Turtles and Candles: A New Folklore in the Making?
“All of this contributes to my conviction that there are not only more things going on in the world than we can ever begin to notice but that, very likely, the majority of these things are run by laws that have little or no connection with physics, logic, religion, or common sense. I call this my Theory of Whim, and I’m gathering evidence.” Anita Sullivan
The Highest Cauldron
By Anita Sullivan
EUGENE Oregon—(Weekly Hubris)—4/8/2013—If you come across a turtle when you’re out walking or driving, what do you do? Probably not a whole lot, right?
No need to be afraid, unless you elect to pick one up with your bare hands, maybe to keep it from getting run over, and it turns out to be a snapping turtle. Alongside a hiking trail, you might stop to peer at the pattern on its back, and smile at its pudgy little feet and strange head, but then you’d go on your way.
Most of them are so small, we would certainly not remember that The Original Tortoise was given the task of carrying the earth on its back. This worked out, because the world was mostly water then, and the only way the earth could stay dry enough was if somebody held it up. The tortoise, being totally comfortable in water (forget the distinction between “turtle” and “tortoise,” which in folklore is truly irrelevant), and with such a durable back, was perfect for the job.
Aside from holding up the world, though, turtles don’t show up in stories nearly as often as lions, bears, or rabbits. Even among reptiles, the turtle takes second place to a frog, snake, dragon, dinosaur, or lizard: it simply hasn’t got the mythological heft of its cousins, real or imagined.
So, I wonder—how many of us look down at a passing turtle and immediately ask ourselves, “What would fit nicely on top of its shell?”
Yet I keep running into contemporary literature that includes the image of a turtle with a burning candle on its back.
This has happened three times within the past three years. Wikipedia is silent on the topic. The three writers who have used this image seem to have made it up. Two of the three stories come from Greece, yet there seems to be no folk tradition behind it. All I can say is HUH?
And furthermore, if this is happening with turtles, what else might it be happening with?
Here I present my three, totally disparate examples of this turtle-candle thing:
First, the long one: In a 1994 novel called They Come Back in Wolf Light by Ziranna Zatelli (never published in an English translation), the next-to-last chapter is titled: “The winds were blowing from the four corners, and a turtle was going along with a candle on its back.” A little girl has just died rather suddenly and somewhat mysteriously—likely of polio, but there is a suggestion that she was spirited away. The chapter opens with the mourning ritual, where the family sits for hours telling stories about their memories of the child. The mother is talking almost non-stop and, after a while, the family members become weary and appeal to her father-in-law, the family patriarch, to come up with some way to calm her down. “Tell them the story about the tortoise that went along with the candle on its back,” suggests his wife.
So, he does. In the story, a boy child has died, and a lady turtle wishes to go to the funeral to pay her respects. She is polite, and wishes to bring a suitable offering. Most people are carrying lighted candles, and so she puts a lighted candle onto her back (never mind how she manages this feat), and heads down the road. Everybody who sees Mrs. Turtle absolutely cracks up in laughter at how ridiculous she looks. But the timid, polite little animal keeps plodding along. Finally, she reaches the room of the dead child, where the mother is weeping over the body. People are horrified, because they’re afraid if the mother sees the turtle, she might cheer up. And sure enough, when the mother turns to look, she begins to laugh. The moral of the story is that from that day forth, people felt it was a good thing to laugh at funerals.
Second, a shorter one: In a recent mystery novel by Peter Helton, An Inch of Time, a group of artists are living in a deserted village on Corfu. Strange accidents keep happening to them, as if the residents of the next village are trying to scare them away. In one incident, they wake up in the middle of the night smelling smoke, and discover a set of small fires in the dry grass around their rambling old villa. As they go out to investigate, they discover a random group of tortoises wandering unhappily around the grounds, all with lighted candles on their backs, unwittingly setting fire to the place.
When I wrote to Helton to ask him if he knew about Zatelli’s novel, or if he had heard this little fable somewhere in Greece, he wrote back and said no, he had totally made it up. “It just seemed like a really good way to set fire to a Greek village,” said this novelist. Mystery writers, after all, do have their standards!
Third: A poem showed up about two years ago in the online poetry journal Blood Orange Review. I liked the poem anyway, because I’m a fan of the contemporary style that’s loosely called “surrealism,” but I couldn’t help but notice the turtle-candle part. When I wrote to the author asking if he had got this image from Greek folklore—or, indeed anywhere else—he said no, he had made it up. Somewhat more understandable that a random image would occur to a poet, of course, but I am still actively puzzled.
