Bridge to the House of Lies

My intuition about Disinfolklore first manifested while I was a peacekeeping diplomat. Between 2015 and 2018, I was posted on a bridge spanning the eastern Ukrainian Donets River at Stanitsia Luhanska. That wooden and iron bridge was the only pedestrian crossing place between Russia-occupied Luhansk and the rest of Ukraine. Ten thousand civilians — mostly older women, children and those unlikely to be press-ganged into military service by Russian occupiers — traversed it daily.

The folkloric resonances of the situation were glaring. Most famous troll tales in our culture derive from “Three Billy-Goats’ Gruff,” a Norwegian folk tale collected by Asbjornsen and Moe.

That fable is itself a folkloric reflex of a much older legend in Indo-European culture. In ancient Iranian religion, at the time of death, we approach Chinvat bridge. Chinvat is guarded by Daena. If Daena appears as a beautiful woman, we will pass into the eternal heavenly House of Songs. Yet, if the bridge narrows as we approach it to the width of a sword blade and Daena is a witch, we shall spend eternity in the hellish House of Lies.

I was a living character in the daily re-enactment of one or other of these stories: the mediator. The diplomat. The story collector. The witness. Arriving there each morning, I could never be sure which version the Russians had scripted for the day.

Source: Bridge to the House of Lies

The origin story in its deepest mythological form. The author was a living character on Chinvat bridge — the ancient Iranian bridge between the House of Songs and the House of Lies (which corresponded to the Disinfolklore Galaxy Russian Disinfolklore was creating inside the parts of Ukraine it was occupying), guarded by Daena who appears as either beautiful woman or witch. Three Billy-Goats’ Gruff is a folkloric reflex of this older Indo-European myth. Russia-occupied Ukraine was the world’s first contemporary Disinfolklore Galaxy: a House of Lies made real. Today, the whole world is at risk of being wrapped up inside a Disinfolklore Univserse wrought of multiple concatenating Disinfolklore galaxies like Donald’s MAGA, and other artificially created strategic communications spaces enmeshing whole populations inside lies. See What Is a Troll?.

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