And all the people came along

In a wailing mournful throng

To see the maidens, tied up tightly,

And never was a Worm so sprightly.

But Assipattle, at this sight,

Which made the ladies faint with fright,

Raised his voice above the throng,

And cried, “This is a heinous wrong,

A cowardly, pathetic sin!

Will no-one do the creature in?”

But no one did what he suggested,

And soon the maidens were digested.

And so it went, from week to week:

This horrid, ghastly, gallsome freak

Ate the maidens one by one

And pretty soon they all were gone.

And now the sorcerer looked grave,

“There’s but one thing, your land to save,

Gemdelovely, the Kings’ own daughter

Must be offered in the water!”

Then the King tore out his hair;

He could do naught but groan and stare,

But when the news reached Assipattle,

He girded up his loins for battle,

Mounted on his father’s steed

And blew upon a little reed,

Which made the stallion rear and fly

Until at last the Worm was nigh.

The boy crept into a house,

In dead of night, when not a mouse

Was stirring, and he quickly stole

From off the grate a glowing coal.

And then he hopped into a boat

And quietly he let it float

To where the Worm did gasp and snore.

He steered the boat into its maw.

He clambered o’er its rasping tongue,

Looked down the windpipe to the lung,

Wandered down into its gut,

And behind, the mouth slammed shut.

He felt the pulsing of its veins;

His hands were black with biley stains.

Then holding back a fearful shiver

He thrust the coal into its liver.

The Mester Stoorworm’s grimy guts

Were oilier than a halibut’s,

And soon the liver was on fire.

The Stoorworm’s howling, grim and dire,

Was quite enough to wake the dead.

It groaned a lot and thrashed its head;

The townsfolk gave a happy shout

When it puked brave Assipattle out.

It reared up and glowed beneath,

And one by one fell out its teeth;

They flew along for miles and miles

And landed in the Shetland Isles.

Its tongue cleaved Norway from Denmark

And for a while the moon went dark.

The King said, “Thou hast earned no less

Than Gemdelovely, fair Princess!”

But while the people celebrated

The Queen and sorcerer, ill-fated,

Were hard at it, so they say, in bed,

When the chambermaid poked in her head.

The woman rushed to tell the King

Who hurled away his wedding ring

And said, “That sorcerer’s for the chop!

Fetch my steed and riding crop!”

Then up jumped little Assipattle

And said, “Good King, oh don’t talk prattle!

That horse will never catch the man –

Look here – I have a better plan.”

He took the King’s most fearsome sword

And put on armour like a lord.

He jumped upon his father’s steed

And blew upon a little reed.

And then the stallion reared and flew

While a wild wind raged and blew.

“You little squirt!” the sorcerer cried

But Assipattle merely sighed,

And chopped his head off with one blow;

The blood dripped on the melting snow,

And in the end – now can you guess?

He got to shag the fair princess.

Source material: Scottish fairy-tale. Source unknown, from Scottish Fairy Tales, Senate, 1994, pp. 195-215.

Jenny Greenteeth

Chorus:

Green her limbs and green her hair,

Green her breasts and buttocks bare,

Green the teeth that draw your blood

And spill your entrails in the mud.

Green the waters that bring death

And fill your lungs with your last breath,

For Jenny Greenteeth’s lurking still:

Of humankind she eats her fill.

A fisherman goes out one day

To while the lonely hours away,

And o’er the river casts his line,

Relaxing in the warm sunshine,

And in the water, strands of green

Are floating, plainly to be seen.

And no-one hears his dying groans

As Jenny Greenteeth chews his bones.

A boy comes down with fishing net

To hunt for tadpoles in the wet

Down where the silt and sludge doth breed

Fingers of green water-weed,

When round his ankle something’s clenched,

And pretty soon his clothes are drenched,

And red is mottled with the green:

Old Jenny Greenteeth chews his spleen.

A comely, gentle maiden fair

Walks on the banks, to take the air,

With white parasol, lacy frock:

About her wrist, green fingers lock

And drag her down into the rushes

Where each skull green Jenny crushes.

Into the waters, dark blood drains

While Jenny Greenteeth sucks her brains.

Two lovers, walking side by side,

He whispers, “Wilt thou be my bride?”

They look out o’er the waters still;

About their bodies creeps a chill.

Behind, two green eyes blink and gloat;

Green fingers wrap about each throat.

She drags them both into the river:

There Jenny feasts on human liver.

Source material: Faerie legend from Yorkshire. Brian Froud and Alan Lee, Faeries, London, 1995, cites her, alongside Peg Powler of the River Tees, as an example of a faerie legend developed by parents anxious to keep their children from playing too close to the river.

The Storm

The doors are bolted, shutters locked;

Outside the storm is hurling

Broken branches, salt and spray;

The wind is moaning, whirling.

Pray for the souls of those outside

While the sea churns at high tide,

Engulfed by raging waters wide

And downpours wildly squalling.

And when at dawn the storm dies down

The sails and flags hang tattered,

The driftwood strewn upon the sand

With kelp and sea-skein scattered.

And where the seagulls wheel in flocks,

Beyond the sea-torn, creaking docks,

They find a body on the rocks,

By wind and rain a-battered.

The lips are blue, the tongue is pale,

The fingers clutch the air,

Bruised the skin and splayed the limbs,

And tangled is the hair.

The villagers all gather round,

They bury him on hallowed ground,

They heap the soil in a mound,

Of evil unaware.

And when night falls the storm resumes,

The people lie awake;

Some devilry is in the air;

With terror grown men quake.

A raging wind the canvas whips,

Around the cliffs the water rips

And seizes all the tossing ships,

Their anchor chains to break.

Dawn brings nought but ruin and fear,

Though windless is the day,

But with the dusk the sea breaks in,

Their livestock washed away.

Brine washes underneath their doors,

It cascades over stairs and floors;

The people grovel on all fours:

Unto the gods they pray.

And with the morn they take their shovels,

Trudging in the gloom.

They march past kelp-strewn monument,

Gravestone and ancient tomb,

And one by one, without a sound,

Throw fresh earth from the burial mound,

The soil tossed out o’er the ground,

The body to exhume.

A crowbar ‘neath the casket lid,

A splintering of pine,

The body spilled upon the turf,

Amid the mud and brine,

Lithe and scaly, there it lies,

And horrified their stricken cries:

Luminous and wide the eyes,

Like lanterns in a mine.

Its bony fist held to its mouth,

The finger sucked within:

Two knuckles for two nights interred,

The lips set in a grin.

The teeth gleam in the mouth so wide;

The tongue is glistening inside;

The holy ground unsanctified,

By wages of dark sin.

They drag the body to the shore,

Far from their ruined town,

And bury it in yellow sand,

Away from sacred ground.

That night a silent watch they keep,

But soft the wind and calm the deep;

The merman’s body lies in sleep

Where the breakers pound.

Source material: Folk tale set in Cornwall, adapted by Marianne McGachey.

The Bells of Aberdovey

Gwyddno ruled in Ceredigion,

And there was no more fruitful soil

Than in the flatlands, Cantre’r Gwaelod,

Fertile, and rewarding toil.

It had been thus for generations;

The land was fecund, fine and free

Since men built dykes in Cantre’r Gwaelod

To save it from the raging sea.

But as they mortared stone to stone

They heard a bell’s deep, mournful tone:

Beware the oppression,

Beware the oppression

Of Gwenhudiw!

A warrior named Prince Seithennin

Owned one watchtower by the sea;

He had his stewards watch the dyke,

But none was lazier than he.

He passed the hours drinking mead,

His stewards at his side,

And cracks grew wider in the dyke

With every flowing tide.

And Gwyddno lay in bed, and heard

A bell toll out these dismal words:

Beware the oppression,

Beware the oppression

Of Gwenhudiw.

Prince Teithrin owned a second tower

Overlooking surf and shore;

He saw the cracks grow in the dyke

And pounded on Seithennin’s door,

But the Prince was roaring drunk

And sent his friend away –

And yet Seithennin would not live

To sore lament the day.

And as Teithrin spurred his steed,

He heard a bell, as he made speed:

Beware the oppression,

Beware the oppression

Of Gwenhudiw.

Prince Elphin, son of King Gwyddno,

Lay sleeping ‘neath a spreading ash;

He trembled as he dreamt a dream,

And quaked to hear the thunder clash.

The thunder faded; Teithrin’s horse

Came galloping, and Elphin cried,

“I dreamt the mermaid Gwenhudiw

Brought down the dyke, and thousands died!

I heard the thunder, like a bell,

Summoning them all to hell:

Beware the oppression,

Beware the oppression

Of Gwenhudiw.”

“Then we must ride and tell our father,”

Teithrin cried, and on they ran

To Gwyddno’s palace, shouting out,

“Defend the dykes now, every man!”

And Gwyddno’s face was gaunt and grave,

“Seithennin must obey,

Else his watchtower, dyke and land

Will all be washed away.

I heard the bell toll, as you said,

Tolling for the drownéd dead:

Beware the oppression,

Beware the oppression

Of Gwenhudiw.

They rode again to find Seithennin

In his castle gaunt and grey,

He said, “My brothers, come inside!

We’ll drink this dismal night away!”

He held a bottle in his hand,

The mighty ocean gave a roar;

The waves came rushing o’er the dyke,

And washed across the castle floor.

His brothers cried, “Canst thou not hear?

The bell is tolling, loud and clear,

Beware the oppression,

Beware the oppression

Of Gwenhudiw?”

Seithennin took a long, deep swig,

His castle strewn with kelp and wrack,

He drew his mighty, burnished sword,

Crying, “Knights! Awake! Attack!”

