Possums in the World Tree


Woden graffiti of Odin
I live in a valley named for the Norse god Odin.*

And there he is, overlooking the square at our local town centre, with his two possums Thought and Memory.** And their little possum baby, Mythappropriation…

You don’t remember the possums? Weird.

Listening to the possums last night, running up and down the branches of the world tree Yggdrasil, reminded me that last year I co-presented a session for writers talking about animal folklore and the symbolism of different beasts. Animals in a story tell you a lot about the character they’re associated with. Let’s face it, Odin squinting at you with two brooding ravens on his shoulders sends a very different message from this Odin with his fluffy possums.

A 9th Century Old Saxon adaptation of the New Testament put a dove, not above Christ in radiance, but on his shoulder, because it made him more god-like to those people (although obviously it wasn’t conjuring the idea of a warrior god).

I wouldn’t be messing with a character who had any kind of corvid or eagle on their shoulder. What about a wren on the character’s shoulder? Or a sparrow? A parrot? A duck? They all send different messages to the reader.

Philip Pullman tapped into this in the His Dark Materials trilogy with Daemons, and I think that anyone who has read all the Harry Potter books and tells you they’ve never considered what animal form their Patronus would take, is probably lying. (Mine would totally be a tapir…)

Another choice of animals is presented in fiction by the notion that every witch needs a familiar. So, what’s it to be? A traditional cat, called Pyewacket or Vinegar Tom (although they were an imp and a dog, back in the day, according to witch-finder general Matthew Hopkins). Maybe a bat, a rat or a toad? A pig? A raven or crow? A snake or a spider? Or something even more exotic?

I love the drawing, by Canadian artist Jean-Baptiste Monge, of a witch on a pig. A copy sits next to my desk, courtesy of RedBubble. When I Googled for that link, I discovered that, apparently, the map of Great Britain looks like a witch riding a pig. Who knew?

Terry Pratchett doubtlessly did and he also knew that a pig witch was going to get a different reaction than a witch with a black cat, because animals come with their own baggage of symbolism and folklore and superstitions.

So, which witch would you want to write about?***

It’s a fun writing prompt if you’re suffering the angst of an empty page. Do an online image search for “girl/boy/man/woman/child/person with a (animal of choice)” and see if you can find a picture of someone who might be a very different kind of witch.

Then write their story.

*Actually, the story of Woden is more interesting than that and totally explains the possums. The Woden Valley is named for an early property in the area, named Woden in 1837. But, did the owner, Dr James Murray, simply name the property after the god or was he influenced by the local Indigenous word for possum, wadyan?
Nothing is certain – but this story of urban etymology reported by the ABC last September makes for fascinating reading.

**This mural is the work of a Canberra-based artist, Voir, who not only painted the god and his possums, but also decorated my favourite coffee place – Coffee House in Fyshwick. Ona! Best. Coffee. Ever. Odin hit the street last December, courtesy of the Woden Youth Centre and the ACT government’s Graffiti Management program. 

***All the art in this post is obviously not mine and my post isn’t meant to infringe on the copyright of anyone’s work. The blue-haired witch and cat is a painting by Russian artist Tanya Shatseva, the girl with the deer is a photograph by another Russian artist Katerina Plotnikova and the other two… sorry, I’m still trying to track down where I found them. I find all these works inspiring and I hope you do too.

Comments are welcome - what are your thoughts?