Batman L Superman: The Dawn of Bromance

Recently I went to see the much awaited Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. I kept waiting for someone to turn on the lights so I could see what was going on with in the movie. I kept waiting for the familiar triumphant fanfare to announce Superman's rise to victory and his transcendence as the Man of Steel. I kept waiting for the familiar thrill as Batman finally assembled the necessary bat-weapons to defeat the on coming threat. What I got was darkness, no fanfare of victory, a Batman misguidedly trying to kill the good and a lingering malaise reminiscent of Good Friday. I could only hope that Sunday's a'comin. Hollywood couldn't just take these icons of truth and justice and leave them as jaded and cynical parodies of their true selves. They just couldn't. It was The Last Temptation of Christ all over again. So in good evangelical style, to reassure myself that all was right in heaven and earth, I decided to go back to the text, not the apocryphal tales spun by the merchants of revisionism in recent decades, but the original meeting of the 'The World's Finest' by writer Edmond Hamilton and artist Curt Swan.

It was May-June 1952. Harry S Truman was in his last term as U.S. President and the Korean War was moving into its third and final year. The University of Tennessee admitted its first Afro-American student and Queen Elizabeth II was crowned Queen of the United Kingdom and its Commonwealth. In the world of letters, Wernher von Braun begins his series of articles laying the foundation for the up coming space race and in Superman no. 76, the Man of Steel meets the Caped Crusader for the first time.

In Gotham City, Batman's war on crime has been so successful that he finds the time to take a well earned rest. Over in Metropolis, Superman has put the finishing touches on the city's new Hall of Learning and has finally reached the start of his scheduled vacation. And there is no better way for two weary crime fighters to unwind than in the relaxing atmosphere of a luxury cruise ship. 

On a cruise anything can happen. Regular routines and relationships are left behind and new ones are formed. With Robin and Jimmy Olsen out of the picture, Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne find themselves sharing a cabin, and the scene is set for one of the greatest bromances in history to flourish. When a dockside Lois is caught in the flames of a fiery jewel heist, both heroes jump to her rescue only to catch each other in their cabin changing into their super-alter egos. Between these two men, a bond of trust immediately begins to grow,  seeking to solve the mystery of the jewel heist together. Though not all is smooth sailing for this new super couple. One thing that can often threaten a budding bromance is the presence of an attractive woman. Instead of staying on shore, Lois Lane has also joined the cruise in pursuit of the unknown jewel thief and jealousies flare as she over looks the Man of Steel for the tall dark and mysterious Batman. Though this rift in their relationship doesn't last long once the crook is captured. When the ship finally return to shore, the beautiful Miss Lane turns cougar, finally choosing the Boy Wonder as her next dinner date. The bromance is safe and the future of this occasional crime fighting partnership is assured. Thus endeth the lesson.

As I closed the holy text, I reflected on the apocryphal Batman V Superman movie once again. Gone is the mutual respect and camaraderie, as the ageing Batman decides that his only recourse against this seemingly all powerful, bat-critical, new kid alien on the block, is to impale him on his long glowing kryptonite spear. It is then that Superman seemingly mentions Batman's Mum. How low could things go? Gone was the bromance, replaced by beef cake distrust and macho rivalry, shot down by an exploding kryptonite bat-bullet and talk of Mums. Where had the love gone? 

One thing that can always heal a broken bromance is the persuasive voice of a beautiful woman or, in this case, a trinity; the Mother, the Daughter-in-law and the Spirit of Truth. As the two titans descend into mortal combat, it is Martha Kent, Lois Lane and Wonder Woman that intercede and help the rivals to see each other for who they truly are, muscly men in capes who stand for truth, justice and beating up the criminally insane. Before the movie eventually gets to the business end, the bromance is back, with the Dark Knight a bonafide super-fan and the Man of Steel a true bat-liever. This bromance was not man-love at first sight, but one forged in battle and birthed from some heavy duty man wrestling.