He charged towards the heaving sea

And leapt upon the castle wall;

He cried out, “Cowards! Face the foe!”

And vanished in a whirling squall.

“His sword is useless ‘gainst this foe,

The bell tolls, and the waters flow,

Beware the oppression,

Beware the oppression

Of Gwenhudiw!”

Teithrin, Elphin and Gwyddno

Led all they could to higher ground;

They thrust their swords into the earth

To hold them as the wind whirled round,

And beheld, beneath the mournful moon

The sea break through the wall,

And man and beast and field and plough,

The sea devoured them all.

And as the dyke was washed away

They heard the dismal bell tones say:

Beware the oppression,

Beware the oppression

Of Gwenhudiw.

Under the sea, under the sea,

Lies Cantre’r Gwaelod, farm and tree,

Seithennin’s corpse was never found,

His castle sunk, his servants drowned.

Barnacles grow on the floors,

And drifts of seaweed clog the doors.

And where the farmers once drove sheep

Sea urchins crawl and lobsters creep.

Above the sea-swell wheel the gulls,

And fishes hide in human skulls.

Under the sea, under the sea,

Lies Cantre’r Gwaelod, farm and tree

Now Aberdovey’s on the shore;

Plains stretch beyond the town no more,

And of their passing nought is heard

For there’s no man will speak a word

Of that dread day when all was lost

One thing alone bespeaks the cost:

Sometimes a child, collecting shells

May hear the sound of distant bells:

Beware the oppression,

Beware the oppression

Of Gwenhudiw.

Source material: Eirwen Jones, Folk Tales of Wales, London, 1947, pp. 77-86.

The Physicians of Myddfai

Physicians of Myddfai, how came you to learn

Which herbs to gather and which herbs to spurn,

And who taught you all the prescriptions you make?

We learned from our mother who lives in the lake:

Not far from Myddfai, there lies Llyn Y Van;

You might wander miles there, and not see a man,

Rhiwallon lived there with his widowed old mother;

They lived with their sheep, and their lambs, and no other…

His herd grazes softly, high on the hill;

He walks by the water, whittling wood,

All of the scene, it is silent and still,

And the water laps by his left side.

A herd of white oxen heave up from the lake;

Ghostly and gaunt, all the cattle go by;

A beautiful maiden – she makes his heart quake

Walks out from the waters so wide.

He steps out to meet her, she stops and she smiles,

She passes him bread on the palm of her hand,

But the lass disappears, and he searches for miles

Murmuring, “Maiden, I’ll make you my bride!”

Physicians of Myddfai, continue your tale

Of your father Rhiwallon, and the maiden so pale…

He walks by the Llyn and he looks at the moon,

Reflected in waters that ripple and glow;

The maiden arises, his mind’s in a swoon

From her corsetry, cold waters flow.

She holds out more bread, and he eats from her hand,

He says, “I adore thee, and married I’d be!”

The maiden, she smiles, puts her mouth to his ear;

Her lips mouth words languid and slow:

“Marry me well, boy, if marry you will,

For I am immortal, and you but a man,

Two times I’ll warn you, but all will work ill

The third time you strike me a blow.”

Physicians of Myddfai, continue to tell

How your father Rhiwallon came under her spell…

Married they are, the maiden wears white,

And years follow happily, ‘til he forgets,

He pats her bare shoulder, one balmy night;

She recoils in rage and in pain.

They go to a wedding, and how his wife wails,

For the bride and groom’s future is bleak –

He pats her bare arm, and the poor woman rails,

“You must swear not to strike me again!”

They go to a funeral, the faery laughs loud,

For she sees dead souls resting in peace.

He pats her bare hand. Disappearing in cloud,

She is gone, and he seeks her in vain.

Physicians of Myddfai, but how were you born?

You cannot stop thus, with your father forlorn!

Our mother bears babies, three bright young boys,

She leaves us all lying by old Llyn Y Van.

Our father, he finds us, with our faerie toys,

And he wails, “Wife, where art thou now?”

And as we grow older, our mother we seek,

We look for her down by the lake;

“My children! My children!” Her voice like a charm,

Lips perfect, and pallid her brow.

Our mother, she took us to mountainsides steep,

And showed us where all good things grow;

Our mother, she carried us down to the deep:

All cures we work: she showed us how.

Physicians of Myddfai, your wisdom pray tell,

The charms that your mother has taught you so well.

Catch a live frog, then, and pull out its tongue;

Lay it on a man’s heart when snoring is deep

The man must confess when he has done wrong:

He will spell it all out in his sleep.

To look at the wind, take the gall of a cat,

And plaster it over your eyes

After you’ve mixed it with cold chicken fat,

And you see what the rest must surmise.

To pull out a tooth, you must set some live newts

To cook on a fire that burns,

And you’ll pull, without pain, a tooth out by the roots,

With a poultice of beetles from ferns.

Physicians of Myddfai, how came you to learn

Which herbs to gather and which herbs to spurn,

And who taught you all the prescriptions you make?

We learned from our mother who lives in the lake:

Not far from Myddfai, there lies Llyn Y Van;

You might wander miles there, and not see a man,

We live there, these days, with our kind faerie mother;

We live with her oxen, our sheep, and no other…

Source material: Eirwen Jones, Folk Tales of Wales, London, 1947, pp. 114-122. The song combines the tale entitled “The Physicians of Myddfai” with Eirwen Jones’s collection of “Prescriptions of the Physicians of Myddfai”.

The Nuckelavee

Chorus:

Make a dash for running water

Brash young Jack McCall,

The Nuckelavee with have your liver

If you trip and fall.

Make a dash and don’t look back,

The very sight would kill you,

Your only hope, to reach the stream:

Won’t you, Jack, or will you?

Jack McCall had nary a care,

He walked the shoreline unaware,

For no one told him to beware

The dreadful Nuckelavee.

Pretty Maggie, fisherman’s daughter,

He went down to the beach to court her;

The scene was set for a grisly slaughter

By the dreadful Nuckelavee.

Chorus

Poor Jack McCall, he waited long,

Not suspecting owt was wrong,

And no one heard his lilting song

But the dreadful Nuckelavee.

The waters churned, the monster rose,

Writhing in its wrathful throes,

It snorted brine from out its nose,

The dreadful Nuckelavee.

Chorus

A human torso, a fiery eye,

Towering against the sky,

And Jack let out a fearful cry:

“It’s the dreadful Nuckelavee!”

A horse’s body, flippered feet;

Poor Jack turned whiter than a sheet,

He ran and shouted, I repeat:

“It’s the dreadful Nuckelavee!”

Chorus

The monster gave a fetid grin,

Its slimy body had no skin,

The veins pulsated, black as sin

On the dreadful Nuckelavee.

And as Jack ran, it lumbered out

And on the shingle flailed about,

Jack cried, “It’s certain! There’s no doubt!

It’s the dreadful Nuckelavee!”

Chorus

He ran o’er heath, he ran o’er hill,

He heard the monster coming still,

And slowly closing for the kill,

The dreadful Nuckelavee.

“Running water,” his Granny’d said,

“Will kill the monster stony dead

When it is clamourin’ to be fed,

The dreadful Nuckelavee.”

Chorus

So quickly Jack made for the brook,

He dare not turn, he dare not look,

It seemed the very granite shook

‘Neath the dreadful Nuckelavee.

At last the water loomed in sight,

Glistening in the moonlit night,

But jaws were gaping, wide the bite

Of the dreadful Nuckelavee.

Chorus

On and on the lad did dash,

He hit the water with a splash,

But it spilled his entrails with one lash,

Did the dreadful Nuckelavee.

It crunched his bones up on the spot,

Cranium, sternum, ate the lot,

The ground bestrewn with cruor and clot

By the dreadful Nuckelavee.

Chorus

It spat his feet out on the ground,

(Nought else of Jack was ever found)

And it made an awful belching sound,

Did the dreadful Nuckelavee.

So if you want to court a maid,

Or, mayhap, to just get laid,

Just make sure you’re not waylaid

By the dreadful Nuckelavee.

Source material: Story by Marianne McGachey. The Nuckelavee is described in in Brian Froud and Alan Lee, Faeries, London, 1995.

Owen’s Stone

Chorus:

Is the kingfisher’s pinion still to be seen,

Fleeting, azure, like a jewel in the green?

Does the woodcock still call, does the nightingale sing,

Does the heron stand fishing, the lark take the wing?

Do damselflies hover o’er tremulous reeds,

Does the meadowsweet scatter abroad all her seeds?

Do the slow worm and adder, the green garter snake,

Slide down to the water, to drink from the lake?

Do the faeries still guard it and ride the white swan?

Whither, oh whither are all of them gone?

I rode upon Starlight, my strong silver steed,

To the well of the faeries, fringed with green reeds;

I knelt and I drank, saw reflected the moon;

Exhausted, lay down, slipped into a swoon,

Replaced not the stone which covered the well:

Brothers and sisters, now heed what befell.

The water flowed out as I slept to one side,

The water grew deep and the water grew wide;

The water lapped higher, it crept up the mound,

Watched by the faeries with never a sound,

And when I awoke and I called for Starlight,

I heard her a-whinnying deep in the night.

The water all overflowed, empty the well,

And in the air ringing, a soft elven bell.

“Alas! ‘Tis my fault! I replaced not the stone,

Now all the sweet faeries’ blessings are gone!”

I swam o’er the lake, ‘til I came to the bank;

The phosphorus glowed where my horse stood and drank.

