Posts Tagged ‘misogyny’

axe and chopped wood

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Cast of Wonders 616: Worse than a Wolf


Worse than a Wolf

by Wen Wen Yang

The sound of the metal grinding against the whetstone reverberated up my arms. My father was sharpening his ax, preparing for the day’s work. “I invited Mu to dinner tonight,” he said.

I shuddered.

Mu was a woodsman whose family came from a neighboring village in China and had settled in the same rural town in Oregon a decade before my family. How happy my family was to hear our dialect! It almost made this foreign country feel safe. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 553: Judgment Day


Judgment Day

by Liam Hogan

Nine Judges rode in around noon. At the gabbled news the smattering of day-timers pushed away tumblers of whiskey and, with a curt nod from my father–the saloon owner–I stepped out onto the porch, still carrying my broom, to watch them arrive.

No horses. Equal in pace to any of God’s creatures, Judges don’t need them.

Gran says they travel as swift as the gas-guzzling automobiles of old, though the only one of those I ever saw at a county fair wasn’t any faster than a slow man walking.

“This town is in lock down,” Chief Justice Fisher announced, her voice echoing from clapboard walls as she pinned the proclamation to the door of the church with a metal hand. “By order of the Scotus, until we complete Judgment.” (Continue Reading…)

CoW 484 banner

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Cast of Wonders 484: Langsuir (Staff Picks 2021)


Langsuir

by Nadia Mikail

The langsuir is a woman who has died giving birth. Malay folktales have a multitude of women featured as wrathful, devious spirits: the hantu kum-kum thrives on the blood of virgin girls, desperate to maintain her youth even in death; the hantu kopek lures men to cheat on their wives, jealous that their afterlife contains no husband of their own; the pontianak goes after the people who have wronged her, tearing out their organs.

People usually shake their heads, they think: oh, well, that is the envious, terrible nature of Eve. Personally I think it is more how humans are treated in life that influences how they behave in death, and in this culture the women are angrier than most. (Continue Reading…)

Barn owl at night

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Cast of Wonders 453: Langsuir


Langsuir

by Nadia Mikail

The langsuir is a woman who has died giving birth. Malay folktales have a multitude of women featured as wrathful, devious spirits: the hantu kum-kum thrives on the blood of virgin girls, desperate to maintain her youth even in death; the hantu kopek lures men to cheat on their wives, jealous that their afterlife contains no husband of their own; the pontianak goes after the people who have wronged her, tearing out their organs.

People usually shake their heads, they think: oh, well, that is the envious, terrible nature of Eve. Personally I think it is more how humans are treated in life that influences how they behave in death, and in this culture the women are angrier than most. (Continue Reading…)