Evil Cakes for Kids Part III - The Cake with a Thousand Eyes
Oscar is one lucky boy. Being an October baby makes him a Halloween baby and guess what? Here at Castle Von Baines we LOVE Halloween! It's no surprising then that all of his previous birthday cakes have had a spooky theme with last year's Harry Potter Cauldron topping the chart for most liked cake EVER. So what creepy delight would grace the party table this year? The cauldron was a tough act to follow but armed with my trusty piping bag, cake tins and soldering iron I set to work in true Shellian fashion to create a living but totally edible monster cake. It's alive!
Fortunately, in order to breath life into my monster I didn't need to rob graves or harness the power of lightning, I just needed some eyes. Not real ones of course, these eyes were created using a Teensy 3.2 microcontroller and two rather small computer monitors (1.5” OLED displays). These would be embedding in the cake to give the mass of flour, eggs and sugar some personality. A tutorial on how to build and program the eyes can be found here.
The eye circuitry was mounted in a dummy cake slice enclosure made from card. A section of cake was removed and the eye circuit was slotted into place and secured with a dollop of buttercream.
The recipe I use for my cakes is perfect for 'construction', you can stack two or three layers without the need of internal dowels for support and they don't collapse under the weight. They are light and moist but slightly denser in texture that you’d expect from a standard Victoria Sponge. I personally prefer 'heavier' moist cakes like apple cake and carrot cake
For this I used -
250g Self Raising Flour
250g Caster Sugar
250g Unsalted Butter
1 Teaspoon of Salt
4 Large Eggs (separated)
100ml Natural Yogurt
Vanilla Essence
60g Cocoa Powder (use more if you like you cakes more chocolatey)
Gently melt 250g of butter and once it is fully melted add the 250g of caster sugar and stir until smooth. Remove from the heat and place to one side to cool.
Add the salt & cocoa powder to the flour and sieve.
Separate the 4 eggs and place the whites in a mixer and beat until fluffy.
Tip the 4 yolks into the butter and sugar mixture along with a teaspoon of vanilla extract and 100ml of natural yogurt and mix.
Then add the flour to the wet mixture and gently fold until the ingredients are fully incorporated.
Finally, take the whisked egg whites and fold it into the mixture until it is fully mixed. Be sure not to over mix the batter.
Line a couple of cake tins, pour in the mixture and bake for 30 minutes at 180c. If the middle still wobbles after 30 minutes return the cake to oven for a further 5 minutes and repeat if necessary.
You can add pretty much anything to this recipe so be adventurous! My kids are boring, they only like chocolate which luckily is my least favorite meaning I don’t as many off-cuts as I normally would!
The cake consisted of three layers of chocolate sponge, with the middle layer being slightly smaller, similar to a fault line cake. This recessed area would be used to form a 360 degree mouth. The eyes were powered from a USB battery pack mounted under the cake board. To thread the wires through the cake I made a 12” long cookie cut fro Plasticard to channel a core a hole through the centre of the cake.
All of the layers were given a quick crumb coat and then placed in the fridge for half an hour while I prepared the buttercream.
Oscar has a particular fondness for chocolate orange so I whipped up a large batch of orange buttercream along with some pink and black for the mouth. The teeth were simply mini marshmallows. I had intended to make sharp teeth from white chocolate but I felt that the marshmallows gave the monster a friendlier appearance. Piping from the deepest point outwards, I started with the black followed by the pink gums.
I roughly piped the orange buttercream over the rest of the cake. I didn’t want perfect lines of icing, I was after a finish that looked slightly chaotic that emulated what I can only describe as ‘horny fur’. The ears were created using strawberry meringue swirls.
It only made sense that a creature with a 360 degree mouth should also have vision to match so I added a more eyes and an extra tongue. You never know when one could come in handy! Some parents commented on the uncanny realistic texture of the tongue. This was created by stippling the fondant icing with an egg wash brush followed by a couple of coats of confectioner’s glaze to give it a permanent dribbly wet look.
