Remember the “Milk: It does a body good” commercials from the 80’s, featuring celebrities holding a glass of whole-some cow juice in one hand, while sporting an unashamedly white mustache? Now Nutrition Science has done a complete 180° turn-over, and no doubt you are friends with at least one obnoxious health-obsessed hipster, who would just cringe in horror if he or she ever caught you grabbing a carton of pasteurized whole-milk at the supermarket.
In Medieval times there was also a certain caution against milk –but not for the reasons you might think. You see, milk was one of the favorite drinks of the fey folk, and as such many old wives’ tales warned against accepting any offering of milk or any other kind of ingestible from these trickstery entities, lest you become bewitched by them and entrapped in their magical realm forever –of course, the same folk tales also warned about never EVER offending the fairie-kind, so either way you were pretty much screwed…
The exchange of liquids and food-stuffs between mortal men and fairies didn’t end with the Industrial Revolution and the dawn of Materialism; it merely ‘transmogrified’ to adapt with the new times, and instead of wine offered by an enchanting wood elf, now we have card-board tasting pancakes handed down by humanoids traveling in silvery saucers. Trying to find the connective thread –if any– between ancient folklore and modern witness accounts, Fortean researcher Joshua Cutchin managed to mix it all up to cook “A Trojan Feast: The Food and Drink Offerings of Aliens, Faeries, and Sasquatch” [Amazon US & UK], which was published last month and has already gathered praised reviews all over the Fortean blogosphere.
And just to whet your esoteric appetite, here’s a small morsel from the chapter about liquids. Mind you, this is only a fraction of the complete chapter, stripped from all the footnotes Joshua was careful to include in the text.
Get it while it’s hot!
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Milk, a staple of life since time immemorial, is common in faerie lore. Practically all of the fae folk accept milk as an offering, are quick to steal it from farmers, and occasionally offer it directly to humans (recall the man who died for rejecting the banshee’s buttermilk).
It isn’t always animal milk that faeries offer, however. In one Scandinavian folktale, a young cowherd was fending off sleep when a faerie happened upon him. “You look hungry,” she said seductively. “Come, I’ll give you something to drink. Take a suck, if you dare.” She presented her breast and somehow enticed the young man to suckle, whereupon he fell into a trance and “stayed there for an eternity.” Somehow he eventually extricated himself from this awkward position, possessing only a foggy memory of the encounter.
Even more enticing was the milk of the Milk-White Milch Cow, a fae bovine with the miraculous ability to never run dry. Any Celtic family lucky enough to happen upon her could drink her milk and be made healthy, wise, or happy, depending upon one’s needs.
In the early 1970s in Veracruz, Mexico, several child disappearances were attributed to the chaneques, small elemental faeries similar to the aforementioned duendes. One child was Arturo Gutierrez, who disappeared at age six after going on a hike with his uncle. The uncle was awaiting trial for murder when the boy reappeared 33 days later in perfect health, saying that he had “been living with the little men. They gave me food and milk with honey in it. We played a lot of games. I was very happy.”
As mentioned earlier, there are very few stories where Sasquatch offer liquids, presumably because—if one adopts the biological ape theory—they lack the sophistication to create drinking vessels. Nonetheless, there are still a few interesting connections to make with folklore and anecdotes. Just as Milk-White Milch Cow guarded her magical liquid of life, so Tsonoqua holds a special elixir of her own. According to folklorist Cheryl Shearar, if Tsonoqua was slain, her skull could be turned into a wash basin, one whose “water gives children anointed with it remarkable strength. She occasionally endows select, fortunate and clever individuals with great wealth.”
Several reports exist of hairy hominids suckling humans. Circa 1200, a baby was stolen from its nanny in Sienra, Spain. A hastily organized rescue party quickly located the boy, who was “happily sucking one of the tits” of the serrana, or wild woman. There is some dispute as to whether or not this account is describing a bear, although such behavior would seem unlikely from a wild animal. One Indian news source ran a story, no less suspect, of an alleged Yeti abduction that ended in an unfortunate man being “forcibly breastfed.” He described the milk as “sour with a mixture of bitterness.”
There is also no shortage of extraterrestrial cases where witnesses allegedly consume milk or a “milky” substance.
- A 52-year-old repeat experiencer in Dagestan, Russia, awoke one night in 1990 to find two humanoids dressed head-to-toe in tight-fitting suits. One held a bottle of “some unknown whitish liquid” which she was forced to swallow. The entities disappeared immediately afterward. She later remarked that the beverage tasted like sour milk.
- In 2007, one witness recalled an incident some 33 years earlier when Grey aliens entered the bedroom and administered “some white liquid that had the appearance of milk but had a horrible chemical taste.” The witness remembers a Grey alien, larger than its compatriots, hovering close by and communicating good intentions.
- Researcher Albert Rosales had direct correspondence from “Margaret,” a mother in Queensland, Australia, involved in multiple encounters. Margaret reported that in 1993 her daughter claimed to have met a “tall woman” who had come through the window and given her “cake and pink milk to drink in a large goblet.” Though it is possible these were simple childish flights of fancy, the mother had seen several shadowy figures moving through the home around the time of the incident, and once even caught a glimpse of a tall woman on their property.
- “Godre Ray King” wrote in 1934’s Unveiled Mysteries that he had encountered “Saint Germain” four years prior while working at California’s Mount Shasta. King, whose real name was Guy Warren Ballard, said that Saint Germain was an immortal being who gave him a peculiar creamy fluid to drink called “Life—Omnipresent Life.” He also consumed a golden beverage with the consistency of honey. Ballard would later found the “I AM” Activity, a New Age organization.
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Excerpt from “Chapter 4 – Food: Liquid”
Reprinted with permission from A TROJAN FEAST by JOSHUA CUTCHIN
Published by ANOMALIST BOOKS, SAN ANTONIO, TX.
Copyright © 2015 Joshua Cutchin. All rights reserved.
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