Des ogres pour l'Halloween?

Je reviens encore une fois sur Les dires de Piloé et sur la pièce de théâtre dans laquelle j'avais joué, appelée La Nuit de l'Halloween. Parmi les antagonistes de la pièce, il y avait... des ogres. On associe les ogres aux contes de fées, mais beaucoup moins aux créatures de l'Halloween. Ceux-ci n'étaient pas tant mangeur d'hommes que simples carnivores, voulant dévorer les animaux de la forêt. Ils avaient notamment capturé un cochon de lait qui s'était enfui d'une ferme. Les implications morales m'avaient échappé à l'époque. Enfin bref, depuis j'associeles ogres à l'Halloween.

Trolls (or ogres?) in hiding

I blogged before about our visit to the Crich Tramway Village in Derbyshire, one of my favourite places there. Now, a few meters away from the village, there was a long pathway in the nearby woodlands, where you could walk. And there were lots of wooden sculpture and other alongside the pathway, including these monsters which you can see here, these kind of ugly looking creatures hiding underneath boxes or treasure chests.

Now I am not sure what they are meant to represent, but my money would be on trolls. There was a bridge nearby, for one, and they have the deforme and grotesque look of trolls. Beside, of all the humanoid monsters, trolls are the ones closest to nature and these were literally crawling off the some underground hideout. They could also be ogres, although I always imagined ogres more at least somewhat more civilised. Be that as it may, it was as if we were stepping in a fairytale or n old legend and they were the adversaries we had to overcome before carrying on our journey. I envied Wolfie for a moment, because he could still use these monsters in his make belief games. He did not seem scare of them, by the way. Or that much impressed. But I still think they were absolutely as scary as they were lifelike.

Charles Perrault

J'ai appris aujourd'hui grâce à Google que c'était l'anniversaire de Charles Perrault. Je me devais de le souligner également sur ce blogue. Il y a tant de contes de Perrault que j'adore, surtout les plus terrifiants: Le Petit Chaperon rouge sur lequel j'ai déjà blogué, La Barbe bleue, et Le Petit Poucet notamment. Je vais en lire quelques uns ce soir, si je peux les trouver en ligne. Et j'accompagne ce billet avec une des illustrations somptueuses que Gustave Doré a faites des histoires de Perrault. On y voit un Barbe bleue plus ogre qu'homme, donnant à sa femme un trousseau de clés qui passera à deux doigts de la perdre..

Lead figures and sharing memories

Here is another episode of my last time in Québec, I hope nobody minds. During the time of my stay in my parents' house in Chicoutimi, my godson and his family came see us for a Sunday roast. As the roast beef was cooking (for it was what we were having), his sister went to my bedroom's desk do her homework and my godson asked for some colour crayons to colour a drawing he had made. We couldn't find crayons, but looking everywhere we found some old toys and games in a cupboard, including these lead figures of Dungeons & Dragons stock characters and The Lord of the Rings. Back during my geeky teenage, we were using them as... Well, as nothing really. We just had them on display during the games, or on the mantelpiece, for fun. I had started buying them to my bros as Christmas presents, first trying to find figures resembling their characters, then more stuff to expand the collection. They really got into it. It served no purpose but to look nice, like some visual aid to build some kind of atmosphere.

And when I found them, in a box above an old, old, old puzzle box my parents must have given me when I was four, my godson got fascinated by them. He found them "super cool". Which is his expression for lots of things he gets into: Viking mythology, Harrods' figures of British guards, a book on whales he sees on the shelves, etc. But those figures, they were coolness made lead. He asked me one by one what they were, we took them all out of their box and placed them on the puzzle's box and I had to explain what each one was: this is a wizard, this is a ranger, this is a priest, this is a druid, this is a knight with a morningstar as a weapon, this is an ogre mage, this is a blue dragon (which blows lightnings, as any D&Dr gamer knows), this is a lich, this is a griffon, and so on. Of course, I also had to explain what the character or the monster could do and find the owner of every limb and weapon that had been broken. When it was all done, he asked if we should move everything back in the box. I said I would do it later, because I wanted to take a picture of the improvised display. His father told me that my godson is hyperactive, but when he gets his mind into something he remains quiet and focused. It is very true, as I could witness it then. I wonder if he will one day follow his geeky godfather and one day play Dungeons & Dragons. In any case, I am very glad he finds lead figures so darn cool.