And as I looked out o’er the moonlit expanse,

I stood as one bound in a long, blissful trance,

For tall grew the rushes, and lilies did bloom,

The soft faerie laughter dispelling the gloom,

The swans’ forms reflected, the surface so still;

I knelt in my armour, surrendered my will.

Grown old, I return to Llyn Lech Owain;

My limbs are all weary, my heart seared with pain,

For I am Sir Owen, of King Arthur’s court,

And my dreams of the Grail have all come to nought;

Could I but find my lake, as I saw it before

I should die then content, on her soft, mossy shore.

Source material: Derived from a story in Eirwen Jones, Folk Tales of Wales, London, 1947, pp. 86-88.

Batman vol 1.4 by ianwillcock

9 2

Lex jumped back. “We don’t have TIME for this!” He shouted. “He’ll be here! He can see through walls, you know.” I ambled up to him calmly, despite the fact that about 5 guns were trained on me.

“What’s got you so worried?” I barked. “The only person you should be scared of is me.”

“No, no, you don’t understand, this man, he’s a danger, and the Kryptonite is the only thing that can-” he cut off mid-sentence. His ears seemed to perk up, sticking out from his bald head more than they did already.

And suddenly a blur dashed into the room, sending his henchmen flying. The blur stopped and grabbed Lex.

I could see now it was a young man, no more than 20 years old. His face was covered by a shoddy bandana tied around his neck, similar to Jason’s. He looked at Lex with such an intensity it seemed as if lasers would shoot out of his eyes.

“I know what you’re doing!” He shouted. “Stop taking the Kryptonite. I don’t want any trouble!”

Lex started laughing maniacally.

“You’re gonna regret ever coming to Metropolis, you freak,” he spat. “Soon I’ll have so much Kryptonite you’ll be worse off than that time in my mansion back in Smallville!

“Which one?” He snarled. “There were so many times you betrayed I I lost count.” And with no effort he tossed Lex like a rag doll. Lex crashed back into the floor and went sliding.

Robin and I sprang into action. I pulled out batarangs and threw them at the newcomer but instead of implanting themselves in his skin, the batarangs nearly bounced off. I felt a deflating feeling in my stomach and knew this wouldn’t be as easy as I hoped it would be.

Robin lunged at him, hitting him with his staff; the newcomer just picked Robin up and threw him.

“Robin!” I cried, turning to face the man in the bandana. “Why are you doing this?” The man in the bandana stared at me, unblinking.

“I know you. You’re the Bat,” he said. Before he could say anything else, there was a screeching of tires and Lex had ditched with his men. The bandana man looked from me to the door as if making a decision before flying out the door to catch up with the van.

The Toronto City Hall, or New City Hall, is the seat of the municipal government of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and one of the city's most distinctive landmarks. Designed by Finnish architect Viljo Revell (with Heikki Castrén, Bengt Lundsten, and Seppo Valjus) and landscape architect Richard Strong, and engineered by Hannskarl Bandel, the building opened in 1965. It was built to replace Old City Hall, which was built in 1899. The current city hall, located at Nathan Phillips Square, is actually Toronto's fourth and was built in order to replace the former city hall due to a shortage of space. The area of Toronto City Hall and the civic square was formerly the location of Toronto's Old Chinatown, which was expropriated and bulldozed during the mid-1950s in preparation for a new civic building.

In 1958, an international architectural competition was launched by Mayor Nathan Phillips in order to find a design for the new city hall. Revell's winning proposal came first among submissions from 42 countries. It consists of near-twin towers surrounding a white disk-like council chamber, which is mounted on a raised platform with entrances located below. There is also a ramp from connecting the square to the podium roof, from which there is access to the council chamber. The two towers are of unequal height, the east tower being taller than the west. The building was nicknamed "The Eye of the Government" because it resembles a large eye in a plan view. Revell died a year before New City Hall was completed.

While the building's base is rectangular, its two towers are curved in cross-section and rise to differing heights. The east tower is 27 storeys (99.5 metres (326 ft)) tall and the west tower is 20 storeys (79.4 metres (260 ft)). Between the towers is the saucer-like council chamber, and the overall arrangement is somewhat like two hands cradling the chamber. The outer concrete surfaces of the towers have been ribbed, to prevent collapse of the fabric as a result of the expansion of the exterior surfaces, and the tearing apart of the fabric as a result of differences in air pressure on the two sides of each wing-like tower during the high winds characteristic of the Great Lakes. The north, west, and east elevations are more abstract and sculptural in contrast with the extensive glazing of south elevation facing the square; each presents a view of concave panels of concrete textured with split-faced strips of Botticino marble. To the east of the square is Old City Hall which is now a courthouse. From the air, the building is seen as a giant unblinking eye, thus the building's original nickname of "The Eye of Government".

The design for the public space in front of the new city hall, Nathan Phillips Square, was part of the competition. The square's reflecting pool and concrete arches, fountain, and overhead walkways were thus also part of Revell's submission. It has since seen several monuments, sculptures, and other works of public art added, and was renovated, but it continues to complement the city hall with its original Modernist design elements.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...

Hawk Eye by J. E. Foster

16 8

The Savanna Hawk is one of the larger raptors found on the island of Trinidad. They will sit for long periods in one spot, out in the open, waiting for a meal to come by, picking out its prey with its unblinking stare. It usually eats small mammals, amphibians, lizards, snakes, crabs, molluscs and even large insects. It usually hunts out in the open savannas (hence its name), and will hunt either by air or at times stalking its prey on ground! They like their food toasty and will be seen following bush fires to find a nice crispy treat. Definitely one of the cooler birds of preys in these islands.

The Toronto City Hall, or New City Hall, is the seat of the municipal government of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and one of the city's most distinctive landmarks. Designed by Finnish architect Viljo Revell (with Heikki Castrén, Bengt Lundsten, and Seppo Valjus) and landscape architect Richard Strong, and engineered by Hannskarl Bandel, the building opened in 1965. It was built to replace Old City Hall, which was built in 1899. The current city hall, located at Nathan Phillips Square, is actually Toronto's fourth and was built in order to replace the former city hall due to a shortage of space. The area of Toronto City Hall and the civic square was formerly the location of Toronto's Old Chinatown, which was expropriated and bulldozed during the mid-1950s in preparation for a new civic building.

In 1958, an international architectural competition was launched by Mayor Nathan Phillips in order to find a design for the new city hall. Revell's winning proposal came first among submissions from 42 countries. It consists of near-twin towers surrounding a white disk-like council chamber, which is mounted on a raised platform with entrances located below. There is also a ramp from connecting the square to the podium roof, from which there is access to the council chamber. The two towers are of unequal height, the east tower being taller than the west. The building was nicknamed "The Eye of the Government" because it resembles a large eye in a plan view. Revell died a year before New City Hall was completed.

While the building's base is rectangular, its two towers are curved in cross-section and rise to differing heights. The east tower is 27 storeys (99.5 metres (326 ft)) tall and the west tower is 20 storeys (79.4 metres (260 ft)). Between the towers is the saucer-like council chamber, and the overall arrangement is somewhat like two hands cradling the chamber. The outer concrete surfaces of the towers have been ribbed, to prevent collapse of the fabric as a result of the expansion of the exterior surfaces, and the tearing apart of the fabric as a result of differences in air pressure on the two sides of each wing-like tower during the high winds characteristic of the Great Lakes. The north, west, and east elevations are more abstract and sculptural in contrast with the extensive glazing of south elevation facing the square; each presents a view of concave panels of concrete textured with split-faced strips of Botticino marble. To the east of the square is Old City Hall which is now a courthouse. From the air, the building is seen as a giant unblinking eye, thus the building's original nickname of "The Eye of Government".

The design for the public space in front of the new city hall, Nathan Phillips Square, was part of the competition. The square's reflecting pool and concrete arches, fountain, and overhead walkways were thus also part of Revell's submission. It has since seen several monuments, sculptures, and other works of public art added, and was renovated, but it continues to complement the city hall with its original Modernist design elements.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...

159 by Drumroll Studios

13 10

Monemvasia. 475 BC.

the Columns were silent in awe as "the Walking grave" stooped down to make it thru the doorways opening.he towered a good 3 ft larger than any man we had seen,

carrying a thick, brutal blade in his hands. before we had stepped foot on the sand,the crowd had been chanting our names... "fields!" and "dannamuruk shabaste!",

but had been busy making wagers against us,once they saw him.

We guessed him a Gaul, and paired with him in 2 on 2 man combat was a large Assyrian with an axe swinging from a chain. these were to be our two Foes. as the orator closed his speech and announced the combat ready, the large

bearded Gaul stayed fixed,and unblinking on Baunius and myself. As the match was called, the crowd cheered, and The Gaul took one step forward and completely took the head off of his companion.as his body slammed to the ground, the crowd was shocked, confused and wondering if perhaps he had attacked the wrong man.Not that the confusion was lost on us,as we glanced at each other,wondering if we had missed out on some important information.And suddenly he was charging, swinging

fiercely and overpowering us.the Axe that baunius held to guard himself,splintered and shattered as he was thrown back, my sword was met with a thundering blow that shook my arms.

www.drumroll-studios.com | facebook

5

I create surface pattern designs and illustrations for licensing and purchase. I invite you to check out my website at: www.unblinkstudio.com

Stop Thief by bztraining

4

Clearly an unplanned shot.

(check the stream for those)

I've resorted to setting the focus at the start of the shoot and then turning the autofocus off, as the pup is too short to keep the camera's attention, it's mind tending to wander to bits and pieces of me that catch its unblinking eye.

Fixing the focus has resulted in mostly passable images at the expense of cute shots like this - where Riley grabbed one of the "props" and bolted into the other room.

