This is part of a performance of the Skriker that was at the Dallas Hub Theater in October 2005. Directed by Robert Neblett.
This is one of my favourite sections of the play, the creature with the Hurdy Gurdy machine at the start is Yallery Brown - the dancer who pays him money is meant to keep bopping throughout the rest of the performance (I suppose that this is to represent the way Yallery Brown is said to punish those who show him gratitude).
Lily encounters the Skriker disguised as a vagrant and shows her some affection, for which she is 'rewarded' with the ability to cough up money as she talks.
A man becomes obsessed by a Green Woman - have never been able to work out exactly what this is meant to symbolise, though there are plenty of examples of people in folktales who have had a relationship with a fiary that has been lost, and they have gone on to pine to death. The Green Children is a tale where one of the green children pines and dies after being separated from it's home land. Also green is a colour often worn by the fairies and is associated with fairy royalty.
The final scene is shown in a bar where the Skriker, in the guise of an American tourist, tries to get Lily to explain such concepts as aeroplanes and television to her (presumably the Skriker has not been paying too much attention to human affairs in the past century or so).
The Skriker isn't the only fairy in the scene, to the left of the screen a Kelpie can be seen trying to pick up a date (he will later go on to drown and eat her).
There is a hint about something that might be bothering the Skriker in this scene, as she accuses Lily of poisoning her. This is probably a reference to environmental damage - something Caryl Churchill has said is one of the themes of the play. There are other, more obvious references to damage to the environment later in the play - but this is the only time the Skriker seems bitter about it. As an "earth spirit" the Skriker may have felt some personal injury as the result of environmental damage - hence the angry accusations of poisoning.
Showing posts with label yallery brown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yallery brown. Show all posts
Thursday, 22 May 2008
Friday, 25 April 2008
Fear of Children, Changelings and Burden of Proof?
It’s been a couple of weeks since I watched The Orphanage and I’m still sometimes finding myself checking dark nooks and crannies for spooky kids as I move about the house after dark.
In other words, it was an awesome horror movie and I’m overjoyed that I got to see it. I used to be terrified of scary films as a kid (to the extent of fleeing the house rather than finish watching a film even as naff as Alligator), but I thought I had gotten jaded in the years since, most horror movies just strike me as either icky, a slightly nauseating experience like being forced to handle slugs, or shocking - but cheaply so, like the dream sequences in the remake of The Omen, they’re good at making me jump but as I don’t have any religious beliefs what’s there to provoke any sort of uneasy thoughts beyond the initial shocks and violence?
So horror movies either left me feeling unmoved, or left me acknowledging that they had shocked me, but not for any thought-provoking reason. Rather just because they had used the same crass tricks as a ghost train, or someone who knows when to shout “Boo!” Slasher movies never did anything for me because documentaries about killers are so much more disturbing, movies that rely on demons and devils never move me because I’m not a believer in heaven and hell – but a good ghost story can still do it for some reason.
The Orphanage was clever, and it left me feeling genuinely spooked for the first time in years. In most horror movies I find I stop sympathising with the protagonists if they persist in examining weird lights and rustling bushes, but in The Orphanage you knew why the heroine had to persist in roaming around her sprawling, creaking, shadow-filled house. Instead of thinking “oh don’t be so stupid” all I thought was “oh – you are being really brave!”
My favourite thing about the film was that is eschewed the use of “evil” (as in an inborn-maliciousness or a deliberate defiance of a commonly understood morality) as a motivator for its antagonists or as an explanation for their behaviour. Even the most irredeemable of the characters (some are more vindictive and unreasonable than others, of course) win some sympathy, and even though some the acts committed in the film are very cruel, injurious and unjust – the circumstances leading up to these acts render them, in the wider picture, understandable to a certain degree.
The worst thing about stories you enjoy tends to be the ending, but the resolution to the film was also satisfying. For a while it looked like it might be unremittingly grim with no sort of resolution, but it also threatened to resolve things with a happy ending. However, it managed to negotiate a bittersweet compromise, which felt apt.