Now I understand that in reality this movie was a mash up of two extremely grim comic series, 1986's The Dark Knight Returns and 1992's The Death of Superman, hiding behind a deliberately sensationalist Hollywood title (which makes as much sense as Luke Skywalker V Han Solo to the uninitiated in the ways of the DC dark side) but it is also presented as a launch pad for a Justice League movie series. Please may the heresy cease, the grace and mercy flow, the bromance flourish and the agro saved for the theatrically psychotic, lest I be forced to pull out my Super Friends DVD's to remember when superheroes were a celebration of hope rather than a lament over society's lost innocence. It's Friday but hopefully, Sunday's a'comin. Amen

The Massacre of the Holy Innocents: Humanities Guilt

Amongst all the joy and celebrations of the Christmas season, a tragic story lurks amongst the tales of wise men, angels and shepherds that goes unknown by many both with in and outside the church. The Massacre of the Holy Innocents is a story found in the Gospel of St Matthew (80-90 AD), squeezed in between the flight of the holy family to Egypt and their return to Judea after the death of King Herod the Great. The King James Version puts it thus,

'Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men.  Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying,  In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not (Matthew 2: 16-17).

 Here we come face to face with a ancient despot who would rather kill a group of babies based on the stargazing and ancient oracles of mystics just in case one of them in the future may challenge him for his throne. Even worse, here was a man who would do so to thwart the plans of the Judah's own God, in case those plans didn't feature him. Such a terrible act was never forgotten by the church. These infants were counted among the first Christian martyrs who died for Christ unknowingly. In the Western Church their deaths have been commemorated on the 28th of December, on the day known as Childermas. However in the modern Christmas, which tends to focus on the more child friendly elements of the season, the Massacre of these Holy Innocents is over looked. and one of the deeper meanings of the celebration is lost,

As in much of his account of the birth of Christ, Matthew gives us few details out side of the bare bones of the story. We are not told who the slaughtered children were or how many were killed. This had to be left to the fertile imagination of the early church to fill in the details. The remains of two child saints, St Sicarius of Bethlehem and St Memorius, are still venerated as victims of the massacre how ever the authenticity of such claims doesn't go unquestioned today, with the likelihood of such remains surviving intact until the time of the early church's interest in relics being extremely unlikely.  According to  Wikipedia, that font of all knowledge, numbers such as 14,000, 64,000 and 144,000 were given by different church traditions, the later of which seems to be derived from John's vision in Rev 7: 4, suggesting that these numbers are more likely theological than actual. However given the size of the Bethlehem population at the time, approx 1000, according to William Barclay, the amount of children two and under may have been anything from twenty to thirty babies. Other  sources suggest that archaeological excavation of ancient Bethlehem shows that the population may have been a low as 300, suggesting a figure closer to six children in the age range of two and under (Gordan Franz, biblicalarcheology.org). Still the massacre of six children is a terrible event, just as the loss of one can shatter the world of a parent. 

The next mention of the Massacre of the Holy Innocents is found in a book with the long winded title of The Protoevangelium of James. Written about 140 AD, this book, which begins with an account of Mary's infancy and childhood, draws its version of the birth of Christ from the canonical gospels. Here it is not just the life of Christ that is in danger but the life of John the Baptist as well. Included in the killing is John's father, Zechariah, who is slain  in the forecourt of the Jerusalem Temple after refusing to reveal the location of his infant son. 

It wasn't until around 400 AD that a mention of the slaughter appears in a non-Christian source. The historian Macrobius in his Saturnalia says, "when Augustus had heard, that among the children within two years of age, which Herod king of the Jews commanded to be slain in Syria, his own son had been killed, he said: 'It is better to be Herod's hog than his son.' (Macrobius, Saturnalia 2.f.11). However this passage seems to confuse the massacre with Herod's murder of his own son which was a separate event with an identical motive. 

