Two Dark Christmas Fables

There are two dark Christmas novels that delve into the mythic origins of Santa Claus, which I outlined in my last post on Phyllis Sieker's Santa Claus: Last of the Wild Men. The first of these, published by Cemetary Dance, a specialist horror publisher, in the late nineties, is Santa Steps out, by Robert Devereaux. At the time, this was hyped as very raunchy, and warned of its capacity to break taboos and shatter treasured childhood memories. One of endorsements warns buyers to keep this book high on a shelf, like all other dangerous objects, out of the reach of children! The story's main plot has Santa cheating on his wife with the tooth-fairy.  No, I didn't make that up! 

   But this is not a "South Park" take on your favorite Rankin/Bass holiday specials; it is a deep dive into cultural mythic origins of these characters, and what made them what they are today. It links Santa to his beast-men predecessors. Before the Christianization of the West, the story holds, Santa was once a satyr, and tooth-fairy a nympth or dryad. Once, they had a sexual liason with each other, and when both cross paths during their nightly rounds, the fairy entices Santa into re-kindling their relationship.

  Devereaux makes the tooth-fairy, a dark, slinky succubus-like creature who devours the teeth she collects, and literally shits out coins--no kidding! While Santa remains at heart a good-guy throughout this, it's evident that his slick, sexy partner is pure evil, and likely has always been so. Then there's the Easter Bunny, who's pre-Christian form was that of a snake, according to Devereaux, I'm not familiar with the mythology that accounts for this, though there's no mention Estre, goddess of spring, and patron of rabbits, where the name "Easter" originates. Devereaux retains, Donder, Blitzen, and the rest of the reindeer with Norse names, but substitutes Rudolph (a modern invention) with a white reindeer with glowing green antlers, who bears the much more mythological name of Lucifer, meaning "light-bringer." According to what I've read, the author originally tired to get Rudolph, but was unable to obtain the rights. Having Rudolph in a story like this one would have come off as well, a bit "South Parkish."

    Anyway, when Mrs. Claus discovers her husband's affair, it understandably causes problems, and she retaliates by having her own affair with Santa's elves. Santa soon comes to terms that he has been seduced by an evil creature, and manages to break off the relation by taking a human mistress (or something like that--it's been a while since I've read this) Eventually, the woman and her young daughter (the one innocent dragged into the heart of all this madness!) come to live at the north pole, and they all being an uneasy relationship. There is a gruesome and bloody (I'm not kidding) tangle with the Easter Bunny at one point, as the latter entity's hormones are raging out of control, though otherwise he's not really a bad sort. The evil fairy, however, takes a horiffic revenge on the Clauses, which leaves the human mother and daughter dead. At this point looks as though the tale can only have a tragic ending. But recall this takes place in a universe of great feats of magic and where miracles are a common occurance, so all is not as it seems. 

   I won't relate the ending itself, but there is a sort of epilogue where she gives birth to hordes demon-spawn, and sends them to wreak havoc on humanity, something like the legends of Lillith, Adam's spurned wife, whose children are supposed to take revenge on the children of humans. 

The second story is Krampus: The Yule Lord by Brom. It is even better than Devereaux's tale, as it traces the orgins of both Krampus and Santa back to Norse myth, which influenced both entities as we know them today the most. There are two central plots going on here. One of which concerns Jesse Walker, a songwriter struggling to support his family, who has become in dept to a gang of very nasty crooks/extortionists, who even have the local corrupt sheriff on their side. After bearing witness to a man dressed as Santa, and group of devilish-looking figures fleeing across the snow, he becomes entwined in an ancient feud between Krampus and Santa which we soon learn stretches back to the time of the Norse gods.

    One memorable scene occurs after Jesse discovers Krampus's magic sack, and uses its powers to steal money from the vault of the gang, then substitutes a severed cow's head. Once discovered, Jesse is captured, and the gang's leader threatens to torture the secret of how he managed the theft out of him. Of course, the truth of how he did it cannot be believed, so his prospects look pretty grim. Fortunately for Jesse, though, he has them recover the sack, with leader's cash and weapons still inside. Unfortunately for the leader, though, Krampus himself also emerges from the magic sack!

    Krampus and Jesse become unlikely allies, and it is here that Jesse learns the entire story of both Santa and Krampus, and how their ages-long feud began. 