Still, I was rather interested in what it was about the film that left me feeling quite so disturbed. I came across this review in the Guardian that I think may be on to something.
A sinuous modern twist is applied to the classic ghost story form by screenwriter Sergio Sánchez and director Juan Antonio Bayona. Their chiller, set in contemporary Spain, is involving and disturbing, and revives the genre's great theme: our profound yet unacknowledged fear of children. We are afraid of their vulnerability, which is our vulnerability, and the mysterious otherness of their private, mental worlds.
And this in turn got me thinking about the most disturbing of acts blamed on fairies, and a theme of the Skriker and also something that may go on to give some form of explanation for (or at least provide an influence to) the tale of Yallery Brown, which I was puzzling over a month ago.
In her essay for Fairies and the Folklore of Disability Susan Schoon Eberly discusses Changelings and how myths surrounding them may have derived from stories of child sacrifice. In particular she mentions that “the tale of Yallery Brown may in fact tell of a child left to die under a stone”, and talks about how in certain points in Britain’s history children may have been killed or abandoned in order to perform such services as the placation of fertility spirits or other sacrificial functions. Roman historical records apparently mention how deformed children, or those that display signs of congenital disability, might even have been set aside and raised so that an emergency human sacrifice would be on hand the next time there was a natural disaster or bad harvest. I’m certain the pre-Roman tribes of the British Isles hardly treated disabled offspring with greater care.
On Peta Jinnath Andersen’s blog there is a in-depth discussion of some of the details Eberly raises, as well as interesting thoughts on Changelings in general. There’s far more there than I want to go into now but of particular interest to the Yallery Brown story is the examination of the characteristics of various congenital disabilities and how they compare to the reported descriptions of various types of fairy.
Progeria is a condition that is noted for having some striking similarities to Yallery Brown’s appearance. Wikipedia gives the following description:
Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria syndrome is an extremely rare condition in which physical aspects of aging are greatly accelerated, and few affected children live past age 13. About 1 in 8 million babies are born with this condition. It is a genetic condition, but occurs sporadically and is usually not inherited in families.
Andersen’s blog post also mentions that fairy lore may have existed as a kind of covenant between members of poor communities in the past. They provided a way to educate people about poisonous plants and dangerous environments, or to encourage everyone in the community to be hygienic and hard working. As these people didn’t have the benefit of a modern education, and as ancient religious texts may not have given advice literally relevant to some of the situations a society faced in the past, perhaps putting “the fear of the fairies” into people was a good way to enforce a relevant set of values and behaviours. The bible may not literally tell you to keep your milk churn clean or your coulter sharp, so let’s invent and tell some tales that do.
One of the situations that probably sorely tested a poor community in the past was the prospect of raising a disabled child, and this may have been another root of tales about Changelings. In poor communities it may have been seen as socially acceptable (if not socially responsible) to blame a sickening or disabled child on the fairies, to the extent of accusing them of replacing the child with one of their own, and so rid yourself of the child by subjecting it to the ordeals that fairy lore proscribes in such circumstances – ordeals that almost certainly end with the death of the unwanted baby.
In short, beliefs about Changelings may well have been used to justify the murder of children.
I have mixed feelings about pondering on academic explanations for beliefs about fairies, not because I believe in fairies (I find a stated belief in fairies either deceitful and cynical or extremely naive) but because I think it might do something to the appreciation of the stories. At the end of the day I think it’s important to remember that Yallery Brown was a story told by a labourer to Mary Balfour, a collector of Lincolnshire folktales, therefore we can only infer in the vaguest manner about what might have provided the inspiration for the story. The web is full of references to Yallery Brown being a Yarthkin who didn’t receive proper sacrifices in the past, and so became bitter – but there is no evidence for this being the case, it is simply an attempt by people who figure that such a lack of respect might turn a Yarthkin bad in the same way that mistreated Brownies are said to become malicious.
