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In which I ponder.
Jun. 12th, 2010 10:30 pmGolems seem to be the magical-thing-of-choice for Jewish wizards to come out with in fantasy novels; I assume that this is because fantasy writers with any knowledge of Judaism will have heard of the Golem of Prague. Fun* Fact: in the original story, the golem's task was to find and get rid of the corpses of Christian children, which Christians would plant in the ghetto as evidence of their accusations that Jews crucified Christian children and drank their blood.
I simply cannot see why this element of the narrative is not brought up more often! It seems perfectly appropriate to paranormal romances, given their fondness for mutilated children as plot devices.
This was not an irrational fear - there's a strong argument that it's exactly what happened in the Simon of Trent incident. One of my history professors complained that the incident wouldn't have made a good mystery novel, because it would've been immediately obvious that The Swissman had planted the body. (R. Po-chia Hsia seems to be betting the same way.) Planted evidence supporting spurious accusations of host desecration strikes me as being the more realistic fear for European Jews of the middle ages, given the much lower bar in coming up with the evidence; all you've got to do is burn some toast. But the lesser possibility of the dead child's body is much crueler, and so more arresting. It doesn't surprise me that this is what the golem story was about. I don't recall reading where the Christians were supposed to be getting these dead children; probably they came by them in the natural way, given the era's high rates of childhood mortality, but the story tends to leave it ominously unstated.
I bring this up because I'm arguing with myself about whether I want to include some of this stuff in my Project #3, which may involve some Jewish wizards who have made a golem; I apologize for my lack of originality. My other bit of writing-about-other-people's**-cultures anxiety for the day concerns a black kid who's a wizard's apprentice in the same story. It is of note that Project #3 does not take place on earth - all the cultures that show up therein, including the Jews with the golem, are fantasyland-ized. (Most of the Jews are elves. Shut up, it's fine.)
So this kid is a wizard's apprentice. ( Cut for length. )
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* Does anyone ever say "Fun Fact" unironically?
** I'm only Jewish in the sense that my last name aroused some comment when I was a kid.
I simply cannot see why this element of the narrative is not brought up more often! It seems perfectly appropriate to paranormal romances, given their fondness for mutilated children as plot devices.
This was not an irrational fear - there's a strong argument that it's exactly what happened in the Simon of Trent incident. One of my history professors complained that the incident wouldn't have made a good mystery novel, because it would've been immediately obvious that The Swissman had planted the body. (R. Po-chia Hsia seems to be betting the same way.) Planted evidence supporting spurious accusations of host desecration strikes me as being the more realistic fear for European Jews of the middle ages, given the much lower bar in coming up with the evidence; all you've got to do is burn some toast. But the lesser possibility of the dead child's body is much crueler, and so more arresting. It doesn't surprise me that this is what the golem story was about. I don't recall reading where the Christians were supposed to be getting these dead children; probably they came by them in the natural way, given the era's high rates of childhood mortality, but the story tends to leave it ominously unstated.
I bring this up because I'm arguing with myself about whether I want to include some of this stuff in my Project #3, which may involve some Jewish wizards who have made a golem; I apologize for my lack of originality. My other bit of writing-about-other-people's**-cultures anxiety for the day concerns a black kid who's a wizard's apprentice in the same story. It is of note that Project #3 does not take place on earth - all the cultures that show up therein, including the Jews with the golem, are fantasyland-ized. (Most of the Jews are elves. Shut up, it's fine.)
So this kid is a wizard's apprentice. ( Cut for length. )
-
* Does anyone ever say "Fun Fact" unironically?
** I'm only Jewish in the sense that my last name aroused some comment when I was a kid.