He dropped it on his cot, then raced back to the basket to grab another!

Puppies are so darned cute.

365:2021 - #337

Frog's eye by Tadgh Ó Maoildearg

15 8

Kermit stared at the camera unblinking for a couple of seconds before moving on, apparently they have better distance vision than close up so he might not have seen the camera in his face at all!

unblink by bebeting

16 dispose sketch-2 by Shane

9

[posting the sketch cuz ... well, you guys know why]

All had gone so very well. Success would breed more success. Greater success. The ground beneath could be solid and stable or it could be the most capricious shifting sand it wanted, the Factor hovered over all. The Factor had returned victorious. The Factor had set in motion a plan. This first victory was mere proof of the plan’s efficacy. Greater victory was inevitable. The Factor would be a hero of the collective.

It allowed itself to fantasize deeper as it drove the stock before it to the hive. Cowed. Humiliated. Defeated. Harvesters. It would be a manager of lowly harvesters no more when this plan was complete. It would not even be a Factor of Factors. If all went well, and why should it not? The Harvesters it had dispatched would find the source of these prey animals. They would report. It would not sit and worry in another’s Collective any longer. It would lead and conquer. It would start its own Collective! Its own Hive! It would not be Factor, but Primate! No more fear. No more anxiety. It would be above. It would be the One-All-Feared.

The tip of the Spire of the Hive became visible on the Horizon as the sky was just beginning to lose the deep purple of night. It more than passingly resembled a harvester’s needle tipped feeding tooth. As if the hive had pierced the heavens and were drinking the ichor of god.

Where had that thought come from? When had the Factor ever had time for thought, much less poetry and metaphor? Never. Never had it been so flush. So full. So … foolish!

So vulnerable! The Plan was good. The Plan was victorious. But the Plan was larval. It’s shell soft. Much could go wrong. The full Factor was the one with most to lose. Other Factors would see. Other’s would grow suspicious. Other's would covet its success. Other’s would take what it had birthed. All was delicate and tenuous. All evidence must be obscured. It landed and vomited its fullness upon the sand and buried it. A terrible waste, a cardinal sin but then so was the traitorous plan. It has no intention of sharing its success, its victory with the Collective. So all evidence, no matter how hungry it would be, must be eradicated. Then it remembered the weakly struggling prey creature in its tentacles. It would arouse suspicion for the Factor to bring live prey into the Hive. Especially if it was seen entering the Hive with all of its stock full but unencumbered. Queries would be made. Queries it wanted to avoid.

It cast to its trembling stock and tossed the animal to them. “Dispose,” it ordered. “Stay. Wait. Come Tonight.” There. The evidence was covered. The spoor obscured. The Plan was safe. It could accomplish it, if it was cunning. So much could go wrong. It must be careful. It must consider. It must not be a fool. It was too close to ultimate victory. The Plan was tenuous, slender, easily broken by even one event the Factor failed to anticipate. It flew the rest of the way to the Hive feeling relieved but anxious, the shuttered, unblinking eyes of the Harvesters watching it all the way.

close encounter by Guy Reynolds

8 13

A surreal moment when a rather large and intimidating gorilla approached the glass window where I was crouching with my camera pressed up against the glass. I have a series as he approaches and finally fills the frame, quite possibly looking beyond me at my young son behind. After we both pulled back a bit he fixed me with an unblinking level stare until I turned away.

Photographed through the viewfinder of a vintage Argus Seventy-five with a Canon EOS 1-D at the Dallas Zoo, January 2, 2007.

The Reddled Ram by Joan

15 256

Well, what can I say! This tup (ram) stood stock still, unblinking, as I approached. It was like a monstrous guard dog on the hillside.

I have only seen one tup like this before, last year at the Westmorland County Show. I did make a note of the breed but have forgotten the name. Nowhere near as bonny as a Swaledale tup, that's for sure.

Its chest has been marked with a red dye, reddle** or ruddle, which then rubs off onto the ewes when the tup services the ewes in late Autumn.

So now you know why our sheep have patches of coloured dye on their fleeces. Different colours of dye mean different things.

** Whenever I hear of, or see, reddle I think of Eustacia Vye and Ven, the Reddleman.

Taken on a hillside by Caton Green, Lune Valley in January 2011.

The Abbey Fish-Pond: Glastonbury by Giles Watson

11 19

The Abbey Fish-Pond: Glastonbury

I’d love to think the roach, rudd and carp

Were descended by blood from fish

Who never made it to the abbot’s kitchen

Before he was hung, drawn and quartered

On the Tor – that they escaped a scaling,

And their hatchlings survived in turgid,

Half-forgotten waters, silently hoovering

Up detritus with rubbery mouths,

Surveying centuries from their subaqueous

Perspective, with unblinking eyes.

Perhaps someone fed them heads,

As retribution, in the reign of Mary,

As the lead was pilfered from the abbey

Roof, and the floors of the dormitory

Ripped up for making stables. Centuries

Slid by like silvered carapaces of Dityscus.

The water-spider tended air once breathed

By Arthur, distilled in a diving-bell,

And the patient, meticulous Caddis

Structured his house out of twigs

That bore leaves in Cromwell’s time.

I’d love to think that roach, rudd and carp

Were more reliable than men.

Poem by Giles Watson, 2012.

Nyarlathotep by Chase Norton

1

He wouldn't be the God of the Bloody Tongue without blood! This was a fun application of the blood paint.

I painted the orbs on his hands and chest flat black. These can either be obsidian jewels, or black, unblinking eyes like that of a shark.

NOMEANSNO poster by Graham Pilling

6 3

"I see a tower against the sky,

Beneath a red unblinking eye."

2

The placement print for this week's Halloween Character brief!

The Toronto City Hall, or New City Hall, is the seat of the municipal government of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and one of the city's most distinctive landmarks. Designed by Finnish architect Viljo Revell (with Heikki Castrén, Bengt Lundsten, and Seppo Valjus) and landscape architect Richard Strong, and engineered by Hannskarl Bandel, the building opened in 1965. It was built to replace Old City Hall, which was built in 1899. The current city hall, located at Nathan Phillips Square, is actually Toronto's fourth and was built in order to replace the former city hall due to a shortage of space. The area of Toronto City Hall and the civic square was formerly the location of Toronto's Old Chinatown, which was expropriated and bulldozed during the mid-1950s in preparation for a new civic building.

In 1958, an international architectural competition was launched by Mayor Nathan Phillips in order to find a design for the new city hall. Revell's winning proposal came first among submissions from 42 countries. It consists of near-twin towers surrounding a white disk-like council chamber, which is mounted on a raised platform with entrances located below. There is also a ramp from connecting the square to the podium roof, from which there is access to the council chamber. The two towers are of unequal height, the east tower being taller than the west. The building was nicknamed "The Eye of the Government" because it resembles a large eye in a plan view. Revell died a year before New City Hall was completed.

While the building's base is rectangular, its two towers are curved in cross-section and rise to differing heights. The east tower is 27 storeys (99.5 metres (326 ft)) tall and the west tower is 20 storeys (79.4 metres (260 ft)). Between the towers is the saucer-like council chamber, and the overall arrangement is somewhat like two hands cradling the chamber. The outer concrete surfaces of the towers have been ribbed, to prevent collapse of the fabric as a result of the expansion of the exterior surfaces, and the tearing apart of the fabric as a result of differences in air pressure on the two sides of each wing-like tower during the high winds characteristic of the Great Lakes. The north, west, and east elevations are more abstract and sculptural in contrast with the extensive glazing of south elevation facing the square; each presents a view of concave panels of concrete textured with split-faced strips of Botticino marble. To the east of the square is Old City Hall which is now a courthouse. From the air, the building is seen as a giant unblinking eye, thus the building's original nickname of "The Eye of Government".

The design for the public space in front of the new city hall, Nathan Phillips Square, was part of the competition. The square's reflecting pool and concrete arches, fountain, and overhead walkways were thus also part of Revell's submission. It has since seen several monuments, sculptures, and other works of public art added, and was renovated, but it continues to complement the city hall with its original Modernist design elements.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...

3

Geometrics and Stripes!

Two shots of happy, one shot of sad by Elana Cooper

52 8

The HUGE amount of text to follow here is mainly for my own reference (because I'm having some memory issues at the moment and really don't want to forget this, plus I need to work out the order things happened cause my head was in a rather thick fog at the time....)

I'm writing this like I'm explaining it to you, well because I thought it would make more sense than me just talking to myself... And who knows, it may be of some interest to you if immersive theatre is your kind of thing..........

This Saturday saw my return to Temple studios in Paddington for my second visit to Punchdrunks The Drowned Man

On my previous visit, I had no idea what the hell was happening!

We were handed white masks, bundled into a lift, told this was a wrap party for the filming of 'the drowned man' and then the lift doors opened and we were let loose.

As soon as we stepped out of the lift we were greeted with the most chilling music that actually made every single one of my hairs stand up on end.

And there we were...

Alone in a dark hall way....

Not knowing where to go or what to do.

We spent most of the first hour rummaging around the set/studio. Wandering (and wondering) around film sets, prosthetic room, wig rooms, Dr's office, cinema, motel rooms, shops in a town, mirror mazes, pitch black mazes, woods, caravan parks (complete with caravans) a masonic temple, a bloody desert!

(I shit you not, this place in it's self is a farking epic! master piece)

We roamed in and out of dark room, full of objects, scripts and pieces of information.

Information we didn't have a clue about...

But saying that, even as bunch of numpties fumbling their way through the dark, trying to piece together clues to a story we knew next to nothing about, the details and attention taken to create this amazingly intricate 4 store set was not lost on us.

