Round the Herne

 Yesterday our druid group performed the story of Cael and Credhe at the Leaping Hare pagan convention in Colchester, which went down quite well with the audience. The tale is a tragic one of doomed love. My own interpretation is that Cedhe is an embodiment of the Land - whether she is understood as a goddess or a fairy or something else entirely is a separate issue. The marital contingency that her suitor recites the list of her many treasures strikes me as being less about materialism and more that the lucky man should know the many gifts of the earth.

 This is my version of the Ancient Greek myth about how Eos, goddess of the dawn, fell in love with a handsome Trojan prince, Tithonos. All was going well until a request was made of Zeus. The moral of this tale (one of them, at least) is to be VERY careful what you wish for. This is a persistent theme in countless myths and folktales from all over the world. One can but assume that it is based on a widespread experience of the volatile nature of wish-making. The man in the photo is Marios Lekkas, the Athenian model. I have no idea if Tithonos looked anything like that, but he is suitably pretty so let's pretend. 

 Very chuffed today - advance copies of my next book (The Magic of Wolves) arrived today. Copies will be hitting the bookshelves in February 2024 and I will organise a launch party at that time. It will retail for £8.99. The book covers lupine mythology from around the world, suggesting ways in which those stories can be understood, linking to ritual and celebratory calendars - ideal for anyone who is a wolf-lover, a storyteller, a mythology devotee, or a werewolf. This is the culmination of a lifelong obsession with wolves, I just wish the book could have been bigger and included all the stories which I had to leave out. Moon Books has created a whole series of "Magic of..." books about various animals, each by a different author.