My Folklore Week 2023 Illustrations

Once again I took part in Folktale Week this year! There's fabulous and magical illustrations from artists worldwide; check out #FolktaleWeek2023 on Instagram (plus hashtags for each prompt of the form FolktaleWeek + prompt). The prompts this year were: lost, ink, sea, sleep, underground, illusion, and found. I've decided I can interpret "folktale" loosely to include fairytales, legends, myths and folklore.

For lost, I knew I wanted to make the Minotaur in his labyrinth, with the slightest hint of the first person to avoid getting lost: Theseus with his ball of string.

The Minotaur in his Labyrinth, linocut, 9.25" x 12.5" by Ele Willoughby, 2023

 

Ink was a real challenge! I had a few ideas but in the end, opted for a Japanese yokai, a sort of supernatural spirit called suzuri no tamashii. Specifically it’s a type of yokai called a tsukumogami, a type of spirit which can arise from an object which is used for 100 years, when it comes alive. 

Suzuri no tamashii, linocut, 9.25" x 12.5", by Ele Willoughby, 2023

The story goes that an ink stone was used to copy the same manuscript over and over again for many generations, about the bloody Genpei War (1180-1185). The 'Akama suzuri,' a top-quality inkstone made specially in Shimonoseki City, began to take on aspects of the story itself. It became possessed by a vengeful spirit of an Ise-Heishi warrior who had been defeated at the Battle of Dannoura, where the Minamoto clan brutally wiped out the entire Taira clan. Phantom sounds like fierce battle, waves on the sea or even a voice narrating "Heike monogatari" (The tale of the Heike) could be heard. Waves rippled on the ink and illusory characters and boats from the story, arose from the ink to wreak havoc on the writing.

As many of the slaughtered Taira soldiers became vengeful spirits or onryō when they died, their grudge-curse infects many ink stones which have been used to repeatedly copy their story.

My print shows an ink stone, ink stick, jar of brushes, and the suzuri no tamashii emerging like two mounted samurai warriors crossing a river from The tale of the Heike. 

Zaratan, linocut, 11" x 14", by Ele Willoughby, 2023

I knew what I wanted to do for sea; I've long wanted to illustrate the Zaratan, a mythical giant sea turtle  that looks like a small island! There's a small campfire on the supposed beach, and a sailing ship from the age of exploration nearby. The sunset sky is in vibrant fuchsia, tangerine and purple.

"There is a story that is told in all lands and throughout all history - the story of sailors who go ashore on an unknown island that later sinks and drowns them, for the island is alive. This imaginary beast-island figures in the first voyage of Sindbad and in the sixth canto of Orlando Furioso (Ch'ella sia usa isoletta ci credemo; "We are all cheated by the floating pile, / And idly take the monster for an isle"); on the Irish legend of St. Brendan and in the Greek bestiary of Alexandria; in the Swedish curate Olaf Magnus' History of the Northern Nations (Rome, 1555) and in the passage in Paradise Lost, Book I, in which the prostrate Satan is compared to a great whale "hap'ly slumbering on the Norway foam."

    -Jorge Luis Borges, The Book of Imaginary Beings (El Libro de Los Seres Imaginarios)

Often depicted as a giant turtle, like the Turtle Island origin myth common to many Indigenous peoples of North America, the Zaratan could in fact be any large marine creature, but I love the idea of a giant turtle.

I found another great Japanese yokai for sleep: the Baku. Some stories about sleep are either familiar fairytales or in fact, a bit grim. I like the mythical Japanese chimera because despite its monstrous appearance, it is the beloved eater of nightmares. It was made from leftover parts, with the body of a bear, the claws of a tiger, the tail of a cow, the trunk and tusks of an elephant with the ears and eyes of a rhinoceros! You can call on it if you have bad dreams. A child who awakes from a nightmare will cry, “Baku-san, come eat my dream!” three times and the baku will enter their room to devour the bad dream so they can go back to sleep. They must be careful however, not too call too often, least they get a hungry baku who will also eat their dreams.

Today the word baku can also apply to a real animal, the Malayan tapir, because of its arguable resemblance to the mythical animal.

I thought my blue origami paper would make a great comforter so I made 8 different variations!

