Asrai Part Two #BritishFolklore #HazardousToYourSanity
This is Part Two of a series on British Folklore and Superstition, with a focus on how it could be used in writing as well as some of the quirks.
I was looking through the list of legendary
creatures on Wikipedia (which I recommend for any writer with any sort of
supernatural connection) and I saw the entry about the Asrai. They are described
as creatures of water, like an aquatic fairy, ancient and wise, and as being
pale and gentle. The old fairy stories have the Fair Folk wading through rivers
of blood so that seems a little unlikely, but I suppose that it’s possible.
Folklore is a funny thing. My mother was
possibly the most superstitious person in the world ever and I never
heard anything about the Asrai, described as being from Cheshire and
Shropshire. I grew up in Cheshire, though possibly the wrong part of Cheshire
and this was something completely new to me. The entry also referred to Bala Lake,
or Llyn Tegid, which is as full of folklore as it is of water and includes a
mysterious monster and a drowned town.
The story on Wikipedia sounded so sad. A
fisherman caught an Asrai which pleaded for its life in a foreign language. The
fisherman covered it with seaweed and its voice grew fainter and fainter as the
creature melted away in the sunlight until there was just a puddle of water. It
was such a vivid image, but I couldn’t think of anything like it in my
childhood. Then I remembered Jinny Greenteeth. I suspect that the Asrai are the
polite Victorian version of the stories that went around the playground.
Jinny Greenteeth was a monster, a creature
that lurked in ponds and canals, lurking underneath the algae covered water. We
were all warned that if we got too close to those green covered waters then Jinny
Greenteeth would grab us and pull us under the water to drown. I heard a few
different versions, many of them involving cousins or distant friends of the
storyteller. The stories were gruesome, vivid and as good a way as any of
keeping young kids away from weed-strangled water as any. When I had a quick
check for Jinny Greenteeth, her geographical range covered Cheshire and
Shropshire as well as Liverpool and Lancashire.
My mind has a habit of wandering away
without adult supervision, and I started thinking about the Asrai and Jinny
Greenteeth being the same. When you think about people in general, they come in
all sorts of personalities. You can have awful, dreadful dictators and serial
killers who are the same species, the same type of creature as Bob Ross or
Mister Rogers. Perhaps the Jinny Greenteeth is the Asrai version of Ted Bundy
or the Yorkshire Ripper. Would there be Asrai tasked to deal with the rogues?
Would there be Jinny Greenteeth that realised the error of their ways and
wanted to turn away from their murderous path? Would former comrades in the
water suddenly become bitter enemies? Would mortals be asked to intervene in
deadly battles?