     I will not divulge the Norse identity for Santa (yes, it's a specific figure in the Norse pantheon of gods), as it would be a major spoiler, and it is a plot point that is very important, and teased at throughout the first portion of the book. I will only say that Santa's origin does not (on real life) trace back directly to any particular god. But if it did, it would most likely be Odin, rather than who it turns out to be here. Krampus, a satyr like beast-man, also shares skin with Santa himself, but here he is designated as the original Lord of the Yule, the beast-god who presided over the winter festival of feasting, revelry, and singing. With some measure of justification he resents that Santa Claus has usurped his own rightful position as lord of the winter festival, and particularly that he was made a servant to him, following the Christianization of Europe. Santa could not control the beast-god, so left Krampus chained in bondage for a few hundred years, until the latter was able to escape. 

    There is a rather climactic scene in which Jesse accompanies Krampus and his "Bellsnickles" (men clad in horns and animal-skins, who once delivered presents to the Pennsylvania Dutch), as they track Santa to his workshop (not at the North pole BTW). The Yule Lord takes a savage vengeance, and sticks Santa's head on a pike! They then return to Appalachia, where they travel from house to house.  Krampus delivers coins to children, but soon fears that all memory of him as Lord of Yule has past into oblivion. They enter a bar and grill type place, where Jesse acts as a bard, and there is dancing and revels, with Krampus as the lord of the feast. The patrons there all initially think that Krampus is a man in costume, rather than the real thing, though when they reflect on, they're not so certain. 

    Anyway, gods don't stay dead very long, and Santa arrives with his own minions to take his own revenge on Krampus, leaving Jesse alone to deal with the local sheriff. But the songwriter is now a changed, and is able to take care of his own problems. 

    While Krampus is seemingly dead and buried, the story ends with the revelation that a huge "Krampus Fest" is to held every Christmas at the same bar, involving "a huge yule-log bonfire" face-painting, Krampus costume contest, and more. 

     Meanwhile a family with children put out coins as an offering form Krampus, and wonder if he's real, and deep laughter issues from his grave, hinting that belief has instigated a possible return. Once more, gods do not die easily. 

    

 

Santa Claus: Last of the Wild Men

Santa Claus, Last of the Wild Men, was a book I sent for during my college days, after the local newspaper ran an article about it one Christmas. Phyllis Siefker wrote the book in answer to question that always confused her: Was the American Santa Claus really a mere Americanization of St. Nicholas transplanted to America by the Dutch? I never thought that seemed quite right, either. What about the origins of the reindeer, the elves, the north pole residence and all that? Wasn't there more to the story?

It turned out there was. A whole lot more. 

Siefker's scholarly journey traced Santa back to the "beastmen" featured in winter carnivals, to the Norse God Odin, and further to the satyrs of Greek Myth, Herne the Hunter, and the Green Man of the woods. This was a truly engrossing journey, and you can read the newspaper article below. 

 

The Ghost Stories of M. R. James

 

    Telling ghost stories during the Christmas season, often around a crackling hearth, after the feasting and gaming, with the wind roaring outside, was a tradition of the British holiday season, in particular during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Outside of Charles Dickens, with his Christmas Carol, and his other lesser known works, no author was more well-known for the Christmas Ghost Story than Montague Rhodes James, a scholar  of English Medieval Literature at Kings University, and whose best-known stories were collected in Ghost Stories of Antiquary. These tales were written to be read-aloud, before they were in print, each one of Christmas Eve, when members of the university staff would all gather in a room before a heath, the night wind and snow raging outside. 

   One curious thing regarding James, and which I only recently discovered ,was that he wrote around the time of the the first world war, the same era that another writer of weird fiction, Robert W. Chambers, penned his "King in Yellow." But unlike Chambers, whose tales took place during the same period in which he wrote, James set his tales in an early time, during the 19th and 18th centuries.

    Perhaps the best known of James' tales was "Oh, Whistle and I'll Come To You My Lad." The story concerns a middle-aged gentleman staying in a hotel along the English coast. On one of his forays on the beach, he discovers a curious whistle with strange engraving upon it. Once back in his room, he examines the object further, and blows on it. Later, on the beachfront again, he sees (or thinks he sees) a strange white figure running in his direction. At the climax of the tale, he witnesses the bedsheets of an unoccupied bed rise up to form a "sheet phantom", the crumpled linen pressing into a hideous visage, the entity that the bizarre whistle has summoned. 

