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barry_x's review
adventurous
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
This is probably my favourite issue of Hellebore to date, which has become essential reading for me in all things folk horror and the occult. The theme of this issue is 'Ritual' and of all the issues to date, this is the one where the pieces all seem to be quite tightly focussed to the theme.
There is also a sense of positivity in this issue, and a celebration of community and seeing as it is a Beltane issue there is a sense of welcoming the summer from perhaps the darkness of issues previously. I am mindful of it's release in 2022 and a sense that maybe we were (at least some of us) coming out of some of the more challenging aspects of living with covid-19. It's a celebration of the past, and also what binds us together, with at least some hope for the new dawn.
As always there are things Hellebore excels at - this includes an absolutely stunning art direction (that cover alone has had me singing, 'when the sun is rising' from a song called Ogre over and over again today). The articles are all quite short and accessible and fully referenced. There is always enough to get your teeth into without anything overstaying it's welcome. There is quite a tight editing control here (I think, I don't know much about editing!)
My highlights? Well - all of it really.
There is a tribute to a book called 'Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain' which is now fifty years old and what it means. There is a lovely exploration of the care and love in depicting Britain's folk traditions and also how, in the 1970's other folklorists and associated occultist people included their own submissions which may have been more fictional than anthropological or historical! It's a whole subject of discussion how interest in new age, spiritualism and occultism in the 1970's was reinvented and one thing folklore has taught me is that it is continuing to reinvent and reimagine the past.
Catherine Spooner has a brilliant piece about the 'May Queen' and how these virginal rituals and rites may not quite date to an ancient pastoral past, and how they may indeed reflect attitudes in the 19th century instead. It is still an evocative trope, the young woman in a white shift or dress, dancing around maypoles, adorned with flowers, who is both worshipped and sacrificed. It feels instinctively recognisable now, but again, 1970's cinema has perhaps as much as anything else contributed to this image (from 'The Wicker Man' to Angel Blake in 'The Blood on Satan's Claw'). The May Queen manages to reflect patriarchal values, manages to 'worship' the girl on the cusp of womanhood and yet she is still a symbol of power, of femininity, of fertility. She welcomes the sun, and yet can be viewed as a sacrifice. And yet, towns villages up and down the country have 'May Queen' contests which are altogether innocent and symbolise little more than a connection to an imagined past.
There is a short piece depicting unusual, yet ongoing folkloric rituals going on in the UK. Some of them I would absolutely love to see, and yet in another piece exploring the motifs of 'The Wicker Man' and the ritual dance in that film, there is a sense that these events are not for tourists, and instead are for the people who take part. Will walking seven miles hitting every inn in a town sipping whisky from a straw whilst covered from head to toe in burrs encourage a good harvest? Or is it just fun and something people connect to - and what happens when it is gone.
Clare Button's piece on folk dance and ritual is superb and addresses alongside a couple of other pieces the inherent 'whiteness' of ritual, and how folklorists and folk dancers have addressed gender and race to be more inclusive. The article is much deeper than that though and addresses what these dances and rituals mean, and how they have been attempted to have been co-opted by a vision of a 'nationalist, pastoral Britain' whilst at the same time how they are about community, togetherness and mean very different things for participants. This article intersects so well with the themes in other pieces, from the May Queen to Angeline Morrison's piece about finding her black ancestors in British folklore and how despite the evidence of their existence how they are also hidden.
Hannah Armstrong gives us a biographical piece about Jane Ellen Harrison, a classicist who explores the female divine in cultic ritual and how she managed to disrupt the patriarchal narrative, indeed, (in my words) killing Zeus!
Such a lovely issue - community, critique, exploring our past and our present and celebrating what ritual means to us. Awesome
There is also a sense of positivity in this issue, and a celebration of community and seeing as it is a Beltane issue there is a sense of welcoming the summer from perhaps the darkness of issues previously. I am mindful of it's release in 2022 and a sense that maybe we were (at least some of us) coming out of some of the more challenging aspects of living with covid-19. It's a celebration of the past, and also what binds us together, with at least some hope for the new dawn.
