Retrospection and Historical Assumption
There seems little doubt that a Frog was actually found near Waterford, about the year 1187; and that, in those earlier times, no one thought of introducing frogs into Ireland may be assumed, as he would have fared very badly on account of the general prejudice against them and kindred animals.
References
R.F. Scharff, Is The Frog a Native of Ireland? January, 1893, The Irish Naturalist, Vol 2, Jan, 1893
Her Beauty Hides A Hideous Past…………
That makes her a Strange Attraction…….
for a Jungle Brute!
” You will never get that close to him again it could have killed you”
“The Bride and the Beast”
” On her wedding night her husbands love brought the beast to rage fury. What memory in her subconscious mind, what weird recollection of another existence, evoked frenzied nightmares, that could only end in disaster? See there return to the primitive jungles of Africa and the most exciting safari of modern times. See for the first time, the battle between a giant Bengal Tiger and a flesh tearing crocodile.
See the strange climax to one of the great horror stories of our time. The beauty and the brute. As a man sees his bride carried off by giant apes.”
The Raging Violence of A Maddened Ape
In A Frenzied Battle
with a Woman As Prize!
“The Bride and the Beast”
Cha Dig as a’ phoit ach an tiot a bhios innte
Nothing will come out of the pot but the steam that is in it
Great logs of driftwood find their way to shore, and are turned to use. Such a log I once found, and used myself, long ago. It was half buried in the sand; it had been long tossed by the sea, and battered against rocks, for it was heavy with water, splintered and ground. No tree like it grew anywhere near. There was no mark of a tool on it. The stumps of its roots and branches remained, and it seemed as if it had been torn up and wafted to its resting-place by winds and waves alone. I have now no doubt that it came from America. Had it been insignificant and useless, like a fairy-egg, we might have left it, or preserved it as a, curiosity; but it was a useful log, and we were a party of chilled otter hunters, so, after a few speculations, we hoisted the prize on our shoulders, carried it to our dwelling, a neighbouring cave, and there we burned it. I see it often, hissing and spluttering, and lighting up the bivouac with its red glare. Its ashes may be there still, but that tree is a tree no longer; its origin and wanderings cannot now be traced; it has shared the fate of many a popular tale. It was found and used up. Such a log I lately saw in South Uist. No tool mark was on it; it had lost its own foliage, but it was covered with a brown and white marine foliage of seaweed and dead barnacles, and it was drilled in all directions by these curious sea-shells, which are supposed by the people to be embryo geese. It was sound, though battered, and a worthy Celtic smith was about to add it to the roof of a cottage, which he was making of boulders and turf. It was about to share the fate of many popular tales, and become a part of something else.
References
Margret Fay Shaw, Folksong’s and Folklore of South Uist, Edinburgh 1986
J.F. Campbell, Popular Tales of the West Highlands, Volume I, 1890
Image
frontispiece, Popular Tales of The Western Isles
The Death of A Naturalist
“My grandmother, who I find was born on the 6th of January, 1726, used to tell me, that when a girl at school she was taken some distance to see a frog that was exhibited as a show…”
References
W. Thompson, ‘Natural History of Ireland’, Vol. IV., 1856
Images
American Wrestler Billy Graham
Note
WordPress sent me a message reminding me of my anniversary of using there service, it reminded me that I have not written the essay on the frog I should have done and intended to do when I started this blog. The words come from my favorite post, the image from a post that produced my favorite search term (someone from the dragon kingdom of Bhutan hit the post asking the question, “Is wrestling real”?). The terse line from 1856 forms one part of a heated argument that attracted the attention of Irish naturalists of the period. Was the frog a native species of Ireland or was it an unwanted and much despised recent English introduction to the sacred soil of Ancient Ireland?
“Why Did You Bite Me?”
Africa!
Vast!
Primitive!
Deadly!
From the Pounding Fury of Its Naked Heart….
The Untamed Passions of A Tempestuous People Explode!
Firing the Screen
With Its Most Savage Spectacle
Laine Jungle Goddess
“This is Laine a captive child who became a jungle goddess! Laine, savage Queen of a green hell, who’s primitive passions became as wild as the naked wilderness she ruled! Into an inferno of terror. One clue to her identity, took her back to a civilization, she had never known. A prize of deceit, leading to a tense,taut, death filled adventure more perilous, than any, the jungle has ever known.”
Liane Jungle Goddess
Images
Wiki & Wrong Side Of The Art
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin I came across by chance four weeks ago through her work The Informant. I posted the first verse here without any explanation. It struck a cord with a piece I was sent by Jerome Kagan, which turned up in my inbox as I was reading and chewing through it. As someone who spent part of an undergraduate degree studying Scottish ethnology studying the recorded archive the poem did not need much explanation. The informant concerns a fieldworker visiting an old lady seeking to record a story about a youth who had been abducted by faeries in turn he will find himself disappearing into the tale. Informant carries with it a range of meanings in Ireland given the nature of years of political dispute. Cultural differences where meaning is permeable and subject to a range of perspectives and division.
Curtain is a take on narrative, the past, performance, a place where for a brief moment all hangs suspended in place and all can be captured and absorbed. But I have not lived with it for long and the sound, sense and rhythm of words changes with time and new context. I don’t feel comfortable with poetry until I have learned to speak it and work out how it breathes, moves from the diaphragm and resonates through flesh and bone as the words flow out. It is how I find a sense of such things.
From Savage Tambosa
In The Land of Blazing Horror
Comes Africa’s Mysterious
JUNGLE QUEEN
The Story
Of The Congo’s
GREAT COUNTERSPY
WHO DOOMED THE GESTAPO
TO AN AFRICAN DEATH TRAP
ALL AFRICA AFLAME
As HEADHUNTERS WAR
IN THE
CHAPTER PLAY
OF
SUSPENSE
AND
TITANIC DESTRUCTION
JUNGLE QUEEN