The startling thing about the tale is Yallery’s malice and how relentlessly he seems to punish Tom Tiver. Because his malice is so remarkable it is tempting to find a reason for it, but I don’t want to loose sight of the fact that, as far as I am aware, all a modern audience knows about Yallery Brown is as a result of the record of the labourer’s tale.
Perhaps it was a tale handed down throughout the years that has, at its root, a story of a young child suffering from Progeria being abandoned. It may even carry a warning about refusing to abandon such children (the life of someone who tries to care for a child with a congenital illness in such an environment is probably going to be one of unrewarded toil).
Just as easily though it could be a spooky tale told by a teller canny enough to know about how audiences react to portrayals of the childlike juxtaposed against the tales of the uncanny – just like the makers of The Orphanage (presuming, of course, that the makers of the film had no ulterior motive or message that I have managed to miss).
This turned into a huge and somewhat incoherant ramble - and I'm not even sure what the whole point of it is. I suppose I will try and sum it up by saying that whilst it is very satisfying to try and think up real world reasons behind folktales the evidence behind such reasoning is scant and I feel that it is overly bold of some commentators to treat it as an open and shut case.
In other words, it was an awesome horror movie and I’m overjoyed that I got to see it. I used to be terrified of scary films as a kid (to the extent of fleeing the house rather than finish watching a film even as naff as Alligator), but I thought I had gotten jaded in the years since, most horror movies just strike me as either icky, a slightly nauseating experience like being forced to handle slugs, or shocking - but cheaply so, like the dream sequences in the remake of The Omen, they’re good at making me jump but as I don’t have any religious beliefs what’s there to provoke any sort of uneasy thoughts beyond the initial shocks and violence?
So horror movies either left me feeling unmoved, or left me acknowledging that they had shocked me, but not for any thought-provoking reason. Rather just because they had used the same crass tricks as a ghost train, or someone who knows when to shout “Boo!” Slasher movies never did anything for me because documentaries about killers are so much more disturbing, movies that rely on demons and devils never move me because I’m not a believer in heaven and hell – but a good ghost story can still do it for some reason.
The Orphanage was clever, and it left me feeling genuinely spooked for the first time in years. In most horror movies I find I stop sympathising with the protagonists if they persist in examining weird lights and rustling bushes, but in The Orphanage you knew why the heroine had to persist in roaming around her sprawling, creaking, shadow-filled house. Instead of thinking “oh don’t be so stupid” all I thought was “oh – you are being really brave!”
My favourite thing about the film was that is eschewed the use of “evil” (as in an inborn-maliciousness or a deliberate defiance of a commonly understood morality) as a motivator for its antagonists or as an explanation for their behaviour. Even the most irredeemable of the characters (some are more vindictive and unreasonable than others, of course) win some sympathy, and even though some the acts committed in the film are very cruel, injurious and unjust – the circumstances leading up to these acts render them, in the wider picture, understandable to a certain degree.
The worst thing about stories you enjoy tends to be the ending, but the resolution to the film was also satisfying. For a while it looked like it might be unremittingly grim with no sort of resolution, but it also threatened to resolve things with a happy ending. However, it managed to negotiate a bittersweet compromise, which felt apt.
Still, I was rather interested in what it was about the film that left me feeling quite so disturbed. I came across this review in the Guardian that I think may be on to something.
A sinuous modern twist is applied to the classic ghost story form by screenwriter Sergio Sánchez and director Juan Antonio Bayona. Their chiller, set in contemporary Spain, is involving and disturbing, and revives the genre's great theme: our profound yet unacknowledged fear of children. We are afraid of their vulnerability, which is our vulnerability, and the mysterious otherness of their private, mental worlds.
And this in turn got me thinking about the most disturbing of acts blamed on fairies, and a theme of the Skriker and also something that may go on to give some form of explanation for (or at least provide an influence to) the tale of Yallery Brown, which I was puzzling over a month ago.
