VILLAGE LIFE

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ZOE'S DIARY:

ROMANIA

Feb. 2016

The land is characterised by rolling hills, sectioned off by high, peaked mountains. The hill parts were all golden brown, the wheat having been cut last autumn, and all the fields were speckled with giant haystacks formed in the traditional manner: with a wooden peg at the centre, the hay fanning out and downwards from the middle so that the top is conical, making the stacks appear like small huts on a misty morning. Every village we drove through was unbelievably charming. A typical village would consist of fifty or so houses, painted in bright colours, with chickens roaming freely near the front entrance and at the back end there would be a section with a vegetable garden, a couple haystacks and sometimes a donkey. 

There are very few roads in Romania, but what roads there are are quite lively! It was common to come round a corner and see horses pulling carts, as so many of the locals still use this as their primary mode of transport. Sometimes the hay in the carts was stacked so high, it created an enormous mound... and sat there, right on top, leaning on his elbow and smoking, would be the cart driver. I remember quite vividly a scene in which a cart passed by us up a hill - the young man driving it was standing up and holding the reigns, the cart was positively flying, the horse was at full gallop, and the boy's face was so full of joy it made me smile to see it. 

All along the roadside there are creeping vines, grass tufts and bushes that promised to flower come spring. Romania, unlike so many western countries, does not have the money to spray its streets with pesticides, and a visitor may feel they are traveling through the most fertile of lands as a consequence - in all places, things are growing and sprouting quite beautifully. 

As we drove along, I saw so many things that caught my attention:

a woman washing her clothes in a fountain,

another pulling water from a well,

some carpets drying in the sun,

men riding rickety bicycles while holding small dogs,

an old man sitting in a beach chair at the side of the road watching the world go by,

a gypsy palace bedecked in gold and announced with lion statues...

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I really felt so much love for this place, and I hope one day to return in summer.

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NOSFERATU

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THE BOOK OF THE VAMPIRES

“ ...and it was in 1443 that the first Nosferatu was born.

That name rings like the cry of a bird of prey.
Never speak it aloud...

Men do not always recognize the dangers that beasts can sense at certain times.”

— NOSFERATU, 1922.

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DIARY OF ZOE ECCLES

Feb. 2016

Romania is a very different place. This much was clear even as we crossed the border. The roads changed and became a lot more bumpy, slowing our car to a low mumble, and the trees crowded in as the road narrowed, as if they wished to get a good look at us. The mist that had been so prevalent in Hungary thickened, then disappeared completely, revealing a landscape that rolled onwards to unseen mountains. I had a very distinct feeling wash over me when we crossed the border, and it lingered for a few hours afterwards. It was not unlike the after-effects of falling from a great height - when the bottom falls out of one's stomach; but take this and mix it with a blurry head as one feels upon waking from a deep dream, and you have the mysterious feeling I was overcome by. In hindsight, I can only attribute this to strange things; perhaps a shift in realities, as we crossed into a land of collective beliefs and superstitions. 

♱♱♱

I cannot say I was ill prepared for what was to come, as I had already heard so many tales of the place. Surprisingly, though, these tales were not of the folkloric kind, and did not touch on the subject of vampires or witches. No. These were modern day scary stories: of the mafia, and con men, and gypsies and dangerous people. 

When I was quite young, I remember listening to such tales, told at the dinner table by a well-meaning uncle, who had recently visited Romania. My mother, upon hearing such horrors, decided then-and-there that none of her children should ever visit Romania. I, being the rebellious child that I was, decided then-and-there that I must visit Romania.

♱♱♱

Before visiting Romania, I had come across this one profound question, the asking of which changed my life:

“Who are you, without all your fears?”

You see, I had grown up with many fears, and and a tonne of anxiety. Fears of doing the wrong thing, saying the wrong words, picking the wrong career path, not being good enough... Fears of certain foods, of health disorders, of becoming poor... Fears of irrational things, terrorist attacks, being murdered, becoming a victim of some kind...

All these fears knocking around in my head, and who would I be, without them?

It was an interesting question.

I held it in my mind, as we entered into that unknown, supposedly dangerous territory that is Romania.

♱♱♱

It is important to note that I was not without fear when we first began to explore this vast country... In fact, I was positively crippled by my anxiety surrounding the 'bad things that could happen to us.' I remember not wanting to leave our Airbnb one day, because I thought the small, creepy town we were staying in might be dangerous. Luckily, though, a chink of light showed through the dark veil of fear, and I decided to venture out, with Oliver by my side...

... Only to find that everything was quite peachy! Slowly, gradually, throughout our entire journey, my fears were alleviated and replaced with the honest truth of my own experience: that humans in Romania were, in fact, the same as any others. We were shown kindness after kindness! Some of them even became our friends, and joined us in our travels for a while, sharing their homes and food and beer.

Honestly, I should have been more worried about the vampires...

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ROMANIAN VAMPIRES

There was something... odd about the whole place.

Perhaps it was the fact that we had been reading Bram Stoker's Dracula, or perhaps it was the castle hallways - dark, brooding, and candle-lit with red carpets and dusty suits of armor that dated from the time of the first inhabitants. Or maybe it was the way that the local people kept telling us to keep the windows closed. Not just in houses, but in cars too...