We took in every sight, sound and smell around us. And as we continued on our masked journey we slowly started to run into the members of the cast.

The only unmasked people around...

That trip I took in various snippets of scenes. The fool and Lila, the psychotic seamstress (with a Frankie fetish), Frankie, the evil Dr doing his experiments on people. A fair bit of story line from Ramola, Faye, Dwayne, Miguel and the ill fated Marshall and Wendy.

But with all the exploring we had done I still didn't have a bloody clue what the hell was going on!

And of course when I came out after the finale, where I'd seen just how many characters I'd missed out on, I knew I had to go back.

I had to know more about what the hell was going on in that place!

I started searching the interweb on the train ride home.

I found various bits of information about the story lines going on within temple studio. Partly based on The day of the locusts and Woyzeck. (yep...read em both)

Then I found the spoiler group on facebook. And that was me hooked!

I booked my next show.

Sadly because I got ill I had to postpone until last weekend (which is probably lucky or else I know I would have tried to fit in a 3rd maybe a 4th visit before it closes it's doors next week.... (yes...it's THAT good!) )

And of course because the way I am physically (and mentally) affected at the moment, I now had to take into account that running up and down 3 flights of stairs trying to follow characters would probably fucking kill me (or kick off the paralysis....not sexy at all.)

Running up to the weekend just gone I was on the hunt for information. Without wanting to know too much. But still needing to know more.

In simple terms, the whole story line is an hour long. Then it resets, runs for another hour and resets a final time before the big finale.

That gave me time to work out which parts I was interested in seeing.

Funnily enough I wasn't interested in pursuing the 4 main characters William and Mary (William kills Mary for her infidelity) and Wendy and Marshall (Wendy kills Marshall for his infidelity)

You're given a card at the beginning with their story line on it, so I kinda knew that part all ready.

But there were 2 certain dance scenes that were kind of the main scenes for those character, that also involved a lot of the cast so I figured those were a good place to start.

If I could make it to the Orgy for one loop where Wendy kills Marshall, and then to the hoedown for the second loop I'd see Mary cheating on William as well

Ta da a plan of attack!

(3rd loops just mill around and rest....)

So I went to the 5000 strong group of spoilers (some of whom have been over 30 times!!!!) and asked which characters I could follow that wouldn't be too energetic for me (no way I was I gonna miss this last visit because my damn brain fucking hates me! Screw you brain!!!!!)

And with their help I had a set route and characters to follow.

Saturday arrived and I woke up feeling like shit.

My heart was feeling really tight in my chest (don't know why it does that, but it does) my speech was fucked and my left hand side was not in the mood to function without great effort (and pain)

Great..... Just what I need......

I then spent the rest of the day trying to chill the fuck out.

I became a master of Zen.

I meditated like a bad ass mother fucker!

I became completely anti social and drowned the world out with the most chilled music I could get my mitts on.

And you know what...

I actually worked!

By the time it was time to head to Paddington I was pretty functional.

Ok, so my head was cloudy as fuck. My speech was painfully slow and my left arm still ached.... I owned the underground that day!

I owned sitting on the floor while queuing.

And despite my heart pounding away in my chest (nerves I guess?) I made it in! :D

I have my plan. I'm going to get out of the lift, head to the town and follow the green grocer.

Only the lift takes us to the basement....

DAMN!

That's 2 flights of stairs I need to get up!!!

Rushing is just not an option at this point.

I head into the masonic temple. And there are weird masked people (not with masks like we have on, weird bald headed mask, kind of like the president masks in point break)

And then there is Stanford.

The head of the studio.

If I were such a spaz I'd be following him cause he is pure evil! And dark personalities have always intrigued me...

I may as well stick around and see whats going on.

The 3 masked people have baseball bats and are dancing around the black and white checkered floor harassing Frankie (the studio's up and coming star)

They start beating him, shove an orange in his mouth and as the music reaches it's crescendo Stanford pulls out and gun, shoves it in Frankie's face and.......

They all laugh.

This is Frankie's initiation into the evil that is temple studio.

YAY! I'd actually really wanted to see that scene because those masked characters appear on the guide book(?) thingie. Ha ha ha!

I decide I'll make my way up to the 2nd floor and see if I can play catch up with the grocer who I need to follow for the Hoedown.

On my way towards the town I run into (quite literally as he was storming towards me) a man in a suit (no mask)

No one is following him....

SCORE!

I whole actor to myself!!!!!!!!

(this is hard to find especially later on with the amount of people around)

Now I haven't mentioned yet that the characters interact with the white masked audience. We had witnessed it the first show, when the Dr took a woman into the room and locked the door on all her friends. And when the toy shop owner did the same

Which is why I'm so excited to have this dude (whoever he is) all to myself.

Who knows... Maybe I'll get lucky and land a bit of interaction with him...?

I follow him into the board room

He has a collection of pictures of Frankie with him and spreads them all over the table where he dances and writhes around on top of them.

When he is done he tidies them up and then stares me straight in the eye.

He looks kind of pissed at me, like I'm there invading his private moment.

As he slowly moves around the room he is still holding my gaze (I feel like I'm in a stare out, no way I'm looking away first! Even though he is very intimidating)

He exits and I'm right behind him striding down the corridors.

Holy crap he is bloody fast!

Uh oh....

From this moment on my mind has blurred all the events into a kind of mash of happening, so I'm using a cheat sheet for his loop to help me piece it all back together in order....

We go into a studio and he watches Frankie and Andrea dancing/auditioning, then somehow (and I can't quite remember how) we are chasing Frankie down the stairs, where suited man seems to sexually harass Frankie, who eventually gives in and the pair full on snog at the bottom of the stairs right under a spotlight (perfectly timed and positioned if I say so myself!)

Then we're back in the masonic temple for the orgy. Oh my gosh I LOVED this scene!

The choreography and music are amazing!

It's a good scene to see as it help me figure out the cast members I don't know the names of.

Delores seduces Marshall as Wendy watches on horrified.

When the orgy is done and the other characters have left the suited man tries to seduce Frankie again, and seems to spurn him this time.

So that's that, we're off at a trot again (fuck it, I'm not giving up now!)

He leads us (cause I'm not alone with him anymore. Other white masks have joined us) to a corridor with head shots of the 'stars' all over the floor.

He stops and has a little dance over them, then we're off to a room full of the head shots with their eyes cut out. (cause that's not creepy at all.....)

He's looking really fucked off now.

He find a picture of Frankie.

He comes towards me and places the picture up against my mask and starts to slow rip it.....

When he rips it down past my eye I can see that he is right up against me, his face nearly touching my mask.....

His eyes are intensely staring into mine again and he looks crazed!!!!

Yet again I dare not blink, or take my eyes from his.

He takes the ripped up picture and stuff it in my pocket.

Then we're off again!

By now I am so hyper reflexive that EVERY little noise is making me jump. Even the ones I can see coming (like doors opening and closing. It's mental!)

My heart is BANGING double time in my chest and I'm vaguely aware my left arm hurts.

I'm guessing my speech has fucked off my this point, but that's cool cause we're supposed to be silent the whole time, so who cares!

My head is so fuzzy the whole thing feels like a dream. Like I'm somewhere else watching what is going on.

We're in the snow set now (I forgot to mention earlier there is bloody snow as well! They have EVERYTHING in this place!)

He's watching Andrea dance. (She's Wendy's friend I think)

He goes up the snow hill through an open door and behind a wall where I can't see him.

I honestly thought I'd lost him at this point.

And have to admit I felt a little sad.

But no!

He's still in that little snow filled room, standing in front of a bright light, making the huge shadow of his hand move slowly and menacingly towards Andrea who's laid on the floor.

He comes back down, picks her up and takes her off to the dressing room.

I remember being in the dressing room, seeing the fool from the corner of my eye, but for the life of me can't remember what the hell he did in there.

It may have been where he gave Andrea and Wendy the invite to the orgy (insuring that Wendy see's Marshall infidelity with Delores)

Damn.

Such a shame I can't remember.

Now we're in the casting office with Alice Estee. And finally I learn that he is in fact Claude Estee (her husband I'm guessing)

The pair of them are characters taken from The day of the locust and dropped into the world of temple studio.

They are an evil pair, who are laughing and joking about the fact that they are rooting through piles of head shots dismissing almost all of them.

Until they get to Frankie.

They seem to really LOVE him.

After they have done a very cleverly choreographed chair dance, he heads out into the hall way off somewhere else.

And of course I'm hot on his heels.

He suddenly stops.

Turns and makes eye contact with me again.

He starts slowly moving towards me, holding my gaze all the while.

He pushed me up against the wall.

His face right up to mine.

His eyes burning into mine again

All I can think is 'damn it Elana, unfold you hands, they're going to be touching his balls if he gets any closer!!!!'

I manage to get them unfolded and down by my side just in time as he then pins me against the wall, puts his lips right on my ear and hisses something about me having talent, and that I should come find him later...

Makes all my hairs stand on end.....

Damn!

He pressed himself against me so hard he left a sweat patch behind!

maybe I should have grabbed his balls after all! ha ha ha ha ha!

And just like that he turns away, and we're off again.

This time he's with Stanford.

The pair look so threatening together as poor Faye comes in for an audition (I met Faye a few times last visit and she's quite a big part of The day of the locust)

I actually feel quite sorry for her, which is odd because before I didn't really like her as she was such a tease and rather irritating wanna be (even more so in the book!)

But the presence of the evil, unblinking, poker faced Stanford and the lecherous Claude makes me feel for the poor girl.

yep... I'm getting right into this story line now!

