Episode 104: Witches, Wizards, and Magic, Oh My!!
Welcome to this week\u2019s episode of The Literary Life Podcast! Today our hosts Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks tackle the tough questions so many people ask about reading stories dealing with magic. First off, Angelina affirms the need to discernment and the desire to steer clear of that which would be a stumbling block for our children. Cindy shares a little about her own concern when her children were very young. Then they set the groundwork by defining some terms and considering the kinds of questions we need to ask, beginning with Scripture and the church fathers. Be sure to listen to the end when Angelina, Cindy and Thomas suggest some criteria for evaluating magic elements in books before handing them to their students.
Come back next week when we will explore Robert Louis Stevenson\u2019s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Don\u2019t forget to check out our sister podcast, The Well Read Poem, as well as Cindy\u2019s new podcast, The New Mason Jar!
Commonplace Quotes:I am not conscious of having ever bought a book from a motive of ostentation.
Edward Gibbon
There is no language and no knowledge without symbol and metaphor. Two consequences arise from this: one is that we require imagination both to make and to interpret symbols, and the other is that symbols themselves beckon us through language to that which is beyond language. In other words, symbols are energized between the two poles (as Coleridge would say) of immanence and transcendence.
Malcolm Guite
The Queen Mab SpeechIncidentally, we do not know of a single healthy and powerful book used to educate people (and that includes the Bible) in which such delicate matters do not actually appear to an even greater extent. Proper usage sees no evil here, but finds, as an attractive saying has it, a document of our hearts. Children can read the stars without fear, while others, so superstition has it, insult angels by doing the same thing.
Wilhelm Grimm
by William Shakespeare
O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies\u2019 midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate stone
On the forefinger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Over men\u2019s noses as they lie asleep;
Her wagon spokes made of long spinners\u2019 legs,
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
Her traces, of the smallest spider web;
Her collars, of the moonshine\u2019s wat\u2019ry beams;
Her whip, of cricket\u2019s bone; the lash, of film;
Her wagoner, a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazelnut,
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o\u2019 mind the fairies\u2019 coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers\u2019 brains, and then they dream of love;
O\u2019er courtiers\u2019 knees, that dream on curtsies straight;
O\u2019er lawyers\u2019 fingers, who straight dream on fees;
O\u2019er ladies\u2019 lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.
Sometimes she gallops o\u2019er a courtier\u2019s nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig\u2019s tail
Tickling a parson\u2019s nose as \u2018a lies asleep,
Then dreams he of another benefice.
Sometimes she driveth o\u2019er a soldier\u2019s neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscades, Spanish blades,
Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
And being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night
And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which once untangled much misfortune bodes.
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage.
This is she!
Memoirs of My Life by Edward Gibbon
Faith, Hope, and Poetry by Malcolm Guite
Wings and the Child by Edith Nesbit
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