It would seem that with such support from ancient texts that Massacre of the Holy Innocents would be generally accepted as an historical fact, however this is far from the case. Although it would seem that the Protoevangelium of James is an early second source for an account of the massacre, it is heavily dependant on the Gospel of St Matthew and therefore is not an independent account of the incident. Even the seemingly independent account of Macrobius and its mention of the broader area of Syria and not specifically Bethlehem, cannot be considered a reliable evidence for the event. The confusion of the whole account and the four centuries between the events described and Macrobius' work, render this passage an unreliable source. Although a non-Christian, it is not inconceivable that Macrobius had become familiar with the story of the massacre through accounts told by the  adherents of the popular Christian religion and that had it had entered the popular consciousness. 

The main point that leaves many historians sceptical is that, besides The Gospel of St Matthew, no other contemporary witnesses mention the massacre in Bethlehem and it surrounds. This leads them to speculate that maybe the whole event was a sacred creation, a bit of parable writing, to try and compare Jesus with Moses, another survivor of a fearful kings infanticidal intentions. Despite such a act being totally in line with Herod's other brutal acts to protect his kingship, with only Matthew's word to go by and no other contemporary independent sources to back the story up, some want to place it in the category of story created to teach theological thought rather than historical reality.

There is a tragic twist to all this speculation. Some suggest that in a world where children's rights were virtually non-existent and a king could slaughter six infant peasant subjects with out impunity, such an event would probably go unrecorded. This was a world where children were property and infant mortality was not uncommon. A Roman father was entitled to let his new born child die if unwanted and the Greeks in Sparta regularly practised infanticide as birth control (Franz). In such a world, why would the death of a handful of children warrant a mention in the annals of Roman Imperial history. 

If anything the ambiguity around the historicity of the event is probably the most poignant element of the whole affair. Whether or not the event happened will never be answered for secular historians because in the bigger scheme of things it didn't matter. The account serves as a reminder of all the atrocities that have been visited on the helpless and powerless in fear by those welding power. It is fitting that we find it told in the birth story of the one who called for a new way of seeing things, where the powerless are kings and the tyrants are in last place. In the kingdom of Jesus the slaughtered babes of Bethlehem and all other times, sit in the places of honour and look down on us, calling us each to make a difference so the vision of Christ's kingdom of love can become a reality where ever we find ourselves.

“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

Revelation 21:4 KJV

Star Wars: The Revenge of Rumplestiltskin?

Jodo Kast wandering the purgatorial wastelands of non-canonicity.

Recently I had the pleasure of watching Shrek Forever After with my children on TV. This modern spin on traditional fairy tales deals with an ogre, Shrek, who becomes disenchanted with his settled, domesticated life and longs for the days before he met Princess Fiona and when the villagers were afraid of him. Into this pops that traditional fairy tale rogue, Rumpelstiltskin, who offers Shrek one day of his old ogre life in return for a day in his past, preferably one he doesn't remember. This he does and soon to Shrek's horror, he discovers that 'Stiltskin' has taken the day he was born. From then on it's a race for Shrek to work his way through an alternate time line and share loves true kiss before he vanishes from time altogether. This is a world where he never saved Fiona from her tower, fell in love and had a family. It's a world where his friends don't know him and people have followed a different life path from the one from which we are familiar. It's a clever way of mixing things up and allowing the writers to try new things with established characters. Sufi e to say, for Shrek, things do go back to normal.