I guess Stanford and Faye leave, cause now it's Claude's turn in the big bosses chair.

He goes straight for me again, with those penetrating eyes

(I swear he could see me blushing under my mask he was staring that hard!)

He motions for me to move into the middle of the room (which is surrounded by white masks most of whom were watching the last scene)

He then motions for me to turn around.

Ha ha ha ha!

Cause I'm not already dizzy as fuck, hyper reflexive and completely fuzzy headed.

I make a rather lame attempt at giving him a twirl (which is more of a shuffle round in a rather lame circle)

He gets up, comes right up to me so his lips are once again on my ear and whispers 'I remember you.... You've got talent'

Seriously, he is such a slimy character and played so well it made me shudder!

While I recover from my public humiliation (damn I wish I'd put a bit more effort into that twirl....) Andrea comes in for her audition.

William is there as well, and Claude (still in the bosses chair) watches them audition for a scene that is dictated by the amazing disembodied voice of Stanford (even when that man's not present somewhere, he still manages to be everywhere.....)

We're in a hallway again and Claude bumps into the Dr and they have a pill together.

(Cause why the hell not I suppose, guess they are all into the drugging thing together)

Then we're off to the dressing room again.

Delores is in there and she and Claude do a little dance number. Which ends in him mocking her and telling her that she's getting old.

Off to another part of the set, where Alice is with Frankie auditioning him.

The 3 of them do a dance number.

I miss nearly the whole thing because there are LOADS of people and I'm way to short to see over their heads. So I sit it out.

After that Claude and Alice ask Frankie if he wants to meet the boss.

They rush down the stairs.

Claude disappears into a room and materialize

wearing the creepy point break mask just as the rest music sounds telling me I've just unknowingly and unintentionally followed his whole loop!

And a hell of a loop it was as well.

I oh so slowly make my way up their two flights of stairs to seek out the town where I know I can go sit and watch the drugstore girl for a bit. (Kinda hoping she'll offer me a drink cause I feel like I'm going to die!!!!)

In the town I finally find the drugstore (totally missed it first time round)

She's there behind the counter so I park my arse on a stool and watch her for a bit.

She's reading a script, I would read it, but my brain is beyond fucked now.

I'd be surprised if I'd manage to read the first line of it!

She heads out of the drugstore, I figure I'll follow. (I've sat down long enough, and if I stop any longer I'll start noticing my symptoms kicking in)

As luck would have it she goes to see the grocer and gives him an invite to the hoe down.

I'm guessing he got ready and went straight there (cause I'm fucked if I can remember him doing anything else)

And there we have the hoedown. Another beautifully choreographed scene with kick ass music!

William see's Mary cheating on him with Dwayne goes a little mental.

I'm wanting low impact after Claude's loop, so follow the grocers back to his store.

Back in his shop he turns to me.

Stares at me long and hard and then hold out his hand for me to take.

He leads me into his back room and locks the door behind us.

Pushes me against the door and fiddles about for a bit, before taking me around the shoulders and leading me through a low dark tunnel.

He sits me down and takes my mask off.

He then hands me a script to read (ahahahahaha! Are you kidding me, My brain stop cooperating waaaaay back with bloody Claude)

I manage to read the first few line.

I could be hallucinating at this point, but I'm pretty sure there is a voice (Stanford maybe) narrating what he is doing and what he is doing is exactly what's in the script....

My mind is fucked anyway so I just give up on pretending to read whats on the script.

He sits opposite me and takes my hands.

He starts to tell me a sad story about a boy who had a dream his mother died and he was left with his cruel father.

He seems really heart broken so I assume he is telling me his story.

He leans forward and gives me a really long sweaty hug.

I feel for the bloke so I give him a hug back and do the whole 'there, there' back pat thing (he's upset, what else was I gonna do, offer him a kleenex from my bra?)

Can't fucking remember the rest of what he said, but as he lead me back out of the dark tunnel he said some more stuff. Told me that his name is Eugene and that this is all a dream. They are stuck inside a dream and not to get stuck too.....

Which ties in with something the fool had said about it all being a dream when I saw him with Lila the first time round.

Fuck me, the old wheels started turning after that!

After he emerges out of the room he lead me into I follow him to the drugstore where he has a script for the drugstore girl.

They sit down and read it together.

They are acting out what is on the script and what is on the script is being said by the voice of (Stamford again) they repeat the scene over and over again and both seem to realize that they are trapped inside this loop.

Both aware yet unable to stop doing what is in the script and what Stanford is saying!

The drugstore girl gets up goes over to the phone box and falls down dead (of an overdoes apparently)

Eugene sadly and knowingly walks over moves her body (as he has done a thousand times before) and leaves.

He leads us downstairs to the birthday tent in the woods.

Where he strips down to his underwear.

Plus out a red sequin dress, wig, heels and red lipstick and starts to dress himself up.

He puts the red lipstick on and takes me hand. Plus me close and kisses my mask.

Just then Delores and Frankie turn up.

It's Delores's birthday and Eugene is the entertainment. Impersonating her.

Wendy and Marshall rock up to the party as well.

Eugene gives them a bit of a show and then pulls Wendy up on stage.

He and Frankie distract her by dressing her up in Eugene's red sequin frock, while Delores seduces Marshall.

Eugene and Frankie finish, Wendy is all dressed up, looking ridiculous and laughing at how funny she looks.

She see's that Marshall is looking very comfortable with Delores, and Delores begins to laugh as well.

A nasty cruel laugh, at Wendy.

From there they all go off and the orgy scene happens not long after.

I've already seen that, so I hang around to see the rest of Eugene's loop.

Alice Estee comes into the tent just as Eugene has put his normal clothes back on.

She looks at the heels and wig and scoffs at him.

She then says she has a part for him.

A grocer!

He seems hesitant to take the role and she tells him that he will be the grocer.

He agrees and takes the script from her and heads back up to the shop.

'Abe's general store.'

Guess that's why he wanted me to know his name. Because he's not really Abe. He knows his real name and is trying to hang on to that before he becomes nothing more than the role he has been given in the script, on a constantly repeating loop in a tragic dream he can't get out of...

This time he takes someone else into the back room, I dig out the script from the draw.

And sure enough, it's his script. All the things I have seen him do as the grocer (he dusts off peas a lot and served some customers as well while I was in the shop) and sure enough, the scene with the drugstore girl is in there. exactly as it played out. So he must know in advance that she is going to die.

I'm curious if the script she was reading when I went in to the drugstore is the same one as this now only with her story inside in it....

Then the reset music sounds again and it's the third loop.

Time to head up to the top floor desert to get some sand in my shoes and see if I can find the dust which, who I have yet to see in any shape or form even during the finale!

First I bump into Mary (who I haven't seen before) she's dancing with someone on a car.

Don't know who it was! ha!

Getting really tired now and not giving much of crap about where I'm heading.

I head up to the sand dunes to find Miguel, who is having a fight with Dwayne.

I already know what's going to happen because I caught this scene on my first visit, so instead I have a nose around to see if I can find the secret tunnel in the sand dune.

Go in there, have a nose around.

No dust witch.

Miguel heads down to the hoedown.

I've already seen that as well so I go into the town to see if anyone of any interest is about.

And sure as shit there is a big crowd around the toy shop because the owner Mr Tuttle is about.

White masks love him!

Mainly because he drags you into the back of his shop for a 1 on 1, much like I had with Eugene, but does a whole load of batshit crazy stuff and then covers your mask in blood (red paint)

This time hes off out on a mission.

He heads to where the car is with his pot of paint and must be finishing off some graffiti he has been doing in his previous loops. 'Beware. the red moon is rising'

No idea what that means (I'll ask the spoilers at some point) I'm guessing there is a shit ton of red moon shaped clues and objects around this place. It's bound to make sense to the folk who have searched for the stuff (in their 30 odd visits....)

The security guard sees him and comes running over and chases him (I'm not fucking running, so I miss what is said between the 2 of them)

Tuttle heads back to his shop and Miguel and Faye come out of the hoedown. I decide to pick up following Miguel.

The have a little sexy, flirty dance and Faye leads him off the a motel room.

He lays on the bed. She starts taking her clothes off.

Something suddenly catches his attention outside so he bolts.

Faye sits and starts to cries. I get the fuck outta there to follow Miguel into the street, where he is holding tarot card. Couldn't see what it had on it though I'm guessing death?

He starts saying 'Mary' over and over. Then leaves the card in the rafters of William and Mary's house before heading up to the sand dunes.

I'm moving at a crawl now so kind miss what hes doing in the shack up there.

My guess is this is usually when Mary get's kill by William, as Miguel was repeating her name a hell of a lot.

But this is the end of the 3rd loop which means that we are discreetly lead away and back down to the wooded area where the finale of Wendy killing Marshall (with scissors) takes place.

I search the entire cast on the stage for the dust witch. Still can't see her!

Oh well.

And that...

Is what I can only describe as another mind boggling final trip to temple studios to see the breathtaking, bewildering master piece that is the drowned man.

I'll be fucking amazed if anyone has read up to here! ha ha!

I guess now I'm going to have to resort to go and read all the spoilers for all the characters, and read all the conspiracy theories that surround this to see if anyone has worked the whole thing out.... ( though I highly doubt it)

4

Unblinking Eyes... by Khalid Hasan

8 5

The Toronto City Hall, or New City Hall, is the seat of the municipal government of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and one of the city's most distinctive landmarks. Designed by Finnish architect Viljo Revell (with Heikki Castrén, Bengt Lundsten, and Seppo Valjus) and landscape architect Richard Strong, and engineered by Hannskarl Bandel, the building opened in 1965. It was built to replace Old City Hall, which was built in 1899. The current city hall, located at Nathan Phillips Square, is actually Toronto's fourth and was built in order to replace the former city hall due to a shortage of space. The area of Toronto City Hall and the civic square was formerly the location of Toronto's Old Chinatown, which was expropriated and bulldozed during the mid-1950s in preparation for a new civic building.

