The Clockwork Mansion

well, unless i pull the mother of all theradomancy my 'demonology 101' thread is so far beyond the grave the stench could peel paint.

why not start a newish version? seems like nobody used it for demonology (i was supprised, i thought you guys were cubi nuts) and mostly asked miscilanious cryptology questions so this will be a more appropriate name.

whats cryptology? cryptology is the study of anythign which cannot be proven or disproven, and includes cryptozoology (lock ness, bigfoot, hodags, chupacabra, tazlewurms, skunk apes, ecetera), mythology, ledgens of not purely historical nature, demons, theology, arcane anything, and roughly 75% of anything pagan. ive had a very bored childhood with lybrary acess, i know all kinds of freaky things so dont be afraid to ask anything.


i await the first question.

QuoteI don't need no doctor

But I need something to kill the pain

Don't know what I'm after

But the pressure driving me insane

Searching for a differnt ride

Had a funny feeling I can't hide

Hey, Hey, Do the Zombie Stomp

Why can't they just let me be

Alone without the misery

Hey, Hey, Do the Zombie, Zombie Stomp

Flirting with disaster

Mornign after killing me again

Hiding from the laughter

And the demons dancing round my brain

Always dancing on thin ice

I guess I'll have to pay the price

Hey, Hey, Do the Zombie Stomp

Thinking how it could have been

If I had never let them in

Hey, Hey, Do the Zombie, Zombie Stomp

:zombiekun2 :zombiekun2 :zombiekun2 :zombiekun2 :zombiekun2 :zombiekun2 :zombiekun2

Alrights heres one for you Dr. Abraham Van Helsing ;) Vampires...Why are most stamped out and one is know to be a vegian...Duckula is his name and only one heir is found...Char of mine but neverless...Why is it seem that most people liek to input that the jacklope is the one the critters that seem to lure minds and such...Yet we knwo well its a hoax or is it? :)

Should I mention Bunnicula, as a counter-thesis to Count Duckula? And, probably, Count Homogenised....

I'm okay with you bumping the Demonology thread back up at some point.

Bermuda Triangle, go go.

Well, I hate to pile on, but what exactly is the difference between a lilith, the Lilith from the Alphabet of Ben Sira, and lilin?

Here's what I know.  A lilith is a demon-type creature in Middle-Eastern mythology.  The term was borrowed into Hebrew, where it seems to refer to a succubus-type creature.  In the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) there is exactly one reference to a lilith.  In the Talmud, there are various references to lilith (liliths?  lilithim?), including one where Adam is said to have children by one.  These children are called lilin.

Fast forward to The Alphabet of Ben Sira.  It contains the famous reference to a woman known as Lilith who was Adam's first wife.  She left the Garden of Eden because she would not lie below Adam.

This would seem to indicate that she's not a succubus, which is formed from sub- + cubare: ``to lie beneath.''

So here come the questions:  Does that mean that Lilith from Ben Sira is a typical lilith in not wanting to lie beneath?  How do lilin differ from a lilith?  And how does a lilith differ from a succubus/incubus?

Quote from: Zedd on December 21, 2006, 05:02:51 PM
Why is it seem that most people like to input that the jacklope is the one the critters that seem to lure minds and such...Yet we know well its a hoax or is it? :)

the jackalope is pretty much entirely a tall tale from those who settled the western areas of the north American continent, specifically the great plains. the north woods had its own list of joke myths which included the wild blue yonder falcon and the fur bearing trout. any 'jackalope' you see is, was, and always will be a rustic joke which found its origins in how Europeans thought American animals were slightly strange and novel.

the story behind a jackalope was that it was good luck to see, very tasty, its milk was high in vitamin P which is normally found in low concentrations in watermelon and beer, and for some unknown reason should be kept away from barmaids. some places (I'm ashamed to say i know this firsthand) actually sell jackalope licences which entitle the owner to hunt jackalopes...mysteriously enough the season in which you may hunt them is unspecified

Quote from: Netami on December 21, 2006, 11:15:07 PM
Bermuda Triangle, go go.

rather broad question, but ill give it a shot.

ahem, the Bermuda triangle is a rough border of a specific section of water in the Caribbean region. supposedly 'strange things' happen here, which i shall list in some detail

1- strange lights in the sky
2- malfunctioning radios and spinning compasses
3- disappearance of ship crew yet ship found unharmed
4- complete disappearance of ship
5- complete disappearance of planes

the Bermuda triangle was first documented by the log kept by Christopher Columbus in his exploratory trek to the Americas. although it would be decades before this region would get its name old Chris described nights where very bright lights moved in the sky, the compasses malfunctioned and would occasionally spin erratically, and general feelings UFO uneasiness in the crew. many historians thank their respective dieties for the extremely detailed ships logs that everyone seemed to keep during this era, which even allow us today to create maps of hurricane patterns back well over a hundred years, and don't doubt for a minute that Chris and his crew saw SOMETHING.

for the next several decades sailing ships continued to venture to and from the Americas, the more superstitious sailors eventually giving the location its name after some of its characteristic disappearances started to happen. public awareness however peaked during the world wars when the navy and airforce lost very expensive ships and planes- being far more inclined to investigate then the crew of a clipper ship or even a modern fishing fleet. after finding no sign of the ships, no sign of the crew, and no wreckage on the seabed, people began to get a lot more spooked and took this more seriously.

currently there are many seafarers who thing the whole mess is just a bunch of bovine excrement, while others wouldn't sail there if you offered them their weight in gold. explanations exist, but differ and lack some credibility

1- the lights are spaceships, aliens do something or other to random people. not very credible, essentially on par with saying "wizards did it"

2- secret navy experiments. slightly more credible, but really really vague and does not address colonial era ships logs reporting lights and spinning compasses

3- the location is an anomaly caused by the magnetic field of the earth, similar to wonder spots' where the earths gravity is at an angle to 'down' and you can coax water to flow up an incline. this is more credible, and opens up a world of questions about what we know of electromagnetism. it also explains why modern era ships and planes such as those during the world wars dissapeared more frequently then the old wooden ones or the modern ones. possibly the reliance on specific navigational equipment was a fault whereas today most everything is operated by magnetically shielded microchips and monitored from satelite.

4- its the legendary west pole. i dunno, pick up an original copy of the adventures of Winnie the pooh for more details on this one

Quote from: superluser on December 22, 2006, 12:32:33 AM
Well, I hate to pile on, but what exactly is the difference between a Lilith, the Lilith from the Alphabet of Ben Sira, and lilin?

Here's what I know.  A Lilith is a demon-type creature in Middle-Eastern mythology.  The term was borrowed into Hebrew, where it seems to refer to a succubus-type creature.  In the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) there is exactly one reference to a Lilith.  In the Talmud, there are various references to Lilith (liliths?  lilithim?), including one where Adam is said to have children by one.  These children are called lilin.

Fast forward to The Alphabet of Ben Sira.  It contains the famous reference to a woman known as Lilith who was Adam's first wife.  She left the Garden of Eden because she would not lie below Adam.

This would seem to indicate that she's not a succubus, which is formed from sub- + cubare: ``to lie beneath.''

So here come the questions:  Does that mean that Lilith from Ben Sira is a typical Lilith in not wanting to lie beneath?  How do lilin differ from a Lilith?  And how does a Lilith differ from a succubus/incubus?

valid question, simple answer. they're all the same Lilith.

supposedly when Yahweh created Adam from clay he did not create eve on the first try, he first created Lilith. Lilith however proved to be what we today would call an abomination, she wasn't really human and was a very cold hearted being. after being cast out from eden she was supposedly exiled to other lands where she met other...for lack of a better word ill call them people. when the big man tried the second time he made sure to use something that was already proven to work and ripped a rib out of Adam instead of starting that whole mess again.

later, Kane and Abel (the first sons of Adam and eve for those of you who are theologically deprived) came to be, and in an amazing display of envy and wrath Kane killed his own brother. this was by far the most appalling thing imagineable, before then there had never been such a thing as a dead human. to punish Kane a mark was put upon his forehead- he would live forever and bear witness to the cruelties of mankind, the good would not dare touch him and the wicked would know him as one of their own. after his own banishment Kane and Lilith bonded, not really being able to marry but it was close enough.

the children of Kane and Lilith were known as the first succubi, an intresting notion raising the question wether succubi and incubi were demons from the abyss or living 'humans'. it was stated that Lilith gave birth to a hundred children a day...but it never said how long this carried on or how many actually survived.

whatever children there survived were called 'children of lilith' or 'lilliths' by some of the lands in the middle east, particularly Persia and whats now turkey. in later years the name succubus and its reciprocal incubus replaced reference of Lilith.

in later centuries the same Lilith was whispered to kidnap the children of the 'sons of adam', the reason given was that her own icy womb would bear nothing pure or good. missing children, cradle death, and the occasional infant terrified for its life was blamed on Lilith trying to claim a child for her own.

after considering all this also consider that Kane and Lilith are supposedly 'immortal' in the sense that they wont die unless killed. in theory they're still out there somewhere if the scriptures be true.

Quotebring me not news of death, bring me not tidings of sorrow. tell me not tales of fear, give me not whispers of grief. this land is cursed enough as it is and darkness be its ruler, ill not have you make it worse.

[/glow]

Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on December 22, 2006, 01:48:35 AMthe children of Kane and Lilith

Oh, that's fascinating!  Does that mean that Grendel was a descendant of Lilith?

Quote from: superluser on December 22, 2006, 02:01:28 AM

Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on December 22, 2006, 01:48:35 AMthe children of Kane and Lilith

Oh, that's fascinating!  Does that mean that Grendel was a descendant of Lilith?

The geneology of Grendel (translation 'the grinder', Grendel was born with bad dreams and ground his teeth constantly) is largely unknown other then his swamp dwelling mother. Ive heard the concept that Grendel is a 'child of kane' before but this is tandemount to those who think that vampires are 'kaneites' or somesuch.

Grendel is what is known as a 'Troll'. i would assume youve heard of them but know little about them. the word troll translates to something along the lines of 'overly agressive' and it needs to be stated that trolls used to be humans. long long long long LONG ago humanity went through a period of selective breeding when everyone was still living in caves and huts so rude they were downright offensive- those who could not fit into society safely were outcast. those who were to agressive, rowdy, impulsive, and greedy were called trolls and it seems they eventually had a breeding (specifically the inbred kind of breeding) population in exile (the theory stands that physical deformities also became 'dwarves', while those who were cowardly and self serving became the incredibly short lived race of 'goblins' which dissapeared form folktales somewhere around the twelfth century). in scandinavian lore trolls pop up all the time, and they make guest appearances through most of europe, for some reason scandinavian trolls were rumored to turn to stone in sunlight or thier skin 'cracked' when sunlight touched them...but this sounds a bit fancifull.

trolls throughout the world share some common features- theyre butt fugly, strong, agressive, and have a nasty balance of being mean and cunning. while rarely being smart trolls have appeared in many legends as crafting wonderous items almost on par with the marvels of the dwarves, specifically swords of unsurpassable sharpness. the concept that trolls are big is less stable ground, some have been said to be the size of normal humans, or even shorter, while others are nearly as tall as medium sized pine trees (legends of trolls the size of hills and mountants are obviously embellished, falling under the category of the frost giants found in norse mythology).

so if you find a troll on a forum, let some daylight through them, and if you find one elsewhere give it a great big hug and try not to look tasty

QuoteSOUND OFF!
one two
SOUND OFF!
many lots
I DUNNO BUT I HEAR
unno butt hair
IT REALLY HARD TO RHIME AND MARCH
tilly art who're me darch

[/glow]

I read somewhere that Lilith was made but she was too dominant. Basically, she and Adam were going at it and she wanted to be on top and he didn't like that idea. Neither did God, apparently, and he cast her out for being too dominant. So thus Eve was made, to be a subservient wife. So I think it sort of fuses the two ideas of "lie beneath" and the casting out, eventually leading to Kane.

I swear I read that somewhere credible... (at least as credible as old jewish myths go). Also you're supposed to recite three angel names after a child is born to protect it from Lilith, so that ties in with the cradle-death, infant death explanation you gave.

