The Book Column : Maria Lax : Stray Sod

In Stray Sod, her second book published by Setanta Books, Maria Lax ventures into the heart of Irish folklore to deliver haunting work about the feeling of losing one’s way : in nature, in the night, or within oneself.

Fóidín mearbhall. Stray sod. In the Irish language, these two words refer to an enchanted patch of land upon which a single misstep is enough to lose all sense of direction. Disoriented travellers in familiar landscapes, roads that vanish underfoot, blue mountains or mysterious houses appearing from nowhere, mists obscuring the view and unknown rivers blocking the path: in the country’s folk tradition, such accounts are plentiful. Finnish photographer Maria Lax spent years collecting them in the archives of the National Folklore Collection at University College Dublin. Eager to fully grasp the phenomenon, she eventually decided to move to Ireland, pointing at a map at random and ending up staying for nearly two years.

To break the spell of confusion cast by mischievous fairies, the Irish have all manner of unspoken rules: turning one’s coat or hat inside out, reciting a prayer… « Folklore, rules, superstitions: they are ways to navigate the world and make sense of what we see. » Many of the accounts Maria Lax encountered unfolded during particular moments such as nighttime or on the way back from a funeral. « I saw that as a link to what people were going through then, but also what we are all going through now. Sometimes I feel like we don’t recognize the world we’re in. » Each of us has, in our own way, known this kind of lostness, a state which can arise from grief, depression, or simple anxiety. A loss of bearings in a world that remains unchanged, yet in which we can no longer find our footing. It is this experience, as intimate as it is universal, and yet so difficult to name, that Stray Sod captures.

It is through nature that the photographer conjures the beyond, working with filters of her own invention to cast deep blues over woodland paths and night roads in violet halos. Some images are covered with translucent pink paper, that “thin veil” so dear to Irish folklore, a reminder that the invisible is never far away. Others dissolve into an analogue distortion that captures how everything familiar can collapse in an instant. To find their way back, the lost travellers will turn to the animals that populate the book: dogs, cats, sheep, foxes, butterflies… Guides and guardians of troubled souls, their anchor to the real.

It is often a human or animal presence that eventually brings the lost ones home: « It is people travelling alone who seem most prone to losing their way, and connection is a powerful antidote to the isolation in which we lose ourselves. » Some fogs, it seems, simply cannot be walked out of alone.

Zoé Isle de Beauchaine