Reading Notes: Folklore of the Holy Land
I love the idea of Allah creating a pen and writing the world into existence until the ink runs dry. It's a beautiful image, and offers a future apocalypse of color and contrast draining out of existence. An artistic armageddon.
The first woman, Lillith, is described as having separated out from Adam's body after both dwelling together peacefully. Her refusal to worship and bow to him earned banishment... and that brings us to the regrettable explanation of the three types of women in the world.
Nephilim and Sons of Anak are a little spooky, but what a great concept for a story. If human-angel hybrids populated the earth, what happened to their descendents? Could dilute remnants of angel physiology still exist within the gene pool, and what talents, prodigies, or supernatural abilities could be possible? What if it is just a recessive trait? Giants figure largely into many cultures, but that's only one example of these "sons of god" and "daughters of men" hybrids.
The Fall of the Rebel Angels, Hieronymous Bosch (c. 1508 CE)
Surgery, and the crab attached to the heart. That feels like a Poe story to me, and could be a fun autopsy report in a morgue in Victorian-era London. How did that crab get there? Could there be more in other people? Are they contagious? A scourge of chest-nesting crabs could plague the unfortunates near the Thames river.
Gnat to the brain! Another animal/human body invasion. This could even tie into the crab story idea, what if they only colonize in individuals carrying antibodies for gnat disease? It could be a complex life cycle for a microbe, like the relationship in wild deer, ticks, and humans in lyme disease. Alternatively, carrying a parasite or trapped insect around for years inside the brain would have to bring some side effects. Just the noise of buzzing wings can drive some people crazy; imagine how awful that would be right next to the eardrums! Or how terrible for others to never hear the noises.
Bibliography
Folk-lore of the Holy Land: Moslem, Christian and Jewish by J. E. Hanauer (1907).
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