Mythic Writers Blog

Bigfoot is on my brain this week.  I don’t even have a reason for it.  That’s just the way it is.  For some reason, Bigfoot and his cousin the Yeti keep popping up in conversation.  So I am caving in and writing about it.

The most recent mention comes from this Telegraph article.  (I love the Telegraph, really!  They do some of the best weird stories!)  I am not sure I believe that Japanese adventurers found Yeti footprints.  They say the footprints were about eight inches (although it looks longer than the human print they show next to it in the article).  Eight inches?!  My feet are nearly nine inches long, and I only wear a size 7.5 (38 European).  So really, an eight inch footprint would be someone with rather small feet, considering my foot size is the average.  The article doesn’t actually say anything about why they think this is a Yeti print.  I merely mention it as the latest incarnation of Bigfoot/Yeti showing up this week.

The other thing that brought Bigfoot to my attention this week was a question posted on LiveJournal about cryptozoology.  I answered that Bigfoot is my favorite cryptozoological creature.  It’s mostly because I can actually, in my mind at least, build an argument for such creatures.  What argument, you ask?  (You did ask, didn’t you?)

I used to think that Bigfoot and Yeti could be the infamous missing link, but that idea won’t fly any longer.  Recent archaeological evidence shows that Neanderthals were not ancestors of Homo Sapiens.  So, no missing links there.  But what about distant cousins?  Couldn’t Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens have branched off from the same distant ancestor?  And if they could, why not a third branch?  The Bigfoot/Sasquatch/Yeti branch.

Why can’t we find them?  For one thing, the world is bigger and easier to hide in than we tend to realize.  There are plenty of stories of large, new animals or animals believed to be extinct being discovered.  And based on experiments (I think it was on the show Monster Quest), the remains of even a large animal left outside will disappear very quickly.  Add in intelligence, which a creature that came from the same branch we did *will* possess, and it doesn’t seem that it would be too hard for these creatures to stay hidden.

Anyhow, that’s what’s on my mind this week, at least the bare-bones version.  Bigfoot, real?  I still think maybe yes.

Today, I am devouring poems and quotes that stir my mind.  Here’s a snippet from my blog correspondent gig on Eric Maisel’s Creativity Central blog:

I am thinking about this today mostly because this is the anniversary of the publication of my favorite Edgar Allan Poe poem, “Annabel Lee.” (The poem was published in 1849, two days after his death.) My favorite lines in the poem: “And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side/Of my darling -my darling -my life and my bride.” I don’t know why, but those lines have given me a thrill ever since I was a child, and whenever I read the poem, I itch to write something spooky and atmospheric in response.

Some other lines that stir my muse:

From “Lost” by David Wagoner: “Wherever you are is called Here,/And you must treat it as a powerful stranger.”

From “Tapu’at House” by Charles de Lint: “In the Fairy House,/Coyote sleeps.”

And this line from Terri Windling, and I don’t remember where it’s from I think maybe from The Wood Wife: “rustlings in the midnight wood.” (The full quote I have in my notebook for this is: “Rain and sun shall feed me now, and roots, and nuts, and wild things, and rustlings in the midnight wood, half-mad, like Myrddin, wandering.”)

These lines are purely mythic, even when they don’t speak of any one particular myth.  It’s an odd thing.  I feel them in my heart, I feel their connection to that mysterious web of myth that holds the world together.  I don’t know how to pinpoint it, but the connection is there.

I am getting ready for November and NaNoWriMo.  I already have a story idea–ghosts and some demons, so well within my beloved mythic fiction genre.  Yet that line from CdL keeps haunting me.  “In the Fairy House,/Coyote sleeps.”  We’ll see what I decide to do.  Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy the poems.