In her essay for Fairies and the Folklore of Disability Susan Schoon Eberly discusses Changelings and how myths surrounding them may have derived from stories of child sacrifice. In particular she mentions that “the tale of Yallery Brown may in fact tell of a child left to die under a stone”, and talks about how in certain points in Britain’s history children may have been killed or abandoned in order to perform such services as the placation of fertility spirits or other sacrificial functions. Roman historical records apparently mention how deformed children, or those that display signs of congenital disability, might even have been set aside and raised so that an emergency human sacrifice would be on hand the next time there was a natural disaster or bad harvest. I’m certain the pre-Roman tribes of the British Isles hardly treated disabled offspring with greater care.
On Peta Jinnath Andersen’s blog there is a in-depth discussion of some of the details Eberly raises, as well as interesting thoughts on Changelings in general. There’s far more there than I want to go into now but of particular interest to the Yallery Brown story is the examination of the characteristics of various congenital disabilities and how they compare to the reported descriptions of various types of fairy.
Progeria is a condition that is noted for having some striking similarities to Yallery Brown’s appearance. Wikipedia gives the following description:
Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria syndrome is an extremely rare condition in which physical aspects of aging are greatly accelerated, and few affected children live past age 13. About 1 in 8 million babies are born with this condition. It is a genetic condition, but occurs sporadically and is usually not inherited in families.
Andersen’s blog post also mentions that fairy lore may have existed as a kind of covenant between members of poor communities in the past. They provided a way to educate people about poisonous plants and dangerous environments, or to encourage everyone in the community to be hygienic and hard working. As these people didn’t have the benefit of a modern education, and as ancient religious texts may not have given advice literally relevant to some of the situations a society faced in the past, perhaps putting “the fear of the fairies” into people was a good way to enforce a relevant set of values and behaviours. The bible may not literally tell you to keep your milk churn clean or your coulter sharp, so let’s invent and tell some tales that do.
One of the situations that probably sorely tested a poor community in the past was the prospect of raising a disabled child, and this may have been another root of tales about Changelings. In poor communities it may have been seen as socially acceptable (if not socially responsible) to blame a sickening or disabled child on the fairies, to the extent of accusing them of replacing the child with one of their own, and so rid yourself of the child by subjecting it to the ordeals that fairy lore proscribes in such circumstances – ordeals that almost certainly end with the death of the unwanted baby.
In short, beliefs about Changelings may well have been used to justify the murder of children.
I have mixed feelings about pondering on academic explanations for beliefs about fairies, not because I believe in fairies (I find a stated belief in fairies either deceitful and cynical or extremely naive) but because I think it might do something to the appreciation of the stories. At the end of the day I think it’s important to remember that Yallery Brown was a story told by a labourer to Mary Balfour, a collector of Lincolnshire folktales, therefore we can only infer in the vaguest manner about what might have provided the inspiration for the story. The web is full of references to Yallery Brown being a Yarthkin who didn’t receive proper sacrifices in the past, and so became bitter – but there is no evidence for this being the case, it is simply an attempt by people who figure that such a lack of respect might turn a Yarthkin bad in the same way that mistreated Brownies are said to become malicious.
The startling thing about the tale is Yallery’s malice and how relentlessly he seems to punish Tom Tiver. Because his malice is so remarkable it is tempting to find a reason for it, but I don’t want to loose sight of the fact that, as far as I am aware, all a modern audience knows about Yallery Brown is as a result of the record of the labourer’s tale.
Perhaps it was a tale handed down throughout the years that has, at its root, a story of a young child suffering from Progeria being abandoned. It may even carry a warning about refusing to abandon such children (the life of someone who tries to care for a child with a congenital illness in such an environment is probably going to be one of unrewarded toil).
Just as easily though it could be a spooky tale told by a teller canny enough to know about how audiences react to portrayals of the childlike juxtaposed against the tales of the uncanny – just like the makers of The Orphanage (presuming, of course, that the makers of the film had no ulterior motive or message that I have managed to miss).
This turned into a huge and somewhat incoherant ramble - and I'm not even sure what the whole point of it is. I suppose I will try and sum it up by saying that whilst it is very satisfying to try and think up real world reasons behind folktales the evidence behind such reasoning is scant and I feel that it is overly bold of some commentators to treat it as an open and shut case.