Lilith has always interested me, for some reason.

the concept was that lilith thought herself adams superior, not his equal. to be quite frank its things like people reading that and saying "god wants women to be on the bottom and men on the top" which makes christians sound nuts, like the ones who disbelieve in medecine or somehow decided the bible probibits cloth made from man made fibers. if you read too much into the old texts youll hear people proclaiming that certan kinds of locusts were safe to eat while others werent, ground meat was an abbomination unto god, vedgetables grown in a private garden was herasy, and it was OK to stone people to death for THINKING impure thoughts....while at the same time people who read this completely ignore accounts of jesus freaking christ himself attending the wedding of a good male friend of his to another male and blessing thier union.

lilith was an abomination because she thought herself superior to adam, outside the laws of her creator, and generally being a really scary female dog. keep in mind this supposedly happened before the whole fruit incident (not an apple, the forbidden fruit has its own name that i have forgotten....i think it starts with a 'Q') so adam at the time did not know good from evil, was quite frightened by the mean lady who screamed, and was little more then an innocent puppet.

for more about the whole fruit thing i would suggest reading the opening chapter of "good omens" written by neil gaimen and terry pratchett. not the whole book nessicarily (though its quite enlightening and funny) but at least the opening.

QuotePropher who? oh, that guy. if i remember correctly he spent some years in the desert, ate some funny coloured mushrooms, and drank what he squeesed from lizards. sorry to say ive never spoken to him in his life, i apologise for that makeing the whole 'scripture' thing Brutha.

[/glow]

Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on December 22, 2006, 02:47:56 AMIve heard the concept that Grendel is a 'child of kane' before but this is tandemount to those who think that vampires are 'kaneites' or somesuch.

Well, I've got to disagree with you there.  In Beowulf itself, it makes it pretty clear that Grendel is a child of Cain:

I

Grendel, they called him, this grim spoiler, a demon who prowled the dark borderlands, moors and marshes, a man-eating giant who had lived in a lair in the land of monsters ever since God had outlawed him along with the rest of the line of Cain.  Abel's murder had angered the Lord, who avenged that deed of violence on Cain, driving him far from the dwellings of men.  Spooks and spirits are spawned from his seed, elves and goblins and evil ghouls and those bold giants who rebelled against God, asking for trouble.

XIX

Grendel's mother, a monstrous female, who mourned and raged in her foul den in the fenlands, the black bottomless abyss that had been her home since Cain cruelly killed his brother, his closest kinsman.  Accursed by God, and with that murder marking him, he fled to live in the wasteland.  From his loins sprang a monstrous progeny, among them Grendel,

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/Literature.RinglBeowulf

Quote from: Netami on December 22, 2006, 05:33:18 AMI swear I read that somewhere credible... (at least as credible as old jewish myths go). Also you're supposed to recite three angel names after a child is born to protect it from Lilith, so that ties in with the cradle-death, infant death explanation you gave.

Well, as I say, a lilith is not the same as *the* Lilith.  Brunhidden confirms that *the* Lilith was a lilith, but the myth of *the* Lilith comes from the Alphabet of Ben Sira, a 7th-11th c. text which, while claiming to be a Jewish Kabbalistic work, shows very little in common with traditional Jewish scholarship.

It's important to note that the recitation of angel names would have applied to a lilith as a demon, not as a specific historic or legendary person.

Quote from: superluser on December 22, 2006, 12:41:18 PM
Well, I've got to disagree with you there.  In Beowulf itself, it makes it pretty clear that Grendel is a child of Cain:

I

Grendel, they called him, this grim spoiler, a demon who prowled the dark borderlands, moors and marshes, a man-eating giant who had lived in a lair in the land of monsters ever since God had outlawed him along with the rest of the line of Cain.  Abel's murder had angered the Lord, who avenged that deed of violence on Cain, driving him far from the dwellings of men.  Spooks and spirits are spawned from his seed, elves and goblins and evil ghouls and those bold giants who rebelled against God, asking for trouble.

XIX

Grendel's mother, a monstrous female, who mourned and raged in her foul den in the fenlands, the black bottomless abyss that had been her home since Cain cruelly killed his brother, his closest kinsman.  Accursed by God, and with that murder marking him, he fled to live in the wasteland.  From his loins sprang a monstrous progeny, among them Grendel,

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/Literature.RinglBeowulf

Quote from: Netami on December 22, 2006, 05:33:18 AMI swear I read that somewhere credible... (at least as credible as old jewish myths go). Also you're supposed to recite three angel names after a child is born to protect it from Lilith, so that ties in with the cradle-death, infant death explanation you gave.

Well, as I say, a lilith is not the same as *the* Lilith.  Brunhidden confirms that *the* Lilith was a lilith, but the myth of *the* Lilith comes from the Alphabet of Ben Sira, a 7th-11th c. text which, while claiming to be a Jewish Kabbalistic work, shows very little in common with traditional Jewish scholarship.

It's important to note that the recitation of angel names would have applied to a lilith as a demon, not as a specific historic or legendary person.

i find it rather inconsistant that juedo-christian scriptures would find thier way into beowulf in any accurate sense. at the time that beowulf occured christian missionaries were barely able to traverse the northlands without being driven off by the worshipers of the Aesir (technically the plural of Aesir is Ass, but im aware of the readership and want to limit the jokes somewhat when i say "worshipers of the ass"). on the historical side its intresting to learn that roughly half the men who took part in the grendel episode of beowulf had just 'converted' to christianity in the unique way that worshipers of the Aesir do...they worshiped Yaweh AND thier pantheon of Odin, Thor, Frey, ecetera while the other half thought christianity was for the weak and the allfather would not protect them in battle nor would the valkeries collect thier souls and escort them to the special afterlife which include getting shit faced drunk and beating people up.

thus i must contest to using lines of beowulf which specifically reffer to juedo-christian dogma under the impression that someone tried to christianise something which they believed was misrepresented by the hairy northmen who have a few hundred years of legends and carvigns on big rocks concerning said creature. while the saga of beowulf is pretty darned old (pretty darned old yes, but consider that christianity was a late commer. the northmen had been the viking kinda norhtmen who worshiped the Aesir for roughly two hundred years before this, and the germanic peoples south of there had been worshiping the Aesir and talked about trolls sinse before most of the mythology was even made {example- Odin the one eyed god was once known as Wotan, my ancestors worshiped him and his holy symbol was a bearded face with TWO eyes even though the oldest legends about Odin claim he got his wisdom by sacrificing his left eye to a talkign head who lived in a well, stabbing himself with a spear, and hanging himself from a tree for several days}) and remarkably unchanged i still find it hard to believe that anybody in daneland (daneland is where beowulf takes place if you didnt know, now known as 'denmark' if you can believe such a silly name) that long ago would reffer to a monster as a 'son of cain'

on the other hand i have heard the term "Son of Cain" used in other contextes, specifically ones where the meaning was not "dirrect decendant of Kain of biblical fame" but rather "Souless monster of the worst sort possible for a human to achieve.". to be specific i believe that it was used to describe Vlad Dracul and his son Vladimir Tepes (ironically junior here was briefly thought to have been the 'messiah' to bring prosperity and freedom....and in a way he did. despite being a nasty bit of a butcher 'the impaler' protected his lands from fierce the invaders the ottoman turks {sure, it involved skewering thier bodies on a forest of sharp spikes and having woodcuts made of him dipping his bread in the blood of enemies, but its way better then the ottomans would have done to the peasants} and the title 'dracula' did not mean anything to do with the devil but was a title meaning he was of the 'order of the dragon' {a collection of european nobles from both catholic and eastern orthadox faith determined to keep the ottomans from sweeping westward}). the term was also used to describe some modern era mass murderer but i forget which one, but clearly neither of theese three cases had any evidence to trace their geaneology back to the furst murderer.

in conclusion i will accept the term "son of cain" under the assumption that it means "like unto the first murderer" and not "weve got the birth cirtificate right here".




in regards to the lilith thing. if its 'A' lilith you can think of it as a child of lilith, same goes for lillin. the whole demon lilith thing should also include that you can be promoted to the title of demon if you really try your best, supposedly being a demon is worse punishment then being tourmented by one....dunno why, and im not sure if ill ever understand those monks who wrote that it was worse or what they based thier research on.

QuoteI fail to see why humanity sees the need to invent demons. humans are quite capable of conducting every evilthemselves.

[/glow]

Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on December 23, 2006, 08:39:08 AMi find it rather inconsistant that juedo-christian scriptures would find thier way into beowulf in any accurate sense.

Well, fair enough.  Beowulf (the story written in the Nowell Codex {*}) was written by a Christian author, and it appears to be the only written source for the Beowulf legend.  The Beowulf legend was almost certainly much older, and pre-Christian.

So the question becomes bifurcated.  The Grendel of the original legend was certainly not identified as a son of Cain, but the Grendel of the Beowulf-Poet certainly was.  So would that make Grendel a son of Lilith, too?  Anyways, I think the question has been beaten to death, so I'm willing to let it go.


{*} I keep wanting to call it the Cotton Manuscript...

What is the difference between an Succubus and a Incubus

Quote from: Fex on December 23, 2006, 12:48:07 PMWhat is the difference between an Succubus and a Incubus

I think I can handle this one.  A succubus is a female demon that has sex with men in their sleep.  An incubus is a male demon that has sex with women in their sleep.  The mythology states that they're actually the same, and--for example--that in order to reproduce, a succubus must have sex with a man, change sex and become an incubus, and use the male victim's...well, I don't want to go all NC-17 here.

Anyways, the etymology of each is sub- + cubare (``to lie below'') for succubus, and in- + cubare (``to lie on top of'') for incubus{*}.

I remember Reebok came out with a women's running shoe that they decided to call the `Incubus.'  It did not sell very well.  Beyond that, I don't know much.

{*} Hence my earlier comments about how Lilith, who refused to lie below, could not be a succubus.

very close- while incubi and succubi were male and female forms of the same concept they are not actually the same thing...each just had the ability to masquerade as the other even though they were definately male or female.

think of them as being able to crossdress in peoples skin.

other noteable things about theese demons are that they always have distinguishing features that allow those not bling with lust tell its not a human.

1- chances of a naked woman with a wonder rack or a sexy stud with a baseball bat appearing without warning in your bedroom are so infantessimly small as to be even remotely believeable. unless people NORMALLY strip naked and fling themselves at you, this is a dead giveaway.

2- the genetals of theese creatures are unusual. for instance the...er...equipment a male has will not only be above average size (well, obviously they wont try to seduce unless theyre packing) but will also be of an unusual material such as horn/bone or covered in scales. females are a matter which its kinda painfull for anyone with male equipment to think about without whimpering a bit in the way you whimper when you see someone get kneed in the groin....ill leave that up to your own imaginations.

3- incubi and succubi often disguise themselves as loved ones or other people you know (far more believeable then anonomous sex object just breaking in through the window) but the illusion can be defeated easily sinse they have no way of knowing how exactly said person normally behaves. be suspicious if a naked sexy person cannot answer simple questions about people or events they should know about (unless thier drunk or really stupid under normal circumstances)


and yeah, the thing about genderswapping to aquire semen. its true, but its not to reproduce. according to the information i have on the subject the purpose of aquiring this semen was to knock people up while they sleep and get them into a  lot of trouble. yes, incubi were blamed sometimes for people who have never met having kids together, while its possible it was also done to 'expose' affairs where both participants took precautions that they normally dont when theyre dreaming.

essentially the whole purpose of 'cubi' was to throw structured humanity into the blender, tempting people to do things they wouldnt normally do, and making little evils seem okay and big evils seem little. as you can see television has made cubi obsolete

QuoteWell, when my boss replaced me with a clip art CD I really lost some of my self esteeem.

[/glow]

Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on December 25, 2006, 09:18:36 AMvery close- while incubi and succubi were male and female forms of the same concept they are not actually the same thing...each just had the ability to masquerade as the other even though they were definately male or female.

That makes a bit of sense.

Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on December 25, 2006, 09:18:36 AMand yeah, the thing about genderswapping to aquire semen. its true, but its not to reproduce.

Well, then, what were the deals with Merlin and Caliban?  Weren't they the offspring of such unions?  And weren't they endowed with some special powers as a result?

Quote from: superluser on December 25, 2006, 09:46:53 PM

Well, then, what were the deals with Merlin and Caliban?  Weren't they the offspring of such unions?  And weren't they endowed with some special powers as a result?

you cant prove who their fathers are, even if you knew it was an incubus. mostly the concept of their fathers being incubi was poetic

QuoteWho cares about the truth, this is a MUCH better story

Well, I was wondering when we'd see the return of this! Alright, I've heard you mention the possibilities of goblins, trolls, etc. But what about Monsters? The minotaur, the Wendigo, Polyphemus, the Hydra, and all these others. It says the circumstances of their creation in their myths, but what are your views?

Quote from: Boogeyman on December 26, 2006, 11:21:24 PMThe minotaur, the Wendigo, Polyphemus, the Hydra, and all these others. It says the circumstances of their creation in their myths, but what are your views?

Well, Polyphemus the cyclops was in the Odyssey, which is one of the oldest narratives around.  Therein, he is described as the son of Poseidon.  The mother is also given as Thoosa, though (a) I have no clue who that is and (b) I never noticed that it was in the Odyssey.

