Apparently it began with bad vibrations from the high-voltage power pylons.Nutcases appealing to the authority of their invisible sky-fairies for the hatred they preached received an audience rather than the ridicule they deserved. Religious minorities became figures of fear and hostility.
Infrastructure crumbled or was destroyed in a mass frenzy of vandalism.
Anyone with scientific or even basic blacksmithing skills soon learned to hide them, and not to use trigger words like "tractor".
The outside world looked on, unable to intervene, for whenever emissaries were sent they succumbed to the same reversion to a Dark Ages mentality.
Eventually the source of the magical-thinking contagion was traced to Merlin the Magician,* roused from his enchanted slumber by a radical ecologist who had addicted him to morphine and was keeping him in a waking dream of bucolic nostalgia. Merlin went 
Fortunately there is no danger of the same thing happening in the US, in the absence of any folklore traditions of a culture hero lying in supernatural sleep beneath the mountain until the time of greatest need, who might be roused by mistake.* There was a time when the Merlin trope made life much easier for English fantasy writers who wanted to express their resentment of modernity and their yearning for a redeemer who will wash away the dark satanic mills of civilisation (e.g. White, 1941; Lewis, 1945).
13 comments:
...in the absence of any folklore traditions of a culture hero lying in supernatural sleep until the time of greatest need.
Ahem, he ahemmed.
~
[i]Her most notable part (then credited as "Vicky Williams") was that of Nicky Gore,in the 1975 adaptation of Peter Dickinson's The Changes...However, she was one of the two human stars of the Children's ITV series, The Riddlers, about 2 puppets who lived in her garden, which ran from 1989 - 1998.[/i]
Always with the boasting! We were the fecking stars of that show. Blood, we sweated for that programme. Lived in the bleeding garden. Did we get any BAFTA awards? Did we, buggery! What does the wikipedia entry for us say "Puppets in the children's show The Riddlers".
Bastards.
I hope that it's Ok that I was laughing at this post. I rarely really know what's going on-especially in blogs where the author is CLEARLY much smarter than I.
I found it very amusing. ;P
((Hugs))
Laura
folklore traditions of a culture hero lying in supernatural sleep until the time of greatest need.
I can add a picture of Lincoln's tomb if you like.
We aims to amuse, Laura, though missing frequently.
Rip van Winkle woke up when he noticed he was out of Cheetos and Mountain Dew.
~
...in the absence of any folklore traditions of a culture hero lying in supernatural sleep until the time of greatest need.
We do have a tradition of drunken New Yorkers of Dutch ancestry falling asleep until the time of greatest beard-length.
DAMMIT THUNDER!
Eventually the source of the magical-thinking contagion was traced to Merlin the Magician,* roused from his enchanted slumber by a radical ecologist who had addicted him to morphine and was keeping him in a waking dream of bucolic nostalgia
A dream to some, a nightmare to others!!!
in the absence of any folklore traditions of a culture hero lying in supernatural sleep until the time of greatest need
AHEM!
Rip van Winkle woke up when he noticed he was out of Cheetos and Mountain Dew.
~
I am surprised that Rip never wrote a DoD post for 3Bs... but then neither has thudner... coincidence???
AHEM also too.
UPDATED with Bonus culture hero slumbering beneath the mountain.
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