Lady of Shallot

The Lady of Shallot has been one of my favorite songs since childhood. My mother read me this immortal poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson ever since I was but a wee lass. We were exuberant when Loreena McKinnet recorded this poem. Later, when she recorded Alfred Noyes' epic poem The Highwayman we wept at the sea with joy like two sentimental mermaids for a few weeks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0rVNQw1DQM

Tonight, I worked on an owl mask for Welsh Goddess Blodeuwedd who was made from flowers and shape-shifted into an owl to do her magic. In the Christianized myth, was created by two magicians from flowers to make a suitable wife for God Lleu.

Following a very busy week of angel readings...the house has been a hotbed of paranormal activity...I will be photographing Morgan La Faye, the powerful sorceress of Arthurian legend, who was predated by the Morrigan (the Goddess of battle, strife, and sovereignty), upon who the sorceress was based. Another Arthurian sorceress was Lady of the Lake who seduced Merlin, gave Arthur his sword Excalibur, and raised Lancelot. Is it possible that Ophelia from Shakespeare's Hamlet, from the very earliest part of the seventeenth century, who was believed by Hamlet's mother Gertrude to have slipped into a river by accident and by grave diggers to have committed suicide, was meant to evoke either Morrigan, Morgan La Fay or Lady of the Lake, or a composite of both, acting as a recognizable prototype for his female lead who lovelorn, replete with strife, and melancholy.

Or more probably is the Lady of Shallot, a Victorian literary work of Alfred Lord Tennyson who was based on Elaine of Astolat, reviving Ophelia? Elaine was another Arthurian woman who who had fallen hopelessly in love with Lancelot to whom he was indifferent, after which she dies of heartbreak in a boat and floats down a river to Camelot to the shore of King Arthur's court? Interesting, Ophelia and Hamlet are believed by some analysis to be lovers. When she picks flowers, the ones she say she will keep for herself are rue, which has been used to induce micarriage dating back to the Middle Ages. Perhaps, the following line about rue helping to be in God's grace on Sundays, refers to the power of the herb to alleviate any evidence of impropriety. Perhaps a motivation for taking her own life, after she feels she has been rebuked by a increasingly insane Hamlet.