A Peter Pan aside

listening to an archived episode of BBC Radio 4's amazing nerdy-intellectual program "In Our Time," (about fairies) one of the guests said, in a most matter-of-fact tone:

What Peter Pan is really about is dead children. Every Wendy-house is a kind of tomb, really.

I love that the guest (Diane Purkiss) says this in such a decided tone, as if there were no disagreement at all about the place of dead children in Peter Pan.

Purkiss also mentions - and my mind is blown - a Persian demon or spirit called Kubu, who is evidently a lost dead child, much like Peter Pan, who seeks other children to keep him company (in other words: Kubu will kill your babies so he can have friends). Some quick googling doesn't turn up much except - oddly - a geography paper about salt and henna and spiritual beliefs, which mentions Kubu, a "manifestation of a stillborn child."

For more Peter Pan thoughts (including a guest post by me!), please see Jonathan Auxier's excellent, and excellently written, blog The Scop.

(disclaimer? note? Jonathan Auxier is the partner of a former classmate of mine at Pitt, children's literature scholar/current grad student Mary Burke Auxier. it's a small world)