As you can see, the cake was a hit and the poor monster with a thousand eyes was promptly sliced up and shared between 20 hungry kids and their parents.
Tales from the Fairy Farm
Could this be the location for The Fairy Podcast's very first field report? Fiona has mentioned she'd be willing to spend the night camping on a fairy fort at Pat Noone's farm in Galway, Ireland. While I admire her bravery, it's quite possible that the night could end up somewhere between 'Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark' and 'The Blair Witch Project'. However, while Fiona explores the underworld for seven years I'll loyally continue the podcast on my own until she returns to the world above.
'Looking at fairies on my farm is the same as looking at traffic in Dublin' - Farmer who has 'the words' celebrates May Day
“Looking at fairies on my farm is the same as looking at traffic in Dublin. But they don’t come everyday.”
“I kind of expect it. When I was younger if I hadn’t seen them, you’d think there was something wrong. I’ve seen them on a good few occasions after that.”
Pat Noone (52) lives on a 60-acre farm in Galway, and says that 16 acres of it is a fairy field – complete with a fairy fort, a fairy tree and a tunnel running through it.
On his land also lies a megalithic cairn and a fairy stone, monuments that have attracted visitors as far away from Pakistan.
“[The fairy field] has the portal to the fairies – where the whitethorn meets the blackthorn. I have a cairn where an Irish chieftain was buried - there are a lot of those in Sligo.”
“[The fairy field is] a very special place and people have come out frightened out of it.”
Growing up, Pat would hear his father regal visitors with folklore tales, and he’d see him giving tours around the farm.
“My father was a historian as well as a great folklorist, and had a lot of history of the local area – he was an authority on local history.”
“When I was small, people would bring him a half quarter of tobacco and he’d bring them around and show them the fairy forts and the fields.”
“I was never frightened of the fairies, I’d heard a lot of stories about them. I’ve been farming since I was 14 or 15 and I ran into the fairies because I was up all night calving or lambing.”
“I met them on a few occasions, I chatted to them. They say you should never take a drink from the fairies, but I took a drink from them.”
Today, May 1, is one calendar day in particular that Pat keeps watch for fairies – and hares.
“I’ve often seen the Irish hare disappear into the hills in the morning, they become fairies early in the morning.”
Traditionally on May 1, a 'May Bush' which is usually a Whitethorn (Fairy Tree), is decorated with rags and colourful ribbons to pay homage to the fairy folk and make wishes for the year ahead.
May Flowers are also traditionally thrown onto roofs of houses on May 1 to appease the fairies.
“Every farmer is up May morning because he doesn’t want another fairy to steal his luck. That’s a big fairy morning; it’s the big day that the fairy has real power... and they have given real power to other people on May day.”
“When the fairies will give you the words, that’s when the magic comes in. I got them from my father, he got them from the fairies. He was sick for a year twenty years ago, and he had the opportunity to give them to me before he died.”
“I’ve seen a few people coming to me looking for the words, but I won’t because it can be abused as well.”
Possessing the sacrostanct "words" gives a person a healing power, Pat believes, and also the power for a little witchery.
He explains: “If you put eggs on another property on May morning you can steal his luck, but you have to have the words, that is crucial.”
“I can make fairy water as well, I have a big stone on the field, and because I have the words, it can heal the land and people.”
What about other supernatural forms, like the banshee? Is she someone he'll happily greet?
“I’ve seen her on a few occasions, it was scary enough, I didn’t speak to the banshee at all, I kept going on my way. She was combing her hair, a young woman, it was in spring time, this time of the year, and she was sitting on the stone on a few occasions. I didn’t speak to her. Everyone has something that they’re afraid of and that was mine. But nothing ever happened to me.”
“I haven’t had any bad experience because of it, but it stuck in my head about death, and that’s why I didn’t speak to her.”
Farming the land from a young age, Pat says, gave him an easy opportunity to meet the fairies.
“I was about 17 or 18, I’d be out minding cows, I was always out fishing and hunting at night. It was all-night work, and I like outdoor sports. So I wasn’t in the kitchen [growing up], I was reared outdoors.”