The Minotaur is another Greek legend.  One of the interesting things about this legend is that a few years back some guy found a giant underground labyrinth which he said was part of some sort of bull cult.  Problem was, when his colleagues came out to see, the guy had ``restored'' most of the things referring to bull worship, making it nearly impossible to determine what was authentically ancient and what was this guy's imagination.

The Hydra was one of the burdens of Hercules.  When you cut off one head, two more would grow in its place.  The Wendigo, by that name, is from Native American lore.  I'm sure that Brunhidden knows much more than I about either of these.

Quote from: superluser on December 27, 2006, 12:00:29 AM

Quote from: Boogeyman on December 26, 2006, 11:21:24 PMThe minotaur, the Wendigo, Polyphemus, the Hydra, and all these others. It says the circumstances of their creation in their myths, but what are your views?

Well, Polyphemus the cyclops was in the Odyssey, which is one of the oldest narratives around.  Therein, he is described as the son of Poseidon.  The mother is also given as Thoosa, though (a) I have no clue who that is and (b) I never noticed that it was in the Odyssey.

The Minotaur is another Greek legend.  One of the interesting things about this legend is that a few years back some guy found a giant underground labyrinth which he said was part of some sort of bull cult.  Problem was, when his colleagues came out to see, the guy had ``restored'' most of the things referring to bull worship, making it nearly impossible to determine what was authentically ancient and what was this guy's imagination.

The Hydra was one of the burdens of Hercules.  When you cut off one head, two more would grow in its place.  The Wendigo, by that name, is from Native American lore.  I'm sure that Brunhidden knows much more than I about either of these.

the cyclops was said to have been two distinctly diffrent races- the greater and lesser. this particular cyclops was a lesser, as were many others who prowled the lands and often emerged from the woods to take controll of mills so they could demand tributes of food. lesser cyclopes were actually more common in myths and legends then we realise sinse most of the myths and legends didnt make it to be books or miniseries. the 'greater' cyclopes were quite rare, only really appearing as the assistants of the god haphestus and sometimes sent as his envoys to congradulate great deeds of smithing.

in olden times people frequently mistook elephant skulls to be cyclops skulls, sinse they had only one eyesocket. its not really determined if cyclopes were deific at all (the greek gods were blamed for many funky children sinse they had mating habbits which would make a mink farmer blush) but its possible they were just a subspecies of troll found further south or just the same race with missing eyes (eyepatches maybe, in over half the reffrences of cyclopes it is NOT specified that the one eye is in the center of the head. a rare birth deffect found even in humans causes an eye to be missing, to the point there is no eyesocket in the skull even)


i have no real background to proove the existance of the minotaur, as there arent any other similar creatures other then the goatmen...which for some reason are found both and only in the USA and greece. however the story can be traced back to ainchent crete- recently we think weve found it.

crete...to this day and probably forever we will know jack squat about it. why? unlike every other misunderstood civilization they cant deffend themselves from biggotry and propaganda because nobody has yet to translate cretian writing. so most of our information has to come from observations rather then old records. crete was roughly par with egypt in its heyday, but in egypt everyone lived in mud huts while they toiled to create palaces for te dead, while in crete the palaces were for the living. A standard of living unheard of untill modern times was found, virtually everyone had homes and could find constant entertainment to rival the roman colloseum. the entertainment? we dont have a name for it, but you could call it 'bullfighting' if you used the term loosely. two men would stand on the back of a bull with a cloth tying thier arms together, the object was to balance and stay on for as long as possible with the bull thrashing around. this sport was so popular that pictures of it were everywhere, images of bulls on every wall, pot, and coin. you couldnt go anywhere in the labrynth wihtout seeing bulls. the labrynth? that was the cretin city, a giant structure that included everything. essentially mash a shopping mall with an appartment complex and throw in some civic buildings, nobody had to set foot 'outside' unless they had to travel to another town or a farm or something.

but, thats about all it looks like we will ever know untill someone can translate cretin. some people have even suggested that the wonderous atlantis which was so technologically advanced was in fact crete.




the whendigo is probably the one i have the most information on- but most of it clashes. all they agree on is that the native americans of the northern forests all speak of monstrous beings they all name whendigo. what they say they are or what they do changes

some say the whendigo is a giant made of flint, whose eyes are deep pits of nothingness which light cannot escape.

many say that a man who survives the winter by eating the flesh of other men, and enjoys it, becomes a whendigo

a few say that mosquitoes were first made when a whendigo was chopped to a thousand pieces, and the original beasts sucked so much blood as to kill a man

most say that a whendigo is a spirit of ice and fire, with no leggs but burnt stumps and runs along with the wind dragging its victims at a frantic (and long, most stories state the distance between footsteps left in the snow increases to over twenty feet) pace till thier feet burn up from the running

alot say that the whendigo calls your name on the winter winds. only you can hear it, and it will continue to call untill you are driven mad and run out into the winters night.

the most common is a combination of both the last two, and has a helthy mix of wether or not its created by canibalisim. the point is that enough legends exist from enough diffrent people that its hard to say its a load of bull even though they dont agree.

thats the position i usually take- most any country in the world has stories of some form of dragon, undead, giant, talking animal, and other strange beast that also appears in far away countries theyve never heard of. if so many people in so many places all say something exist, and believe in it for so long its practically forever, chances are theyre not making it up. exaggerating maybe, but not making it up- if a man says his grandfather bested a fifty foot giant with three heads, i will l readily believe that he outsmarted a ten foot ugly brute even if i disbelieve a fifty foot man could live without snapping his bones like toothpicks. supposedly many of my ancestors lived back in the black forest, a land rife with ten to twelve foot brutes and far more strange things....and it explains why i enjoy being under bridges and simply love greek food (havent found anyone else who sells mutton or goat) or why my entire family has the impulse to hoard small 'treasures' such as gold coins and bad jewelry.

this is also why i wont touch the subject of the hydra. creatures which only appear in legends once, are unique to the point that only one sourse has information on them, and are a bit too incredible to have a working ecology....theese things i cant argue logically. so sorry, but i dont have any view on the hydra other then "if it is based on fact, that still must have been some messed up critter before they embellished it".

QuoteOne of a kind is always special

it seems that the original "demonology 101" had a brief life after i left

so, if anyone wants to re-state questions that were unasnwered or improperly answered, give a shout out ya hear?

QuoteThere is a name for that kind of lie, its called 'hope'

There is also a great flood myth is many societies, most with a Noah-like figure taking other people and animals aboard some sort of boat for safety after being warned by a deity, and a creation myth as well is almost ubiquitous. 

People traveled much more frequently than was previously imagined, and ideas were traded and mixed hundreds or thousands of times.  Let us not forget that Alexander went all the way to India because it was a known land, and it is almost a certainty they knew of China as well.  There is some evidence that Egypt could have traded with South-Central America at some point with the discovery of cocaine and nicotine in the hair of mummies using highly validated immunological detection methods and chromatography (the possibility of older hoaxed mummies remains for some mummy specimens which were only represented by the heads, but other have been proven genuine).

Dragon myths are too open to interpretation.  Dinosaur bones have been discovered for a few long time.  They myths could have come from stories made up from some wanders in the mountains coming upon these giant weathered bones.  The Oriental dragon seems to have an origin o the combination of several other animals into one mythical creature, those animals having a significance in imperial history (serpent body, rooster claws, dogwolf-like head). 

The reasons the stories of Lilith, the Jesus attending a gay marriage story, and myths like Peter slaying a dragon, weren't included in the Bible were due to those stories having very different writing styles and often coming from different parts of the world hundreds of years after the othe writings.  Much care was taken by the monks to omit any texts that were of uncertain or suspicious origin.  The story of Lilith has changed too much over time to be considered canon.  She was initially just a 'night demon', the story changing to Adam's first wife in late medieval Jewish legend.  It is likely she emerged as an adaptation of the Sumerian prologue to the epic of Gilgamesh, a female demon named Kiskil-lilla.  In the 9th century, Babylonian spirits called 'lila' were said to roam in the night killing newborns and pregnant women.  Only Isaiah 34:14 in the Hebrew Bible uses the word 'lilit', and it could either refer to the Babylonian demons, a screech owl often associated with vampiric tendancies, the older Sumerian Air goddess Lil-itu, or the legendary Lilith.  There is no way to know, since this is the only use.  However, since the verse itself is part of a symbolic prophecy of the desolation of Edom, it's very difficult to make a case that it refers to anything in a literal sense, regardless.

There is also one instance of Lilith in the Dead Sea Scrols: 4Q510, fragment 1 "And I, the Instructor, proclaim His glorious splendor so as to frighten and to te[rrify] all the spirits of the destroying angels, spirits of the bastards, demons, Lilith, howlers, and [desert dwellers...] and those which fall upon men without warning to lead them astray from a spirit of understanding...

Again, who or what Lilith is is never elaborated on and the name doesn't appear again in the existing parts of the recovered scrolls.  Instead, the text itself is in fact part of exorcism incantation, to a group "deeply involved in the realm of demonology," an exorcism hymn.

Now, the Talmud has several much more specific instances of Lilith, but the hearken back to the Mesopotamian version of the night demoness/goddess, even the descriptions are almost identical.  Further, in Erubin, it is implied that Adam had demon and ghost children with Lilith for 130 years after his banishment from the Garden of Eden! 

The modern context of Lilith as Adam's first wife didn't originate until The Alphabet of Ben-Sira, written between the 8th and 11th centuries BCE.  It's actual purpose is unknown, but is seems either merely a collection of folk tales or perhaps an anti-Semitic satire, as its content was considered highly offensive, though it was later accepted by Jewish mystics in medieval Germany.

Simply put, the story of Lilith is like most legends.  Its history can be traced back through various cultures that inhabited the same area and in which nomadic peoples had a long tradition of trading stories and religious ideas.  As we'd expect, the tale has different versions and the actual Lilith herself has undergone changes as time has passed.

Let us not forget that these stories are thousands of years old and have evolved over time from legends, fears and superstitions that man has fostered from the dawn of time.  It is neither surprising nor unexpected that so many legends are similar, given the scope of human expansion and the time periods involved.  Indeed, it would be very strange indeed if no culture shared any similarities! 

It could very well be that in 5,000 years, people will be discussing our ancient mythical belief in the gods Kirk and Spock, who taveled the stars in their magical metal chariot the Enterprise, fueled by the power of the warp gods to bring peace to the universe!  ;)

Quote from: Alondro on December 29, 2006, 11:21:04 AMLet us not forget that Alexander went all the way to India because it was a known land, and it is almost a certainty they knew of China as well.

Have you ever heard of the Takla Makan mummies?  3000 year old mummies from China.  But the bodies are clearly of European descent.  Fascinating stuff.

Quote from: Alondro on December 29, 2006, 11:21:04 AMThe reasons the stories of Lilith, the Jesus attending a gay marriage story, and myths like Peter slaying a dragon, weren't included in the Bible were due to those stories having very different writing styles and often coming from different parts of the world hundreds of years after the othe writings.  Much care was taken by the monks to omit any texts that were of uncertain or suspicious origin.

Alas, the monks often took too much care to `correct' difficult passages.  The best introductory work on this is probably Metzger's Text of the New Testament.  As an example, in Lk 23.32, there's a phrase ``And also other criminals, two, were led away with Him to be crucified.''  This was changed to ``And also two others, criminals, were led away with Him to be crucified,'' to avoid the implication that Christ was a criminal.

Dover Demon for the win. That little guy manages to be cute and pitiful and disturbing all at the same time. I wish he would come back out of hiding.

Alondro, i have no idea if any of that was even a question.

Quote from: Alan Garou on December 29, 2006, 02:29:29 PM
Dover Demon for the win. That little guy manages to be cute and pitiful and disturbing all at the same time. I wish he would come back out of hiding.

for those of you who dont know the 'demon of dover' was a phenomenon that happened in the mid to late 70s in massechussets. yes, it makes you think of the jersy devil, but JD was muuuuch older.

described as being about the size of a baby the 'demon' had a head about the same size as its body (melon shaped supposedly) and long gangly arms and legs complete with fingers. the creatures eyes were compared to 'orange glass marbles' and its skin compared to the texture of sharks skin.

to date thre were three reported sightings, although some others claim they caught a glimpse, none of which knew about the others untill after reporting. this is noteworthy because theese three sightings were on three consecutive nights. all three were by a roadside, and all three were described exactly the same with the one discrepency being the third sighting reported green eyes and not orange.

you can find sketches made by the three witnesses online, and probably will think "OMG! that looks like a kyoot little alien!" or something. fact of the matter is there was never an origin given, and we know nothing other then a physical description and the fact it was seen.

i await the next question

QuoteI think the people preffered a known danger in the light over a darkness populated by thier fears

[/glow]

I know the Jersey Devil... she was governor for two terms!   :B  *ba-dum-dum*

well if youve been pregnant twelve times you KNOW the next ones going to be evil incarnate just to spite you.