As always there are things Hellebore excels at - this includes an absolutely stunning art direction (that cover alone has had me singing, 'when the sun is rising' from a song called Ogre over and over again today). The articles are all quite short and accessible and fully referenced. There is always enough to get your teeth into without anything overstaying it's welcome. There is quite a tight editing control here (I think, I don't know much about editing!)
My highlights? Well - all of it really.
There is a tribute to a book called 'Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain' which is now fifty years old and what it means. There is a lovely exploration of the care and love in depicting Britain's folk traditions and also how, in the 1970's other folklorists and associated occultist people included their own submissions which may have been more fictional than anthropological or historical! It's a whole subject of discussion how interest in new age, spiritualism and occultism in the 1970's was reinvented and one thing folklore has taught me is that it is continuing to reinvent and reimagine the past.
Catherine Spooner has a brilliant piece about the 'May Queen' and how these virginal rituals and rites may not quite date to an ancient pastoral past, and how they may indeed reflect attitudes in the 19th century instead. It is still an evocative trope, the young woman in a white shift or dress, dancing around maypoles, adorned with flowers, who is both worshipped and sacrificed. It feels instinctively recognisable now, but again, 1970's cinema has perhaps as much as anything else contributed to this image (from 'The Wicker Man' to Angel Blake in 'The Blood on Satan's Claw'). The May Queen manages to reflect patriarchal values, manages to 'worship' the girl on the cusp of womanhood and yet she is still a symbol of power, of femininity, of fertility. She welcomes the sun, and yet can be viewed as a sacrifice. And yet, towns villages up and down the country have 'May Queen' contests which are altogether innocent and symbolise little more than a connection to an imagined past.
There is a short piece depicting unusual, yet ongoing folkloric rituals going on in the UK. Some of them I would absolutely love to see, and yet in another piece exploring the motifs of 'The Wicker Man' and the ritual dance in that film, there is a sense that these events are not for tourists, and instead are for the people who take part. Will walking seven miles hitting every inn in a town sipping whisky from a straw whilst covered from head to toe in burrs encourage a good harvest? Or is it just fun and something people connect to - and what happens when it is gone.
Clare Button's piece on folk dance and ritual is superb and addresses alongside a couple of other pieces the inherent 'whiteness' of ritual, and how folklorists and folk dancers have addressed gender and race to be more inclusive. The article is much deeper than that though and addresses what these dances and rituals mean, and how they have been attempted to have been co-opted by a vision of a 'nationalist, pastoral Britain' whilst at the same time how they are about community, togetherness and mean very different things for participants. This article intersects so well with the themes in other pieces, from the May Queen to Angeline Morrison's piece about finding her black ancestors in British folklore and how despite the evidence of their existence how they are also hidden.
Hannah Armstrong gives us a biographical piece about Jane Ellen Harrison, a classicist who explores the female divine in cultic ritual and how she managed to disrupt the patriarchal narrative, indeed, (in my words) killing Zeus!
Such a lovely issue - community, critique, exploring our past and our present and celebrating what ritual means to us. Awesome
arthurbdd's review
4.0
By this point, Hellebore have pretty much set out what they are and are continuing to offer their usual blend of folk horror and occulture more or less to the standards set by previous issues. Solid, but as always one could wish they trimmed back some of the terser articles and allowed the deeper articles to sprawl a bit more. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/2023/11/16/mini-review-hellebore-harvest/
bookishwondergoth's review
informative
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
Another interesting read from Hellebore. This issue was perhaps not my favourite as I hadn't seen or read any of the books or films around which the articles centred, so it was a bit harder for me to actually get the point of some of the articles. Beautiful illustrations, as always. I very much enjoyed the chapter about labyrinths.
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