    

   This story was filmed twice, the first one in 1968, and again in 2010, the latter of which i haven't seen, at least that I can recall.. The 68 version stars Sir Michael Hordern, better known for his role as Brownlow in the 1982 version of Oliver Twist, and one late 70s adaptation of A Christmas Carol as Scrooge. 

    Another tale, "The Residence of Winchester," concerns a clergyman who has no biological children, so adopts the young son of his sister, a boy named Frank. Trouble comes when he mistakenly agrees to tutor the slightly older son of a Viscount named Saul. The two children appear to get along well, until one day they are witnessed engaging in some strange activity involving an unknown gleaming object, in which Saul knocks it from the other boy's hand. A prized black cockeral turns up dead, and it appears the boys killed it in some kind of ritual sacrifice. Frank soon sickens and dies unaccountedly, and Saul perishes  mysteriously afterward. It is evident that the boys have been dabbling in the occult, though the details remain obscure; it's fairly obvious that Frank is more the innocent victim here, that he has been coerced, perhaps pressured into it, by Saul. In lots of stories, its often that the character of a rich and privileged background is the one who turns out to be evil, so no surprise. Anyway, fifty years pass by, and the manor's new residents find themselves plagued by mysterious entities and incidents. The upstairs room where the ritual took place is infested by strange red insects that the maids call "sawflies". A man venturing into the dark room at night feels (and partially sees) the horror of monstrously large version of the sawflies attacking his face. Later a young maid flees the selfsame chamber, the smaller sawflies clinging to her and getting in her eyes, which have to to be swatted off by a broom! The face of Saul is also seen at times pressing up against a window. Apparently it's the dead aristocratic boy's ghost, bound to the spot. The servants claim they feel sorry for him, but fear allowing him to enter. Perhaps it's his punishment in hell. It seems that the boys' occult experiment opened a portal to some netherworld, and that's where the demonic sawflies entered from. 

    Another tale, "The Tractate Middoth", concerns a mysterious Rabbinic tome that somehow contains the will and testament to an estate of a young woman and her daughter who have been ousted. Mr. Garret is propriator of a great library in which the book resides. He is visited by a man named Eldred, whom it is later discovered is inquiring after the book so he can destroy it (or at least the page containing the will ), so he can assume control of the estate himself. All this while, a mysterious man appears in and about the library who appears to have a face of woven cobwebs! Garret also learns that the ghost of an unpleasant clergyman has been reported wondering the area, and that this man was buried in a large underground chamber, seated upright in a chair, according to his own instructions! Garret finds that the book in question is missing from the library shelf, and has been shipped to Eldred. He tracks the man down on foot after dark, and nearly catches him in the act of ripping out the page with the will. But before he is able to intervene, two black hands, seemingly formed of cobwebs, reach forth out of the shadows and strangle Eldred. A mass of cobwebs and spiders is found on the spot. The librarian returns the intact tractate to the mother and daughter who are now able to inherit the estate. 

   In seems that many of James' weird stories revolve around forbidden or cursed objects, and forbidden knowledge, serving as a "Warning to the Curious." Interestingly, four of the numinous entities contained therein were featured in "The Dragon's Bestiary" section of Dragon Magazine #251, back in the bygone 90s (Sorry, I haven't yet read the one about the "living hair"). The sheet phantom of Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You," is a form of the "Death Linen," which according to the article can assume a number of shapes. The "web specter" is clearly the entity from "Tractate", and they're assuming that the man who was buried sitting up, was in fact, a wizard, or some other practioner of the occult, and that he and the man of woven cobwebs were one and the same. 

    

    

Favorite Christmas Movies

 Most of my fave Christmas movies were produced back in the eighties. Here are the best, starting with...

George C. Scott's Christmas Carol

The original ad for the 1984 CBS production of Carol, starring George C. Scott.

Nothing can quite top this CBS TV  movie, part of the "Read More About" program, directed by Clive Donner in 1984. There's not a lot to say about George C. Scott's version of Scrooge that I haven't already on my blog about Clive Donner movies. His was the best performance and best version I'd seen before and since. Only the much more recent Jim Carey version was very good as well, and both movies featured songs with the same title "God Bless Us Everyone." The 1984 song was written and composed by Nicolas Bicet, and his available on his website.