“I was coming down after looking at the cows in that 16-acre field. I heard the music and saw the fairies dancing and I went over and got talking to them. They talked English to me, I had no problem talking to them. They told me they just wanted me to keep the land the way it was, and told me not to take any of the bushes out. I listened to the music and I went home.”
“I have great luck with the stock, with farming, you’ll have your ups and downs with sick animals and nature takes its course, but overall I’ve had very good luck with the farm. And I don’t use any chemicals or sprays. That’s what the fairies told me. I use no weed killers at all whatsoever. It’s not the modern farm that people expect, I let the ditches grow naturally and then trim them back with the saw. It’s left naturally here.”
Storyteller Steve Lally, who recently wrote a book 'Irish Gothic, Fairy Stories from the 32 counties of Ireland' with his wife Paula, says folklore is still very much a living part of contemporary Ireland.
"Even when people say they don't believe they still wouldn't dream of cutting down a fairy tree. Myself and Paula have heard stories from people who live in cities and towns who heard the wail of the Banshee. In ancient times boys were put in dresses as baby's to protect them from being stolen by the fairies, because boys were more sought after than girls in the fairy world."
"This ritual for example still exists today where we see both boys and girls dressed in christening gowns."
The day Sweden’s trolls and fairies wept...
This curious tale by Victoria Martinez highlights what could be the downside of being an ambassador for the wee folk. Fairy folklore is generally perpetuated via the arts, be it through literature, film or painting, those who dedicate their lives to spreading the word of the fae feel some form of personal benefit that could be perceived as a reward bestowed by the little people. But what happens when you no longer want to fly the flag for the fairies and move on to pastures new? Do you think you'll just be able to walk away and leave it all behind or do you think those who you've spent years working for will want some form of recompense? Once you've eaten fairy fruit it would appear that you belong to them and any attempt to get away will be marred.
So this following story serves as a warning to those, such as myself, who artistically dabble in fairy folklore. Leaving might not be that easy or advisable, especially if you plan on making your escape by train or boat...
On November 20th, 1918, a tragic ferry accident claimed the life of a Swedish artist whose enchanting depictions of folk and fairytale creatures still capture the imagination.
In the seemingly infinite forests of the Swedish province of Småland, artist John Bauer lived for much of his life among the gnomes, trolls, fairies, fair maidens and gallant princes he brought to life in his art. As a child, his summers were spent exploring the forests around his family's summer villa near Lake Rocksjön in Jönköping. After a period of European travel, he and his wife Esther, also an artist, settled down in a similar location not far away at Lake Bunn near Gränna.
"He was inspired by the areas around Södra Vätterbygden and used to always return to these places. It was here that he captured the environment [for] his ‘Bauer forests’, which he populated with fairy tale-like creatures like trolls and giants, knights and princesses", according to the Jönköping County Museum.
His reputation as an artist was founded on the countless captivating illustrations he created of these mythical creatures during the early 1900s for the Swedish folk and fairy tale annual Bland tomtar och troll (Among Gnomes and Trolls). Between 1907 and 1915, Bauer’s art captured the spirit of Nordic mysticism and "reflected… a world where the physical reality and the mythical are present at the same time", according to Sweden’s National Encyclopedia.
However great his love of the forest, by 1918, life there was far from a fairy tale. After the couple’s son was born in 1915, Esther had put her own art career on hold, and became increasingly unhappy with life in Bauer’s enchanted but isolated forest. Bauer himself was often away, pursuing new genres of art. The couple’s marriage was in danger. The solution was to move to a new home in Stockholm.
It is said that a horrific train accident near Norrköping in October 1918, which claimed 42 lives, persuaded the family that it would be safer to make the journey from Gränna, near Jonköping, to Stockholm by boat. So, on November 19th, 1918, the couple and their three-year-old son boarded the steam ferry Per Brahe.
In addition to the 24 passengers and crew members, the small ferry was so overloaded with cargo, including Husqvarna stoves and sewing machines bound for sale in Stockholm, that much of it had been placed on deck.