Whatever it was, I began to feel like I didn't want the windows open, while we slept.

Intrigued by the subtle overtones of folkloric belief, I began to ask around, only to get a mixed response. Some people did not believe in such things at all, others went quiet. But a few of them spoke up, and began to tell me tales of their grandmother's time, when ghouls and the undead were not simply a thing of fairytales.

One night, driving under a pale milky-faced moon, I saw fires in the fields - little glimmers of light in the darkness.

And again, when we visited the graveyards, the candles were burning, with not a soul around, the snow softly falling.

The whole effect was quite eery, and I had some very strange dreams.

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““I want you to believe...

...To believe in things that you cannot. Let me illustrate. I heard once of an American who so defined faith, `that faculty which enables us to believe things which we know to be untrue.’ For one, I follow that man. He meant that we shall have an open mind, and not let a little bit of truth check the rush of the big truth, like a small rock does a railway truck. We get the small truth first. Good! We keep him, and we value him, but all the same we must not let him think himself all the truth in the universe.””

— VAN HELSING - DRACULA, by BRAM STOKER

LAKE HÉVÍZ

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LAKE HÉVÍZ

The lake was warm,
the waters constantly moving:
flowing from
left  to  right,
rising and falling.

At times there came a great swoop of cold that brushed my legs,

making me gasp,

before the soft sensation of warm silk replaced the prickling iceburn and all was forgotten.

Like Ophelia, happy and singing,
I swam among water lilies,

(unaware of all that lurked in the deeps,
trying not to think about mud creatures
of childhood night terrors.)

A dragonfly alighted in front of my vision
upon one lavender lily
stayed a brief moment
and left again.

The water felt silty, like soft sand
filtered
stardust,

fairy dust,

nymph dust.

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nymph

noun | nimf/

1. a mythological spirit of nature imagined as a beautiful maiden inhabiting rivers, woods, or other locations.

   synonyms: sprite, sylph, spirit

2. an immature form of an insect
   
   e.g., a dragonfly, mayfly, or locust.

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Dragonflies and Waterlilies

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The infant dragonfly, in its larval state, lives in the bottom of murky ponds, lakes and rivers. In this state, the young dragonfly is also known as a nymph - referencing those aquatic deities of ancient legend. The little nymph will remain in the water for many months, or even years...

Till, one day, when the weather is right and the nymph is ready, it crawls up the stem of a water-dwelling plant and sheds its skin, taking to the air to fly for the first time.

A fully grown dragonfly has long been a symbol of change, transcendence, wisdom, self realisation and enlightenment.

The waterlily begins its life in the mud.

As a rhizome, the waterlily's matrix of roots submerge themselves in the mud to absorb nutrients for the plant's survival and growth.

The leaves and flowers float on top of the water, allowing the aquatic plant the ability to pollinate and breath.

Water lilies are also known as nymphaea.

These flowers, like the lotus, are often seen as symbols of enlightenment, transcendence, rebirth, purity and potential.

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Both the dragonfly and the waterlily have long-held associations with the fairy realms.

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THE WITCH OF ATLAS

~ Extracts from a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley

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This Lady never slept, but lay in trance
All night within the fountain - as in sleep.

Its emerald crags glowed in her beauty's glance:
Through the green splendour of the water deep
She saw the constellations reel and dance
Like fireflies - and withal did ever keep
The tenor of her contemplations calm,
With open eyes, closed feet, and folded palm.

...☆...

Then by strange art she kneaded fire and snow
Together, tempering the repugnant mass
With liquid love--all things together grow
Through which the harmony of love can pass;
And a fair Shape out of her hands did flow--
A living image which did far surpass
In beauty that bright shape of vital stone
Which drew the heart out of Pygmalion.

...

From its smooth shoulders hung two rapid wings
Fit to have borne it to the seventh sphere,
Tipped with the speed of liquid lightenings,
Dyed in the ardours of the atmosphere.

She led her creature to the boiling springs
Where the light boat was moored, and said "Sit here,"
And pointed to the prow, and took her seat
Beside the rudder with opposing feet.

And down the streams which clove those mountains vast,
Around their inland islets, and amid
The panther-peopled forests (whose shade cast
Darkness and odors, and a pleasure hid
In melancholy gloom) the pinnace passed;
By many a star-surrounded pyramid
Of icy crag cleaving the purple sky,
And caverns yawning round unfathomably.

The silver noon into that winding dell,
With slanted gleam athwart the forest-tops,
Tempered like golden evening, feebly fell;
A green and glowing light, like that which drops
From folded lilies in which glow-worms dwell
When Earth over her face Night's mantle wraps;
Between the severed mountains lay on high,
Over the stream, a narrow rift of sky.

...☆...

And where within the surface of the river
The shadows of the massy temples lie,
And never are erased, but tremble ever
Like things which every cloud can doom to die,--
Through lotus-paven canals, and wheresoever
The works of man pierced that serenest sky
With tombs and towers and fanes, - 'twas her delight
To wander in the shadow of the night.

...☆...

She all those human figures breathing there
Beheld as living spirits.
To her eyes
The naked beauty of the soul lay bare,
And often through a rude and worn disguise
She saw the inner form most bright and fair:
And then she had a charm of strange device,
Which, murmured on mute lips with tender tone,
Could make that spirit mingle with her own.