I Might Believe in Faeries

“Master Nathaniel Chanticleer, the actual head of the family, was a typical Dorimarite in appearance; rotund, rubicund, red-haired, with hazel eyes in which the jokes, before he uttered them, twinkled like a trout in a burn.”I am joined by Carla Arnell, Professor of English at Lake Forest College, to discuss the almost unknown fantasy novel, Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees. We discuss the plot of the book, the characters and the Catholic sacramental themes that permeate the novel. Neither of us are kidding when we say this is one of our top favorite fantasy novels of all time. Professor Arnell wrote a paper on Lud titled, Lud-in-the-Mist as Memento Mori: Existential Anxiety and the Consolations of an Aesthetic Theology in Hope Mirrlees’s Fantasy Novel. Professor Arnell’s faculty page: https://www.lakeforest.edu/academics/faculty/arnell Divine Representations: The Rise of the Mystical Novel in Twentieth-Century England https://sunypress.edu/Books/D/Divine-Representations *************************************************************************************************************Follow me on Twitter @AaronIrberSubscribe to my YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@imightbelieveinfaeries7563Subscribe to my Substack - for updates on the show, essays, and more!Donate to my Patreon - I Might Believe in Faeries https://www.patreon.com/imightbelieveinfaeriesLike my Facebook page - I Might Believe in FaeriesBattle Of The Creek by Alexander Nakarada | https://www.serpentsoundstudios.comMusic promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.comAttribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Logo Art by Linnea KisbyThis podcast and its content may not be used for training and developing A.I. systems without permission. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aaronirber.substack.com/subscribe

A lot of ink has been spilled over the Catholic and religious underpinnings of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Pretty much everyone knows this by now, but very few have probed the depths of how the liturgy and the Catholic Mass influenced the very foundation of Middle Earth. In this episode, Professor Ben Reinhard joins the show to explore Tolkien’s deep liturgical roots in his book, The High Hallow: Tolkien’s Liturgical Imagination. We also discuss how to initiate a hobbit into true religion! You just need Elves and the oldest song-slinging being in Middle Earth (Tom). The High Hallow: https://stpaulcenter.com/store/the-high-hallow-tolkiens-liturgical-imagination *************************************************************************************************************Follow me on Twitter @AaronIrberSubscribe to my YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@imightbelieveinfaeries7563Subscribe to my Substack - for updates on the show, essays, and more!Donate to my Patreon - I Might Believe in Faeries https://www.patreon.com/imightbelieveinfaeriesLike my Facebook page - I Might Believe in FaeriesBattle Of The Creek by Alexander Nakarada | https://www.serpentsoundstudios.comMusic promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.comAttribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Logo Art by Linnea KisbyThis podcast and its content may not be used for training and developing A.I. systems without permission. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aaronirber.substack.com/subscribe

*This episode contains content that may not be suitable for children.Essayist, poet, and playwright, Jane Scharl returns to the show to discuss her new play, The Death of Rabelais. This is the second in a loose trilogy featuring France’s infamous humanist and humorist, François Rabelais. In this play, Rabelais finds himself lost in a snow storm on the Eve of Epiphany only to find that Death awaits him. We discuss the play and the different approaches artists and critics take when discerning the different levels of meaning in a work of literature. Jane Scharl’s website: https://jcscharl.com/Substack: J.C. Scharl Wiseblood Books Link: https://www.wisebloodbooks.com/store/p169/The_Death_of_Rabelais%3A_A_Play%2C_Jane_Clark_Scharl.html *************************************************************************************************************Follow me on Twitter @AaronIrberSubscribe to my YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@imightbelieveinfaeries7563Subscribe to my Substack - for updates on the show, essays, and more!Donate to my Patreon - I Might Believe in Faeries https://www.patreon.com/imightbelieveinfaeriesLike my Facebook page - I Might Believe in FaeriesBattle Of The Creek by Alexander Nakarada | https://www.serpentsoundstudios.comMusic promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.comAttribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Logo Art by Linnea Kisby************************************************************************************************************* This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aaronirber.substack.com/subscribe

It is spooky season when the veil between the material and spiritual worlds becomes thin. Halloween is right around the corner and monsters prowl about the edge of society often taking the forms of something either enticing or frightening. Church music plays backwards and carnivals arrive at 3:00 AM. In this episode of IMBIF, I discuss Ray Bradbury’s classic horror story, Something Wicked This Way Comes, with Brad Birzer and Thomas Salerno. A dark carnival arrives at a small midwestern town and two teenage boys are faced with it’s terrors and temptations. We talk about Bradbury’s beliefs, the nature of the carnival, of fatherhood, and of friendship. Is this a Christian book? What is Mr. Dark? Is he human or something else? What is it about Bradbury’s fiction that is so compelling even if we don’t share his worldview? All this and more in this exiting episode. Brad Birzer can be found on Twitter.com at @bradleybirzer and his website is: https://spiritofcecilia.com/Thomas Salerno can be found on Twitter.com at @Salerno_Thomas and his books can be found here: https://bookstore.wordonfire.org/products/riddle-of-the-tongue-stones*************************************************************************************************************Follow me on Twitter @AaronIrberSubscribe to my YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@imightbelieveinfaeries7563Subscribe to my Substack - for updates on the show, essays, and more!Donate to my Patreon - I Might Believe in Faeries https://www.patreon.com/imightbelieveinfaeriesLike my Facebook page - I Might Believe in FaeriesBattle Of The Creek by Alexander Nakarada | https://www.serpentsoundstudios.comMusic promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.comAttribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Logo Art by Linnea Kisby************************************************************************************************************* This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aaronirber.substack.com/subscribe

Last month, I was a guest on iSamwise’s YouTube channel and we discussed, you guessed it, Tim Powers! Check it out! iSamwise kindly shared his audio file with me so I could share it with all of you. Link to iSamwise’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@iSamwise *************************************************************************************************************Follow me on Twitter @AaronIrberSubscribe to my YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@imightbelieveinfaeries7563Subscribe to my Substack - for updates on the show, essays, and more!Donate to my Patreon - I Might Believe in Faeries https://www.patreon.com/imightbelieveinfaeriesLike my Facebook page - I Might Believe in Faeries This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aaronirber.substack.com/subscribe