Old Woman Plague and the Black Death
Jun. 14th, 2007 10:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baleanopteraI have done a post about some of these images before, but the whole Death-theme over at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
told_tales gave it new relevance. So I've added lots more images, and some text which ended up expanding the post quite a bit.
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In Norway there are many legends and stories about the Black Death. They all usually start with: "The Black Death came to Norway in 1348, and when it left there was hardly a person alive"
My favourite story was the one later illustrated by Theodore Kittelsen, and it goes something like this; During the Black Death the plague took the shape of an old woman, who hobbled from village to village, farm to farm. She’d be in old, raggedy clothes and carried a rake and a broom. If you saw her use the rake that meant that some of the people in the area would die. If she used the broom then everyone, yourself included, would be swept away.
The old woman was called Plague or Old Woman Plague. She smelled of death, dust and nothingness.
The title of this painting is "Mother, there is an old woman coming" - and for me at least that title makes the images even worse.
Old Woman Plague would sweep each nook and corner. She was practical and patience.
You could not hide....
Where she was finished there was nothing left except desolation...
..despair...
...death...
..and deserted farms. This shows the tree that would be planted before the main house on all Norwegian farms. The tree was usually taken as a sign of how the farm was doing. A large and green tree meant a prosperous farm. Here the tree is dark and the nest amongst its branches is abandoned.
In some placed the death toll was so high that whole communities were wiped out. This image is called "The Old Church". Its based on a story of a hunter, a hundred years after the plague, and how he was deep in forest hunting. He fired a shot and a strange clang was heard - as if he had hit metal. He went to investigate and it turned out he had shot the church bell of an old church whose community had all been wiped out by the plague. So many people had died that everyone had simply forgotten the place.
He went into the church and there before the altar was a sleeping bear - and that is what is shown in this painting. The bear attacked but the hunter managed to kill it.
Later the hunter got the nearest priest to re-open the church. And the bear? Its skin was hung on the wall near the alter - it's still there today.
Such was the trail left by Old Woman Plague.
She came to a country filled with people, and left a desolate place where nature had retaken the land. This shows a Capercallie, which is known in Norwegian as a Tiur or a 'trollbird'. It was said to be represent the trolls and hags, and those that dwelt below.
Kittelsen used the bird to symbolise the darkness and uncertainty of the land after the plague.
There was nothing you could do against Old Woman Plague. You could not barter, you could not beg - you could just hope that someday she would leave....
cross-posted totold_tales
told_tales gave it new relevance. So I've added lots more images, and some text which ended up expanding the post quite a bit.In Norway there are many legends and stories about the Black Death. They all usually start with: "The Black Death came to Norway in 1348, and when it left there was hardly a person alive"
My favourite story was the one later illustrated by Theodore Kittelsen, and it goes something like this; During the Black Death the plague took the shape of an old woman, who hobbled from village to village, farm to farm. She’d be in old, raggedy clothes and carried a rake and a broom. If you saw her use the rake that meant that some of the people in the area would die. If she used the broom then everyone, yourself included, would be swept away.
The old woman was called Plague or Old Woman Plague. She smelled of death, dust and nothingness.
The title of this painting is "Mother, there is an old woman coming" - and for me at least that title makes the images even worse.
Old Woman Plague would sweep each nook and corner. She was practical and patience.
You could not hide....
Where she was finished there was nothing left except desolation...
..despair...
...death...
..and deserted farms. This shows the tree that would be planted before the main house on all Norwegian farms. The tree was usually taken as a sign of how the farm was doing. A large and green tree meant a prosperous farm. Here the tree is dark and the nest amongst its branches is abandoned.
In some placed the death toll was so high that whole communities were wiped out. This image is called "The Old Church". Its based on a story of a hunter, a hundred years after the plague, and how he was deep in forest hunting. He fired a shot and a strange clang was heard - as if he had hit metal. He went to investigate and it turned out he had shot the church bell of an old church whose community had all been wiped out by the plague. So many people had died that everyone had simply forgotten the place.