Here, by the way, is the poem, whose author is Shimmy Boyle, a Bay Area performance poet:
I Believe in the Existence of Strawberries
There are turtles sleeping in a garden somewhere
While candles burn on top of their shells
And an old record plays the blues
And two people dance
As though one of their bodies is the sky
And the other
The Storm sweeping across it
All of this contributes to my conviction that there are not only more things going on in the world than we can ever begin to notice but that, very likely, the majority of these things are run by laws that have little or no connection with physics, logic, religion, or common sense. I call this my Theory of Whim, and I’m gathering evidence. Contributions of high quality and low frequency would be welcome.
Note: The image used to illustrate this column may be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/tjt195/2497770553/.
Anita Sullivan
Born under the sign of Libra, Anita Sullivan cheerfully admits to a life governed by issues of balance and harmony. This likely led to her 25-year career as a piano tuner, as well as her love of birds (Libra is an air sign), and love of gardening, music, and fine literature (beauty). She spent years trying to decide if she was a piano tuner who wrote poetry, or a poet who tuned pianos. She traveled a lot without giving way to a strong urge to become a nomad; taught without becoming a teacher; danced without becoming a dancer; and fell totally in love with the high desert country of the Southwest, and then never managed to stay there. However, Sullivan did firmly settle the writing question—yes, it turns out she is a writer, but not fixed upon any one category. She has published four essay collections, a novel, two chapbooks and one full-length book of poetry, and many short pieces in journals. Most recently, her essay collection The Rhythm Of It: Poetry’s Hidden Dance, indulges her instinct to regard contemporary free-verse poetry as being built upon natural proportional rhythm patterns exhibited in music and geography, and therefore quite ancient and disciplined—not particularly “free” at all. This book was a finalist for the Montaigne Medal from the Eric Hoffer Book Award. More about her books can be found on her website: www.anitasullivan.org. The poet-piano-tuner-etc. also maintains an occasional blog, “The Poet’s Petard,” which may be accessed here here. (Author Head Shot Augment: René Laanen.)
15 Comments
Naomi Shihab Nye
Anita, I appreciate your writing about turtles and candles! Recently attended a symposium at University of Virginia in which an art historian showed an old
etching of large turtles with thick candles stuck to their backs (with wax, I presumed?) wandering around a Middle Eastern garden and said they were lighting it up -he said this was a common mood-setting practice of aristocracy and the turtles were not harmed
because the wax droplets fell onto their shells and were later pried off. So there you go! i liked this enough I am also using it in a book! I have a turtle too!
eboleman-herring
Well, Anita, Dean and I went to our favorite Turkish eatery hereabouts, Toros, after this column came in, and there were turtles . . . everywhere, including a large copy of a painting our waiter told us is well-known in Turkey: a sage teaching box turtles by playing to them on a wooden flute. All my life long, I have rescued turtles in America (and one terrapin!) and hedgehogs in Greece. When I owned a newspaper, I ran an annual contest rewarding the SC child who had rescued the most stranded-mid-road turtles, documentation required.
Anita Sullivan
Thanks, Naomi and Elizabeth!! I’m excited to tap further into what may turn out to be a rich underground vein of hitherto-little-noticed turtle lore. It give me hope that the old stories really are still around, not necessarily in people’s minds any more, but resting quietly in rocks, fence posts, moss — and we don’t even have to listen very hard, just listen!
Eric Thurston
The turtle’s task of carrying the earth on its back must have ancient origins because I keep reading variations on this theme. Here is one of them that I think might fit the Theory of Whim :
Scientists and great thinkers are always asking questions about the origins of the earth and everything on it. In some ancient time, a group of these inquisitive and intelligent people conferred on how they could determine the origins of the earth and what sort of role the earth played in the larger scheme of things (assuming there was a ‘larger’ scheme). So these folks journeyed to the edge of the earth and confronted the thick fog that obscured any possible observations they could make. One of the scientists had the idea that one of the group could allow herself to be dangled over the edge of the earth with a rope tied to her legs so that she could get below the thick fog and find out what was going on.
After a short time, when feeling a tug on the rope, the observer was hauled back up and proceeded to give a report of what she saw. The earth, it appeared, was supported on the backs of four gigantic elephants who were, in turn, standing on the back of an even more gigantic turtle. There was also an entourage of giant turtles following the ‘earth turtle’ each one with a candle on its back. The candles may be related to the lights we see in the heavens with the sun in daytime and the moon and stars at night, but science was still in a primitive state at this time and nothing definitive could be determined.
Thus far, the story is familiar, except possibly for the candle-bearing turtles. But there is more. A second foray over the edge was made, this time for a longer look. Upon being hauled back up, the observer reported that the turtle seemed to be heading in a specific direction and off in the mist was, just visible, another giant turtle with four elephants supporting another earth and being followed by an entourage of turtles with candles on their backs.The turtles, each with its entourage, were headed directly toward each other.
This was stunning news for the scientists and, being scientists, they had to come up with a theory that would explain their observations. After much debate, it was decided that the giant, earth-bearing turtles were headed toward each other for the purpose of mating (and possibly creating new worlds).
