Here by Glimpses Known - Village Kitsch/Village...Witch?

[wayfaringwordhack]

I have started assembling photos from around Menetreol to give you an idea of what a typical village in the area looks like, but I don't have enough that please me yet. I don't typically take such pictures.  Anyhow, in the meantime, something related.

Two very different looks at our little village by the canal:

I think my belief in the ferocity of the dogs would be helped if the sign was not bright fuscia and the lettering not quite so elegant. :P Sadly, I did not have room to fit in the photo of Christmas decorations. One of the things that drove me mad about France when I first arrived was seeing Christmas decorations well in to March, and I'm not talking about just on homes but in businesses. I don't need to see Santa hanging from a bakery roof in April, thank you very much.

On a creepier note:

 

I took these photos just after reading asakiyume 's post mentioning spells and hoodoo.  The top left photo shows bones embedded in the sides of a stone garage, presumably for hanging things on. The bottom left is, yes, a goat's foot next to rusted bolts and a Heineken bottle. The whole is sitting on the windowsill of an abandoned house.  And the last is a sheep or goat's skull on an attic window. I am not, of course, on a witch hunt. That would not be funny, because...

Coincidentally, last night in the news, there was a story about the alarming number of women who are killed in our day and age for being witches. The story concentrated on Assam,  India, but I'm sure it happens elsewhere, too.  My news was in French, but here is a link to a video about a woman fighting the persecution (The same woman was interviewed on the French news and gave land coveting as a reason widows are often branded witches after their husbands die; perfect excuse for for a greedy someone to get their paws on the widow's land). But women are not the only victims, as this article shows.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I remember hearing that accusations of witchcraft were common in South Africa.

...Yeah, it's a truly nasty trait: labeling people as supernatural bad guys. It can be because you want a scapegoat to blame your bad luck on (my two children died and my crops failed two years in a row--it must be a witch, and old so-and-so has always looked at me sourly, so it must be him/her), or it could be because someone is odd in some way (mentally deficient, crippled, or just old), or it could be because you have a greedy ulterior motive, like wanting their property. Horrible, no matter how you slice it.

(Your photos are fascinating, by the way!)

[pjthompson]

Land coveting was behind the Salem witch trials, too. Alas, nothing changes.

Some day I'll have to post pictures of my bone sculptures. :-) Once when I showed them to an Evangelical friend she told me they were the perfect habitat for demons. :-) :-)

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

I'm waiting on these photos. :D

And what a thing for someone to say...or to think. :P

[pjthompson]

I'm waiting on these photos. :D

Must take photos. First, must find sculptures packed in anonymous boxes in the garage...

And what a thing for someone to say...or to think. :P

It's not at all uncommon in that mindset. Those demons are probably pretty mad at being packed away for five years. 0:-)