When I was five years old my world was shaken by another modern fairy tale . My parents took me to see  the latest blockbuster movie, Star Wars, and i was never the same again. In the wash up of this amazing piece of The Empire Strikes Back was released, I had immersed myself in the world of Star Wars comics. And so I was inducted into the world of the Extended Star Wars Universe,the place were the story continued after the end credits had finished. Soon there were holiday specials, novels, storybook records and radio plays. Eventually there were even spin off TV movies and cartoon series, but by the mid 1980's all had seemingly gone quiet as we waited for the promised prequels and sequels that we soon thought would never arrive. In 1991 the novel Heir the the Empire by Timothy Zahn appeared along with the comic series the Dark Empire and the Star Wars Universe seemed to be grinding to life. As with many Star Wars fans I soon threw myself into this 'Extended Universe' and lapped up the continuing adventures of Han, Chewy, Luke, Leia, Uncle Tom Cobley and all. This was a universe that was expanding in all directions and I loved it. Even when new prequels finally emerged, this extended universe was gobbled up into a carefully mapped continuity. Last I heard, even the old comic series from my childhood was being carefully worked in and discrepancies retconned or worked around. One mighty Star Wars Universe was rising triumphant, a world of it's own with history, mythology and a mighty story to tell. Though one thing was still to come to pass, the three promised sequels, that was until late last year when the announcement that all true Star Wars fans had been waiting for was trumpeted forth from the highest minaret of the Jedi Temple. Finally the promise of 1977 was coming to pass but what story would it tell and where would it fit in the overarching history of the Star Wars Universe? The was that it wouldn't.

To cut along story short, the writers of the new trilogy wanted a fresh canvas  to work with, unimpeded by the shackles of an established continuity. To this my head says fair enough, but my heart says 'Nooooooo, it's not true!', as I see loved story lines and characters disappear into non-canon obscurity. Fictional characters now become officially non-canonical, which sounds like a kind of purgatory for imaginary people. Poor bounty hunter Jodo Kast; imagine being not only fictional and dead but dead in an obsolete story line. Sounds worse than being digested over a thousand years in the stomach of the mighty Sarlach. On the bright side it, looks as if Chewie is no longer dead though sadly, Boba Fett may still be. All bets are off.

I'm not saying that I'm not excited by the release of the new trilogy, I am. It's just that I need to try and ignore all that I thought I knew and accepted about the Star Wars Universe. As the action begins to unfold and the new continuity becomes apparent, I wonder how hard it will be to see this as the new normal.  How hard will it be not to wonder 'which character did a deal with Rumpelstiltskin and changed the present?" Already my bets are on Han. At least he gets Chewie back. That one element alone should be enough to win me over, even at the cost of Jodo Kast. At least the saga continues. May the force of new continuity be with you, always.

PS
Having now seen the film, I'm pretty sure it was Han that made the deal with 'ol' Stiltskin', probably played by Warwick Davis. And yes, he lost the day he was born, and no, his son isn't any less of a darkside brat in this alternate reality. Enjoy the saga.

Doc Holliday and the Three Wise Men

I always thought a great name for a festive season rock band would be Doc Holliday and the Three Wise Men. either that or it would make a great name for the ultimate Western/Sword and Sandal mash up movie that I suspect only the Italians could truly make. The final show down with the Clantons, King Herod's special hit squad, in the Nativity Coral would be an amazing spectacle of slings and arrows would conjure up all the grandeur of Quo Vadis with the surreal staring and eye  twitching of The Good the Bad and the Ugly. And as Lee Van Cleef's consumptive Doc Holliday coughs off into the sunset on his camel, the Magi are free to present their gifts in the the now peaceful town of Bethlehem to the new born king. The last thing we see, as the 'FINE' appears before the closing credits, is Livio Lorenzon's King Herod in the capital, cursing the heavens at the news of the Clanton Squads demise. As awesome as it would be, I feel that this movie may never see the light of day. Human myth making is an amazing phenomena but  this scenario may 'jump the shark' just a little too far to ever become a reality.

Never the less, both the Three Wise Men and Doc Holliday have seen their own share of legend and mythology laid over the known or assumed facts of their lives. Often this is the problem, human beings need to know things about their heroes and when the facts are sketchy or unremarkable we make things up. The beauty of this is that our heroes of the past become the icons we need  for the here and now and not merely long dead mere mortals of bygone eras.

