Although I spend most of my weekly wonders looking to the skies, or pulling up rugs and checking what secrets are hidden under there. I decided to do something different this week.
As a fantasy and science fiction writer I have to create entire worlds from scratch. The level of detail needed for that can be overwhelming. One of the things I spent time researching when writing my novel was unusual festivals. I needed to create some rituals around a funeral and a couple of festival events. What I wanted was the detail, the random intricacies of odd celebrations – what are the traditions, what ‘things’ do they have and do in these festivals. This research has done so much more – my head is exploding with ideas, so I had to share this bonkers list.
This has made me question why we obsessively celebrate certain things, How these festivals come into play – what happened to cause the worship of these things, and more importantly what considerations do I need to make about the history and creation of festivals in my own world and stories.
Hope you find these as useful as I did. Here are the most bizarre festivals I found and some of them really, truly are, bonkers! (more…)