Baku, linocut, 9.25" x 12.5" by Ele Willoughby, 2023

The idea I had for underground was the Aos sí, the people of the Sidhe, the Fair Folk of Ireland, who according to legend live beneath mounds in fairy forts underground. I have not yet editioned this print, but I plan to add it to my shop soon! You may know the banshee, or Bean sídhe or woman of the sídhe. In fact the very word Sídhe is the term for earthen mounds like the one in my linocut and the Aos sí are “the people of mounds.” The Sidhe evolved from a mythological people known as the Tuatha De Danaan, powerful, magical semi-divine beings, who feature in many early Irish tales. When the ancestors of the Irish, the Gaels arrived they battled over the Emerald Isle. The way the story was told to me was that neither force could conquer the other and they decided to divide Ireland evenly between them. If you look at Ireland it’s quite an irregular shape and the only way to split it evenly was top and bottom with the Gaels occupying the upper world and the Tuatha De Danaan taking the lower world.

They’re known as the daoine sí or daoine sìth in Scots Gaelic and we get the the idea of fairies from the fair folk, but our inherited Victorian ideas and images of fairies are much gentler, sweeter and cuter than these fierce beings who are benevolent if treated with respect but are known to react cruelly if mistreated. 

The Sidhe, linocut, 11" x 14" by Ele Willoughby, 2023

For illusion, I chose a beautiful French fairytale: La Chatte Blanche, published by Madame d’Aulnoy in 1698.

A king is worried about succession and sends his three sons on quests to determine who will inherit the kingdom (or rather to distract them on that pretence, to avoid being deposed by an impatient prince). First they must find the smallest and most beautiful dog. They each go their own way and the youngest finds a fantastical castle filled with intelligent talking cats. He is quite taken by their beautiful white cat queen who mysteriously wears a locket with a image which looks just like him. He stays a full year and she gives him an acorn for his quest. Returning home he opens the acorn for his father and inside is the tiniest dancing dog. Despite clearly having won the contest, the king starts another: find the finest muslin which can be drawn through the eye of a needle. The princes go out again; the youngest returns to the white cat for another year and she gives him a walnut with nested series of smaller seeds, the tiniest containing magically fine and beautiful muslin. His magical muslin is clearly the winner. The king sets a third task to find the most beautiful princess bride. After a third stay with the cats, the beloved white cat convinces the prince, to his horror, to chop off her head. But when he does the fairy enchantment is broken and she is revealed as a beautiful princess cursed by fairies so that she and those in her kingdom must live as cats unless her forbidden lover’s doppelgänger cuts off her head. It was all an illusion!

She reigned over six kingdoms so after the triple wedding of the three princes, succession is solved as she grants brothers and father each kingdoms to rule and she and her husband the youngest prince rule the remaining three.

La Chatte Blanche, linocut, 9.25" x 12.5", by Ele Willoughby, 2023

 

I wanted to make sure I included a Canadian folktale this year. So often the folktales we hear are from Europe, but I wanted one from closer to home. I selected the Mermaid of the Magdalenes for the prompt "found." I loved that the found thing as something as prosaic as a tin of sardines, that this is a fairytale about my May Day birthday and about the perils of not preserving marine ecology. I still have to print an edition of this print, but I plan to do so soon.

The Mermaid of the Magdalenes, linocut by Ele Willoughby, 11" x 14", 2023

The rugged east coast Magdalene Islands are all but barren of grass and trees, but the waters are rich in fish and people called it the “Kingdom of Fishes”. Traders could grow rich off the bounty of the sea. Long ago when sardines were first canned they were wildly popular. There was a great slaughter of sardines by greedy traders, who packed them in tiny boxes and shipped them all over the world. The tiny sardines were helpless against the onslaught. They saw their fellow sardines killed and their numbers were dwindling. They cried out for help, calling a meeting of all the fishes. There, they convinced their brethren to stand with them and punish those who fished and ate sardines.

On May Day a ship filled with sardine cans was wrecked on the rocks of the Magdalene Islands, its cargo strewn on shore. The daughter of a fish trader found a tin and was delighted, hoping to eat them. But, she was unable to get the can open sang a song of lament.

“I love sardines when they’re boiled with beans
And mixed with the sands of the sea.
I am dying for some.
Will nobody come and open this box for me?”

A disgusted skate heard her but was too timid to punish her. A merman wanted a land wife but he left her ashore because of his oath to the sardines. Finally the black lobster heard her and remembered his oath. He cunningly offered his help only to trick her and he grasped her with his strong claw and dragged her out to sea.

It’s believed he sold her to the merman. But on the 1st of May you can see her off the coast of the island, her glass in hand, looking longingly at shore as she brushes her hair, each year more and more a fish. The fishermen hear her lonely mournful songs and stay ashore least she drag them out to sea for company. 

 I found this story amongst the Canadian Folktales published by Cyrus MacMillan in 1922.