-Lit review: Old Nick
-Link to further review: Demon Lover.
-Pictures on phone.
Research Group
Well, I didn't find much in the way of professional work regarding the researchers, which is really weird. At least one of them should have had a very explicit record of publication, given he was a professor, and the senior researcher should have had a fairly accessible corpus of work, if she was a staff researcher.
Nothing. No bodies of work, anyway. I found their names attached to a few conferences and school functions, but otherwise it looks like they've been pretty systemically taken out of any kind of digital records. It's possible their work is archived in the department? But that seems kind of weird. I'll ask anyway.
Maybe I can ask some of the senior faculty and staff if they remember any of these people. Granted, I don't have a specific time period, but I'm guessing before 1995-ish. But it's just bizarre for someplace as fairly stable and vocal as academia to have a void where people used to be.
Lit review
In other research news, I've been continuing on with the literature review trying to find connections with the Man in the Woods. A good friend of mine went out of his way to translate a journal article dealing with some of the previous folkish and mythological figures, specifically the nicors, or "nickers". The article was written in German, so definitely the native tongue to which at least the settlers who spoke about The Man in the Woods belonged.
But it came up with an extremely interesting comparison between two seemingly unconnected figures in folklore. One the water demon type that I've spoken about at length, and the other a figure called "old Nick", by whom the appellation was given by the English, as a kind of loan demon from Germanic cultures.
More interestingly is the article's tenuous link between comparing the old folk figures of the nicors, and the Old Nick that is called by way of referring to the Devil. Now, why is this interesting? Because originally, cultures that were originally polytheistic often considered these water demons as kinds of vengeful gods, extremely malignant, and often considered a kind of analog for the Judeo Christian Devil, especially since these water demons required human sacrifices to be sated.
Here's a few pieces from the article.
" I'd like to assume that Old Nick is the initial name as long as Old Harry can't be connected with a different demon creature. The third name Davy only seemed to be chosen to cover the word devil up, which is why overanxious minds precautionally added Jones just to make sure.
Sea monsters, that would turn into the devil, may be relieved by one of the symbolic tales of „Bestiary“. (ca. 1350)"
"If we now dismiss Old Nick and his suspected ancestors, another question raises: „What does the metal Nickel have to do with evil ghosts or even with the old good Nicholas? As unlikely as it may sound, the old metal Nickel has indeed shared the same fate like the English namesake."
I mentioned before that I grew up near Smith's Mills, the town in northern NY that the researchers from the previous project did their study on. Growing up, I did hear a good deal about "Old Nick," which until recently I had no idea had such links to these water demon figures. So there's a pretty strong linguistic and cultural current of this kind of figure, and I guess it further cements this Man in the Wood's motivations.
Also, "Old Nick" links, to some degree, with a reference I found in the manuscript from previous research. They mentioned a figure of the Demon Lover. I'll need to look into that.
Phone
Finally, I will be looking at the pictures and videos on my phone tonight. I'm really not sure how much of it, if any, will be relevant. And to be honest, I'm a little... ashamed. Probably some of these will be me acting weird because of my medical condition, and I don't much like exposing that part of myself.
Hopefully old saint Nick isn't related to this old Nick.
ReplyDeleteWhen you look at lot of mythologies you find that a massive amount have a "devil" or "demon" type, i'm a little rusty on mythology so I can't give you many examples, but it's something I found interesting.
Wow, it's bizarre that you mention that. Part of what I excluded from the update was in fact a reference to Old Saint Nick. Apparently, in older times, Saint Nick was not just a jolly old man who gave treats to children, but was in fact almost something of a goblin figure who rewarded good children and punished wicked children.
DeleteDifferent European cultures later separated the sides of this somewhat bipolar Santa, creating the good Saint Nick, and an attached figure whose job it was to punish the children. I learned about him as "Black Peter" as a child,but different cultures name him differently.
Here's the extract I managed to get translated from the German article:
"Since the forename Nikolaus was too long for daily use, two short forms were created depending on emphasis – Klaus and Nickel. The first familiar form is known to us as the name of the friend of children - Santa Claus."