QuoteContemplate the wisdom of pie, know it, feel it, be it.

OK.  I got one.  Homo diluvii testis, A/K/A Andrias scheuchzeri.  Johann Jakob Scheuchzer found a fossil that he claimed was one of the giants that had existed prior to the Great Flood.  It turned out that it was the fossil of an extinct giant salamander.  This salamander species later shows up in Karel Čapek's War with the Newts.

That's about as much as I know.

sadly i know nothing about this. however i can nibble the edges.

first off, if you look hard enough theres plenty of physical evidence to support there was a 'great flood', however it was localised almost entirely in what you could call 'the bible lands' and didnt even touch places like europe, africa, or central asia. this flood did indeed last several days, but was a bit less then apocolyptic, and current theory states that the journey of noah was a bit exaggerated as well... supposedly the new theory is that he was fleeing debt collectors in a boat at the same time as bringing animals suitable for sarifice in temples downrivver to a foreign market in order to earn back some of his money so as to avoid haveing his legs broken. this version of the noah story implies that most people did not die, noah went somewhere other then the bible stated, and includes far more beer then the 'official' version.

secondly, giants are rife through the worlds mythology and pop up both everywhere and everywhen.  the greko-romans, scandanavians, orientals, native americans, and large portions of africa have had stories of giants, trolls, ogres, oni, firbolgs, and so on and so fourth all the way back to the bronze age and all the way up to the comming of the railroads. in fact the vast majority of these legends popped up between five hundred and a thousand years after the great flood- if it killed anything off it wasnt giants.

thirdly, most people today are ignorant of the fact that any dead thing becoming a fossil is an extremely rare occourance. its like winning the lottery more then once in your life. by the numbers it stands to reason that a large number of species never left us fossil records because they either lived somewhere that fosils didnt form, had the wrong body composition to fosilize, or was just too goll darned tasty for anything to leave a corpse behind. freaky things like this newt are bount to be one in a million that we would ever see it, so when someone does find one its so unique that people will try to explain it by tying it to an existing creature they DO believe in. for example the first fossils of the iguanadon were assembled incorrectly- thinking it was just a really big bowlegged lizzard with a horn on its nose, when in actuality they fused several skeletons together and the real iguanadon stood on its hind legs like a bird and the 'horns' were its thumbs.

i await the next question and frevrently hope its something ive heard of so i can give a better answer.

QuoteSpotted owls are delicious

Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on January 05, 2007, 08:13:52 AM
sadly i know nothing about this.

Aww.  How about Piltdown Man?  Same sorta thing.

Quote from: superluser on January 05, 2007, 01:18:15 PM

Aww.  How about Piltdown Man?  Same sorta thing.

your doing this on purpose arent you?

all i know about piltdown man is that it was a fraud skeleton made of bits and pieces of modern apes. frankly i couldnt even guess the decade it happened in unless i did a web search.

i can understand this kinda thing though, cause someone forgot to leave assembly instructions included with bones and user manuals for the opposite genders.

QuoteYeah, im really getting good at pushing my wifes buttons. Just yesterday i found the 'mute' button, but im still looking for the 'on/off' switch

What can you tell us about the reality behind the Medusa myth?

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on January 06, 2007, 12:27:25 AM
What can you tell us about the reality behind the Medusa myth?

the common mistake is to think that medusa was the name of a kind of monster. it isnt, it was the name of a specific member of a monster race. this race is known as the gorgons, and it appears a couple times in greko/roman mythology.

asside from a very detailed appearence in the old percius myth they dont really show up anywhere else in literature despite being at the time considered to be just one of many other wild creatures in the world. greko/roman legends are full of many unique individuals who are merely members of a specific detailed race, and many of the other 'monsters' who appear (like the crazy guy with the bed by the roadside) are actually more or less humans.

keep in mind asking me the 'reality' behind something is far diffrent from asking me to list off traits or comparing diffrent versions of legends to find consistencies.

QuoteHer mornign breath alone could stun a yak

Have you posted anything about Gin or Din or whatever those genie like people are called? If not do so.

Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on January 06, 2007, 12:09:36 AMyour doing this on purpose arent you?

Actually, I'd just hate to see this thread dry up, so I tried to come up with some questions.

Here's what I know about Piltdown Man.  Somebody claimed to find the remains of the ``missing link'' between hominids and other primates at Piltdown, a town in the UK.  This was very important, because it proved that man had evolved in Europe, and that humans did not come from Africa.  Racism was still pretty prevalent, and this was a comforting thought to many.

Then it turned out that the remains were the skull of a human and the jawbone of an orangutan.  The discoverer, whose name eludes me, was accused of creating the forgery, but he was probably just another victim.

I suppose the Cardiff Giant is out of the question, then?

Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on January 06, 2007, 12:33:41 AM

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on January 06, 2007, 12:27:25 AM
What can you tell us about the reality behind the Medusa myth?

the common mistake is to think that medusa was the name of a kind of monster. it isnt, it was the name of a specific member of a monster race. this race is known as the gorgons, and it appears a couple times in greko/roman mythology.

I knew that. I just couldn't remember it while asking, and, well, everyone else was asking questions you didn't know anything about, so I thought I'd help out :-)

Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on January 06, 2007, 12:33:41 AM
keep in mind asking me the 'reality' behind something is far diffrent from asking me to list off traits or comparing diffrent versions of legends to find consistencies.

Okay, I guess what I meant to ask was "are there any other versions, and could you pontificate for a bit, about the differences and inconsistencies in the gorgon mythical creature story?" :-)

Quote from: superluser on January 06, 2007, 12:48:38 AM

Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on January 06, 2007, 12:09:36 AMyour doing this on purpose aren't you?

Actually, I'd just hate to see this thread dry up, so I tried to come up with some questions.

Here's what I know about Piltdown Man.  Somebody claimed to find the remains of the ``missing link'' between hominids and other primates at Piltdown, a town in the UK.  This was very important, because it proved that man had evolved in Europe, and that humans did not come from Africa.  Racism was still pretty prevalent, and this was a comforting thought to many.

Then it turned out that the remains were the skull of a human and the jawbone of an orangutan.  The discoverer, whose name eludes me, was accused of creating the forgery, but he was probably just another victim.

Charles Dawson.

There are several theories, but I don't think the question of "whodunnit" has ever been satisfactorily resolved.

Quote
I suppose the Cardiff Giant is out of the question, then?

The Cardiff Giant was a fake; it was carved out of a large block of limestone, and buried on the lands of a local farmer, where it was later "discovered".

There is a story that P.T. Barnum tried to buy it for his museum, and when he was turned down, he had a sculptor make a copy of it, which he then exhibited as "The one and only original".

Quote from: Warlike on January 06, 2007, 12:36:48 AMHave you posted anything about Gin or Din or whatever those genie like people are called? If not do so.

Well, I figured that Brunhidden would respond to this, but since he hasn't, let me tell you the totality of what I know on this subject: it's spelt `Djinn.'  I believe that the `Dj' has a slightly stronger initial stop--as in `Djibouti'--than a normal `j'--as in `joy.'

And that about wraps it up for what I know about Djinns.

By the way, does anyone know what the difference between a Gorgon and a Basilisk is?

A basilisk is a small lizard. A Gorgon is a snake-haired woman.

Both cause men to turn to stone - although it's been mentioned that the Gorgon may just turn -parts- of men to stone, and it's not mentioned what either of them do to women....

I heard one time a story about a man who got hit by lightning. Becouse of that his skin turned green or something like that and hided in a old pipe. I tryed to find more about it but I can't find it any where while it was on tv ... yea I missed it I only got to see the last 5 min

sorry, i had thought this thread died again or something.

Quote from: superluser on January 11, 2007, 09:56:01 PM

Quote from: Warlike on January 06, 2007, 12:36:48 AMHave you posted anything about Gin or Din or whatever those genie like people are called? If not do so.

Well, I figured that Brunhidden would respond to this, but since he hasn't, let me tell you the totality of what I know on this subject: it's spelt `Djinn.'  I believe that the `Dj' has a slightly stronger initial stop--as in `Djibouti'--than a normal `j'--as in `joy.'

And that about wraps it up for what I know about Djinns.

By the way, does anyone know what the difference between a Gorgon and a Basilisk is?

i believe the being you are reffering to would be the Djinn, sometimes called the Djanni, Djinni, or occasionally even Efreeti. obviously most people will immediately think of aladdin when this name is used, the so called 'genie'. close, very close. but incomplete.

the original Djinn were said to be 'demons of wind and flame' who roamed the inhospitable stretches of desert, usually with no more substance then the winds they ride uppon. the anger of Djinn was blamed for particularly foul sandstorms, mirrages were said to be thier tricks, and people who dissapeared crossing the desert had supposedly met a Djinn. the belief in Djinn is anchent, and predates islam and even judaisim by a few centuries. as far as physical appearance goes a Djinn was normally more or less incorporial, being literally made of wind and flame, but often takeing the guise of a stately human or even a somewhat demonic perversion of such.

you may ask "but brunhidden, i thought genies were prisoners and slaves bound in things like lamps". also a valid point, but bound Djinn were an exception to the rule. in theese olden times it was considered the grounds of kings and wise men to make the world of men safe from the supernatural, so great men often sought to exterminate or bind troublesome spirits who posed a danger to the common folk. in particular king soloman the wise was said to have posessed a ring with the true name of god written uppon it, a book called 'the eye of soloman' which contained limitless knowledge about the world and what is beyond it, and with theese two items could command the demons as though they were trained dogs. according to the legends soloman sealed up the great devil Asmodeus in a bottle and cast him into the sea, afterwards he rounded up a host of demons and carried them in a backpack across the land and forced them to build his citties and do good works. Soloman only stands out in history because he is the most recent one, the legends that come before are so old that they were completely forgotten by the time "a thousand and one arabian nights" was ever told.

so, theese vessels that Djinn were bound to... werent always lamps, or bottles. the most well known and possibly even 'most common' was a ring, known in many legends as the "genie ring" which gave rise to the name 'genie' that i believe is meant to portray servitude. the 'genie ring' would call a Djinn to the wearer, but only for one hour each day. durring that time the Djinn was compelled to serve the wearer as though they were a loyal vassal. the bottles which were also common followed the guideline that you have just freed the Djinn from imprisonment (note- this most likely means there was a damned good reason someone saw fit to face a Djinn toe to toe in order to trap it in the first palce) and it is compelled to serve you as a debt of gratitude. usually this means one favor, after which the Djinn is long gone to resume its activities in the desert. the only occourance ive ever heard of a lamp was in "a thousand and one arabian nights" and sadly ive heard at least six diffrent versions of that same story. also keep in mind that several stories involving Djinn state that they are angry, do not look kindly on those who freed them, and try to kill whatever they see after being released.

and i guess your going to ask "but you didnt say anything about wishes, what gives?" and to that i answer "who said anythign about wishes in the first place? robin williams?" to be honest all the old stories had translation problems when people think that 'wish' is such a bold and miraculous instance. the stories portray a Djinn saying something like "what is your wish?" or "what do you wish of me?" and anyone with a certan level of education can also hear that as "what can i do for you?" or "what is it you want most in the world?". if a Djinn were to 'grant your wish' he would merely be useing the impressive powers he has as a 'demon of wind and flame' to do something like building you a palace from sticks lying on the ground, whisking you off to a far away land in the blink of an eye, fetch you gold and jewels as not even the sultan could dream of, and so on and so fourth. what demon worth his salt couldnt lift you in his claws and zoom you two hundred miles? what self respecting terror of the sands wouldnt have a crapload of riches just lying around? what kind of 'demon of wind' couldnt go all sonic the hedgehog when building a house?

in all honesty id preffer the ring to the lamp, you essentially get an unlimited number of 'wishes' and those thigns make fine guard dogs/attack dogs

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on January 12, 2007, 03:25:45 AM
A basilisk is a small lizard. A Gorgon is a snake-haired woman.

Both cause men to turn to stone - although it's been mentioned that the Gorgon may just turn -parts- of men to stone, and it's not mentioned what either of them do to women....

for the most part right, but some of the reffrences to gorgons merely state tat they turn men 'like stone' or 'as stiff as stone'. its possible that they have the ability to paralise instead of or in addition to petrification.

also a related being was the cockatrace, which had the strange littany of "being born from a egg laid by a cock and hatched by a toad" and being a rather ugly and malevolent carnivore that also carried the ability to turn men into stone.

what i wanna know is how theese critters could get a decent meal when they keep turning thier prey into modern art.