This has come to be known as ‘The Big Bang Theory.’
Anita Sullivan
Latest bulletin: In response to Naomi, Elizabeth and Eric, I came across a passage in Michael Pollan’s wonderful book ‘The Botany of Desire,’ in the tulip chapter, where he describes the lavish Tulip Festivals held by the Turkish Sultan Ahmed III between 1703 and 1730. “Songbirds in gilded cages supplied the music, and hundreds of giant tortoises carrying candles on their backs lumbered through the gardens, further illuminating the display.” (page 82)
diana
I think your turtles are acquiring a mythological heft. Who knew, but I love your theory of whim and all the comments on it too. Filakia from Athina.
Annie
I was just googling around and found your post while trying to learn about this subject after reading this quote:
“You know the sultans used to light their garden parties with turtles? They’d put candles on their backs and let them wander around. Hundreds of them.”
― Joseph Kanon, Istanbul Passage
So there was indeed a bit of historical accuracy in the book apparently!
keli
Interesting article. Thank you. What came to mind for me right away was “cupping”. A wholistic practitioner performed this technique on me years ago. It is for deep muscular release. Glass cups are moistened around the rims and then carefully placed on your back as you lie on your stomach/face-down. The healer then places a lit match on top of each glass cup (or on their bottoms, if you think of the cups as sitting on a table holding water). The heat creates a seal between your skin and the cup rims. After 15 or 20 minutes the cups are removed, and your back muscles are very relaxed. Reading your description of candles on the backs -or shells- of tortoises I thought: if you blur the image a little, the cups are like a pyramiding plastron of a tortoise (when the top of the shell has a mountains-and-valleys-like appearance) and the matches like miniature candles on top of them. In multiple. And each must be applied by somebody else. K.
John Price
There is also a reference to the tortoise/candle idea in Louis de Bernières’s novel, Birds without Wings. Page 229 in my edition. Leyla is trying to seduce the rich and influential Rustem Bey so she prepares an elaborate meal in an elaborate setting for him.
“The inner court was a sea of glimmering, moving golden-yellow lights. There was no pattern to it. Some of the flames were momentarily still, and others were travelling, meandering slowly among the lemon trees, the pots of pelargonium, oregano, mint and rose. It was as if the stars had been set in motion there in that small square of the lower world. Leyla laughed with pleasure to see him so amazed. ‘I did it for you’.
Rustem Bey stepped forward and bent down to look. ‘By the prophet!’ he exclaimed. Each light was the flame of a candle and each candle was borne on the back of an animal. ‘It’s wonderful’ he said. ‘Where on earth did you find so many tortoises?’ “
Anita Sullivan
Wow! Thank you so much for this, John, and for taking the time to tell me about it! I seem to be curating a small collection of turtle-candle-on-back stories. Maybe there are more of them out there in far distant parts of the globe!
Shannon K.
Just watched an episode of “Let’s go Luna”, an educational PBS cartoon, with my four year old. They told the story of the importance of turtles in Turkish history. In the tale, there was a ruler who threw beautiful spring festivals with loads of tulips, other flowers, and exotic birds. Turtles are said to have been used to bring an ambient light, bearing lit candles on their shells.
Elizabeth Boleman-Herring
From Anita: “Thanks, Shannon! This is more evidence linking Turkey with this turtle tradition. I’d love to see a full folklore archive of the variations on this story. Seems like a mix of history & a more shadowy ‘need’ for something comical but essential.”
Anushka
I believe that this ‘candle on a turtle’ thing is actually a ritual in Sweden during their festival of lights called St.Lucia day. I will try to find more about it.Thankyou anyways!
Michelle Hess
A reference to the tortoise with candle on back lighting the emmergence of Spring flowers during the 17th century Dutch Golden Age.
“Each spring for a period of weeks the imperial gardens were filled with prize tulips (Turkish, Dutch, Iranian), all of them shown to their best advantage…the scale of the display was further compounded by mirrors placed strategically around the garden… hundreds of giant tortoises carrying candles on their backs lumbered through the gardens, further illuminating the display. All the guests were required to dress in colors that flattered those of the tulips…The whole scene was repeated every night for as long as the tulips were in bloom, for as long as Sultan Ahmed managed to cling to his throne.” – Michael Pollan, Botany of Desire
Anita Sullivan
Thanks for this, Michelle. As soon as I read it I went over to my shelf to pull out my copy of “The Botany of Desire,” and sure enough, I had noted the page number on which this reference occurs, p. 82. I think this turtle and candle thing might be as ubiquitous as stone circles — i.e., it might be all over the world, but we mainly hear about it from Turkey. The last tortoise I saw who was large enough to manage a candle on his (her?) back was at the Oakland, CA zoo a couple of years ago.