The dangerously unstable boat stood little chance against the storm that hit within hours of its departure. In sight of the port at Hästholmen, located some 33 kilometers upland from Gränna, the Per Brahe capsized in Sweden’s Lake Vättern during the early hours of November 20th. Everyone on board perished.
Today, the site of Bauer’s childhood summer villa in Jonköping is the John Bauer Park, and the 46 kilometre John Bauer Trail between Gränna and Huskvarna passes through Bunn, where the Bauer’s lived before their tragic deaths in 1918. In these locations, as well as in the Jönköping County Museum, which holds the world’s largest collection of John Bauer’s art, it is still possible to discover both the real and imagined worlds he inhabited more than a century ago.
The Right and Wrong of Fictional Fairies
For me, the list of things that people get wrong about fairies is vast, but the one thing that tops it is fairy doors. I fucking hate fairy doors. For those of you who are pro fairy door, remind yourselves of the country code, ‘Take nothing but photographs and leave nothing but footprints’. This does not include ‘and also nail a plywood door covering in pink glitter and tinsel to a tree and possibly add a small doormat with a quirky quote’. It’s a new form of acceptable vandalism that not only spoils the sanctity of nature but it also promotes a candy covered facade to ancient fairy folklore for the new wave of tutu wearing unicorn lovers. If you remind yourselves of days gone by when fairies were considered (and still are in many places) lustful, nasty and cruel creatures as likely to kill you as lead you out of the forest. Even the benevolent fairies could be capricious and vindictive if wronged or disprespected in some way. A fine example of pissing off the children of the forest would be to nail a shit pink glittery door to a tree in a patch of ancient woodland. Am I the only one who can see the correlation between the popularity in fairy doors and the increase of people who go missing in forests and woodland? Here’s an avenue of investigation David Paulides hasn’t explored yet for sure!
Anyway, rant over.
This interesting article from Agora, the Pathoes Pagan Channel discusses elements of fairy folklore that some writers get horribly wrong. While I don’t agree with all of it, it goes some way to get people back on the right path through the woods…
Irish-American Witchcraft: The Right and Wrong of Fictional Fairies
This is a question that I was asked to look at on social media and I thought here was probably the best venue. Fairies are a hot topic in fantasy and urban fantasy and have been for decades, so what are novels getting right and where are they going wrong? It’s a good question and also an important one I think as I see more and more pagans adopting beliefs from fiction rather than folklore.
In and of itself its fine to have beliefs from odd sources – entire religions are founded on fiction and there’s nothing wrong with deciding to go with a belief you gleaned from a novel – it only becomes a problem when its put forward as genuinely older folk belief and becomes mainstream. Because when that happens, when it becomes popular under the guise of genuine traditional folklore, it actively erases the older cultural folklore which in many places is already struggling.
When a dominant culture starts to rewrite minority folklore not from a place of belief but for entertainment, even if those rewritten ideas are then absorbed again as beliefs, it’s a big problem. Not only because it accelerates the decline of the original culture but also because it raises the question of how much depth these new beliefs actually have to them.
Where Fiction Gets it Right
Fiction does get fairy folklore right, although some books are definitely closer to the mark than others. What follows will of course be generalizations based on a variety of different books and series, so even though I’m saying fiction gets these details right there will always be examples of books that get these bits wrong as well. Such is the risk with a diverse market.
Iron – most books I’ve seen do correctly make iron a substance fairies avoid or are harmed by. Different authors handle this a variety of ways because folklore is vague on the how and why of iron’s apotropaic qualities. It is widespread and well known and something that is found in many books in a way that is either true to folklore or fairly close.
‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ – although it’s often played as a trope, and sometimes terribly mauled especially in young adult novels, many authors do follow the Scottish folklore of there being two groups of fairies, one of which is more positively inclined towards humans the other being more malevolent. While this isn’t a universal concept it is from Scottish folklore specifically and has gained wider popularity.