In 1958, an international architectural competition was launched by Mayor Nathan Phillips in order to find a design for the new city hall. Revell's winning proposal came first among submissions from 42 countries. It consists of near-twin towers surrounding a white disk-like council chamber, which is mounted on a raised platform with entrances located below. There is also a ramp from connecting the square to the podium roof, from which there is access to the council chamber. The two towers are of unequal height, the east tower being taller than the west. The building was nicknamed "The Eye of the Government" because it resembles a large eye in a plan view. Revell died a year before New City Hall was completed.

While the building's base is rectangular, its two towers are curved in cross-section and rise to differing heights. The east tower is 27 storeys (99.5 metres (326 ft)) tall and the west tower is 20 storeys (79.4 metres (260 ft)). Between the towers is the saucer-like council chamber, and the overall arrangement is somewhat like two hands cradling the chamber. The outer concrete surfaces of the towers have been ribbed, to prevent collapse of the fabric as a result of the expansion of the exterior surfaces, and the tearing apart of the fabric as a result of differences in air pressure on the two sides of each wing-like tower during the high winds characteristic of the Great Lakes. The north, west, and east elevations are more abstract and sculptural in contrast with the extensive glazing of south elevation facing the square; each presents a view of concave panels of concrete textured with split-faced strips of Botticino marble. To the east of the square is Old City Hall which is now a courthouse. From the air, the building is seen as a giant unblinking eye, thus the building's original nickname of "The Eye of Government".

The design for the public space in front of the new city hall, Nathan Phillips Square, was part of the competition. The square's reflecting pool and concrete arches, fountain, and overhead walkways were thus also part of Revell's submission. It has since seen several monuments, sculptures, and other works of public art added, and was renovated, but it continues to complement the city hall with its original Modernist design elements.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...

Heart in a Hurry by Steve Skafte

3

When the day starts dreaming, that's when my heart's in the right place. No more sun to be stealing, I watch the petals closing against the coming chill. I see eye to eye with unblinking nature, lidless and staring, taking everything in. There's a hunger out here that's never filled, an endless energy that swallows every second of every day, and asks for more in the morning. What's wild is chaotic, you shouldn't mistake it for peaceful just because it's slow. I am too, but I feel the steady beating inside me, the pulse pounding a reminder that my heart is always in a hurry. I've gotten happy about being in a rush, feels all the more honest when I finally relax. I spent my teens and early twenties being frustrated with feeling purposeless. Now I never complain about waking up with something to do. It's worse in every way to be aimless. Light was all I needed all along.

May 28, 2020

Beaconsfield, Nova Scotia

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The Sacred Bodhi Tree #菩提树 by Rachel Lim

3

Prince Siddharta attained Buddhahood [Full Enlightenment] in the year 623 BC on the Vaisakha full moon day sitting under this Bodhi Tree.

The Bodhi tree at the Mahabodhi Temple is called the Sri Maha Bodhi. According to Buddhist texts the Buddha, after his Enlightenment, spent a whole week in front of the tree, standing with unblinking eyes, gazing at it with gratitude.

King Ashoka was most diligent in paying homage to the Bodhi tree, and held a festival every year in its honour. His queen, Tissarakkhā was jealous of the Tree, and caused the tree to be killed by means of mandu thorns.The tree, however, grew again

The tree was again cut down by King Pushyamitra Shunga in the 2nd century BC, and by King Shashanka in 600 AD. Every time the tree was destroyed, a new tree was planted at the same place.

In 1881 a British archaeologist planted a Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya after the previous one had died due to old age.

《長阿含》卷四‧〈遊行經〉（大正卷一，25下～26上）

佛告阿難：「汝勿憂也，諸族姓子常有四念，何等四：一曰念佛生處，歡喜欲見、憶念不忘、生戀慕心。二曰念佛初得道處，歡喜欲見、憶念不忘、生戀慕心。三曰念佛轉法輪處，歡喜欲見、憶念不忘、生戀慕心。四曰念佛般泥洹處，歡喜欲見、憶念不忘、生戀慕心。阿難，我般泥洹後，族姓男女念佛生時功德如是；佛得道時神力如是；轉法輪時度人如是；臨滅度時遺法如是、各詣其處遊行禮敬諸塔寺已，死皆生天除得道者。

Trust but Verify by Harry Lipson III

6 9

The Toronto City Hall, or New City Hall, is the seat of the municipal government of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and one of the city's most distinctive landmarks. Designed by Finnish architect Viljo Revell (with Heikki Castrén, Bengt Lundsten, and Seppo Valjus) and landscape architect Richard Strong, and engineered by Hannskarl Bandel, the building opened in 1965. It was built to replace Old City Hall, which was built in 1899. The current city hall, located at Nathan Phillips Square, is actually Toronto's fourth and was built in order to replace the former city hall due to a shortage of space. The area of Toronto City Hall and the civic square was formerly the location of Toronto's Old Chinatown, which was expropriated and bulldozed during the mid-1950s in preparation for a new civic building.

In 1958, an international architectural competition was launched by Mayor Nathan Phillips in order to find a design for the new city hall. Revell's winning proposal came first among submissions from 42 countries. It consists of near-twin towers surrounding a white disk-like council chamber, which is mounted on a raised platform with entrances located below. There is also a ramp from connecting the square to the podium roof, from which there is access to the council chamber. The two towers are of unequal height, the east tower being taller than the west. The building was nicknamed "The Eye of the Government" because it resembles a large eye in a plan view. Revell died a year before New City Hall was completed.

While the building's base is rectangular, its two towers are curved in cross-section and rise to differing heights. The east tower is 27 storeys (99.5 metres (326 ft)) tall and the west tower is 20 storeys (79.4 metres (260 ft)). Between the towers is the saucer-like council chamber, and the overall arrangement is somewhat like two hands cradling the chamber. The outer concrete surfaces of the towers have been ribbed, to prevent collapse of the fabric as a result of the expansion of the exterior surfaces, and the tearing apart of the fabric as a result of differences in air pressure on the two sides of each wing-like tower during the high winds characteristic of the Great Lakes. The north, west, and east elevations are more abstract and sculptural in contrast with the extensive glazing of south elevation facing the square; each presents a view of concave panels of concrete textured with split-faced strips of Botticino marble. To the east of the square is Old City Hall which is now a courthouse. From the air, the building is seen as a giant unblinking eye, thus the building's original nickname of "The Eye of Government".

The design for the public space in front of the new city hall, Nathan Phillips Square, was part of the competition. The square's reflecting pool and concrete arches, fountain, and overhead walkways were thus also part of Revell's submission. It has since seen several monuments, sculptures, and other works of public art added, and was renovated, but it continues to complement the city hall with its original Modernist design elements.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...

MH-14867 by Robert Goodman

4

“Figure with Black Cat”

Digital Oil on canvas

In Figure with Black Cat, Robert Goodman renders a stylized female portrait that evokes both mystery and intimacy through flattened form, expressive linework, and a saturated, constrained palette. The subject's elongated neck and narrowed eyes suggest a modernist influence, recalling the stylized figuration of Modigliani, while the feline companion—mirroring her gaze—introduces a subtle doubling of identity.

Set against a muted interior with a curtained window and a vase of red roses, the composition balances warmth and detachment. The woman's fixed stare meets the viewer with an unblinking ambiguity, while the black cat, nestled in her arms, becomes both a protective symbol and a psychological extension of the self.

Executed with gestural brushwork and a restrained elegance, the piece explores themes of solitude, watchfulness, and the silent companionship of domestic life.

Looking for lunch by geoff7918

4 2

This Heron was poised on a factory roof, it was watching the canal with an unblinking gaze.

Photographed on a City of Birmingham Ramblers walk along the Birmingham & Fazeley canal. Aston Station to the Sea life centre.

The Toronto City Hall, or New City Hall, is the seat of the municipal government of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and one of the city's most distinctive landmarks. Designed by Finnish architect Viljo Revell (with Heikki Castrén, Bengt Lundsten, and Seppo Valjus) and landscape architect Richard Strong, and engineered by Hannskarl Bandel, the building opened in 1965. It was built to replace Old City Hall, which was built in 1899. The current city hall, located at Nathan Phillips Square, is actually Toronto's fourth and was built in order to replace the former city hall due to a shortage of space. The area of Toronto City Hall and the civic square was formerly the location of Toronto's Old Chinatown, which was expropriated and bulldozed during the mid-1950s in preparation for a new civic building.

In 1958, an international architectural competition was launched by Mayor Nathan Phillips in order to find a design for the new city hall. Revell's winning proposal came first among submissions from 42 countries. It consists of near-twin towers surrounding a white disk-like council chamber, which is mounted on a raised platform with entrances located below. There is also a ramp from connecting the square to the podium roof, from which there is access to the council chamber. The two towers are of unequal height, the east tower being taller than the west. The building was nicknamed "The Eye of the Government" because it resembles a large eye in a plan view. Revell died a year before New City Hall was completed.