I also own IBM's tie-book they made the following year (I loved when they did those), A Christmas Carol Christmas book, which featured gorgeous photos from the production, a history of the English Christmas, where I learned about Cromwell's outlawing  of the holiday and the great Christmas feasts prior to that, plus Victorian recipes and games. And also Dickens' original text in its entirity. Those extras helped them rack up the price, but my folks still got it for me that year. Sadly, my own copy of  A Christmas Carol, Christmas Book still survives in rather shoddy condition. I also still have my ancient VHS tape of the George Scott Carol, complete with the IBM-sponsored commercials, with the now-primitive seeming computers. It's a very nostalgic Christmas-flavored production, in a way the more recent DVD releases of the movie cannot compare. Unfortunately, the tape has since become very hard to rewind, and needs repairing. 

The Box of Delights 

My own hardback edition of Masefield's Box, with the Wonderworks sticker on the cover

    The Box of Delights was a three-part movie produced by Wonderworks, a sort of junior version of Masterpiece Theatre, and by the BBC and shown on PBS back in 1985. I first encountered it near the end of the last chapter, sort of by accident when flipping channels. I had to wait until the following Christmas to see it again, though that was a one hour, abbreviated version. I was able to record the whole thing a year later. The story is based on a book by mid 20th century author John Masefield, who is primarily known for his poetry. The original tale was a sequel to Masefield's previous novel The Midnight Folk. That novel concerns British schoolboy Kay Harker, who is an rather Dickensian predicament, with a cruel guardian, Miss Sylvia Daisy Pouncer, who is both figuratively and literally a which. The story also involves the evil sorcerer Abner Brown, and both Abner and Sylvia also feature as major villains in The Box of Delights. Unlike its predecessor, Box takes place entirely over the Christmas holidays, with Kay arriving home by train to his aunt Caroline Louisa. Staying with them are the Jones children, Peter and Maria, the latter of whom is something of a spitfire. Anyway, Kay meets the old Punch-and-Judy man Cole Hallings, who entrusts him to protect a magical box filled with extraordinary powers like flying, "going small", and travel to other times and magical realms. It turns out the evil magician and Satanist Aber Brown and his mistress, Kay's old enemy Sylvia Pouncer, are also seeking Cole's box for personal power.

An illustration by Faith Jacques from the box, showing Kay's encounter with Cole Hawlings, and his dog Barney

   The story is split into three hour-long parts, each once starting out with a refrain "The First Noel," setting the Christmasy atmosphere that pervades the film. There is a dream-like quality also throughout the ensuing adventures, through which Kay meets characters like Herne the Hunter from ancient myth, and features rich animated sequences, as well as live action and costumed actors, as Kay visits other worlds and times, hardly giving a thought to the fantastic nature of his adventures. This is justified by the fact that the entire story turns out to be a dream at the end, with Kay waking up once more on the train, with his aunt announcing that he's home for the holidays! This feature of Masefield's story has been criticised some, as his first tale (The Midnight Folk) was also a fantasy, but did not, apparently, take place within a dream. But while the ends with Kay replying that he's had a good dream, the film ads one "or was it a dream" incident, with Chubby Joe and Foxy-Faced Charles, former employs of Abner Brown, sitting at the station, and Joe tips his hat to Kay. It's been theorized that perhaps Hawlings found a way to send Kay back in time to enjoy the holidays all over again. 

    The final scene at Tatchester Cathedral where everyone sings "Come All Ye Faithful" for the "Thousandth Christmas Ceremony," is the most atmospheric in the film, and recalled to me of yearly visits to extravagant Christmas programs held at Valparaiso Chapel, celebrating the birth of the Savior. The scene just prior to that, with the sledges of Herne and Hunter drawn by lions, and the Gray lady, drawn by unicorns, (More richly described in the book), are reminiscent of something that C. S. Lewis, a contemporary of Masefield, might have written. It's notable that Wonderworks went on to produce its own version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and the three follow up Narnia books, just a few years later. They used the same combination of live-action, animation, and puppetry, was kind of gave the same atmosphere, which made sense in a way, since Masefield and Lewis had kind of the same English flavor, though some of pointed that Narnia, is an entire secondary world, and did NOT take place in a dream!

