There’s a certain folkloric idea that if you die at sea, your soul is sort of. Inextricably stuck in the sea. Because your body is irretrievable, your soul is also irretrievable, down out of the reach of the gods who look at the surface of the world. In Norse mythology, they say that the souls of sailors who died at sea are caught in the sea-goddess Rán’s net and dragged into her domain, a distinct and separate afterlife alongside Hel and Valhalla. Davy Jones Locker. The funayūrei. A lot of cultures agree that once sea has a hold on you, even when your body has rotted and dwindled and been made food for crabs, it still won’t let you go.
Do you think we’re going to wind up saying the same thing about astronauts.
"Space is haunted."
"What?"
"Space is haunted."
"No, I heard what you said, but..."
"Most times you want to get the ones in LEO. They can still see their home, and want to go back. If you're lucky, you can tell them you'll find them on your way down and they'll let you go. The most fortunate find the dog. A friendly little guy who's just solid enough to feel your hands petting him. None of the others mess with the dog.
"Those around the Moon, or Mars? They're a bit nastier. Lonely, I think. Some just want to talk, messing up the instruments in the hopes you hear them. Others mess your instruments so you'll join them out there. A new face in their lonely voyages.
"But it's the ones in deep space you have to worry about. Lot of those don't even remember they were human. Just an incorporeal mass of want. What do they want? They don't remember anymore. You can always tell if you caught one of those by the screaming, the way they smash you against the walls like they forgot what a door is. But they're not the worst."
"They're not the worst? Then what is?"
"The kind left trailing in the comets. Nobody knows what those are. The crawling liver, the webbed lungs, the sensation of seeing while blind and shouting desperately with your shoulder blades, 'I'm here, come back, don't leave me'. Never follow a comet."
I love these posts. And hypothetical space folklore/mythology in general.
These posts reminded me of several other things, included below.
To begin with: Some of this counts as "star lore," a real thing!
Wikipedia:
Star lore or starlore is the creating and cherishing of mythical stories about the stars and star patterns (constellations and asterisms); that is, folklore based upon the stars and star patterns. Using the stars to explain religious doctrines or actual events in history is also defined as star lore. Star lore has a very long history; it has been practiced by nearly every culture recorded in history, dating as far back as 5,500 years ago. It was practiced by prehistoric cultures of the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods as well.
@attractthecrows' Space Mythology
This is the OG post, the OMG post, the one that made me fall in love with the whole concept of space myth and space fairy tales.
(It inspired a whole writing WIP of mine, that's basically Jim Henson's The Storyteller in space. Working title: The Starryteller! )