While the building's base is rectangular, its two towers are curved in cross-section and rise to differing heights. The east tower is 27 storeys (99.5 metres (326 ft)) tall and the west tower is 20 storeys (79.4 metres (260 ft)). Between the towers is the saucer-like council chamber, and the overall arrangement is somewhat like two hands cradling the chamber. The outer concrete surfaces of the towers have been ribbed, to prevent collapse of the fabric as a result of the expansion of the exterior surfaces, and the tearing apart of the fabric as a result of differences in air pressure on the two sides of each wing-like tower during the high winds characteristic of the Great Lakes. The north, west, and east elevations are more abstract and sculptural in contrast with the extensive glazing of south elevation facing the square; each presents a view of concave panels of concrete textured with split-faced strips of Botticino marble. To the east of the square is Old City Hall which is now a courthouse. From the air, the building is seen as a giant unblinking eye, thus the building's original nickname of "The Eye of Government".

The design for the public space in front of the new city hall, Nathan Phillips Square, was part of the competition. The square's reflecting pool and concrete arches, fountain, and overhead walkways were thus also part of Revell's submission. It has since seen several monuments, sculptures, and other works of public art added, and was renovated, but it continues to complement the city hall with its original Modernist design elements.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...

Crowned by nature - One of Bradgate Park's majestic stags - Red Deer male Stag - Cervus elaphus / Taken at Bradgate Park - Leicestershire - UK by R ERTUG

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Every photo walk is different - On the way home, it is never easy to predict what a Nikon Z8 memory card will carry. Sometimes you press the shutter within the first minutes and the card fills quickly; sometimes you wait patiently without taking a single frame, imagining the photograph long before it exists.

Wildlife follows its own rhythm — and occasionally, it takes you along with it.

This pre-Christmas morning at Bradgate Park began as the rising sun broke through dark, scattered clouds. As the light softened, the landscape slowly revealed itself. At times, gentle morning light becomes incredibly effective; at other moments, you work more technically, placing the strength of the light behind you and allowing experience to grow with every frame.

The first encounter came from the rocky hilltops: a young male fallow deer, standing still, looking directly into my lens with wide, unblinking eyes.

“Young Fallow Deer in Morning Light.”

After meeting two fellow photographer friends, I joined them along the River Lin, which flows through Bradgate Park in North Leicestershire. A small group of hinds crossed the river, resisting the powerful current — a moment of shared instinct and determination.

Later, while searching for Stonechat, as on previous visits, a herd of red deer appeared, spreading calmly across the greenery. The majestic stag once again became the natural favourite of our lenses, and I worked to capture several compelling poses from different angles under direct sunlight.

The Grey Heron ultimately defined the photograph of the day. Under clean, softly broken sunlight, framed against the River Lin, the scene felt complete.

After a 3.5-hour photo walk, as I returned to the car park, my favourite bird — the tiny Robin — seemed to offer a quiet farewell. Shot in direct sunlight, the background bokeh remained simple, while the feather details glowed beautifully. With the NIKKOR 500mm and 1.4x TC at ƒ/8.0, its poised and noble stance emerged clearly.

Good evening and thank you for looking.

I've captured some unforgettable moments with my camera, and I hope you feel the same joy viewing these images as I did while shooting them.

Thank you so much for visiting my gallery, whether you leave a comment, add it to your favorites, or simply take a moment to look around. Your support means a lot to me, and I wish you good luck and beautiful light in all your endeavors.

© All rights belong to R.Ertuğ. Please refrain from using these images without my express written permission. If you are interested in purchasing or using them, feel free to contact me via Flickr mail.

Lens - With Nikon TC 14E II - hand held or Monopod and definitely SPORT VR on. Aperture is f8 and full length. All my images have been converted from RAW to JPEG.

I started using Nikon Cross-Body Strap or Monopod on long walks. Here is my Carbon Monopod details : Gitzo GM2542 Series 2 4S Carbon Monopod - Really Right Stuff MH-01 Monopod Head with Standard Lever - Really Right Stuff LCF-11 Replacement Foot for Nikon AF-S 500mm /5.6E PF Lense -

Your comments and criticism are very valuable.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by and explore :)

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The Toronto City Hall, or New City Hall, is the seat of the municipal government of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and one of the city's most distinctive landmarks. Designed by Finnish architect Viljo Revell (with Heikki Castrén, Bengt Lundsten, and Seppo Valjus) and landscape architect Richard Strong, and engineered by Hannskarl Bandel, the building opened in 1965. It was built to replace Old City Hall, which was built in 1899. The current city hall, located at Nathan Phillips Square, is actually Toronto's fourth and was built in order to replace the former city hall due to a shortage of space. The area of Toronto City Hall and the civic square was formerly the location of Toronto's Old Chinatown, which was expropriated and bulldozed during the mid-1950s in preparation for a new civic building.

In 1958, an international architectural competition was launched by Mayor Nathan Phillips in order to find a design for the new city hall. Revell's winning proposal came first among submissions from 42 countries. It consists of near-twin towers surrounding a white disk-like council chamber, which is mounted on a raised platform with entrances located below. There is also a ramp from connecting the square to the podium roof, from which there is access to the council chamber. The two towers are of unequal height, the east tower being taller than the west. The building was nicknamed "The Eye of the Government" because it resembles a large eye in a plan view. Revell died a year before New City Hall was completed.

While the building's base is rectangular, its two towers are curved in cross-section and rise to differing heights. The east tower is 27 storeys (99.5 metres (326 ft)) tall and the west tower is 20 storeys (79.4 metres (260 ft)). Between the towers is the saucer-like council chamber, and the overall arrangement is somewhat like two hands cradling the chamber. The outer concrete surfaces of the towers have been ribbed, to prevent collapse of the fabric as a result of the expansion of the exterior surfaces, and the tearing apart of the fabric as a result of differences in air pressure on the two sides of each wing-like tower during the high winds characteristic of the Great Lakes. The north, west, and east elevations are more abstract and sculptural in contrast with the extensive glazing of south elevation facing the square; each presents a view of concave panels of concrete textured with split-faced strips of Botticino marble. To the east of the square is Old City Hall which is now a courthouse. From the air, the building is seen as a giant unblinking eye, thus the building's original nickname of "The Eye of Government".

The design for the public space in front of the new city hall, Nathan Phillips Square, was part of the competition. The square's reflecting pool and concrete arches, fountain, and overhead walkways were thus also part of Revell's submission. It has since seen several monuments, sculptures, and other works of public art added, and was renovated, but it continues to complement the city hall with its original Modernist design elements.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...

Krahhu by Coconut Fella

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Name: Krahhu

Element: Iron

Primary Color: Gold

Tool: Spear-headed Mace

Mask: Unknown

In the depths of the caves within the region of earth, Krahhu guards the legendary Golden Mask of Earth. Like the vast supply of iron lying inside the caves, he waits patiently, unmoving, unblinking. He, if you can call Krahhu a "he" after having become nothing but a shell only striving to guard the mask, allows none to approach. Not even the protector's are allowed to draw near, lest he rises from his comatose state and moves the metals in the soil according to his will.

Unblinking Eye by Teodor Jeske-Choiński

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unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Rodinal/rodinal.html

Xyrrhaxa, the Broodmother of Ashen Veins by ꧁⚸ Amon the Purple ⚸꧂

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Inspiredby and Reimagined.

“Your flesh is clay, your bones are ash — and I am the fire that shapes the end.”

Xyrrhaxa is no mere warrior — she is the living nexus of an ancient hive, half flesh, half obsidian steel. Her body is carved with living armor that pulses with emberlight, every plate shifting like the skin of a predator. Her eyes multiply across her brow, each one an unblinking sentinel of the brood. In her presence, the air itself writhes with heat and whispers. Entire legions kneel, not in loyalty, but in fear — for where Xyrrhaxa walks, civilizations wither, and only the hive remains.

🔹 Done in AI

🔹 Refined in Bloom

🔹 Finalized in Photoshop Camera Raw

Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto, Ontario, Canada by Ministry

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Designed as the forecourt to Toronto City Hall, as an integral part of that 1961–65 construction project, the 4.85 ha Nathan Phillips Square is Canada's largest urban plaza, above one of the world's largest underground parking garages.

Named for the 1955–62 mayor, the square hosts numerous public events (that's a permanent stage on the left), including concerts and political demonstrations. It receives ~1.5 million visitors yearly, including tourists (like me) wishing to see the 3D 'Toronto' sign beside the reflecting pool (which is a popular ice rink in winter).

The illuminated sign was originally installed here for the duration of the 2015 Pan American Games, but due to its immediate popularity, the city decided (three days after I took the photo, apparently) to adopt it permanently. The word alone is 3 m tall and 22 m long, but an extra character, a maple leaf, was added in December 2016 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Canadian Confederation.

At the right of the image is one of the three concrete arches spanning the reflecting pool. Originally 'just' architectural and a way to illuminate the ice rink, they were dedicated as the 'Freedom Arches' in 1989, to commemorate those who fought to obtain/defend freedom.

Filling the right of the background is Toronto City Hall, a striking Modernist landmark and the fourth successive home of the municipal government. Designed by Finnish architect Viljo Revell (with Heikki Castrén, Bengt Lundsten, and Seppo Valjus) and landscape architect Richard Strong, the building opened in 1965 (hece the '50' sign over the entrance) to replace the Old City Hall. That 1899 building, also a local landmark, is just off the right of the image, behind the camera and is now a court.

Built on the compulsorily-purchased site of Toronto's Old Chinatown, New City Hall comprises two towers curved around a circular council chamber building, all on a rectangular base. The intended effect was of two hands cupping the chamber, though from above it also gives the impression of a giant unblinking eye of Government. The east tower is 27 storeys (99.5 m) tall whilst the west tower is 20 storeys (79.4 m) tall.