Possible animals

Thinking about possible animals which I could use instead of the 'Queen Rat' (adapting the story etc.)

http://www.bypest.com/rats.html London pest control. Animals include:

Rat

Mice
Cockroach

Pigeon

Squirrel

Also, possibly foxes as you can always see them in London at night. Possibly bats. I still quite like the rat though. I will try to experiment with all the 'pests.'

Going to think about their anatomy, habitat, sleeping patterns, texture (fur, shell etc) and create character from this.

Petes Character Lecture

Notes to come

Animal

(From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapeshifting)

'Shapeshifting is a common theme in mythology and folklore, as well as in science fiction and fantasy. In its broadest sense, it is a metamorphosis (change in the physical form or shape) of a person or animal. Shapeshifting involves physical changes such as alterations of age, gender, race, or general appearance or changes between human form and that of an animal (therianthropy), plant, or inanimate object.

(From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therianthropy)

Therianthropy (part man and part beast, from the Greek theríon, meaning "wild animal" or "beast" (impliedly mammalian), and anthrōpos, meaning "human being") refers to the metamorphosis of humans into other animals. Therianthropes have long existed in mythology, appearing in ancient cave drawings such as the sorcerer at Les Trois Freres.
The term therianthropy was used to refer to animal transformation folklore of Asia and Europe as early as 1901. Sometimes, "zoanthropy" is used instead of "therianthropy".
Therianthropy was also used to describe spiritual belief in animal transformation in 1915 and one source raises the possibility the term may have been used in the 16th century in criminal trials of suspected werewolves.


http://www.geocities.com/schablotski.geo/Werewolf1.htm - 'Timeline of werewolf and therianthrope fiction'


I'd like to look more into this kind of story. Similar to 'The Queen Rat' story..


(From: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29320962@N07/3031581619/)

'The Queen Rat

The most idiosyncratic of my illustrations for my weird book. Below is an excerpt which explains the picture:

A vestige of much older traditions about the sexual potency of rats may have survived into the Victorian era in the folklore of the Toshers, or scrap metal scavengers of Bermondsey, in London. They repeated tales of the Queen Rat, a rat-like supernatural being who could transform into an alluring young woman and seduce an unsuspecting tosher. If the tosher failed to notice her rat-like characteristics (eyes which reflected light in the dark, claws on her toes) and made sufficiently passionate love to her, she would give him good luck, but if he detected her animal nature and shunned her, she would shape-shift back into a rat, and he would suddenly become alarmingly accident prone. In the case of Jerry Sweetly, who slapped the Queen Rat when she bit his neck at the height of her passion, the price was death and misfortune for his future sexual partners, although he always did well in business after their assignation. The Queen Rat also seemed to be capable of passing on some sort of genetic inheritance through the men she seduced, for amongst the children borne by their future sexual partners, there would always be a girl with mismatched eye colours, and very acute hearing. Once again, the rat is both admired and despised for being so like us: it exhibits an evident enjoyment of sex and a prodigious reproductive capacity.'

Tales

From http://www.snopes.com/horrors/madmen/lighton.asp

'We fear becoming the victims of random violence, and we fear being vulnerable in an unsafe world. The more unsafe we percieve the world around us to be, the more tales get told.'

Crossbones Graveyard

Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/fiveashes_/1374627208/in/pool-89594442@N00

'This is Cross Bones, an unconsecrated graveyard going back to medieval times. The Tudor historian John Stow refers to it as a burial ground for 'single women' - a euphemism for the prostitutes who worked in Bankside's legalised brothels or 'stews'. In his 1603 Survey of London, Stow writes:
'I have heard of ancient men, of good credit, report that these single women were forbidden the rites of the church, so long as they continued that sinful life, and were excluded from Christian burial, if they were not reconciled before their death. And therefore there was a plot of ground called the Single Woman's churchyard, appointed for them far from the parish church.'

Text from http://www.into.org.uk/SouthwarkMysteries

William Blakes' London

London by William Blake

I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,
In every Infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear.

How the Chimney-sweeper’s cry
Every black'ning Church appalls;
And the hapless Soldier’s sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.

But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlot’s curse
Blasts the new-born Infant’s tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.

One Eye Grey - Chris Roberts

'One Eye Grey is a penny dreadful for 21st century that draws on the tradition of those as well as the pulp fiction that followed. It features modern stories based on traditional London tales of the uncanny, paranormal and supernatural.'

14th January 2009 - Lecture from Chris Roberts (from One Eye Grey.) Notes from the lecture:

History, mythology, folklore based around London. Messing around with traditional stories. Gothic novel tradition. 1780s-1830s - mass of ghost stories. Ressurrectionists (body snatching) - laws changed so there were less bodies to dig up etc. Stories created to induce fear. William Blake - London (poem.) Rural - urban. Running patterers or flying stationers - make money through their mouth. Person hung, shout about it/sell broadsheets, penny dreadfuls began and evolved. Introduction of lots of characters (Sweeney Todd, Spring Heeled Jack etc.) 1860s - London wild boys. Jack Haraways 'School Boys'. Dick Turpin - real criminal, penny dreadfuls romanticised him, Black Bess (pictured in previous post) ran for 250 weeks (about Turpin.) Sailor/British Empire stories. Spring Heeled Jack - circus performer, masked, jump over walls, super natural being. Ended up being a protector of the working class. Very few female protagonists. Mainly male characters - primary market was male. Female characters were just associates of male protagonist. Legend of Queen Rat (exception) toshers in sewers, Queen Rat looked out for them, transform into a woman and sleep with them. If she liked him, she'd give him good luck and their first born would have ONE EYE GREY and one eye blue. South East London Folklore Society. Well in the middle of Greenwich park - stories. Londons ley lines. Haunted houses. Crystal Palace - roof fell on workers. Death Line (film) also known as Raw Meat. Modern - 'Mind the gap.' Haunted underground lines - Monument station - Stockwell. Vauxhall - Oval - giant in the tunnel. Source material - PARANORMAL DATABASE - search London. 'Elvis impersonating demon.' Cross bones graveyard in Southwark (Union Street) - prostitutes. 23rd of each month - John Constable - ceremony in graveyard. Walworth Road - old zoo - dissapeared in 1880. Tower of London used to be royal zoo, small events can change alot - Primrose Hill zoo was kept open. Peckham ghost. One tree hill - ballet dancer. Tower cinema - floating ghost. St Giles Crypt - 1979 - people looking for vampires. Penny dreadfuls evolved into todays comics. Varney the Vampire. Jarndyce - shop near British Museum where you can buy penny dreadfuls. Nuclear waste company invented story to keep people away - word of mouth lasts longer than signs and fences etc. Urban legends - local. 1950s - pulp magazines. Illustrations are there for people with poor reading skills, supports the text.

From the website: 'Paul Rivas who will be in the next One Eye Grey has started up a rather interesting online story called the secret tramp which can will be an on going saga set on the streets of London.'
http://secret-tramp.blogspot.com/
Make sure I read this!