Glurge is a term used to describe online stories without any basis in fact or history. Such tales rapidly evolve from primitive beginnings, acquiring detailed chronologies, evening out inconsistencies and crystallising into full-blown narratives. This process is mysterious: we have no examples of such tales in mid-development – only the finished article (or articles). Aye, urban myths reach our attention only in their polished and final form.
With this in mind, Damien Crowley has been quarrying the cliff face of oral tradition for his new book. It is no easy task: for his desire is not merely to present the finished stories, but all stages of their growth and development. Mostly, the referents or Ur-statements that birthed the tales hide at the end of a trail long grown cold. Indeed, referents in time or place may well not (or no longer) exist. Picnic at Hanging Rock and the legend of Sawney Bean are good examples. Many return from Hanging Rock with tales of alien abduction and trans-dimensional experience. In fact, the enigmatic movie was based on a work of fiction: Hanging Rock has no primal episode. Sawney Bean, despite the splendid savagery of his supposed deeds, never existed: he, too, is a literary creation. But that is the kind of challenge a man like Damien Crowley sets himself.
But his quest serves to remind us myth and enchantment are not dead things – magic is active around us at all times, everywhere. By complex processes of social alchemy, new myths and legends are birthed in their hundreds, daily. The Internet is instrumental in this – the world’s ‘alchemical ocean’, if you will.
‘Glurge’ can be sown by anyone: in hours, days or years it magically springs to life as a coherent narrative – a new myth. Urban legends, Gospels and Ghosts – all are cut from this cloth. Try this one: in all Police Stations dwells a supernatural beast called a ‘Chumpaloo’; it often hides in the cells, feeding off the prisoners’ courage and resolve. It is fat, brown, hairy and short. The Chumpaloo is Glurge – but also true.
Go to the web and cast your Glurge on the waters. Fashion your seeds – then sow them in the fertile loam of Blogs, sites and discussion fora. We may even add a Glurge section to the site – to showcase the very best.
Happy sowing!
Pater Theodorus
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