I hope you’re all feeling well and are happy? If you’re not, please be sure to reach out to people and talk to them. I realise sometimes it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and alone but please know there are people you can talk to.
As part of my Wicked Watch series, I’ll be talking to you about the 2017 German film “Hagazussa” The film is set in the Alps during the 15th Century and follows Albrun, a goat-herder who is shunned by the people of the village.
Set in four acts, this is something of a slow burn film with subtitles, so if these elements aren’t your cup of tea, you may want to avoid it. But if you persist, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. It’s hard to talk about without giving away too much of the story, so instead I will warn you that there are some scenes viewers may find disturbing including rape, sexual abuse, sexual assault, infanticide and violence.
What makes this a great film is the dedicated and excellent performance by Aleksandra Cwen, who plays Albrun and the stunning visuals that lend to the gothic mood of this folklore type film. If you watched and enjoyed The VVitch, then this would be one I suggest you check out. An absorbing, unsettling and relatively hidden gem of a horror film.
It gets 4.5 skulls out of 5 from me.
Have you watched this? I’d love to hear your opinion, so why not comment below.
I hope you all had a wonderful break over the festive period? I also want to take this opportunity to say thank you to all those who have read and liked my blog so far, it’s not a large number, but I don’t mind as I’m reaching lovely people out there.
It’s been a while since I posted anything, so I thought I’d break my silence with a bit of an update. There’s been quite alot going on. I worked over most of Christmas and the New Year and only had a couple of days off and I ended up becoming a little run down. Mentally I didn’t feel I was in a good place. I was feeling very burntout and very low on motivation and energy.
I didn’t get any time off till the end of January, so my husband and I decided to and visit a friend in Aberdeen, Scotland. And we both fell in love with the place. The way of life was so much more peaceful, the air was clean and crisp and when we walked along the beach to visit the little village of Footdee, I realised that I felt at peace for the first time in a long time.
The Village of Footdee
It was on this trip that we decided we definitely wanted to move somewhere new and so we started putting plans into place. I tried to keep my job (a permanent staff position which is practically unheard of in my line of work) and see if they would allow me to commute back to the office base once a month for a few days, whilst working remotely the rest of the time. But sadly they couldn’t make it work. So I had to make a tough decision. I mean, leaving a permanent secure job, to move to Scotland is a big decision. But in the end the pros outweighed the cons.
Harder still was knowing we were going to be leaving behind family and friends. We’re both close to our family and knowing we weren’t going to be able to see them as often as we do was hard to deal with. But we were both really touched by their support. And already we’re making plans for visits with one another, lots of summer plans!
So, over the course of 3.5 weeks we packed up most of our belongings and donated them to charity, found new jobs and a place to live and said our “See you later” to our family and friends. There were tears, stress, early mornings followed by late nights…But there were moments of happiness too. Like spreading a duvet on the bedroom floor after getting rid of our bed and sitting cross legged eating chinese food. The string fairy lights giving this sense of serenity to a room cluttered with stacked up boxes and bags of clothes. As we sat and talked about our new future.
We took the seven hour drive two weeks ago, arriving at our cosy 1 bed flat just after midnight. By the time we unloaded it was 1am and after tea and coffee and some chatter we settled in bed just before 3am. The pair of us consumed by a deep, peaceful sleep that’s the result of a chaotic month!
Aberdeen Beach
I’m so excited to be living so close to the sea and being able to explore the Aberdeenshire countryside and there’s the added bonus of not being too far away from Edinburgh, a place in Scotland I have wanted to visit for years.
I feel happy and content…But also excited for this new chapter in my life.
Nice of you to join me again. I don’t know about you but I absolutely love this time of year because I feel it’s the perfect time to snuggle up with a good book. I know I’m not alone in thinking that at this time of year and the approach to All Hallow’s Eve, you can’t go wrong with a book that has a creepiness to it, or is just outright horror!
That’s why I recently settled down to read Earthlings by Sayaka Murata (author of the highly successful Convenience Store Woman) And this definitely has similar themes to those in Convenience Store Woman but it’s a lot more detailed and a lot more warped. It’s a classic example of a book cover being misleading. I mean look at the front…A cute little hedgehog? Yes please.
It’s one of those books, that’s hard to talk about, because it sounds crazy and also because the amount of things the book covers are disturbing. We’re talking rape, child abuse, incest, murder and cannibalism. It’s not the darkest thing I’ve read, but it’s definitely up there as one of my most uncomfortable reads.
That aside, it is really easy to fall into this story. Told from the perspective of Natsuki, who has always felt like an outsider, she tends to feel as though she doesn’t belong with her family and believes she must be a witch or an alien. It’s only her cousin Yuu who seems to understand her, and she only gets to see him once a year during the Summer, on the family trip to Nagano. However a series of events, mean the pair may never see each other again and so they make one last promise to each other, to survive, no matter what.
