Maria Lax's photographic series, 'Stray Sod,' delves into a captivating phenomenon from Irish folklore. The concept of 'stray sod' refers to enchanted patches of earth that are said to lead anyone who steps on them astray. Inspired by first-hand accounts found in the Irish National Archives, Lax reimagines rural Irish landscapes through this otherworldly lens.
The Phenomenon of Stray Sod
In Irish folk tradition, there are numerous accounts of people traveling alone, often at night, who experience sudden and severe disorientation while traversing natural landscapes. These episodes are sometimes attributed to the influence of fairies, who would set wanderers astray for amusement, or to the power of the fóidín mearbhall (stray sod), an enchanted patch of earth that profoundly disorients those who step upon it.
Narrative Accounts
While stories about the stray sod vary, they commonly describe individuals forced to navigate a landscape that abruptly becomes unfamiliar and strange. Landmarks disappear, invert, or are replaced with new, unidentified features. Impenetrable fogs, mists, and colored hazes descend, causing disorientation. Woods, walls, and strange mountains suddenly appear, blocking progress. The scenery becomes entirely unrecognizable as familiar reference points distort and vanish.
The protagonists in these accounts are not eccentric characters but ordinary people engaged in daily activities—working the land or taking a shortcut across a field. These narratives often occur suddenly in areas just beyond towns or villages, typically in fields and roadways stretching toward unpopulated hills, forests, bogs, and pastures. These experiences unfold not only at the peripheries of place but also of time, often during the failing light of dusk.
Artist's Perspective
Maria Lax explains her fascination: 'What could be more terrifying than losing your way in a place you thought you knew well? That was the question I kept returning to during the research phase, and ultimately was why I chose this particular topic and title. In the stray sod narratives of Irish folklore, there is an ever-present quiet terror in the knowledge that there are portals into another, darker world hiding in plain sight; one wrong step and you could be thrust into a land that is not yours. There is an awareness that the surface of our reality is a slippery one.'
Lax relocated to Ireland for this project, spending countless hours wandering through the countryside in West Cork and elsewhere, often at night, searching for things to photograph. She describes driving through narrow country roads in the dark as 'entering a green labyrinth.' There were moments when fog would appear out of nowhere and stay for days, or a heavy storm would rise, and she understood how one could get very lost—in all meanings of that word.
Digital Memory and Storytelling
Creating 'Stray Sod' and researching the archives made Lax think about the world of digital remembering. As oral storytelling traditions are increasingly replaced by social content and archives move online, the fragile nature of memory was at the forefront of her mind. Instead of using archive imagery as originally planned, she chose to treat her images as the archive. Using analogue distortion, the photographs have been pulled apart, glitching, and some are completely beyond recognition.
Folklore and the Everyman
Lax notes that delving into themes of folklore has become an expression of her artistic interest. 'Written history is often about the big brush strokes of the power players, with regular people like ourselves often reduced to statistics and footnotes. Folklore could be described as the traditional beliefs, customs and stories of a community, passed through the generations by word of mouth. Folklore allows us to zoom in on the history of the everyman.'
She reflects on the human quest for answers: 'Even with all the knowledge available today we seek answers as frantically as ever. Tools and systems by which we seek them change, evolve and differ, yet answers stay elusive. Whether it's ancient folk beliefs, religion or conversations with ChatGPT, what unites all of us regardless of our generation and our homeland is our eagerness to make sense of our luck and our sorrows.'
Finding the Way Back
In the stray sod narratives, finding your way back home requires transforming something about yourself, symbolized by turning your clothing inside out. Often, help comes in the form of an animal or another person. It is people traveling alone who seem most prone to losing their way, and connection is a powerful antidote to the isolation in which we lose ourselves. However, sometimes the only way out is to keep wading through the inhospitable darkness; to simply not give up, as we hope and trust that the sun will eventually rise again.
An anecdote from the National Archive reads: 'In the end I sat down and turned my coat – I often heard it said that if you went astray and if you turned your coat, you would be all right and know where you were. I turned my coat, and when I looked around I found myself at Burrneagh Rocks, about two miles from where I started off.'
