The Nearly Perfect Necromancy of Lady Mondegreen

About Fiddler’s Green Peculiar Parish

Fiddler’s Green Peculiar Parish Magazine was born of a languid afternoon of conversation on a sunny tavern lawn. Taking its name from the pleasant afterlife dreamed into being by sailors, cavalrymen, and other adventurous spirits, Fiddler’s Green gathers friends, good cheer, and a bit of magic to create a better world not someday, but now.

In ecclesiastical terms, the word “peculiar” refers to a district outside the jurisdiction of the Church. It’s also a good word for describing my own view of reality, and likely yours as well. And so here is a “peculiar parish magazine” for anyone who doesn’t feel the need to have their inner life directed by others. If it is peculiar that we wish to govern our bodies and souls ourselves, then let us be peculiar.

The conversation continues, and there is room for you in it. Each of us is on our own journey, both in this world and whatever lies beyond it. Sometimes the path is well lit; at other times it is obscured. Your wanderings have brought you here, and I hope you’ll stray for a while with me and the other souls gathered at Fiddler’s Green.

Clint Marsh [Publisher]

Description

A Fiddler’s Green Leaflet by Clint Marsh & Alexis Berger.

Use Your Delusion…

Although the tragic love between Lady Mondegreen and the Earl Amurray existed nowhere in the pages of history or literature, it couldn’t have been more real in the mind of the young girl who dreamed the lovers into being after mishearing a verse of classic poetry. She let her imagination fill in the blanks to create a new reality, inhabiting it heart and soul.

Similar misunderstandings lie at the root of much of childhood’s imaginative play. As we age and grow in knowledge and supposed wisdom, it’s easy to shrug off such erroneous first impressions. But what if, instead of correcting ourselves, we found a way to turn our malapropisms into something wonderful and wholly our own?

In The Nearly Perfect Necromancy of Lady Mondegreen, author Clint Marsh plumbs the promise of malaprop magic, showing us how we might breathe new life into art, romance, and other creative endeavors. This practical and humorous essay features whimsical illustrations by Alexis Berger.

Clint Marsh uses elements of myth, magic, folklore, and humor to help ­people navigate everyday life. He is the ­editor of Fiddler’s Green Peculiar Parish Magazine and a winner of the Bookseller/Diagram Prize.

Alexis Berger is an illustrator, painter, and Murano glass artist. Her work is inspired by the Belle Epoch period and forms found in the natural world, and often incorporates themes from folklore and myth.

*Originally published in Fiddler’s Green 5