Magic, Mystery, a little Whisky, and a Cat

Monstrous Spiders and a Gift Card

Come into My Web – Monstrous Spiders in Fantasy

By L.T. Getty

Spiders and monsters influenced from them are nothing new in fantasy. Shelob from The Lord of the Rings and The Other Mother from Coraline are dangerous foes for the protagonist to outsmart and defeat. Giant spiders depicted in Harry Potter and the Wonderful Wizard of Oz tend to be sapient enough to understand what they’re about to do and, even if they’re not completely antagonistic, can view humans as prey and pose a challenge for the heroes and villains alike.

Depictions of spiders as monsters in mythology are ancient. One story of the origin of the spider in the ancient Greek tradition came from the Spinner Arachne, who mocked the gods, and the goddess Athena challenged her to a weaving contest. Arachne weaved, depicting a scene mocking the gods, so Athena cursed her, turning her into a spider. I always found this story of note out of most Greek mythology because compared to the other gods, Athena usually dealt fairly and helped mortals, but this time.

The idea of being consumed by a spider is terrifying because death is relatively prolonged. Spiders make beautiful webs, and as their prospective prey gets entangled, terror has a chance to set in. Most spiders then inject a venom and paralyze their victims. It is not technically right that they eat their victims while still alive; these powerful enzymes tend to liquefy the insides of the prey to better allow the spider to consume it, and so anything caught by the spider is unlikely to survive long.

So, it’s no real surprise that we continue to see spiders as monsters in contemporary works. In the Forgotten Realms universe, driders were drow turned into sexless centaur-like spiders. Usually, as a punishment for failing The Test of Lolth, driders were outcast from society and usually lived solitary lives in the Underdark. That is to say nothing of Lolth, the Spider Queen herself. Evil and cruel, Lolth delights in treachery and demands unquestioning devotion, however, following her orders without question usually led to the would-be devotee’s death.

Folklore is also filled with monsters who emulate beautiful women with ulterior motives. These creatures are found across many cultures; many different local stories have something not unlike the European river nixies or even just a human witch looking for affection. One such combination that is popular in fiction is that of a woman and a spider, where a beautiful woman typically lures a young man into a remote area – a cave, an abandoned house, plays music or gives him wine before springing her attack.

In A Fable of Wood and String I was already using creatures similar to the kitsune, so I decided to follow another being from Japanese folklore, the Jorogumo, which is said to be a Yokai or evil spirit. This worked well for me because the jorogumo made a mistake of attacking in a kitsune’s home forest, so it wasn’t considered meddling when my kitsune thwarted the attack, as well as offering additional aid to Seth and Lily to bring their people home.

In my depiction, the puppeteers kidnap people and transform them into living marionettes, but have more powers as I also show them as copying (and outright stealing) human faces and being able to imitate that person. In addition to stealing human faces, they can acquire the power of monsters by this same method, allowing them to take on some of their abilities – with caveats and limitations, of course: a puppeteer cannot become a giant dragon. Once Madeline, who serves as the main antagonist for the first act, lures her intended victims into the woods, she transforms into a jorogumo and, rather than killing her prey, traps then transforms the teenagers into living marionettes and disables them, allowing for her to kidnap them and steal away into the night when the protagonists fight back.

There’s more to the story, of course, as Madeline had other masks, and we only got to see what a handful of them can do in the first book. All I have to say is that in book 2, we’ll see more about how they make the masks and some other humanoid creatures the puppeteers and their human puppets can transform into.

A Fable of Wood and String

by L.T. Getty

Would it hurt you to just do as you’re told?

The O’Connell siblings live in the shadow of their parent’s past, held back by obligation to keep the people of Stagmil safe when their father has to lead the non-hunters of their village to drive off a wyvern.

Lily doesn’t trust the stranger who calls herself Madeline when she staggers into the pastoral lands. The puppeteer seems to take an interest in Lily’s talent with the family mandoline, and she teaches Lily new music. Lily’s had songs stuck in her head before, but nothing like this.

Twins Seth and Tiffany, however, can’t wait for their father to return so they can get on with the shearing. Seth should at least be helping hunt the wyvern, and Tiffany wants to take her best friend, Molly, and head to the nearest city and see the world.

The twins and several other villagers are lured by song into the woods and transformed into marionettes: Seth breaking free before he can be strung, and Lily tainted in a way she doesn’t understand. They have the skills to track the woman down, but to restore Seth to his body and rescue Tiffany and the others?

Tracking the woman takes them far from the familiar woodlands they know, across the sea to an enchanted castle, where in an effort to rescue their sister, they’ll learn something much more sinister than turning folk into puppets is going on. They’ll get help, of course, but not from who they expected.

After all, last Seth checked, foxes are only supposed to have the one tail.

Meet L.T. Getty

L.T. Getty is a Manitoba Paramedic. She received her degree in English in 2006 from the University of Winnipeg and has gone on to write several novels. Her latest title, Titan’s Ascent, is a sword and sorcery forthcoming from Champagne Books for 2025.

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