My first introduction to Doc Holliday was in the movie 'My Darling Clementine (1946)' starring Victor Mature as Doc Holliday and Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp. Here Doc Holliday was a surgeon come gunfighter who valiantly fights his consumptive way through the film along side his buddy, Marshall Wyatt Earp. We meet his attractive love from Boston, the genteel Clementine Carter, played by the lovely Cathy Downs. We watch the long and tense gunfight at the OK Corral get slugged out dramatically over a minute of the film. We see the sickly Doc Holliday fall, slain by a Clanton bullet, before the grip of tuberculosis could take him, The last we see of him alive is the good Doctor falling to the ground, his white handkerchief caught against the gate he was sheltering behind, blowing in the wind, a powerful symbol of his surrender to death.

I was later surprised to find out that Doc Holliday wasn't a surgeon but a dentist,  His beautiful girl friend was actually known as 'Big Nose Kate' and the gunfight was only 30 seconds long and took place in a vacant block near by the OK Corral and not with in it. So much for the dramatic ballet of gun play that Hollywood would lead us to believe. As for Doc's blazing demise during the gunfight, it actually took place 6 years later. The movie may not be historically accurate but it paints a more exciting picture of one of the most famous showdowns in the old west.

When it comes to the Three Wise Men, the stories told well and truly out shine the known facts.The only reference in the Bible to these figures is in vs 1-11 in the 2nd chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. from this we learn that they were 'Magi' from the east that had followed a star to visit a new born King. Magi were originally Persian Zoroastrian priests who had a particular interest in the stars with the name coming to refer to astrologers in general. With them they brought three gifts to present to the royal child once they had found him, gold, frankincense and myrrh, After arriving in the capital Jerusalem they seek audience with King Herod and his advisers,  Learning that the Hebrew scriptures mention the birth of the awaited messiah in Bethlehem, the Magi follow the star again until it stops over the place where Jesus and his family were residing. An angel then warns them in a dream not to report back to King Herod and they return home via a different route. The Bible gives us no names, no country of origin, what they were riding or even the number of wise men. In fact most of what we know about them seem to have been added to the stories later in the retelling.

As with most revered figures, the lack of information was soon compensated for, with traditions maybe historical but most likely legendary, coming into the stories of the faithful to spice up the story with details. One of the problems with the wise men was that they were presented at best as educated astrologers and at worst magicians or sorcerers. To the early Christians this may have been a difficult thing to stomach so the sanitising of the Magi had to begin. St Ignatius of Antioch in his letter to the Ephesians, written in the early 2nd century suggests that at the arrival of the Star of Bethlehem all magic in the world ceased.  It can be assumed that many saw this as the catalyst for the interest of the Magi and that they were now seeking the new source of power in the presence of the Christ child. So now longer were the Magi occult users following their forbidden astrological arts to seek out the new born King but dis empowered figures seeking the new truth. This was a more palatable image for the faithful but the transformation was far from complete.

In the early 3rd century, the christian writer Tertullian  stated that the Magi were actually kings, So astrology aside, these men were actually world leaders who were acknowledging Jesus of Nazareth as the true ruling power. Caesar and Herod may have missed the boat but others had not, at the very beginning Christ was acknowledged by the nations as their King of Kings. Christians could stand firm in their faith that he was the true power in the empire. By the number of gifts the number of the kings was deduced to be three although some traditions suggest as many as twelve. By the time the Armenian Infancy Gospel was written around 600 AD, the names of  Gasper, Melchior and Balthazar had been given to the Three Kings and the transformation was complete. The vague shadowy figures of the Magi had become the very regal Three Kings that we know from carols, annual nativity scenes, and cards riding into history on their camels. They would grace the palace of Herod and the lowly cattle shed in Bethlehem to take their place amongst the saints and martyrs of the church.
Christians could look to these Royal figures and see, that just like themselves, even the Kings of the Orient recognised the true King when their own kings possibly did not.  Christ was Lord of beggar and monarch alike, the true King of Kings. I suspect many Christians today see them as wise men of the ancient world who accepted Christ as Lord when many so called wise men of our age argue the against the very existence of God. For the modern church it is their wisdom and insight into divine truth that is their great, enduring virtue,

