Witches.
The word just oozes Halloween.
For a long time, I actually wanted to avoid anything even resembling a witch. Too NORMAL, too BORING.
Say ‘Witch’, and it conjures images of a green faced hag standing over a cauldron tossing in eye of newt to come up with some spell that’ll consume children’s souls.
Thank you Wizard of Oz…
More than a year ago, however, I came across a barrel alongside the road. Fallen off of some passing truck. A roughly 80 gallon plastic barrel (it lists liters on the side). It just screamed ‘turn me into a cauldron!’
Now, sure, I could have a cauldron for our setup to cook some cannibal stew. But, one can’t look at a cauldron and not think of “witch”. In fact, I even presented a (boring and conventional) witch theme as an option for the school fundraiser.
But, if I was going to even THINK of doing witches for our yard, it was SURE going to be something DIFFERENT.
The Norn
The first thing in my mind came the Graeae.
The gray witches of Greek Mythology. Most notably, the story of Perseus, who stole their shared eye to ransom it for knowledge. Depicted in Clash of the Titans quite remarkably.
Cave full of bones, put with cannibal stew boiling, 3 witches closing in.
Or, better yet, drawing from MacBeth.
Specifically, Orson Wells version…
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| From Halloween buildup 09 |
But, in reading up on this, I came across the Norn.
Here we were presented with many witches. Arriving at childbirth to set the fate of the child. They were both malevolent and benevolent. Their arrival ended the bliss of the gods, yet at the same time, they watch over man.
Daughters of gods, elves, Jotun, and man. They are argued to play the role both of selecting the fate at birth, and of the role of the valkyries, selecting the honored dead.
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| From Halloween buildup 09 |
So, the original plan was going with a Norn/Fate/MacBeth style scene. Problem being, it was fairly small in nature, so it wouldn’t fill my entire needs, and it didn’t really fit in with my other stuff anywhere.
So, I kept searching…