   Masefield's original novel, though, contains even more magical scenes then they were able to fit into the three-part adaptation, including one in which Kay visits a mediaeval tournament of jousting knights, and one where a shrunken Kay converses with a squirrel and other small animals within a tree, and also one in which he risks the bite of a cockatrice! The subtitle of Box is "Where the Wolves were Running," and wolves, both literal and metaphoric, feature throughout the story. At one point Kay reflects that, though wolves are supposed to be extinct in England since Arthur's time, some remote forests regions might still harbor them, and "in this deep winter, out they come!" That incident occurs, though, when the box transports Kay back to Arthurian Bretan, when ravening wolves are raiding the stock, and Kay fights alongside the knights to fend them off. The role that wolves play within the story makes it recall yet another British winter tale The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken, and her ensuing Wolves chronicles. Those occur in an alternate England in which wolves have invaded England from the Continent via a newly built underground railway between France and England. 

A couple of illustrated scenes from the Masefield novel that never made it into the PBS adaptation

    I found a copy of the dell-yearling edition of Masefield's novel, with a tie-in cover with the movie, back shortly after it was broadcast, but before I got to see the production in its entiriety. This is a treasured artifact from my childhood, and very unfortunately, just this year the cover got damaged when some sticky stuff from the Christmas feast got on it, as you can see:

                                    My own (now tragically damaged) paperback edition of Masefield's Box

  It seems also that this particular edition of the novel is a rare none, and as yet, I can find no replacement copy. It still has the small black and white illustrations  by Faith Jacques, but the hardback edition, which I discovered at a used bookstore years later, came with full-color illustrations, some of which you can see above. My own VHS taped copy of the movie has aged some, but still has that nostalgic factor, as it is unique to my collection, I almost hate to seek out the newer DVD release. of course, doing that would mean ordering from the UK, as this has never been released in the US. And while I did own a UK regional player, I might need a new one--I couldn't play my UK edition of Ghost Stories for Christmas. 

     Recently, this Christmas, I was very surprised to discover the following:

   Opening the Box of Delights is an exploration and critical analysis of Masefield's novel, as well as a biography of the author himself, and exploration of the numerous theatrical, audio and radio adaptation. It is quite a rich history, and I had no idea so many adaptations existed of this relatively obscure story. There is as much to delve into here regarding the history, inspirations, etc., as there is to be found in the books written about C. S.Lewis's Narnia Chronicles or Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials. A real treasure trove of information. I was surprised to learn that the villain Abner Brown made his initial appearance in a novel that did not involve Kay Harker at all, and that The Midnight Folk, though it did not explicitly take place in a dream, nonetheless had a dream-like atmosphere, not unlike Box, shifting between other magic realms and times, and it was never quite certain if the young protagonist was dreaming or not. Speaking of  The Midnight Folk, I remember having ordered it from the library many years ago, and began reading it, though somehow I never finished it. I just remember , it wasn't a Christmas story, Kay's wicked guardian, and his friend Nibbins, the black cat. Anyway, Masefield's Kay Harker novels, and Box in particular, have a much richer history than expected, and I've only just started reading this!

The Gift of Love: A Christmas Story

   This TV movie was made sometime in the eighties, shortly following the broadcast of George Scott's Carol, as I recall. It, too, is a Christmas Ghost Story, though it is generally not thought of as such, as it contains virtually no "spooky" scenes. There is one character who is known as the Christmas Ghost, though he turns out to be an old sweetheart of the children's Aunt Minerva, who still arrives every Christmas to leave her a rose. 

Hannibal and Minerva

     The story concerns one Janet Broderick (Lee Remick), who feels herself drifting away from her husband at a time when the family business is running into hard times. When her mother unexpectedly dies of a heart attic during the Christmas season, and she is then visited by her within a dream. The grandmother and grandfather father appear to be very much alive again, when they take Janet and her two children, Dorothy and Micheal, to the house in the country where Janet grew up, and they begin making preparations for Christmas. Like Christmas Carol, the story involves spirits of the departed returning to reconcile the protagonist to their life.  Like Box of Delights, the entire main story takes place in a dream. It's a bit confusing, as everything seems very realistic within what is supposed to be a dream (reality doesn't shift, as in Kay Harker's dreamworld), and the other living characters like the two Broderick kids seem to be living their own experiences within Janet's dream. This does not seem possible, unless they, too, are sharing the same dream at the same time! Michael, we learn, is "not used to how we do things in the country" according to his grandfather, and is especially squeamish about killing of animals for Christmas dinner, something that becomes an important plot point near the story's climax

