Hard it is to stir my tongue
"Hard it is to stir my tongue"
Raiding the Otherworld for the Elixir of Poetry
Folklore Fellows' Communications 317. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 2019.
Where does poetic inspiration come from? This has been a puzzle for as long as poetry has been around. This book surveys some of the ways poets have thought of their craft, focusing particularly on medieval sources which see the Otherworld as a fastness of poetic inspiration, whence it has to be raided. Traditions examined include Old Norse, Old English, Greek, Welsh, Irish, Finnish/Karelian, Siberian and England of the Romantics (Coleridge's Kubla Khan).
ISBN 978 951 41 1140 2
Available from Tiedekirja