A call for help

[pepperlandgirl]

Alright, as mentioned in the post below, I need to write a story on the theme of "crossroads" and "making a decision." I'm trying to get the ol' creative juices flowing, and I'm looking for inspiration. I know that there is a great deal of folklore and myth surrounding crossroads, and I also know that there's a wide variety of interests, religion, and education on my FL. So if you know of any myths, stories, traditions, etc surrounding or involving crossroads, please share. I would really appreciate it.

Comments

[jennice.livejournal.com]

What I can tell you about crossroads is that's where you go to make a deal with Ol' Scratch. You sign away your soul in exchange for success in your talent. The crossroads of blues legend are in mississippi. In all film/tv interpretations that I've seen that don't have to deal with the blues, you go to a crossroad to bargain your soul. It is almost always having to do with music though. The whole folklore about crossroads here in the south is predominant in african-american culture.
I hope that's somewhat helpful to you. :)

[i-digress-uk.livejournal.com]

In Europe, crossroads used to be where suicides were buried as they couldn't be placed in consecrated ground. It was also where gibbets were placed to display the bodies of criminals - sometimes before they'd actually died. Some vampire mythology involves crossroads although I'm a bit hazy on that - it's been a few years since I read up on non-Buffy supernatural lore.

[makd.livejournal.com]

There's an old myth - don't know the origins - that if you meet/see a stranger at a crossroads, it's really the devil. The myth was recapitulated in the movie, O Brother, Where Art Thou.

Lots of luck on this one.

[chrisjournal.livejournal.com]

Ooooh. I did a pile of research on this back when I was writing Yellow. There's a ton of stuff on it, and there's also an Eric Clapton song. If I still have the links, and if they're still good, I'll email 'em. Yellow was three years ago, maybe a bit longer.

[chrisjournal.livejournal.com]

Heh. I still have 'em in a folder here in my browser... This set is with a voodoo flair (voodoo god version of crossroads involves Legba, a Loa), because that was the biggest source from which I stole characters/mythology for that particular fic. I haven't sorted through them to see which are still live and directly relevant to your situation, but I remember the fun I had reviewing and reading.

http://www.sacredcrossroads.net/at_the_crossroads.html
http://www.mamiwata.com/legba.html
http://www.carnaval.com/sf00/trickster.htm
http://www.thebluehighway.com/crsrds1.html
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/folktexts.html
http://www.mudcat.org/rj-dave.cfm
http://www.100megsfree4.com/deltabluesmn/artists/robert_johnson.htm
http://altreligion.about.com/library/weekly/aa092402a.htm
http://www.balus-den.com/pataki.htm
http://www.greenmanreview.com/crossroads.html

[pepperlandgirl4.livejournal.com]

Wow, awesome. Thank you very much :)

[curetpillargirl.livejournal.com]

This is neither here nor there but...do you know anywhere in which I could take a creative writing class? When I was going to ULV, they only had one at interterm that I could never take; now there's a renaissance in that department and I seem to have missed it. I went to register for one at Citrus or Mt. Sac and neither of those places offer it in Summer. If you know of anywhere, could you let me know pleeeeeease?
Thanks.

[pepperlandgirl4.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, I really don't. Can't you take one of the creative writing courses offered, even though you're a grad student?