Ancient Psychedelia: Alien Gods & Mushroom Goddesses
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| “Prince Comical warned them but they protested. ‘Nonsense,’ they said. ‘You may sleep out in the open air, if you like; we mean to make ourselves comfortable here.’ So, they all lay down under the shelter of the Mushroom, and Prince Comical slept in the open air. In the morning he wakened, feeling very well and hungry, and off he set to call his friends. But he might as well have called the Mushroom itself. There they all lay under its shade; and though some of them had their eyes open, not one of them could move. The Prince shook them, dragged them, shouted at them, and pulled their hair. But the more he shouted and dragged, the louder they snored; and the worst of it was, that he could not pull them out of the shadow of the Magic Mushroom. So there he had to leave them, sound asleep’.” “I don’t know where the Princess is,” said the Beetle; “but the Blue Bird is very wise, and he may know. Now your best plan will be to steal two of the Blue Bird’s eggs, and not give them back till he tells you all he can.” So off they set for the Blue Bird’s nest; and, to make a long story short, the Prince stole two of the eggs, and would not give them back, till the Bird promised to tell him all it knew. And the end of it was, that the Bird carried him to the Court of the Queen of Mushroom Land. She was sitting, in her Crown, on a Mushroom, and she looked very funny and mischievous.” The poor Prince blushed. “They call me Prince Comical,” said he; “I know I’m not half good enough!” “You are good enough for anything,” said the Queen of Mushroom Land; “but you might be prettier.” Then she touched him with her wand, and he became as handsome a Prince as ever was seen, in a beautiful red silk doublet, slashed with white, and a long gold-colored robe.” Eventually they meet up and he proposes to the Princess, on one knee, professes his love for her and she gladly obliges. This ends the second chapter. In the next chapter the Princess tells him he must never know her name and say it, and he gets very frustrated by this. For several days he proceeds to ask her a variety of names and she just shuns the attempts. She tells him that if he does, she will disappear, and he will never see her again, but his curiosity keeps getting the better of him, so he keeps asking. One day while she was up early from a burst of energy she sat by a spring and began to sing, and her words were a poem which she was writing which she had not revealed to him. He heard her say the name Gwendolyn and he yelled to her “is that your name, Gwendolyn” and “in a moment, all his beautiful hair vanished, and his splendid clothes, and his gold train, and his Crown. He wore a red cap, and common clothes, and was Prince Comical once more. But the Princess arose, and she vanished swiftly away.” The story ends happily when he humbles himself in front of the Water Fairy Queen and she laughs at him for being so foolish and shows him the way to win back her heart. He becomes “Prince Charming” again and woos her with a run around a giant mushroom and then the lovers embrace and kiss and become united again (90b). |
What I found most fascinating about this particular chapter and part of the story is the use of the term “Magic Mushroom.” We now give Pablo Reko and Schultes and Wasson the credit, but actually, credit should also go to Andrew Lang and the writers of these stories. These stories are the “Bible of the modern age.” They are the modern Gilgamesh or the modern Jason and the Argonauts or the modern Odyssey. The people who were aware and enlightened could read these stories and fully appreciate them for what they are, but the unconscious parents and adults who never experimented with drugs back then, would never have a clue what the other people were reading about. Fairy Tales became the new “alchemy” and the new medium in which to transmit occult knowledge that has been mythologized in various ways throughout history.  (90b) Scenes from "Princess Nobody" Andrew Lang 1884 |
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