#the coal

[holy-coal]

Playing around with a brush I found, drew my main character

[foodandfolklore]

The Straw, the Coal and the Bean

The Brother's Grimm are probably the most well known authors when it comes to vintage fairy tales. However, what a lot of people don't know is a lot of their stories are not originals. Not exactly. Many of their stories are reinterpretations or retellings of old folk stories THEY heard. Which is why stories like this one, retold by the Brother's Grimm but seems to remain mostly untouched by Christianization, I find especially interesting.

The story of The Straw, the Coal, and the Bean is meant to give some explanation as to why beans always have a little seam. The type of bean is not mentioned, and Old Illustrations show bean variations from Green Bean to Kidney bean to Lima bean and more. Kitchen Witchcraft correlates all general beans with: Family, Harmony, Protection, Reconciliation, Co-operation, Wisdom, Luck, Money, Divination, and Prosperity. Perhaps this Fairy Tale/Folktale can give some insight as to why.

In a village lived a poor old woman, who had gathered together a dish of beans and wanted to cook them. So she made a fire on her hearth, and that it might burn the quicker, she lighted it with a handful of straw. When she was emptying the beans into the pan, one dropped without her seeing it, and lay on the ground beside a straw, and soon afterwards a burning coal from the fire leapt down to the two.

Then the straw began and said:

‘Dear friends, where do you come from?’

The coal replied:

‘I fortunately sprang out of the fire, and if I had not escaped by sheer force, my death would have been certain,—I should have been burnt to ashes.’

The bean said:

‘I too have escaped with a whole skin, but if the old woman had got me into the pan, I should have been made into broth without any mercy, like my comrades.’

‘And would a better fate have befallen me?’ said the straw. ‘The old woman has destroyed all my brothers and sisters in fire and smoke; she seized sixty of them at once, and took their lives. I luckily slipped through her fingers.’

‘But what are we to do now?’ said the coal.

‘I think,’ answered the bean, ‘that as we have so fortunately escaped death, we should keep together as good friends, and because a new trouble might find us here, we should go away together to a foreign country.’

The idea pleased the two others, and they set out on their way together. Soon, however, they came to a little brook, and as there was no bridge or foot-plank, they did not know how they were to get over it.

The straw hit on a good idea, and said:

‘I will lay myself straight across, and then you can walk over on me as on a bridge.’

The straw therefore stretched itself from one bank to the other, and the coal, who was brave, but still glowing from the fire, tripped quite boldly on to the newly-built bridge. But when she had reached the middle, and heard the water rushing beneath her, she was after all, afraid, and stood still, and ventured no farther.

The straw, however, began to burn, broke in two pieces, and fell into the stream. The coal slipped after her, hissed when she got into the water, and breathed her last.

The bean, who had prudently stayed behind on the shore, could not but laugh at the event, was unable to stop, and laughed so heartily that she burst.

It would have been all over with her, likewise, if, by good fortune, a tailor who was travelling in search of work, had not sat down to rest by the brook. As he had a compassionate heart he pulled out his needle and thread, and sewed her together. The bean thanked him most prettily, but as the tailor used black thread, all beans since then have a black seam.

[lovelikesleeptothefreezing]

Got to see Leprous on Sunday in Boston, absolutely incredible. His voice (Einar Solberg in the middle) is exactly as incredible in person as it is in the studio.

[raven-lyn]

Hey, what exactly is Callie if she isnt human? And dont say witch!! Plz… :(

Hm. Well I'd Say Lich But I Don't Think She's Undead Enough To Qualify. Your Closest Description Would Likely Be Witch Or Simply Unhuman. Either Way Her Soul Is Someplace Else And It Keeps Her Immortal, So Practically A Lich Without The Negatives Of Being Undead. The Coal Likes To Call Her "Lich-ish" Or "Lichy".

[grandpastyles]

Kalaf Angelo by Matthew Pandolfe for GRANDPASTYLE.com styling by Ashley Owens 

[bravethisstorm]

Me and Einar Solberg (Leprous) few days ago