Thursday 22 December 2016

Spirit lanterns

Nature spirits guarantee good health for their homestead, which is most interesting for plants and the people who care for those. A lantern is supposed to attract tiny spirits by burning incense; the then occupied lantern can, very carefully, be taken away and the spirit offered a new home in a plant of choice. Especially plants grown indoors or in greenhouses, or in otherwise inaccessible places, can lack a spirit which would normally turn up eventually.
Larger spirits are not as impressed by lanterns, unless there are many, but apparently they still notice them.

"Those blasted children stole my lanterns again. My crop of famkafeathers will be mediocre at best - but the wild rurgra trees ot the end of the street are just brimming with spirits. They will bear excellent fruit this year, I'm sure."
— Revchira, greenhouse owner
Lanterns are regionally different but often playfully designed to appeal to spirits, and are filled with carefully chosen incense, containing bits of the plant the lantern-owner wishes to become home to a spirit. Some also have windchimes, or are bird-shaped to glide down through hopefully spirit-inhabited spaces.


Artists' notes
These were a random bit in a drawing once, but the idea was pretty. Mostly spirits will just arrive one day, but in the middle of the desert or winter-dark lands, a little help is appreciated. Great Forest children conduct runs, snatching up an many lanterns as they can, and watch how many spirits come to see them. 

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