Human-sized Fairies – a bit more hit or miss but increasingly more common in books to see fairies being depicted in a range of human sizes rather than as tiny. In folklore its clear that fairies appeared in many different forms and could be tall or short. While we do see some very tiny fairies those are actually rare in folklore and very specific in location and backstory. Most fairies are described as being between 4 and 6 feet tall, occasionally a bit shorter or taller.
Variety – Fiction is usually pretty good about breaking out of the idea that fairies are all tiny winged sprite-like beings and instead including a selection of different beings. This is true to folklore, where the word fairy is a generic term for an Otherworldly being. Also fiction recently seems to be doing well using synonymous terms like fae along with various spellings of fairy, all of which are inline with folklore (fun fact there’s something like 90 different recorded spellings for the word ‘fairy’ in writing since the term first appeared.)
Time Shift Between Worlds – The fiction I’ve read does a good job of staying true to the idea that there is a time shift between our world and Fairy, which is very accurate to folklore.
Where Fiction Gets It Wrong
While there are a few points of actual folklore that make it into books there’s also a wide array of misinformation and plain nonsense that shows up as well usually not intended to be framed as folklore at all but simply the author’s storytelling and imagination at play. Honestly this is the bulk of most mainstream popular fairy books (and rpgs). Plotlines take precedence over folklore and the result is a good story that is disconnected from any actual folklore. I could easily have a dozen items on this list but I’ll stick to the most common ones I see that are both side spread and crossing over into pagan spiritual belief.
Multiple Named Courts – In Scottish folklore there are two courts of Fairy, the Seelie and the Unseelie; in other folklore there aren’t named courts at all. But its become popular in fiction over the last 20 years or so to expand the Scottish system, first including a third ‘wyld’ court then going further. One series has 7, while a popular RPG has more than a dozen. This is something I know for a fact is finding its way into paganism because I am often asked about it and run across people referring to ‘courts’ I recognize from specific books or games.
Whose In Charge? – Modern fiction has not only created new named courts but has also given new Queens to the existing Seelie and Unseelie courts of Scottish lore. These range depending on the story but Shakespeare’s fairy queens, Mab and Titania, often put in appearances. This is also highly problematic from the perspective of actual folklore where the Queen of the Unseelie court is usually understood to be Nicnevin and the Seelie queen is never named; putting English fairy Queens on Scottish fairy thrones is a lot of politics that are painful to even consider and speak of authors choosing names out of convenience rather than doing research. Some books choose random deities to head a known fairy court – usually the traditional Seelie and Unseelie – while in other cases entirely new beings have been invented.
Unseelie Emo Love Interests – Super popular trope in young adult urban fantasy and also edging into adult genres. The idea that the Unseelie aka the ‘Bad’ fairies, are actually the good guys and just need the right person to show them their good guy potential/save them/motivate them/whatever. Cue My Chemical Romance playlist here. The reality is that while the Unseelie are certainly more nuanced than straight up evil they certainly aren’t a bunch of eternal teenage boys looking for the love of a good misfit.
Important Humans – This one makes complete sense in a novel, because obviously in most stories the main character (MC) is going to be human and therefore obviously special and significant and get into magical adventures. So we see lots of stories where the human MC is absolutely pivotal to the local fairies, meets the Queen, marries the prince, saves the world, etc., The reality in folklore is that when fairies take an interest in humans its always for a reason and that reason is always to the fairies’ advantage. In some cases they would connect to human witches and teach them, true, but the witch always had reciprocal obligations. In most stories the human ended up as a servant, entertainment, or breeding stock. Basically in folklore (and reality) humans aren’t the center of very much.
Over Anthropomorphizing – Not physically but emotionally and mentally. In folklore it’s clear that fairies are very alien in their motivation and actions to human beings yet in fiction they often act pretty much like humans. This lends itself to an increasing idea that fairies are kinder and nicer than they often appear in folklore and also changes the way people approach interacting with them. In folklore they often seem cruel and it may not be that they are but that we are unable to understand their motivations most of the time. Like mice trying to understand house cats.
