Hungry Grass

 

Just finishing up work on Hungry Grass.   In Irish mythology, hungry grass (also known as fairy grass) is a patch of cursed grass. Anyone walking on it was doomed to perpetual and insatiable hunger. If a body was being ferried to a burial ground and momentarily set down to rest en route, that patch of grass would become cursed. Alternately, a patch of ground would become cursed if it were over an unshriven corpse, one that had not received absolution before death. Sometimes it was detached entirely from funerary custom and thought to have been planted by fairies.

This is an 8" x 10" original painting. Acrylic on acid free paper, illustrating one conception of the Hungry Grass mythology. The cursed victim stands on the back of a skeleton, unfurling from the skull is a banner announcing "Esurio" which is Latin for "to hunger". The victim claws at a cloud of imagined various victuals in a work inspired by medieval illumination and children's story book illustration. It's humorous and a bit creepy.

You can find it and similar works at My Good Babushka. Art. Needlework, Jewelry