Quote from: Fex on January 12, 2007, 04:56:43 AM
I heard one time a story about a man who got hit by lightning. Becouse of that his skin turned green or something like that and hided in a old pipe. I tryed to find more about it but I can't find it any where while it was on tv ... yea I missed it I only got to see the last 5 min

contrary to popular belief, lightning not only hits people quite often but you also have a darned good chance to live. the obvious chances of it being lethal are 1- the heat and 2- the jump your heart gets from the electricity may mess up your timing. a headshot is less common but probably worse cause all your memories and thoughts are essentially electrical impulses, and lightning does to that what a magnet can do to the guts of your computer...dosent always, but it can.

to me it seems that the only thing lightning could have done to turn him green is if he hid in a pipe filled with some kind of mold or mildew....or if he hid inside of a COPPER pipe due to some severe deficency in thought. if it were a copper pipe theres a chance that the lightning would hit the top of the pipe, arc to the man in the middle rather then takeing the long way around both sides, and sear him good and crispy. theres also the chance that the  lightning bolt would find the copper pipes sides to be a faster conducter then the man due to things like his height, how wet he is, and the material of his shooes, thus possibly electroplating the man with vaporised copper which would corrode almost instantly. theres also the chance lightning never hit the pipe at all and thats just corroded copper that crumbled on him.

for those of you who are unfamilliar with metals- polsihed or newly forged copper is an orange colour, but when it corrodes it turns a musty green. the statue of liberty is made of copper and is currently the colour of extremely corroded copper

QuoteIf you say you believe in magic, magic is real. if you deny it, then the magic does not work. that is not to say the magic is not still there, it just does not work

Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on January 12, 2007, 07:43:57 AM
king soloman the wise was said to have posessed a ring with the true name of god written uppon it, a book called 'the eye of soloman' which contained limitless knowledge about the world and what is beyond it, and with theese two items could command the demons as though they were trained dogs. [/glow]

Quote

*Can't resist the obvious implications...*  Sooooo... what you're saying is that Solomon had one ring... TO RULE THEM ALL!!  :mwaha   And he was able to see and know all things with the Eye... 

I'd heard about this before.  I can only surmise that it was the Solomon story that influenced Tolkien to imagine the Rings of Power, the controlling One Ring, and the Eye of Sauron.   They do have some striking similarities.

Quote from: Fex on January 12, 2007, 04:56:43 AMBecouse of that his skin turned green or something like that and hided in a old pipe.

Well, what about the Libertarian candidate for senate in Montana?  He got concerned that Y2K would cause a shortage of antibiotics, so he started taking colloidal silver, which turned him blue (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/americas/2297471.stm):

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38297000/jpg/_38297733_blue_300_ap.jpg)

Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on January 12, 2007, 07:43:57 AMsorry, i had thought this thread died again or something.

The hard and fast rule is one month (as mentioned in the rules), but I'm sure that resurrecting anything older than a week is probably going to get you weird looks if it's not for a good reason.  On the other hand, Damaris has suggested that she would make an exception for this thread.

This thread was only gone for 5 days, though.

Hmmm...on the subject of colors, what's the deal with woad (http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=7952)?

Quote from: superluser on January 12, 2007, 11:37:40 AM
The hard and fast rule is one month (as mentioned in the rules), but I'm sure that resurrecting anything older than a week is probably going to get you weird looks if it's not for a good reason.  On the other hand, Damaris has suggested that he would make an exception for this thread.

... I'm pretty sure that Damaris said that -she- would make an exception, rather than he.... And was talking about the Demonology thread, not this one. See reply #3...

On the other hand, reasonable people can make reasonable compromises, no?

Quote from: superluser on January 12, 2007, 11:37:40 AM
Hmmm...on the subject of colors, what's the deal with woad (http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=7952)?

wode (or woad, wode is the old spelling from the old lands and i preffer it)is a blue leaf, used as a dye. for those of you who dont know much about the old practice of dyes, know that everything you see on sodacans and Tshirts is listed as something like "yellow dye #2" and "red dye numer 5" because theyre a very complex mixture of volitile and often posionous chemicals. that being said they cant list the ingredients for purposes of trade secrets and people getting squeamish theyre drinking soda laced with amonia and sulpheric acid. many of theese dyes today use a handfull of carious materials, most of which were originally discovered to stain glasses. iron oxide (rust) for red, copper sulfade (tarnished pennies) for green, and chromium (virtually any colour depending on how you heat it) for anything you dont have something on hadn for, theese were the main ingredients, other ingredients can be as esoertic as crushed beetles to as common as carrot juice and as nasty as selenium (a metal harvested commercially from human urine, its in shampoo too).

but thats not how it used to be, if you wanted something red you boiled beets in water and soaked fabrics in it. if you wanted something black there were roots such as ansie and blackroot you could boil, and for blue there was wode. in fact, wode was the first dye, used back in the depths of time before anyone even wore clothes. it was used to pain faces. ever see braveheart? sure, those blue men were wearing designer makeup, but it was to imitate the wode the scotts used to wear. the scotts, norsemen, the early francs, especially the celts, and even many of the vistigoths wore wode as warpaint. why? it was effective, an early psychological tool. not only did the ritual of applying it psyce you up but it also made you look inhuman to the enemy, especially when it hid the fact you were bleeding and made you look like wounds didnt apply to you.

the ritual of applying wode pretty much stemmed from this illusion, sinse the warrors felt it offered them a measure of protection against their enemies weapons.

ritual? yes, ritual. wode had been given an almost sacred standing by most of its users, and typically it was the shaman, elder, or chief who applied it to his warriors. the norse Aesir Odin actually derived his name from wode, seeing as how he was originally called "Wotan" and later "woadin" (wode-din) in the germanic and lower scandinavian countries he was first worshiped in, long before even the vikings.

QuoteMerciful lord, spare us from the fury of the northmen.
Mighty lord, save us from the wrath of the meteor.

medieval prayer of the gauls

Quote from: Alondro on January 12, 2007, 08:25:33 AM

Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on January 12, 2007, 07:43:57 AM
king soloman the wise was said to have posessed a ring with the true name of god written uppon it, a book called 'the eye of soloman' which contained limitless knowledge about the world and what is beyond it, and with theese two items could command the demons as though they were trained dogs. [/glow]

Quote

*Can't resist the obvious implications...*  Sooooo... what you're saying is that Solomon had one ring... TO RULE THEM ALL!!  :mwaha   And he was able to see and know all things with the Eye... 

I'd heard about this before.  I can only surmise that it was the Solomon story that influenced Tolkien to imagine the Rings of Power, the controlling One Ring, and the Eye of Sauron.   They do have some striking similarities.

whoops, cant believe i missed this.

close, but not quite ( i say that alot dont i?), most people believe that Tolkien borrowed the concept from the germanic story of The Ring of the Nibelung.

the story of the ring is a really really REALLY old legend involving the norse gods, the Nibelung, a magic ring, and a whole crapload of violence. today it is imortilised in the opera 'Der Ring des Nibelungen' by the german composer Wagner. ever heard of "it aint over till the fat lady sings"? thats wagners ring, the roll of 'brunhilda' the leader of the valkreys is alwyas given to the biggest woman they can find who has a voice that can flatten cans at ten paces, she ends the opera with a great big solo number. ever heard the number 'ride of the valkreys'? also this one, the valkreys being rather important throughout. i highly doubt anyone here will be willing to sit down through a 21 hour german opera though, so ill give the brief summary.

note, this summary is of the original story, NOT the opera which is edited for theatrical purposes and would take me like five pages.

the ring in brief notes- okay, so there once was a group of people and their king known as the Nibelung, thier treasure was known also as the Nibelung and anyone who owned it was known by that name (theese particular Nibelung were thought to be either dwarves or trolls depending on who you ask). they lived somewhere along (or beneath as some say) the Rhine river. one day the norse gods are short some serious cash so they decide to pay the fabulously wealthy king of the Nibelung a visit, and loki decides to take ALL of the kings treasure. the king is pissed, but does so willingly in exchange for the safety of his people. loki however is not satisfied, he also wants the kings magic ring (its always called a ring, but it was actually an armband. a solid gold armband which would weigh at least two or three pounds) which is the source of his power and wealth. the king refuses, this ring is incredibly important, every night when he wakes up the ring makes a copy of itself to increase their hoard of gold (remember, thats like two or three pounds of gold, not the few ounces youd find in a normal ring) and the gold made this way is known as the magical rhinegold which is used to craft many wonderious things. uppon reffusing the Aesir, the king is struck down, and with his dying words he curses the ring so that nobody who posessed it would ever be happy and any who see it would kill thier brother to own it. the aesir pretty much just shrug and move on. in one version it states the gold was needed as bloodmoney in apology for killing Otyr, a boy who could turn into an otter and was slain as such. Otyrs father demanded they completely cover his body with gold so that he could not see a single hair before he would forgive them. in another version its stated that uppon aquiring the gold two giants had built a mighty fortress to serve as the home of the gods. the giants demand freya, the godess of love, as payment, but Odin cannot stand to let her leave and offers them the gold. the giants are not satisfied, and demand that the gold pile be so tall as they cannot see freya through it. after all the rhinegold is piled up they can still see freya through a small chink in the middle, and say they still weep for her beauty and cannot accept the gold. Odin then regretfully takes the cursed ring he himself wore as a prize and placed it on the pile to hid freya. no sooner had it been placed as the giants agreed, and one killed the other (they were brothers actually) to claim the ring as his own.

after that theres several years of killings, sorrid love affairs, angry kings, and all pervasive well endowed Valkyries in chainmaile and leather. but i wont get into that, thats the boring stuff now that were not tlaking about gold anymore (i like gold, okay?)


and there you have it, the cursed ring which inspired tolkien.

i await the next question.

QuoteWe did not realise the danger untill it was scratching at our door.

The "Ride of the Valkyries" is also frequently parodied.

If you ever heard the tune, you'll probably recognise it...

Terry Pratchett had some big women in chainmail and leather singing "Toi yo to ho, toi yo to ho" (the basic theme) in, as I recall, one of the Cohen stories... IIRC, those women had their horses stolen by Our Hero....

That's all by the by, though.

Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on January 13, 2007, 07:11:52 AMbut i wont get into that, thats the boring stuff now that were not tlaking about gold anymore (i like gold, okay?)

``Was' the nex' wor'?''
``S'gold.  I think.''
``Ah.''
``And you left out the `gold.'''
``Where?''
``I reckon it was between the `gold' and the `gold.'''

Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on January 13, 2007, 07:11:52 AMand there you have it, the cursed ring which inspired tolkien.

I was in the Düsseldorf airport when I saw a copy of Der Spiegel with a cover story about Die Nibelungen.  It was simply too much German.  I had to get it.

Then there are the dwarven names from The Hobbit, which come straight out of the Völuspá.

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on January 13, 2007, 09:58:19 AM
The "Ride of the Valkyries" is also frequently parodied.

If you ever heard the tune, you'll probably recognise it...

Terry Pratchett had some big women in chainmail and leather singing "Toi yo to ho, toi yo to ho" (the basic theme) in, as I recall, one of the Cohen stories... IIRC, those women had their horses stolen by Our Hero....

That's all by the by, though.

I rather liked Bugs Bunny's take on the Wagner-opera. :rolleyes




Hmm; What did you already talk about?
Let's see; So far we've got:

A link to the old Demonology 101 thread: >LINKY< (http://clockworkmansion.com/forum/index.php?topic=1120.0)
with:
(in a mostly chronological order)
Fairies
black/dark/demonic Animals, agents of The Evil One
Balore
Basilisk (brief)
Phönix (? - brief)
Anthros (basics)
Zombies
Demons and Angels (basics)
Vampires
Litch/(Ogre/Immortal)
...
Briefly going off topic here and picking up a conversation at the end of the old thread to reply something:
One difference between diamonds and rubies is that a ruby does not burn. It will just melt at 2050°C.
...
back on topic...

...and then we've got here in this thread:
(again in a mostly chronological order):
Vampires (->see old thread  for answer)
Jackalopes (care for a try on 'Wolpertinger'?)
Bermuda Triangle
Lilith
Grendel (also Troll)
Incubi and Succubi
Polyphemus the cyclops
Minotaur
(Atlantis - very brief)
Whendigo
Dover Demon
the biblical Flood
Giants (?)
Piltdown Man
Medusa (also Gorgons)
Cardiff Giant
Basilisk (brief)
Djinn
Cockatrace
being hit by lightningand live
Wode/Woad
origins of 'The One Ring'

So after my try on indexing your threads I thought of/found some interesting things to ask about:
Mermaids
Sasqwatch <sp?>/Yeti
Homunculus
Wolpertinger
More on:
-Atlantis
-Giants
-Basilisks
-Phönix
Werewolfes
Hydra (again)
Gemstones and their powers in myths


Take your time. It's not like I am in a hurry or something. I'd rather get some good answers than fast ones.
:mowwink :boogie

Quote from: Tiger_T on January 13, 2007, 04:26:13 PM

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on January 13, 2007, 09:58:19 AM
The "Ride of the Valkyries" is also frequently parodied.