Final Thoughts
I do think there are examples of good fiction that includes fairies which are truer to folklore. I’ve written previously about some of my personal favorites in a blog titled ‘Good Fairy Fiction‘ and people added more suggestions in the comments on that one. I would still however note that the best fairy fiction must always make some slight concessions for plot and characterization so that nothing is ever aligned completely with folklore; what we want in a good story and what we get in fairy anecdotes don’t mesh perfectly.
People often question why any of this matters, why we should care whether a belief is genuinely folkloric or pulled from modern fiction or invention. There is of course a fluidity to folklore that means today’s urban legend is tomorrow’s folk belief and sometimes today’s fiction becomes the folk belief of the next century. This is a particularly touchy question in modern paganism where people are often looking for any and all sources on a subject like fairies. But I think Nimue Brown sums it well in a recent blog, saying that there is a difference between being part of a culture and its evolution and being outside of it and taking material from it to use outside its context. Too often what’s being taken as belief from modern fiction is the latter, material that is disconnected from actual cultural belief and born simply as a plot device.
If you are seeking to incorporate belief in fairies into your spirituality, to approach belief in them the way the modern living cultures that believe in them do, I suggest treating them as you would a foreign human culture you are interested in learning about. And I would sincerely hope, to forward that analogy, if you want to learn about Ireland you would look to solid non-fiction sources and accounts written by people with first hand experience, rather than fiction. In the same way with fairies while fiction can be fun and entertaining we need to be careful not to blur that line and start seeing it as depicting actual folklore, because most of the time it isn’t.
I'm on Bad Acid...
I'm very proud to credited as an Occult Consultant on 'Bad Acid', the debut short film from writer/director David Chaudoir.
The story of a washed up cabaret hypnotist, it blends hypnotic suggestion, hallucination and demonic apparition in a wry, tragically comedic, dark fantasy, exploring the fleeting nature of fame. Marvin gets what he wished for, but not in the way that he wanted.
Bad Acid references the magical number three; three failed performances, three wishes and finally three deaths.
Bad Acid is the writer/director’s love letter to the films of Amicus and Hammer from the 1970s.
David Chaudoir, writer/director, has worked for 25 years in UK Broadcast Television and associated crafts. He has directed award winning promotions for “The Walking Dead” and “The Wire” and music videos for bands such as Athlete and Starsailor.
Sukey Richardson, producer, has produced/production-managed a range of features, documentaries, commercials and short films including Toby Stephen’s In Vitro (2015).
Bad Acid stars Tristan Beint as deluded narcisist Marvin Maskelyn, Madeleine Bowyer as his long suffering manager and Tiffany Haynes as the ill fated Bella. Detective Chetwyn is played by William Kempsell.
Those attending Doomsday South in November will also be privileged to see a private screening as well as meet David. We also interviewed him in the pre-production phase on The Mystic Menagerie Podcast Episode 7.
Find out more about the film at: http://www.BadAcidFilm.com and http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4883224/.
The Mystic Menagerie Podcast Episode 19 - Mat Fraser from American Horror Story, Arthur Uther Pendragon & Portals
Some of you may or may not be aware that I am the producer and co-host of the highly successful Mystic Menagerie Podcast, a monthly delve into the alternative arts, paranormal and fortean news from around the globe.
This month we interview Mat Fraser, star of American Horror Story Freakshow. Mat was born with phocomelia of both arms, due to his mother being prescribed thalidomide during her pregnancy. Rather than see this as a disability Mat has embraced life and over the years has achieved theatrical notoriety, performed with Coldplay during the Paralympics and stared in numerous films and TV shows around the world.
We also have the honour of being knighted live on air by Arthur Uther Pendragon, eco-campaigner and battle chieftain of the Council of British Druid Orders. King Arthur tells us about his activism at Stonehenge and how he became the great man he is today.
In our regular feature with the Fortean Oracle – Nathan Sarea, we discuss interdimensional portals and the possibility of their existence. Recording this section of the podcast was plagued with technical difficulties we had never previously experienced. Missing audio files, mysterious tones and signal dropouts made us aware we were dabbling in a corner of the occult that might be best left alone!
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