Whether it be Doc Holliday or the Three Wise Men, we all have a tendency to look back at our important figures of history with the glasses of the present. Mere mortals of the past can become powerful symbols of the present when we project our current concerns and values onto their cultural memory. Morally complex and violent adventurers can become symbols of law and order in a simpler but wilder time, an important thing for a society recovering from war and seeking stability in the face great loss. Controversial masters of the mystic arts can become the champions of traditional faith and wisdom in an increasingly secular society. This approach may display a cavalier attitude towards the factual details of history but it enables our history to resonate with the present in deep and meaningful ways. We look back to answer questions of the present, to be inspired and strengthened by the past, and to look to a brighter future.Who knows you or I might one day become legendary figures, the mundane and the ordinary facts of our lives transformed into a grand epic of operatic proportion to serve the needs of a future age. And if this happens hopefully they'll make me better looking with killer abs. only the future will tell.

As for my movie idea, I don't think it will ever go ahead despite the continuing popularity of the Three Kings and Doc Holliday. This won't stop me from dreaming and hoping though, as I see the four characters becoming drawn together. An example of this is the fact that the current Doctor Who, Peter Capaldi got to play Balthazar in the recent film The Nativity Story (2006) and Doctor Who was mistaken for Doc Holliday in the 1966 story The Gunfighters, not to mention that he even has his own annual Christmas 'holiday' special. This is far from being a coincidence, so for me the circle of geek is now complete.

God In A Box, God Out Of The Box

Millennia ago, or so the Holy Bible say, humanity made a few decisions that has possibly lead to our current global warming issues, or at least the beginning of the fashion industry. Having lived in blissful climate controlled nudity, we chose knowledge and death over life and blissful ignorance. Like so many kids, once overly keen to leave home and learn the ways of the world, we soon wished that we were back with mum and dad and free from the constant demands of adult life. Besides, back in the Garden of Eden every day was 'Nude Up Friday.' Ever since we were shown the door from innocence, the creator has tried to reach us and invite our species back into the family fold. When looking at the Bible it seems that, like Saint Nick, God has frequently reached out to us with gifts in boxes. 

Box Number 1
The word 'ark' means box and we first come across God's gift giving in the Ark of Noah. Seeing the damage caused by humanity's willing choice of evil over good, alongside damage caused by fallen heavenly powers, the creator chooses to flood the land, and with a remnant of life, start again. 

It's here that box number 1 appears in the story. The vessel to save creation will be a box built by the only good man God can find, Noah. Through the shelter of this giant box, select specimens of life survive a world cleansing flood, only to repopulate a new one that seems replete with the troubles of old. Like school and students, the world seems great until life, human in particularly, comes to mess it up all over again.

Box Number 2
The arrival of box number 2 occurs when God seeks to set his chosen people, the Israelites, free from slavery in Egypt. This tiny box is used to hide the infant Moses in the river Nile at a time when Israelite babies were being slaughtered by the ruling Pharaoh's soldiers. Instead of a remnant of creation, this floating box contained the child that would one day lead a group of liberated slaves and guide them in the ways of a nation that God would choose to help redeem creation . Ironically, or more to the point, providentially, the baby is saved by the daughter of the very Pharaoh who seeks him dead and is soon an adopted member of the royal family. Unlike the first box, this box offers hope to more than just a few survivors, this box offers hope to the whole world. It brings into a position of influence a leader who will guide a people in the ways of an unseen God. In the years to come, many from other nations will admire and join the faith of the redeemed Hebrew slaves. Through the cosmic confusion of the ancient world's many deities, they will see in Israel the worship of a true God who demands justice and mercy from his people. Through the babe found floating in a box he would give the divine laws that would become the foundations of the modern world.

Box Number 3

The third box in the Bible story brings a about a new chapter in God's relationship with his creation. Alongside the laws, God commands Moses to build yet another ark. This time, instead of housing animals or prophets, it will reveal to his people God's very presence. It will be his foot stool on the earth. This box, the Ark of the Covenant, would travel with the Israelites through the desert, eventually finding a place in the Holy of Holies of the Jerusalem Temple. This beautiful gold covered chest would  play a vital role in the yearly Day of Atonement ceremony, the event that ritually cleansed the creation with the symbolic/actual sacrifice of God himself and the casting out of the evil that has contaminated the cosmos. Although this ark disappeared many millennia ago, it still fascinates the modern world, inspiring adventurers and movie makers a like to speculate on it's current where abouts. In the end, only God may truly know the answer, it's sacred presence no longer required in a world with out an earthly temple of bricks and mortar.

Box Number 4
The fourth and greatest box of all in the Bible far outstrips any that have come before it. Like the first, animals approached and fed with in it. Like the second, it held the life of a baby who would bring God's way to a people seeking direction in the ways of justice and mercy. Like the third, it held the very presence of God in the midst of his people. Most likely carved from stone than constructed with wood, this box isn't referred to as an ark but a manger, a feed trough for animals. It was into this that the greatest gift God ever gave, the baby Jesus, his word in human form, was placed after his birth in a Bethlehem stable. He would grow up to show us the way that God calls us to live, loving God and loving one another, He would grow up to give himself, God's presence amongst us, as a sacrifice for the whole of creation. He would grow up to cleanse the creation, not with a world destroying flood of water, but with the shedding of his own divine blood. Rising from the dead with in another container of stone, the now empty tomb, He stands triumphant, present in heaven and in those who follow him.  He is the greatest gift God has ever given us, the gift of a renewed relationship with our creator and hope for a day when death and evil have finally passed away. That's one gift that we all should cherish. St Nick, eat your heart out!

Stranger In A Very Strange Land

In his novel 'The Go-Between', J. P. Hartley begins by saying, "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there. I'd like to pretend that I'd read the book but the truth is I heard the quote while watching Doctor Who recently. Never the less, the truth of this statement continues to resonate with me. As I've gotten older I've become increasingly aware that the past changes from being the place where you live to another world with its own culture, fashions and mythology. 

This became clear to me several years ago when my daughter asked me 'What's Twisted Sister?' Answering her question I went to my vinyl collection and pulled out my copy of their LP 'Come Out and Play''. As I showed her the special pop-up cover featuring a snarling Dee Snyder leaping out of a man-hole, she suddenly exclaimed, 'What is that?' it was then that I became aware that she had no idea what a record was. 'It's like a big CD', I said. 'It’s what we used in the olden days before we had compact discs.

The older I get, the more I feel like a refugee from that foreign country. So many things I thought would always be with us, newspapers, landlines, cinema cartoons and telegrams, have all begun to disappear or have already gone. Just as scrolls once gave way to books, much of the things of my past will one day be obsolete, As I come to terms with the fact the adventures of Mandrake the Magician will never grace the pages of the Australian Women's Weekly ever again, I know I have two choices, to stay stuck in a disappearing past and go the way of dinos, dodos and Betamax, or to embrace the new treasures of the present and look to the future with optimism, believing that I have a place in that new country as I did in the old. This doesn't mean I can't bring the good things from the past with me into my new home, but it does mean that they need to find a place amongst the culture of the new. Where as I used to watch Tarzan on my VHS, I now watch it on DVD, or even my iPod. Instead of writing a letter on pen and paper, I know use email or messenger. I even read comics on the Internet. These things are just the tip of the iceberg of change, as I look forward to even greater achievements while taking up my citizen ship in the country of the future, This foreign land is a place where I hope they finally deliver on flying cars, hover boards and the mandatory silver jumpsuit, a silver suit for the golden years.

PS: I now listen to Twisted Sister on my iPod, bringing the world of yesterday into the world of tomorrow. Rock On!

Sigfried, Dragons and an Elven Princess

Earlier in the year I wrote about some of the fun I've been having investigating the dim dark roots of my family tree. The beauty of having some distant viking blood is that you can easily find yourself walking in the border lands between straight history and that forged in the Nordic/Germanic imagination of times gone by. What originally started as an attempt to impress my wife by arguing my descent from Ragnar Lothbrok,  of HBO's 'Vikings' fame, set me on a path of discovery that led me through the tangled threads of Wikipedea's web of knowledge. It was here that I came across the ancient stories of the Burgundian Kingdom, Atila the Hun, the stories of the Volsung family and other Germanic and Norse heroes of the dark ages.

When you have distant branches of the family laying claim to various historic and mythological notaries, you soon find yourself paddling in the same gene pool that Tolkien was hanging around when casting for his Middle Earth sagas. To cut a long story short, one of my great grandmothers was a Mcleod, a clan which some histories say were descended from the legendary viking invader, Ivar the Boneless. Once you hit pay dirt like this, you're  off and running because if there is one thing that the Vikings were good at, it was not letting reality get in the way of a good saga.

As I followed the various threads that the Internet offered, I came across familiar names like Gandalf and Frodo. I also learnt that I supposedly had elven blood flowing through my veins. It appears that one of my ancestors King Sigurd Hring, father of Ragnar, married one Alfhild, daughter of Gandalf, the King of Alfheim or Fairyland. Another ancestor, King Volsung of Hunaland, married Hijod, supposedly a giantess, who became the mother of Sigmund, and grandmother of the legendary Sigurd or Sigfried the dragon slayer. I suspect that at times when the mother of a child was unknown, either forgotten or coming from the wrong side of the sheets, it became a good opportunity to add a little magic into the family line. Regardless of the doubtfulnes of such supernatural forbeares, my children have begun to defer to this ancestory in order to explain the wide range of heights with in our family.

Something that caught my attention when playing around with these mythic legends/ sober family history, was the story of the dragon slayers that appeared in my research. Ragnar Lothbrok, Sigmund and most famously, Sigfried, all took on dragons in combat and won, claiming the great horde of treasures that the wyrms jealously guarded. From the (boring) perspective of sober historian, I always wondered how dragons had crept their way into the stories of the ancient heroes and questioned whether there was a greater meaning than just adding narrative colour to ancient biographies. The answer I wanted was discovered in the story of the dragon Fafnir.

Fafnir, also known as Frænir, was the foster uncle of Sigfried and began life as a dwarf, or giant according to Wagner. After killing his father to steal his treasure, he acquired a magical ring called Andvaranaut, forged by the sorcerer dwarf Andvari, also known as Albrecht, or Oberon, Shakespeare's king of the fairies. The magic ring, besides generating wealth and treasure, also carried a curse that bought tragedy with it. Fafnir became increasingly obsessed by the treasure he had acquired and over time was consumed by greed, transforming him into a dragon through the influence of the ring. Some versions of the story also include a magic helmet, the Tarnhelm, that aided in the reptillian tranformation. By the time the confrontation with his foster nephew took place, Fafnir was a greedy wyrm. zealously guarding his treasure horde, the ancient prototype to Tolkien's Smaug. 

To the people who told and retold the history of the ancient Burgundians, recasting it into heroic tales of gods and monsters, the dragon was the symbol of greed. A man may become a dragon if he is overwhelmed by the endless desire  to acquire more. Such greed is no respecter of family tie or friendship. It seeks to put the lust for wealth before the welfare of self and others, creating a monster that is all too recognisable, even in this modern age that has seen the rise of corporate power that rivals that of governments. I can;t help but wonder what elements of our culture will be recast as dragons when it comes time for our days to be retold as myth and legend, I can only hope that I will be associated with the hero's and not the monsters of our times.