Skulls in the fireplace

Here is the post for tonight's countdown to Halloween (although I may write one more). Like yesterday's, it is somewhat about a pub. This picture was taken last year, in a nearby pub, a week or so before Halloween. I was walking back from work and they were putting up their decorations. As I was taking a few pictures of the outside, the landlord invited me to visit the insite, already fully decorated. He was very warm and friendly, telling me about the special events on the weekend before Halloween and the Halloween party that was planned. I guess he wanted to be nice with a future punter.

To tell you the truth, I don't like this pub much. It is set in a beautiful old house, like there are so many in England, but the choice of drinks is rather uninspired and uninspiring, they didn't do much with the building and the inside is just bland and it is a rather rough place, where there has been a few fights and even some people stabbed. I only went there and stayed for a drink a couple of times, I think I could still count them. That said, I went quickly for a glance and I have to say, they know how to make a place atmospheric during Halloween. I took a picture of these two skulls in the fireplace, covered with cobweb. The large skulls are not human, they could belong to giants or ogres. Which makes us leave the world of horror fiction to enter the ones of old folklore and maybe even medieval fantasy, but nevertheless, it was a beautifully sinister display. I hope it gives you inspiration to write a horror story, or any kind of story.

Un monde rempli de dangers

Je crois qu'une illustration pour accompagner ce billet s'impose, pour faire oublier les sujets sérieux des billets précédents. et quoi de mieux qu'un superbe dessin de Jean-Baptiste Monge?

C'était notre soirée télé ce soir, à ma femme et moi. On a vu The Apprentice version BBC (absolument brillant, en passant) et avant cela Child of our Time. On se demandait, notamment, si les enfants d'aujourd'hui n'étaient pas surprotégés. C'était le sujet d'un de mes récents billets. J'aimerais y revenir un peu, de manière tout aussi décousue. On craint souvent, de nos jours, que nos enfants soient soumis à des images violentes/horribles qui les troubleraient au point de devenir de futures victimes de violence ou de devenir des monstres quand ils vieillissent. Mais je me demande si les images auxquelles ils sont confrontés sont moins terrifiantes que celles qui étaient évoquées dans ce que les enfants de ma génération lisaient, regardaient, etc. Ou simplement imaginaient. Nos jeux étaient souvent construits autour de maisons hantées, d'univers fantastiques-médiévaux, etc. Il y avait un plaisir certain chez nous à imaginer l'horreur. Quand j'ai vu pour la première fois les dessins de Monge, j'ai eu l'impression de voir un imaginaire enfantin mis en images. Il ne donnerait pas sa place, dans le genre épouvantable, à tous les monstres que l'on voit dans les jeux vidéos. Enfin, je crois que les enfants aiment toujours avoir peur et jouer à se faire poursuivre par un monstre et que c'est sain pour leur développement.

Ogre

I found this illustration on the site of Jean-Baptiste Monge. He also draw a lot of the pictures (including this one) of the book Halloween: Sorcières, lutins, fantômes et autres croquemitaines by Patrick Jézéquel. I have the book in Montréal, and it is really a beautiful work. Anyway, it reminds me of the game I played last Sunday afternoon, for the kids's greatest enjoyement. I guess I wasn't as big and sinister as this ogre.

The Godfather (and, in this case, the godmother)

We spent the weekend in Swindon, where my wife became the godmother of her very little cousin (she's a few months old). The ceremony was slightly different from the Catholic one, but not much, I could follow easily. There were loads of children, and more friends than family. I think that was the most important difference: in Québec, baptism is more family-centered than community-centered.

Anyway, it was a lovely day. It was a good occasion for me to wear a suit, even though it got quite hot in the afternoon, so I got rid of the jacket and tie. It is also not practical when you have to amuse nearly a dozen children and play the hungry monster running after them. Remember that scene in The Godfather when Don Vito Corleone dies playing the ogre with his grandson? Well, that's what I did yesterday. If I hadn't eaten so much, I think I would have lost a couple of pounds, just by running around growling. Anyway, the whole day reminded me of The Godfather: we had a big family/community reunion, lots of children, a baptism (or Christening as they call it here), some wine, lots of food and a man in a suit running around playing the ogre.

And as it is "de circonstances", here is The Godfather main theme: