obligatory loot post

[arethinn]

• 80GB hard drive (woot! saves me having to buy one ^_^)


• Fancy-ass pewter fairy figurine with green/iridescent stained glass wings


• Fancy-ass pewter fairy figurine with some faceted crystals and glitter


• Smaller, less fancy pewter fairy figurine labeled as being from enotsola's mother, step-father and brother, but really from he himself and his mother, mostly


• A pewter quaich, which is a Celtic (Scottish? I think) two-handled drinking cup in the shape of a shallow, footed bowl


• Good Faeries, Bad Faeries


• Faeries (25th Anniversary edition, with shiny silver printing on cover)


• The Runes of Elfland, fancy Froud-artwork book which has a new, "faery"ish interpretation of the Elder Futhark runes; purchased for me mainly because of my recent topic of telling stories about ourselves, and the corresponding blurb in the front flap, "By using the runes and Froud's paintings as tools to explore both the 'seen' world and the 'unseen' world, The Runes of Elfland will inspire readers to re-imagine their own lives and tell their own tales." Somewhat synchronistically, within the past couple of months I had purchased a set of runes marked on apple-wood pieces.


• Honey and lavender herbal facial toner


• Almond-scented soap and some kind of slate dish to put soap on, which is supposed to suck water out of the soap after you use it, thus prolonging the time until it becomes unusable mush in the dish


• Rose-scented bath salts


• Jasmine-scented roll-on cologne


• Some other fancy soap which I imagine smells nice, but since I didn't open the package as I am currently inundated with unused fancy soaps, I am not sure exactly what its fragrance is (milky and honey-y, I would guess, from the honeybee imprinted in it)


• Extremely yum-tastic Williams-Sonoma peppermint hot chocolate "mix" (basically chocolate shavings impregnated with peppermint oil -- very, very bad for you, but very, very good)


• See's Candies marshmallow Christmas tree and chocolate Santa


• Very pretty handmade booklet set which contains various Irish poetry; the three booklets are entitled The Sacred Tree, Marbn, Suibhne & the Blackbirds, and Early Irish Nature Poetry.


• edit: Matted drawing of a faerie, for which I have absolutely no wall space available in my room


• And inexplicably, a stainless steel pen from one of enotsola's grandmothers.

Comments

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

I am so far enjoying it most thoroughly. That the art is lovely almost goes without saying. The stories are brief and "dense" - the illusion of genuine oral folktales is well-crafted; in some cases I can identify the underlying myth, e.g. under "A Rune of Skill" (sowelu) where the story is clearly based on that of Lugh Lamfhada. The order of the runes is not the conventional one. The interpretations of some are merely a twist on the usual; in other cases, it's almost a total departure from common meanings. All in all unorthodox and certainly not appropriate for reconstructionist rune study, but I thoroughly, thoroughly recommend it.