Dissecting Literature

Today's topic isn't specifically a type of fairy (or a myth circle about fairies), rather a phenomenon linking us to this blog's origins (about myths founded on rare or misunderstood medical conditions) while still remaining in the court of these many-faced spirits. The fairies definitely have a bright side, as cute little winged creatures, or oversexualized sexy bad guys (I’m looking at you SJM), but there are some very dark tales and legends surrounding them. So today, let me introduce to you the strange occurence that was the Changelings. In Europe, people believed that fairies could (and most definitely would) kidnap babies from their cradle and replace them with either a young of their own, or a fairly old fairy to live his last days with a caring family. This fairy baby is the changeling. But how could someone think that their child was in fact a changeling? In old times, when fitting in with society was literally a matter of life and death, anything strange about a c...

To be honest, I was intimated by the amount of raw lore surrounding today’s topic, but it’s pretty much unavoidable when speaking about fairies. From Shakespear and Tolkien to Neil Gaiman and Sarah J. Maas, writers love drawing on the mysterious Celts (especially their Irish variant) when portraying fae creatures, because this was basically the culture that made them famous. It’s the first thing people think about hearing the word “fairy”, so let us not tally longer and plunge into this monster of a trope. In Irish-Celtic mythology, the Tuath Dé, or Tuatha dé Danann (“the tribe of the goddess Danu” or “the tribe of the gods”) are a supernatural race of people, making up most of the region’s pre-christian pantheon, filling every must-have god role  (like we talked about in here ). As belief holds, they dwelled in the Otherworld, a plane specifically for supernatural creatures accessible through ancient passage tombs (a type of underground burial mound with a narrow, mostly stone p...

 I know, I know, I promised more fairies but… but… It’s here!  Our newletter subscribers already saw the cover and the blurb of Caravan of Fire, the second book in the Spirits of Seiran series. If you want to get the freshest news before anyone else, make sure to check out the subscription formula on the left 😉 We send a newsletter every month with the latest news about our WIPs, what happened on the blog, and some group promotions where you can get a lot of free short stories, excerpts and more. Yes, this was an advertisement. With our second book, creating the cover wasn’t as big of a journey, as it was with Shackles of the Storm. If you’re interested in the complete story about us creating the design theme, you can read about it here .  We saw a video somewhere, made by a really successful author about how she sold a lot of books. One tip was keeping the cover similar in a series, so people might recognize that as a brand. It was one of those advice that aren’t comple...

The journey into one of the most important recent tropes continues with some mediterranean islands we now call Greece, and their version of the fairies: the Nymphs. As I did my research on the topic, I already came to some conclusions about these ancient and diverse creatures, so I plan a wrap-up post at the end of this series.  Although nymphs were only associated with fairies in the medieval times and onward, when classical literature and mythology became fashionable again, I think they are at least closly related. So even if greek nymphs seems a side track, they’re worth a post, so here we go! In ancient greek folklore the nymphs were minor nature deities and exclusively female – unlike fairies of other cultures and later times where they could be both male and female. They were described as beautiful and fair creatures, even the world nymph’s primary meaning is „young women” and „bride”. Every nypmh was bound to a special place, like a tree, a spring or a mountain, but honestly...

After a long slumber – longer than I expected – I’d like to continue our blog with interesting topics that aren’t closely related to publishing or our book. There are many more myths and creatures out there we haven’t touched yet buta re worth exploring, so I’ll take this opportunity to start a new series with one of the most popular creatures – fairies and other fae folk. It’s quite a chonky topic, something that’ll give us several posts’ worth of material (one reason I haven’t touched on fairies before), but it’s just as interesting! Fairies don’t have a single origin, but are rather a collection of folk beliefs from different sources. In pagan traditions they are minor deities, spirits of the dead, spirits of nature or a race predating humankind. All of these can be seen in myths and in literature also, so in these blogposts I’ll go through the different cultures where fairies appear and try to find a literary piece where they used that interpretation of these diverse creatures. I r...

  As the summer is going by, we had a holiday to relax after all the excitement of publishing our debut novel. As a side-effect (or more like collateral damage), this blog has sunken into a slumber, but we’re set on reviving it! If you want to know more about certain topics related to mythology, legends and different medical conditions feel free to contact us! We already have a few bits and pieces but always need more. Until then I’d like to share our experience with being published authors for one and a half months. My feelings are mixed. I think I was waiting for something big, something life-changing, but nothing happened really. I joined a discord server lately for indie authors who are published or close to publishing, and they told me, that although we are stressed on the day of the debut, nothing will happen and they were right. They also told me to be patient, patience and persistence is the key to success in this industry and from our current position, I guess they are rig...

The day has finally come! We were waiting for this for a while now, but time flows fast during this pandemic, so it’s finally here. Our debut novel Shackles of the Storm is launching today at every major retailer!  We wanted to make this day special, but because it’s our first book, we had no idea what to expect. Publishing a book is a long journey with a lot of learning and gaining experience, especially for a self-published author. When we started to write our book baby we had never expected that one day we will publish it. This story started as a coping mechanism to our long-distance relationship and because we wanted to create something for ourselves, a whole world just for us. But when we got close to the last chapters we realized that it will really be a book, and it could be published should we want that to happen. So we dived deep into the world of publishing, the how-to videos, mistakes to avoid, and the nerve-wracking waiting period before our first betas gave their judgm...