Michael Broderick and Bunhilde, my own drawing 

   When I first saw this, I was very disturbed when young Michael Broderick falls through the ice on the mill pond while saving the Christmas goose, Brunhilda. The remainder of the movie is mostly the search for Michael. I actually stopped watching at that point, fearing that Michael would be drowned and frozen stiff; I had just recently experienced other child deaths in fiction (Stephen King comes to mind), and I didn't want to repeat the experience. Yes, it was till supposed to be a dream, but it didn't come across as that, and I might not have been entirely aware. I was relieved, of course, when I later learned Michael had escaped the ice, and had curled up under a blanket in the barn. 

   It is notable that just before this, just before this Janet's mother, the grandfather, and Aunt Minerva, all confess that they are dead, and that they have come back in her dream, to set her life straight. It's seems probable then, since Minerva herself is a ghost, that her boyfriend Hannibal, the "Christmas ghost", too, truly IS a ghost, after all!

   A couple more headscratchers: A smart-alec local kid named Raymond invite Dorothy and Michael to a supposed costume, then everyone laughs, when the Broderick kids are the only ones in costume. Until fairly recently, it didn't hit me exactly why Dorothy is so upset by the incident, and keeps brooding on it through the rest of the movie until Michael's disappearance. It isn't merely that she was humiliated by the prank, as I assumed; she apparently thinks that Chance Mayfield, a new boy she has a crush on, set her up for the humiliation. It was Chance who initially invited her, but it was smart-alec Raymond who falsely told her it was a costume party. Michael's claim that his sister "has a broken heart" is what gives it away. It is obvious from the scene just following that Chance had nothing at all to do with the prank! Though, why doesn't Chance call out to warn Dorothy and Michael, instead of just admonishing Raymond? Also, when Dorothy and Michael prepare for the party, she decides to go as a clown, and Michael puts on a Paul Revere coat and four-cornered hat. Why is it then, that when they are humiliated at the party, Michael is dressed as an old lady? No wonder they laughed! This makes little sense, especially since Micheal is shown wearing the Paul Revere hat around for the rest of the movie, up until the incident where he falls in the ice.

The Tailor of Glouscester

    "The Tailor of Glouscester" is a short children's story by "Peter Rabbit" author Beatrix Potter. It was brought to gorgeously animated life as part of the series "Peter Rabbit and Friends", adaptations of the Beatrix Potter stories, which I was produced and shown on PBS. They aired back in the early 90's. 

    The plot of this is almost exactly the same as the fairy tale "the Shoemaker and the Elves," only with a tailor and mice. The tailor in question is contracted to make a coat of cherry-colored silk with yellow taffetar for the Mayor of Glouscester's wedding on Christmas day in the morning. He runs out of red twist, and falls unexpectedly ill, plus he is double-crossed by his cat Simpkin for releasing the mice he has caught. In their gratitude, the mice enter his shop via the myriad of passages between buildings, and sew the entire coat, which the tailor finds waiting for him, on Christmas morn, just in the nick of time for the wedding. 

    The animation (as with all of this series) is simply gorgeous, made resemble the original illustrations of the Beatrix Potter books sprung to vivid life. This is no mere "cartoon." Unlike the rest of the series though, which all begin and end with an actress playing the author coming home to her cottage, with shots of the rolling English countryside,  andwith the same soundtrack, Tailor has a uniquely Christmas flavor, and begins and ends with the Sussex Carol. One major highlight of the program has Simkin, the Tailor's cat wondering about London on Christmas night, listening to the other local animals singing songs and throwing parties. The best song is sung by the rats at their boisterous drunken revel. 

    There has sadly been very little like this manner of animation since,; two other PBS presentations that utilize the 'illustrations come to life' approach were The Dinosaurs! a documentary in 1992, pre-Jurassic park, and The Velvet Claw, a series on the evolution of carnivores. But I'll save those for the paleontology blog.