If you ever heard the tune, you'll probably recognise it...

Terry Pratchett had some big women in chainmail and leather singing "Toi yo to ho, toi yo to ho" (the basic theme) in, as I recall, one of the Cohen stories... IIRC, those women had their horses stolen by Our Hero....

That's all by the by, though.

I have the book that happened in - it's called "The Last Hero". At the end of it, the Silver Horde stole the Valkyries' horses, and rode off to find new adventures...

QuoteI rather liked Bugs Bunny's take on the Wagner-opera. :rolleyes

I remember that one - it was titled "What's Opera, Doc?", if I remember right.

Quote
Sasqwatch <sp?>/Yeti

I'm pretty sure it's spelled "Sasquatch" - otherwise known as "Bigfoot". Yeti are vaguely similar, at least in appearance.

Quote
-Phönix

I think you mean "Phoenix" - at least that's how I'm used to seeing it spelled.

I don't know that book. *shrugs*

The german title likely will have differed. I just remember seeing it, not the title they used.

Likely.

Yep. Phoenix it is. Phönix is just the german spelling and sounds almost identical.

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on January 13, 2007, 09:58:19 AM
The "Ride of the Valkyries" is also frequently parodied.

If you ever heard the tune, you'll probably recognise it...

Terry Pratchett had some big women in chainmail and leather singing "Toi yo to ho, toi yo to ho" (the basic theme) in, as I recall, one of the Cohen stories... IIRC, those women had their horses stolen by Our Hero....

That's all by the by, though.

that would be the graphic novel "the last hero", and thats a bit of a parody on the way the valkreys call out during wagners opera. in traditional folklore the valkreys were often beautifull warrior maidens (often very well endowed) with penchants for chainmaile, leather, furrs, and helmets with wings on, the image of them being fat stemmed from the need to use massive women in operas to get the full power of voice.

Quote from: Tiger_T on January 13, 2007, 04:26:13 PM
Hmm; What did you already talk about?
Let's see; So far we've got:

A link to the old Demonology 101 thread: >LINKY< (http://clockworkmansion.com/forum/index.php?topic=1120.0)
with:
(in a mostly chronological order)
Fairies
black/dark/demonic Animals, agents of The Evil One
Balore
Basilisk (brief)
Phönix (? - brief)
Anthros (basics)
Zombies
Demons and Angels (basics)
Vampires
Litch/(Ogre/Immortal)

...and then we've got here in this thread:
(again in a mostly chronological order):
Vampires (->see old thread  for answer)
Jackalopes (care for a try on 'Wolpertinger'?)
Bermuda Triangle
Lilith
Grendel (also Troll)
Incubi and Succubi
Polyphemus the cyclops
Minotaur
(Atlantis - very brief)
Whendigo
Dover Demon
the biblical Flood
Giants (?)
Piltdown Man
Medusa (also Gorgons)
Cardiff Giant
Basilisk (brief)
Djinn
Cockatrace
being hit by lightningand live
Wode/Woad
origins of 'The One Ring'

So after my try on indexing your threads I thought of/found some interesting things to ask about:
Mermaids
Sasqwatch <sp?>/Yeti
Homunculus
Wolpertinger
More on:
-Atlantis
-Giants
-Basilisks
-Phönix
Werewolfes
Hydra (again)
Gemstones and their powers in myths


Take your time. It's not like I am in a hurry or something. I'd rather get some good answers than fast ones.
:mowwink :boogie

wow, when you look back this thing has almost become a good place just to plop down and read for some light enternainment (although i doubt anyone reads anything other then the answer to their own personal question or to question an answer). im actually quite impressed at how much weve covered.

lets see you want me to touch on the following yes?

Mermaids/Merrow/Selkies
Sasqwatch/Bigfoot/Yeti/Skunk apes/Orange eyes/Hodags
Homunculus/Hommonculi
Wolpertinger
More on:
-Atlantis- technology/dates/location/relations
-Giants- Cyclopes/ogres/trolls/titans/firbolgs/frost giants/oni/hopi ogres/whendigo
-Basilisks
-Phönix/pheonix
Lycanthropes- Werewolves/vampires/selkies/druids
Hydra (again)
Gemstones and their healing/destructive/enhancement powers in myths

if that is not a complete list feel free to add at any time.

and the way i will do this is that if nobody thinks of a question for the better part of a week i will pick one of theese to go in depth with. this is not an encouragement to just sit around and wait for me to run out of questions, its just to keep this thing from dying.

oh, and asking more detailed questions about topics previously covered is encouraged.

QuoteThe pursuit of knowledge is a quest which becomes longer and more unobtainable every time you suceed

Looks good so far. :)

I'm looking forward to your posts. :3

I have been and am following this with great interest... :popcorn Looking forward to the next instalment.

:yeahthat

I read all this thread anyway :-)

okay, todays lesson will be Homunculus/Hommonculi

for starters i am working under the assumption that you and 80% of the people reading this are immediately thinking of the popular japanese animated program known as full metal alchemist. thats not a homonculi, not even close. THOSE would be known as 'sins', the physical avitar or incarnation of one of mans seven basic flaws which cause humans to be evil. yeah, people are almost never evil just for the sake of being evil, its one of the seven corruptions that makes doing evil things the chosen path.

so, what then is a homonculus? quite literally homonculus means 'little man' and is an incredibly old concept for much of mankinds history beliveing in the idea that a man was 'controlled' by a little man inside its head. kinda silly eh? its almost like the olden days iamgined that human beings were giant robots and the real people were opperating them.

however, that was an unsophisticated belief. in later years the concept of the homonculus grew and evolved. the longstanding concept is that homonculi are mental devices that you use in order to put a face on a trait or thought process. examples are the 'good' and 'evil' guys that sit on peoples shoulders, and whenever the thought process of a person is illustrated by people in the head doing something, or even when your diffrent personalities assume diffrent appearances as people in your head.

for those of you who did not fall in the 80% of the readers thinking of FMA, chances are youwere thinking of D&D, in that case see Mandrake root for more information.

also, see folowing flash animation concerning the 'creation' of such homonculi

http://www.bandwidththeater.com/homonculi.html




so far that leaves our list as follows
_____________________________
Mermaids/Merrow/Selkies
Sasqwatch/Bigfoot/Yeti/Skunk apes/Orange eyes/Hodags
Homunculus/Hommonculi *answered*
Wolpertinger
More on:
-Atlantis- technology/dates/location/relations
-Giants- Cyclopes/ogres/trolls/titans/firbolgs/frost giants/oni/hopi ogres/whendigo
-Basilisks
-Phönix/pheonix
Lycanthropes- Werewolves/vampires/selkies/druids
Hydra (again)
Gemstones and their healing/destructive/enhancement powers in myths

so think up some more questions before i run out! see you next time, buh bye *blows kiss*

QuoteARTHUR
Run away!

ROBIN
Run away!

LANCELOT
Run away?

BEDAVERE
Run away!

KNIGHTS
Run away!

Run away! Run Away!

ARTHUR
Run away from the stench and the trenchies!

KNIGHTS
Run away! Run Away!

BEDAVERE
From these horrible, nasty old Frenchies!

ROBIN
These frogs and their terrible prattle, are fighting a battle with cattle!

LANCELOT
We're all full of fear so let's get out of here!

KNIGHTS
Run away, run away, run away!

FRENCH GUARDS
You English all are buggerfolk
Your mothers all are ruggerfolk
Your army is a bloody joke
You couldn't beat an artichoke

If battle you choose to renew
We'll taunt you 'til you all turn blue
We turn our asses as you part
In your direction we all fart!

*French National Anthem plays*

FRENCH GUARD
Fetchez can-can dancers!

ALL KNIGHTS *To the tune of a can-can*
Run away! Run away! Run away! Run-run-run-run-run-run away! Run away! Run away! Run away, run away!

Ruuuuun a-waaaaay!

Run away! Run away!

ARTHUR
It seems like a helpful solution

KNIGHTS
Run away! Run away!

ARTHUR
To avoid this French revolution!

We're stuck in a nasty position
Why don't you take a short intermission?
Have a drink and a pee, we'll be back for Act Threeeeeeeee...

LANCELOT
Two, sir!

ARTHUR
Twooooooooo....

Indeed I am aware of FMA.
It is quite interesting to learn that the 'little angel/devil on your shoulders' are hommonculi.

Hmm, why did people think that bodies were controlled by a smaller version inside? That sounds strange. Can you elaborate that further?


Flesh-suit 2007 with Homunculus inside. Now 50% faster! Buy now - pay later. :P :rolleyes

Huh. when i looked up homonculi, it was about little "golems" to do your bidding, or something.

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on January 18, 2007, 07:39:35 PMHuh. when i looked up homonculi, it was about little "golems" to do your bidding, or something.

Sigh.

(1) Homunculus is the proper spelling, despite what Firefox might suggest (`avuncular?').  It comes from the Latin.  Homunculi is the plural.

(2) The golem is a really fun item, but has nothing to do with homunculi.  I understand that it appears in the Talmud, but a brief search of the Jewish Encyclopedia turns up nothing.

The concept is that God made man from earth, and so why couldn't man do the same?

You take a bunch of soil and shape it into a man, and...obviously, there was something else that was needed.  What this was has been variously described.  Usually it's something like a scroll with God's true name stuffed in the mouth of the thing.  Then it comes to life.  It still has no soul (only God can create souls), and as such cannot speak.

In the 16th century, Rabbi Löw created a golem to keep the antisemites out of the Jewish quarter in Prague.  The golem from this legend tends to be portrayed as a rampaging Frankenstein's monster, but the source material that I have indicates that it was nothing of the sort.  Just kind of a bouncer.  Rabbi Löw would give it work to do, and the golem would do it.  There is a tale of the Shabbat when the rabbi forgot to order it to do nothing, so it went out trying to find work to do, but that's hardly a rampage.

When the golem of Prague outlived its usefulness, Rabbi Löw ordered it into a corner in the rafters of the Old-New Synagogue and took the paper out of its mouth.  It crumbled into dust.

There are two addenda to this.  Remember Raiders of the Lost Ark?  It turns out that the Third Reich really did (appear to) look for famous legendary artifacts like the Ark of the Covenant and the Spear of Longinus.  The theory was that the Third Reich was going to be everlasting, and they were fated to have these artifacts of power at their disposal.  How much was actually done to find these things, and how much was just PR is a matter of speculation.

Despite looking for these things, they never once went up to the rafters of the Old-New Synagogue to look for the golem, even though Prague was firmly in Nazi control.  That was a Jewish myth, see.

Also, a couple of years ago, I happened to be in Prague for one day (we were continuing on to Poland to visit family), and I actually visited the Old-New Synagogue.  It's really neat.  It was originally called the New Synagogue to differentiate it from another one in the area, but that one was destroyed.  Now it's actually the oldest active synagogue in Europe.

Yeah, I understand the spelling. i didn't make the mistake on purpose, since that was probably the first or second time i've ever spelled it that way.

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on January 18, 2007, 08:45:48 PMYeah, I understand the spelling. i didn't make the mistake on purpose, since that was probably the first or second time i've ever spelled it that way.

Well, Brunhidden misspelled it, too, so I just wanted to make sure that nobody got the wrong idea from him.  I really didn't want to correct his spelling, because--aside from the spelling--he seemed to do a really good job. (I don't know anything about homunculi, aside from how to spell it)

sorry if i misspell things, i have a bit of a typeing impediment.

first off i have hands like sacks of walnuts and cocktail weenies so typeing HURTS to begin with. secondly, for some reason sometimes i hit they keys out of order. its like all the moves are lined up but suddenly one finger is faster then the rest so i type things with letters juxtaposed or i hit the one next to it.