Monday, 17 March 2008
The Perplexing Point of Yallery Brown
One of my favourite folktales is that of Yallery Brown, though why I find the story so compelling makes me wonder. Here is a short version taken from Wikipedia:
According to the story, a young lad named Tom was sitting in a field resting during his daily labours when he heard a little whimper, like the sound of a young child in distress. Upon further investigation Tom found a little creature trapped under a flat stone. The creature was like a ragged little man and had yellow-brown skin, the colour of dark mustard. The little man begged Tom to help free him from the stone. Tom knew that he should just leave the creature where he lay, but it whimpered so much that eventually Tom took pity upon it and lifted the stone from on top of the little man. The creature jumped up in delight, introduced itself as Yallery-Brown then promised to reward Tom by granting him a wish. Being workshy, the young lad asked for help with his daily chores. Yallery-Brown clapped his hands and said it would be so. Tom thanked the creature who flew into a rage and warned that it must never be thanked or dire consequences would follow. As a parting word Yallery-Brown told Tom that if he ever needed him he was to call his name.
The next day, when Tom set about his tasks, he found that the jobs were already doing themselves. The broom was rushing around the room sweeping the floor of its own accord and the quern was grinding the corn without human assistance. After many days of the same thing happening, the people began to whisper that Tom was a witch or warlock. This worried Tom, so he called for Yallery-Brown. Tom thanked the creature for its help but told it that it was no longer needed. Yallery-Brown again flew into a rage and told Tom his help would be withdrawn, but as he had been thanked Tom would be left with a curse. The little man vanished with the words:
“Work's thou will, tha'll niver do well, Work's thou mowt, tha'll niver gain owt, For harm an' mischance an' Yallery-Brown, Tha's let out theeself from unner the stone!"
Yallery Brown was as good as his word. Tom was plagued with bad luck and ill fortune his whole life.
Why does such a story strike me as being so interesting? It doesn't seem to offer any sort of redemption to its hero - poor Tom was fated to be doomed from the moment he performed his act of mercy. He doesn't get to grow or change in any way. He didn't really do anything wrong - a little bit of sloth, perhaps - some absent-mindedness in forgetting the bizarre ban on thanking the creature - ignoring his hunch that it is somehow wrong to free Yallery Brown (and note that the version told above emphasises these negative qualities more than many others I have come across, for example a version found here is rather more sympathetic towards Tom). Really, the story is just irredeemably grim.
And I love it! But why?
Jospeh Campbell (a student of Jung who came up with many influential theories on storytelling) taught that in order for a tale to work in any sort of satisfactory manner (I simplify horribly here) it requires three elements, a Call (to Adventure), a Time of Trial and a Return (to Normality).
Yallery Brown certainly contains the Call (Tom hearing the creature's wails and freeing it) and the Time of Trial (the rest of the story), but there is no obvious return, Tom is just punished, and then punished more, and then punished more, until he dies.
One of the things that seems to distinguish a folktale from a children's fairy story is the lack of an obvious moral lesson. Take Little Red Riding Hood for example, and the lesson seems to be "if you're a young girl on your own, it's not a good idea talk to strangers", the Three Billy Goats Gruff and the Three Little Pigs both extol the virtues of lateral thinking and teamwork in confronting problems, and a plethora of tales strike a chord with those who want to believe that being good will reap rewards and that telling the truth is also a redeeming virtue.
Not so the folktale, shun the stranger and he will follow, rape and kill you anyway, match wits with the uncanny and you discover that they outstrip you in the ability to trick and confound, stand up to bullies and you end up getting eaten.
I can't help thinking that there is more painful honesty in the folktale, as nice as it is to think that the noble and virtuous receive their rewards it is often the unpleasant who inherit the Earth. The innocent do suffer and apt justice does not get served to the guilty. Liars thrive. As fairy stories for adults, perhaps folktales do away with the need for a point, and instead force us to face harsh aspects of an absurd existence.
There is no return to normality, because normality is a somewhat niave and fragile concept anyway.
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