Now that Epiphany is over we should be wary of the Christmas Goblins.

Charles Dickens wrote a story before A Christmas Carol called 'The Goblins who stole a Sexton." This was pretty much an early version of what would become a Christmas Carol and featured some goblins terrorizing a mean spirited gravedigger until he reformed. it even ended with him leaving town to start his new life because he didn't want to be mocked or ridiculed for the sudden change. The goblins were a bit more violent than the spirits that visited Ebeneezer Scrooge.

Christmas Goblins don't just terrorize mean-spirited people in need of redemption and lacking in Christmas spirit. According to a nineteenth century English superstition, if you leave your Christmas decorations up past Candlemas (February 2nd) then The Christmas Goblins will come after you for disrespecting the holiday by keeping the decorations up too long. Sort of the direct opposite of Sam's reaction to Halloween decorations being taken down too early in the movie Trick 'r Treat.

Goblins are by Bernie Wrightson (Berni Wrightson) for his Monsters! Color The Creatures coloring book (1974).

The Doctor Who Goblins are NOT antisemitic!

I knew I'd have to make a post like this as soon as I saw The Goblins in The Doctor Who 2023 Christmas special. Please... For the love of sanity, stop latching onto perceived offenses. There's a lot of real antisemitism going on right now. Goblins were not created to BE antisemitic. It's true antisemitism has used Goblins and perpetated negative stereotypes about Jewish people from appearance to greed but the notion of goblins pre-dates even Christianity. There are goblins in pre-Christian Jewish folklore. Gobelinus is an old Latin word for demon. Gobelin is Ango-Norman and french. The folklore was not originally attached to anti-semitism. That came later. The notion of little demons, imps, dark fae, dark elves, or what-have-you eating babies was not created specifically to be anti-Jewish. Often it was a supernatural means of explaining things like SIDS (Sudden infant Death syndrome). Many old folktales were used to explain away child deaths or disappearances without explanation. Such as a changeling replacing a baby or the idea that Lilith (Adam's first wife) became a Queen demon and her and her demon-children kill babies to spite the descendants of Adam and Eve. The Goblins in Doctor Who are very clearly non-human entities, possibly alien. The Goblins in Labyrinth are literally muppets. Jewish authors use goblins all the time and it's not merely to "take sting out of the antisemitic creature." Puck is a Hobgoblin in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. There's also Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins by Eric Kimmel and Trina Schart Hyman. Just because some authors have used goblins as antisemitic metaphors does not mean every author does. Charles Dickens' The Goblins who Stole a Sexton were not a Jewish allegory as the goblins were decidedly Christian and abduct a mean Gravedigger one Christmas Eve to teach him the error of his ways. It was pretty much an early prototype of what would become A Christmas Carol. The goblins were the "Good guys." Very unorthodox good guys but the good guys. Sometimes Goblin was used as a blanket term for dark faery and many souls of the dead would become faeries in the afterlife like the Beansidhe (Banshee) or the Dullahan (headless Horsemen). Even Washington Irving called The Headless Horseman a goblin. Not everything is bigotry in disguise. The goblins of Doctor Who don't want to eat babies as a gesture of a negative antisemitic stereotype. They want to eat babies because they are malicious nature spirits (or aliens) that think young humans are as tasty as some humans think veal is. Mythology and folklore wasn't created just to smear "The other." It was also used to explain away natural events. This includes tragedies. You will notice the belief in goblins tends to be high in regions and eras where infant mortality was also very high. They needed someone to blame and frankly, it's better they blamed something non-human instead of the little old spinster they might call a witch. When Jewish people were accused of "eating babies" it was a dehumanization tactic. The blaming of supernatural entities for child death or disappearance came first. So no, having goblins (same root word as "Gobble") want to eat babies is not innately antisemitic.

Happy Walpurgisnacht!

Happy Walpurgisnacht! April 30th is the Night of Saint Walpurgis, a Germanic holiday that was the medieval spring equivalent of Halloween, celebrated roughly at the half-way point to Halloween. It is a night when witches supposedly gather and hold festivals in the woods with goblins, fae and the like to trade spells and potions.   The night gets mentioned in Goethe's Faust and in Dracula's Guest by Bram Stoker.  

Happy Walpurgisnacht everyone!

April 30th is Walpurgisnacht, the halfway point to Halloween.   It’s the eve before Beltane and in German tradition it is essentially a second Halloween.  In medieval Germany it was believed to be the night where witches and faeries have secret festivals in forests to sell their potions, charms, and spells, to dance, tell stories, and cavort with fae and goblin alike.  It is a night of powerful magick and when the veil between worlds becomes thin (Much like on Halloween itself).  

Goblins, imps, trolls, ghosts, and demons are supposed to roam loose on Walpurgisnacht, along with hungry vampires, and dark faeries.  

(Artwork by Brian Froud)

Dracula’s Guest by Bram Stoker is set during Walpurgisnacht and there are two pivotal scenes in Goethe’s Faust (parts 1 and 2) at Walpurgisnacht celebrations.

This year’s Walpurgisnacht comes with a full moon (Moon reaches its peak on the 29th).  

Once Upon a Time fans will also recognize Beltane as also being the night Baelfire was born (as he was named for the bonfires of Beltane).   

The Fae Agenda!

I remember the first time I discovered I was a Bernie Wrightson fan. My mother knew I was a fan before I was even aware I was a fan.   Though I have considerably poor eyesight I do have a certain love of various genres and styles of art.   

My mother passed away in 2006 and she knew me perhaps better than most people who ever tried to know me.  She had an instinctual bond with me, and not just because I was her daughter.   One day many years ago my mother bought me a book from The Adirondack Trader called Monsters Color-The-Creature.  And it had been signed by the illustrator, Berni Wrightson (at the time he didn't write the e).

  I have always loved monsters and creatures of Gothic literature.   But there was something special to this book.   It had been signed by the illustrator, himself.  And my mother had recognized it, not just as a genre of artwork that I like, but as a particular artist who had made recurring appearances in my book collection.  I had not paid attention to the name but I had always loved Bernie's artwork. I already owned the Creepshow graphic novel and Cycle of the werewolf illustrated by Bernie Wrightson. 

Bernie Wrightson along with Brian Froud (for very different reasons) were my two favorite illustrators. I have long since lost that Color-The-Creature book that had been signed by Bernie Wrightson.  It had disappeared on me during a move.   But it seemed as I got older Bernie was always there when I needed him. When I became obsessed with Frankenstein (around the age of twelve) I eventually found and loved his illustrated edition of the novel.   When I became discouraged with awful Frankenstein sequels that were buy authors who clearly never touched the actual book, Bernie Wrightson's Frankenstein Alive Alive was there, capturing the spirit of the original novel.

  Bernie's artwork was always with me, bearing a particular and nearly forgotten style of Gothic horror ambiance that you rarely see anymore even in comic books.  And it all started with my mother seeing a coloring book and recognizing it as being something I'd want and appreciate.  

Why are there no Dark fae horror movies?!

         I want someone to make a SERIOUS horror film about dark faeries.   No one knows that faeries aren't all cute tiny pixies.  Sidhe were human sized and some unseelie (dark fae) were pretty damn menacing. 

Take for example the Redcaps.  They're called that because when they kill they soak their caps in the blood of their victims. Their only vulnerability is cold iron.  Why has no one made a horror movie using them or other dark fae creatures?