_______________________________________
example- that last scentance was originally typed "fatser then the rest os i type thigns with lettesr juxtaposed or i tih the one nexr to ir."
_______________________________________

why on earth whas 'juxtaposed' spelled correctly? i got freaking "it" wrong yet i could do justaposed without even looking at the keyboard? ....wait, scratch that, i just spelled it with an 's' instead of a 'z' in that last line. i had to say it didn't i?



also, in the story of the golem there are several versions. with key diffrences in each version.

the two basic varryants are if the golem is what i like to call "baked" or "half baked".

in the 'baked' version the caly of the golem has been baked hard, makeing it a terra cotta statue of slightly larger then human proportions, and a scroll is palced in its mouth. this scroll does NOT have the true name of god on it (see entry on Ring of Soloman) but instead has a long prayer taken from the old jewish mystical texts called the cabala (or kabala, im not certan which, and im vaugely aware theres many diffrent versions of this too). to envision this prayer find a doccument that takes up a full page, single spaced, size 12 type, and in new york times font. it looks kinda like that, but in hebrew. prior to activating the golem you must have a rabbi read the prayer aloud before placeing it in the golems mouth, the golem now will do whatever the rabbi tells it AND whatever the scroll says. the problem here is that sometimes this can conflict, the golem from pauge was supposedly built with its scroll stateing it must endeavor to protect the jewish people, and thus if left unsupervised would react violently to anyone who seemed threatening to the jews in prauge.

in the 'half baked' version the prayer is chanted as the golem is made, and the golem is still mostly unbaked other then whatever heat the sun does to it. this leaves the golem somewhat pliable, like playdough left in the sun. in order to activate the golem a word was drawn on its forhead. this word was 'emet' which means truth, and to deactivate the golem you smudged out the 'e' to make it 'met' which means dead. in this version of the story the golem is under feeble controll by the rabbi and almost exclusively follows the words of the prayers used to make it. thus said if the golem decided a certan action was what it should do then the rabbi had to beg, plead, scream, threatten, and bodily fling himself onto the golem to try to smudge out the word.

for more information on the creation of golems, heres some of the instructions required to make one, good luck

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v519/Brunhidden/Prauge.jpg)


also, in many versions of the golem of prauge you should note that rabbi low for the most part kept the golem hidden, including dressing it like a man and telling everyone he was a mute. while the golem could understand low, he could only reply in hand gestures.

in the version i am famillar with the big problem happened when someone tried to accuse rabbi low of being a heretic or an infidel or whatever the right word is. this man meant serious business. among the accusations were a set of small vials containing blood and labled whose blood it was, when it was to be drank, and 'property of rabbi low'. frankly, i would be supprised if anyone believed that part, as serious a crime against jewish law it was to taste blood theres no way anyone would be dumb enough to lable it much less aquire it from unknowing townsfolk. despite this accusation failing to be believed entirely people were growing skeptical of low, and he was followed everywhere and had no privacy, so he feared someone would find out the golem was not a man.

the point that i remember quite clearly is that at one time in the story the rabbi susspected someone was going to poison food, so he asked the golem to eat a passover loaf he himself had prepared. the golem rubbed its belly to say it was good. then the rabbi handed him a loaf which he suspected was poisoned. the golem made barfing motions. thus the golem saved lives...but i forget who was the target of the poison....i suspect it was either the rabbi or someone whose death would have been blamed on the rabbi.

one last point, in the story of rabbi low and the golem of prauge, the directions for makeing a golem had already existed at that time. someone BEFORE had made them, and it had been something needed enough to warrant being written down. to be honest weve never heard of theese other golems and as such cant say if the golem of prauge was typical or used in unusual ways. for all i know the original golems were tools of war, used for menial labor so that jewish communities woldnt have to labor on the sabbath, or even the possibility that golems made the pyramids. its anybodys guess really, but i wonder why nobody recorded thier existance.



recap- theese topics are lined up
_____________________________
Mermaids/Merrow/Selkies
Sasqwatch/Bigfoot/Yeti/Skunk apes/Orange eyes/Hodags
Homunculus/Hommonculi *answered*
Wolpertinger
More on:
-Atlantis- technology/dates/location/relations
-Giants- Cyclopes/ogres/trolls/titans/firbolgs/frost giants/oni/hopi ogres/whendigo
-Basilisks
-Phönix/pheonix
Lycanthropes- Werewolves/vampires/selkies/druids
Hydra (again)
Gemstones and their healing/destructive/enhancement powers in myths


think of some more, ask questions about stuff already answered, murmur amongst yourselves, form a lynch mob if you like. ill see you all next time.

QuoteHavent you heard? they do all the mucky jobs

Quote from: superluser on January 18, 2007, 08:44:40 PM
There are two addenda to this.  Remember Raiders of the Lost Ark?  It turns out that the Third Reich really did (appear to) look for famous legendary artifacts like the Ark of the Covenant and the Spear of Longinus.  The theory was that the Third Reich was going to be everlasting, and they were fated to have these artifacts of power at their disposal.  How much was actually done to find these things, and how much was just PR is a matter of speculation.

They certainly got the spear, or at least a spear which they believed to be the one which pierced Christ's side  (Yay, more stuff I read in "The Unexplained!").  Apparently Hitler killed himself on the day the allies took it back.  According to Wikipedia, the thing is currently in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Austria and the spearhead is said to date from the 7th century.

Brunhidden, that's an interesting set of Golem legends.  Thanks for posting it.

Quote from: Tapewolf on January 19, 2007, 08:49:04 AM
According to Wikipedia, the thing is currently in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Austria and the spearhead is said to date from the 7th century.

the spearhead being slgihtly newer then chist dosent proove anything

QuoteThis is my grandfathers axe. over the years weve had to replace the handle a few times, and even replace the head once or twice, but it is still my grandfathers axe.

Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on January 19, 2007, 08:14:38 AMsorry if i misspell things, i have a bit of a typeing impediment.

first off i have hands...

I get that it was a typo, and I wasn't very happy about correcting it in the first place.  No offense was intended.  I just wanted to set the record straight.  I'm sorry if I caused offense.

Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on January 19, 2007, 08:14:38 AMthe old jewish mystical texts called the cabala (or kabala, im not certan which, and im vaugely aware theres many diffrent versions of this too).

The Kabalah (initial letter can be C, K, or Q, the b can be doubled, and the h can be omitted) is a group of non-canonical Jewish mystical writings.  Being non-canonical, there's a bit of debate as to which works are in the true Kaballah.  The Zohar is usually cited prominently.

I'm not well versed on them, but it is where the term `cabal' comes from.  Because, you know, a bunch of Jewish mystics meeting in secret to discuss apocryphal works was just prime for exploitation by anti-semites.  It's also important to note that mainline Jewish theology has never accepted any part of the Kaballah.

Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on January 19, 2007, 08:14:38 AMin the version i am famillar with the big problem happened when someone tried to accuse rabbi low [...] small vials containing blood [...] passover loaf

Oof.  This sounds very familiar.  One of the old stories used against Jews was something called the `blood libel.'  This was the strange theory that the Jews made the Passover matzoh with the blood of the Gentiles.  This is a rather strange theory, since blood is unclean and Jews are commanded never to come in contact with it at all.

The specific anti-semitism that was rampant in Prague at the time was in fact the blood libel, but the bit about the vials and the golem tasting the food is news to me.  Thanks!

Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on January 19, 2007, 08:14:38 AMone last point, in the story of rabbi low and the golem of prauge, the directions for makeing a golem had already existed at that time.

Quite.  I mentioned that there was a mention of a golem in the Talmud.  The Talmud, for those who don't know, is a legalistic text somewhat like the transcripts of the Supreme Court.  There are two versions, the Jerusalem Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud.  Both date from at least 700 AD.

A bit of poking reveals that it's in Sanhedrin 65b.

Quote from: Tapewolf on January 19, 2007, 08:49:04 AMThey certainly got the spear, or at least a spear which they believed to be the one which pierced Christ's side

I heard that one.  I also heard that it's in one of the columns in St. Peter's Basilica.

Quote from: superluser on January 19, 2007, 06:12:20 PM
I get that it was a typo, and I wasn't very happy about correcting it in the first place.  No offense was intended.  I just wanted to set the record straight.  I'm sorry if I caused offense.

no offence and im not irritated in any way, i just felt it needed to be said, and think about that the next time you see how looooong of a post i put up nearly every time i speak.


yeah, a lot of little things like that pop up because im not a jew, and i thank you for fleshing out on some details i had to be vauge about. most of my knowledge comes from really old books, or coppies thereof. as time goes on old stories like the golem are re-translated again and again and also edited for length of the story, what parts of the story seem suitable, and to censor out things like the blood and the smashing of skulls when its put in a kids lybrary.

QuoteIn any great adventure,
that you don't want to lose,
victory depends upon the poeple that you choose.
So, listen, Arthur darling, closely to this news:
We won't succeed on Broadway,
If you don't have any Jews.

You may have the finest sets,
Fill the stage with penthouse pets,
You may have the loveliest costumes and best shoes.
You my dance and you may sing,
But I'm sorry, Arthur king,
You'll hear no cheers,
Just lots and lots of boos.

You mahve have butch men by the score
Whom the audience adore,
You may even have some animals from zoos,
Though you've poles and krauts instead,
You may have unlevened bread,
But I tell you, you are dead,
If you don't have any Jews.

They won't care if it's witty,
or everything looks pretty,
They'll simply say it's shitty and profuse.
Nobody will go, sir,
If it's not kosher then no show, sir,
Even Goyem won't be dim enough to choose!
Put on shows that make men stare,
With lots of girls in underwear,
You may even have the finest of reviews.

The audience won't care, sir,
As long as you don't dare, sir,
To open up on Broadway
If you don't have any Jews.

You may have dramatic lighting,
Or lots of horrid fighting,
You may even have some white men sing the blues!
Your knights might be nice boys,
But sadly we're all goys,
And that noise that you call singing you must lose.

So, despite your pretty lights,
and naughty girls in nasty tights,
and the most impressive scenery you use...
You may have dancing mana-mano,
You may bring on a piano,
But they will not give a damn-o
If you don't have any Jews!

You may fill your play with gays,
Have Nigerian girls in stays,

GIRLS:
You may even have some schizas making stews!

You haven't got a clue,
If you don't have a Jew,
All of your investments you are going to lose!

There's a very small percentile,
Who enjoys a dancing gentile,
I'm sad to be the one with this bad news!
But never mind your swordplay,
You just won't succeed on Broadway,
You just won't succeed on Broadway,
If you don't have any Jews!

sinse nobody has said anything i guess ill continue on the next topic.

bigfeet, sasquatch, and whatforth.

the great north american ape, rumored to exist but completely unproven. this is the posterboy for nutjobs and tabloid photographers. obvously theres a whole lotta nothin if the people who go on and on about bigfoot are so nuts right?

not really, because most of you are aware of how pervasive the bigfoot myth is. but did you know about how many places it exists? your all going to jump up and down proud that you know the yeti is in the himilayas, i just know it. but thats only the tip of it.

in florida, stretching an area almost to virginia too, theres accounts of people encountering 'skunk apes' which bear the same descriptions as a sasquatch except when motorists encounter it they always report a stench on par with a dead skunk. bigfoot itself has been seen primarily in the washington state area, with similar reports less frequently in the apalatian mountan area. near ohio similar accounts report an apelike animal of man size that has reflective orange eyes which really catch the shine of headlights. in wisconsin we have a miniature version called a hodag, measuring five foot or shorter hodags actually have been reported approaching houses and lookin in windows, areas that have frequent sightings also often report sounds like a womans screams comming from the forest at night.

all theese can easily be identified as a sasquatch, sharing the common description of being a cross between a man and an ape, and other descriptions of behavior matching as well. almost all of theese examples live in wooded areas, far enough from civilisation theyre only seen by a scant few who travel the backroads. most of them seem to know in advance the presence of items such as guns and cameras and are always reporte to be fleeing in any instance someone holding one of theese two items come anywhere near. most reports of actuall contact show them to be mostly nonviolent, and one or two yeti accounts claim they helped travelers. a small handfull of accounts report that a sasquatch kidnapped a small group of people, and actually killed one or tried to cause bodily harm to the people who escaped. roughly half of the close contact accounts include the reffrence to being taken to a family group of other sasquatches. only one account, which was a kidnapping brought to a family group, claimed the sasquatch had controll over fire.

not only is the bigfoot story spread wide, it also goes back a long way. the name sasquatch was used by native americans for the creature long before europeans ever settled in america, and sightings have carried on ever sinse. for some reason theese reports hit a peak near the 50s, but have not actually stopped. to date washington state is still the 'hotbed', and can easily be seen as a optimum environment for a manlike creature to live in hiding with adequate food.

why is this? well, thats what the studies done say. scientists of all manner of repute have tackled the bigfoot question, and many come to intresting conclusions despite being unable to produce a living sample. theese researchers hit a big surge in popularity when a german scientists visiting china discovered a tooth in an apothacary shop that he realised to belong to an ape- and so he discovered gigantapithocis, which is essentially a sasquatch of time past. sadly, most of the fosils had been long ago been ground to 'medicine' by chinamen who always believed that 'dragon bones' and tiger testicles had medicinal uses. the researchers involved claimed that such a creature could easily live out of sight in places like western china and, obviously, washington state due to requirements in geography, climate, local populations, and food supply.

the only one of theese that dosent quite fit all the observations is the hodag, which is rumored to eat people and white bulldogs, approaches human settlements without fear,  and only really seems to run away when you start shouting and waveing weapons at it. all that asside from being a full two feet shorter then almost any other sasquatch report.  the hodag is considered a real enough creature that the state of wisconsin has a team of researchers permanently assigned to gather data on the hodag. to date theyre still baffled, particularly after aquiring several samples of hair that dont match any known ape, wolf, or human despire being similar to all three.

ah well, thats about all i have time for. if anyone has any more detailed questions let me know. otherwise, keep thinking about stuff youd like to hear about and stop in every once in a while. laters people


theese topics are lined up
_____________________________
Mermaids/Merrow/Selkies
Sasqwatch/Bigfoot/Yeti/Skunk apes/Orange eyes/Hodags *answered*
Golems *answered*
Homunculus/Hommonculi *answered*
Wolpertinger
More on:
-Atlantis- technology/dates/location/relations
-Giants- Cyclopes/ogres/trolls/titans/firbolgs/frost giants/oni/hopi ogres/whendigo
-Basilisks
-Phönix/pheonix
Lycanthropes- Werewolves/vampires/selkies/druids
Hydra (again)
Gemstones and their healing/destructive/enhancement powers in myths

QuoteIf I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am not for others, what am I?
And if not now, when?