Natsuki, now fully grown and in an asexual marriage, enjoys a quiet life. But her family and society have other ideas, they wonder why she hasn’t had a child yet and Natsuki feels a familiar pressure weighing on her. In the hope that some time visiting Nagano might help, she sets off to the hills with her husband in tow and about reunited with her cousin Yuu. And it’s here that things get even weirder. Which is saying something, because there’s A LOT of weird and uncomfortable stuff before this.
It’s like reading a bad dream, a sense of unease and nausea fill you, but you keep on reading because in spite of some Natsuki’s faults and bad decisions, there’s also something loveable about her too. It’s a book that looks at the pressures of society and expectation of women to be mothers. It’s a book about people who choose to not walk the path set out for them in life. It’s about the victims who go ignored or don’t react the right way. It’s a lot and it’s hard but it’s worth it!
Dark, disturbing but insanely well written. Uncomfortable to read? Yes. But worth reading? Hell yes!
I’d love to know if anyone else has read this and what your thoughts are, so please comment below.
When you were a child, did you ever pretend you were invisible? As I mentioned in my last post, I thought closing my eyes and holding my breath would make me invisible to the lady in the black dress. But what would happen if you were really to vanish without a trace? You’re there one second and gone the next, but you had no memory of where you’d vanished to…Sound interesting?
Well then, you may enjoy House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland. It was one of my recent spooky reads and I have to say, I loved it…Devoured it. It follows the story of three sisters who, 10 years ago, vanished from an Edinburgh street on New Years Eve. Their parents Cate and Gabe frantically searched for their daughters, but there was no trace of them anywhere…Until, they reappeared in the same street a month later. Only this time, they were naked and had no memory of where they’d been.
House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland
When the sisters returned, their hair had turned white, their eyes black and they all had a strange crescent shaped scars on their necks. Pretty soon their father feels they’re not…right. The book gets even more interesting when, 10 years later, Grey (the eldest of the Hollow sisters) fails to meet up with her other two sisters Vivi and Iris. Worried, the girls go in search of Grey and find a trail of clues she’s left behind. All whilst being trailed by a mysterious man who wears the skull of a bull.
There are plenty of twists in this book that add to the air of mystery and there’s an almost ethereal quality to the world Krystal has created. It’s a perfect and easy spooky read for this time of year. If you’ve read the book, I’d love to hear your thoughts, so why not leave a comment below?!
If you’re worried about losing yourself, try black tourmaline to keep you feeling grounded.
I hope as you read this that it’s cold, windy and raining. Perhaps even the sound of a thunderstorm rolling overhead, as crackles of lightning flash across the sky. I’ve always been drawn to the elements, the changes in the seasons…The gift of each season as it transforms the world in front of us.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I love nothing more than watching the rain and the sound it makes against the window panes. Have you ever taken a moment to just stand outside in the rain, your head back and arms raised and enjoyed the feeling of it? There’s something quite liberating about it, that always makes me feel like I am connected to something bigger. That there’s something powerful within me that’s older than I am.
It may not surprise you that I study Witchcraft. From a young age I’ve always been drawn to crystals and have had a few encounters with spirits and, honest to Eve, a possession, through which I recalled names, places and memories from my Aunt’s past and dates of things that would occur in the future. Despite only having met her twice and her living in Japan until her untimely passing…So naturally, I am drawn to stories about witches.
I read alot of books to help me study my craft and gain a deeper understanding of my spiritual journey but I also like reading about witches in a fictional setting too. The Once and Future Witches by Alix E.Harrow is one I stumbled across and it didn’t disappoint.
The Once and Future Witches by Alix E.Harrow
Set in 1893 it follows the story of three sisters (the Eastwood sisters) who despite being estranged for many years, all find themselves in New Salem when a mysterious tower appears during a Suffrage rally. It reminds the sisters of their Grandma “Mags” and the stories she used to tell them. But were they just stories? Or carefully weaved yarns of truth and power?
Pretty soon, each of the sisters set out to restoring true power to women everywhere, by trying to salvage what is left of “the words” after the witch hunt that spread across Europe and America, burned most of it away. After all, all a witch truly needs is the words, the will and the way. The three sisters soon believe they could be descendants of the final three witches (The Maiden, The Mother and The Crone) and go on a journey of self discovery.
The book looks at issues of women’s rights, poverty, motherhood, same sex relationships and race. It’s almost uncomfortably jarring to read about issues women faced almost 130 years ago and know that women still struggle with some of the same issues today. Alix blends historical fiction, with recognisable fairy tales and adds in a layer of determination and fierceness that made me feel empowered. I devoured the book in days, I didn’t want it to end and loved the reference to actual tools and recipes used in witchcraft, dotted throughout the book.
It’s definitely worth a read and also a reminder that ALL women still have their lives ruled by men. And disgustingly and more increasingly, we are still seeing men making decisions about women bodies. We’re living in unpredictable, scary and often harrowing times and I think it’s important to remind women that feminism can’t exist unless it’s inter-sectional. We are all Sisters and when we work together, amazing things can happen. Change can happen.
So wear a carnelian stone for courage and don’t be afraid to use your voice and the power that you know you have within you.
☽ SpookyGee ☾ 