He went into the church and there before the altar was a sleeping bear - and that is what is shown in this painting. The bear attacked but the hunter managed to kill it.
Later the hunter got the nearest priest to re-open the church. And the bear? Its skin was hung on the wall near the alter - it's still there today.
Such was the trail left by Old Woman Plague.
She came to a country filled with people, and left a desolate place where nature had retaken the land. This shows a Capercallie, which is known in Norwegian as a Tiur or a 'trollbird'. It was said to be represent the trolls and hags, and those that dwelt below.
Kittelsen used the bird to symbolise the darkness and uncertainty of the land after the plague.
There was nothing you could do against Old Woman Plague. You could not barter, you could not beg - you could just hope that someday she would leave....
cross-posted to
told_tales
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no subject
Date: 2007-06-14 09:20 pm (UTC)Especially like the skull in the bed, with mice (cockroaches?) swarming over it. In horror movies I always love the grisly aftermath, and the thoughts of what might have happened.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-15 05:19 pm (UTC)The viewer has to peer into the pictures to make sense of them. That makes them actively involving.
In all the pictures the subject is far away, and often partially obscured. Sometimes they have their back to the viewer and are moving away, begging to be followed.
And the lovely sketchy drawing style is vague and diffuse, so you have to squint and, again, peer into the picture to try to make it clear. But it never becomes clear.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-15 07:33 pm (UTC)I've pondered this myself. I think your point about them being actively involving is a good one. As is the one with the sketchy drawing style. The details are only hinted at, but never truly revealed. That's slightly unnerving.
Also I think the lack of people to identify with is important. In most of the pictures there is no depicted character to work as an internal viewer of the scene the image presents. I mean there is no character in the foreground to work as a focal point in the image.
Instead the image is presented as we, the external viewer, would see it if we were present at the scene. That makes us participate more in the scene shown - it becomes our view, our eyes that see - than if there had been a character in the foreground. Then we would have viewed him viewing, and he would have worked as a buffer so to speak, shielding us and distancing us from the creepy landscape of the image.
( I would not count Old Woman Plague as such a character - simply because when she is in the foreground of the image she is looking out of it, and her direct glare does more to draw the viewer in than to work as said buffer. A point could also be made that when Plague is looking directly at us she is breaking the fourth wall, and that makes the images even creepier.)
In part the composition of some of the images make me think of old photos. When Kittelsen cuts trees and rocks with his composition he is in a way mimicking the snap shot effect that a camera has. His compositions only show you a little glimpse of the scene, and that makes you wonder what is outside the frame. What else is going on that we are not seeing? And considering the creepy motif of the paintings, then not having the full view and scope of the scene is slightly disconcerting.
There is also something with the images that make me think of eerie silence - but alas I cannot quite put my finger on what it is.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-15 07:41 pm (UTC)yes, I think that's very well put. Some of these images give me the feeling like I am being watch instead of me watching. Its very uncomfortable.
And I think their mice actually. Our cockroaches are rather small, and these look more mice-sized.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-25 01:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-25 03:23 pm (UTC)(and I might just snag a few for myself.)
no subject
Date: 2007-08-25 05:22 pm (UTC)Another resonant thing about these pictures is how hunched over and decrepit Old Woman Plague is. She's obviously moving really slowly. But you can't escape! Slow, creeping doom is the scariest kind of doom. Gives it that horror movie element.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-01 10:48 am (UTC)I had not thought about that - but you are right. The slowness does make it worse.
Also I love the icons. You've really managed to capture the feel of the images even while reducing them in size. Great work!
no subject
Date: 2007-09-01 01:06 pm (UTC)And those alexandral icons (http://alexandral.livejournal.com/140262.html) are great.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-08 07:54 pm (UTC)(It's odd about icons - but I do prefer mine without text and with as little use of filters as possible. And both you and