Thanks, Brunhidden. You've always got -some- interesting info floating about...

Quote from: superluser on January 19, 2007, 06:12:20 PM
This is a rather strange theory, since blood is unclean and Jews are commanded never to come in contact with it at all.

Quote from: Tapewolf on January 19, 2007, 08:49:04 AMThey certainly got the spear, or at least a spear which they believed to be the one which pierced Christ's side

I heard that one.  I also heard that it's in one of the columns in St. Peter's Basilica.

So wait, if Jewish people can't come into contact with blood, what about their own?  It's be kinda hard to avoid with, you know, dieing.  I love paradoxical religious teachings.

There are currently three spears that claim to be THE spear, but one of them isn't of Roman design, one is an un-common Roman design (reserved usually for upper-class gaurds and the like, but it is possible that it was in circulation in the Isreal area), and one is the standard Roman design that could be found everywhere throughout the empire.

Common sense eliminates one of the spears, but the real spear might have vanished long ago so the two remaining might and might not be it.  One of them is gaurded by a religous sect that has thus far refused to open the spear to the common world.  The other two are in museums.

As far as I know, the only factor that can truely determine the true spear (and not one of the hundreds upon hundreds of other spears that Rome had at the time.)  is the surfacing of supernatural powers, of which we have, as of yet, no confirmable reports.

with the blood thing, yes they can contain blood within thier bodies, but consumption or comming in contact with spilt blood was forbidden. once again i have to say that i am not jewish so i dont know the exact reason why this is, sometime ask a rabbi why certan kinds of locust are kosher and others arent.

alright, this place kinda died again so ill hit another question from the list

Mermaids/Merrow/Sirens/Selkies

okay, this ones a bit of another odd one to handle because its one of those old kinda legends where many small and unnoteworthy stories have been around forever but no real big memorable legends can be pointed at as a sturdy rock of information. and before you say anything the story of 'the little mermaid' was written by a man named hans cristian anderson in the modern era and is no more a legend or myth then the book 'pride and predudice'.

although i cant point at any one big legend i can glean collective information from a great many little legends and cultural beliefs, and here goes the following.

mermaids- half lady half fish, and every legend agrees that theyre terrebly beautiful....as long as your not an 'ass man' that is. unlike the story of the little mermaid as told by disney mermaids do not really seem to be just some other kind of person, they are very similar to the fey and the word fey can describe thier mannerisims quite accurately. a mermaids behavior was entirely unpredictable, even though they often were friendly and commonly were believed to save sailors from drowning they also kept thier distance, were rumored to have powers to create ill weather, and occasionally were blamed for the dissapearance of crewmen or entire ships. while many modern experts claim that sailors were out to see far too long and had too much to drink so they thought that mantitees were mermaids....nuh, uh. those things are butt ugly, every account says theyre beautifull and im fairly sure sailors were rarely blind. in addition the mantitees which were of appropriate size are tropical creatures now found mostly in the area of florida, while the mantitees of the time and anywhere near europe were called the stellar sea cow- a now extinct aquatic mammal that would have given an elephant a run for its money on size and had more wrinkly skin then a small army of pug dogs. yeah, no matter how long youve been at sea and how drunk you are something in the water that looks like the ass end of a five rhino pileup will not make you randy, if anything randy the cabin boy will if you get that desperate.

merrow- simply put theese are male mermaids, but at the same time they are not. merrow are rarely portrayed as beautifull, sometimes even being called ogres of a sort, and have far more definate aquatic features of thier face. also merrow are universally agreed to be mean bastards and usually controll many supernatural powers of strength, weather controll, invisibility, super speed, putting people to sleep, being able to breathe on land, and so on. however most legends agree theese powers (or most of them) originate from the merrows hat, which he guards jealously and often hides, if one was to steal the hat he would not gain the merrows powers but the merrow will quickly offer to serve the thief...very quickly, usually they suffocate out of water in a matter of minutes.

sirens- the only group actually in a big legend, specifically the oddesy of homer, yet they show up seldomly in any other legends or myths. the defining charicteristic of the sirens was thier song, later coined into the phrase 'sirens song', which had a mesmerising effect on men and compelled them to try to reach the sirens at all costs. this usually meant crashing thier ship against sharp jaged rocks and drowning, one can only assume the sirens did this to eat the corpses unless they had necrophiliac tendancies or were just really mean with too much free time. i myself am not entirely sure as to wether sirens belong here, seeing as how roughly half the time you hear of them they seem to be half fish nd the other half they are merely women standing on an island.

selkies- diffrent in many ways, and almost a lycanthrope. a selkie differs in that they actually spend much of thier time on land, they arent in any way fish, and interact very freely with humans. why? well this may sound like a soner trip but theyre seals man, and they, like, have theese freaky capes with eyes in them that give them magical powers man, and they turn into people and back into seals using this groovy cape with little beady eyes that keep staring at me. even moreso then the mermaids a selkie is definately a fey, and shares many common charicteristics with merrow so for all i know theyre one in the same. theese common charicteristics are that they are frequently men, have many (or few, some seem to be endowed more then others or people embellish a bit) supernatural powers involving water, weather, and aquatic animals, theese powers are given to them by  a sealskin rather then a hat. the sealskin is actually thier REAL skin, and they remove it to turn into humans (humans wearing a mildly disturbing sealskin, the hat is really the seals head and yes the beady little eyes stare at you) who can then pass as regular people and occasionally fall in love with mortals. much like the merrow you can steal the selkies skin to make them serve you, although the instant they get it back its your ass under twenty feet of water.


other stuff-

some other legends have some weird little things, such as the one legend of a man marrying a bride of the water. the way the story goes there was a man and a woman who lived by the river, and one night the wive up and left while her husband was sleeping to go outside. when she returned in the early morning she left wet footprints. this happened many nights and after a while the husband caught on and got worried, but one day she stopped. the wife was pregnant, and the husband was reasonably sure it was his, but felt odd. she drank a great deal of water, her footsteps were often still moist, and she seemed strangely distant. when she gave birth she sat by the fireplace in the ashes and a great flow of water came out, i mean a LOT of water, and the husband could have sworn he saw a small creature in the water quickly squirm across the floor and out the door. they never saw thier child again, assuming that was thier child, for nothing else came from her womb. about fifteen or so years later a man married a woman nobody had ever seen before, she seemed to come from the sea they said. uppon seeing her beauty he promised her his heart and all he could ever offer to her, despite not knowing who she was or where she was from. she aceppted, but warned that if he struck her three times she would leave. obviously he struck her three times over the ocurse of the following years, but not like the beatings which were common at the time. they were love taps the story says, slapping her on the back in high spirits. but she had to leave for she had said her warning. the man was crushed, and was found drowned in the night.

also of note are hags, extrordinarily ugly women of green skin who lurked in marshes, by muddy rivers, and in stagnant ponds to try and lure children to the waters edge to drown them. they never leave the water, and its often said that once, long ago, they had been drowned themselves and seek company in their miserable graves. hag legends are very common, and it seems half the fresh water in the brittish aisles are infested with the nasty things.

ah well, if you think of a more specific tidbit you want to know just say so. thats it for one day.

and remember, i need more topics before i run outta stuff, if that happens i essentially dont have a thread (if you hadnt notised i almost never start threads abot "hey, i got screwed over" or "wow, lokkit this stupid thing, isnt it stupid?" and the like) and i usually dont have anythign of value to add to any topics here.


kiss kiss, hug hug, spank spank, and all that stuff






Topics left
_____________________________
Mermaids/Merrow/Selkies  answered
Sasqwatch/Bigfoot/Yeti/Skunk apes/Orange eyes/Hodags *answered*
Golems *answered*
Homunculus/Hommonculi *answered*
Wolpertinger
More on:
-Atlantis- technology/dates/location/relations
-Giants- Cyclopes/ogres/trolls/titans/firbolgs/frost giants/oni/hopi ogres/whendigo
-Basilisks
-Phönix/pheonix
Lycanthropes- Werewolves/vampires/selkies/druids
Hydra (again)
Gemstones and their healing/destructive/enhancement powers in myths

QuoteIt was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life.

Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on January 31, 2007, 01:17:45 AM
with the blood thing, yes they can contain blood within thier bodies, but consumption or comming in contact with spilt blood was forbidden. once again i have to say that i am not jewish so i dont know the exact reason why this is, sometime ask a rabbi why certan kinds of locust are kosher and others arent.

I was going to look for a precise citation, but I think I forgot.  Anyways, I'll find one later.

Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on January 31, 2007, 01:17:45 AMyeah, no matter how long youve been at sea and how drunk you are something in the water that looks like the ass end of a five rhino pileup will not make you randy, if anything randy the cabin boy will if you get that desperate.

Jim Gaffigan says that the manatee looks kinda like a guest on the Ricki Lake Show.

Manatee: Ricki, I'm here because I'm endangered.
Audience member: Yeah, I got a question for the sea pig.
Ricki: ...sea cow.
Audience member: See, Pig, you gotta get yourself an education and a job.

Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on January 31, 2007, 01:17:45 AMsirens- the only group actually in a big legend, specifically the oddesy of homer, yet they show up seldomly in any other legends or myths. the defining charicteristic of the sirens was thier song, later coined into the phrase 'sirens song', which had a mesmerising effect on men and compelled them to try to reach the sirens at all costs.

Interestingly, do you know what the sirens were selling?  It was knowledge.  Here's the sirens' song (Fagles translation):

Never has any sailor passed our shores in his black craft
until he has heard the honeyed voices pouring from our lips,
and once he hears his heart's content sails on, a wiser man.
We know all the pains that Achaeans and Trojans once endured
on the spreading plain of Troy when the gods willed it so--
all that comes to pass on the fertile earth, we know it all!

No man of learning could pass that offer up.  In fact (for those who haven't read the Odyssey), only one man ever heard the sirens' song, and lived.  Odysseus had his men stop up their ears with beeswax and tie him to the mast, so that he could hear, but be unable to act on his desires.  When Odysseus heard the song, he called out to his men to set him free, but they only bound him tighter.

Wow! Once more some pretty interesting tidbits of knowledge. :)

Thank you for keeping it up! :3



More things to write about:

Death in persona; The Grim Reaper, the blackhooded sickle swayer, (Jack :rolleyes)...
The four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
The toothfairy
Centaurs (and other Taurs if any)
Satyr

There you go. ;)

You're doing Atlantis - have you got any goodies on Lemuria, Mu, Ys and Lyonesse?

In terms of things to write about....

Let's see.

What can you tell us about spiders?
Particularly large ones. :-)

Quote from: Tiger_T on January 31, 2007, 05:04:13 PMDeath in persona; The Grim Reaper, the blackhooded sickle swayer, (Jack :rolleyes)...
The four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Satyr

I'm leaving these for Brunhidden, but I'll add a few tidbits.

The four horsemen of the Apocalypse are War, Famine, Pestilence and Death.  This comes from Revelation 6:1-8.  I'm looking at it now (I don't know if that's cheating), and War is on a white horse with a bow and crown.  He comes conquering and to conquer.  Pestilence is on a red horse and has a sword.  He convinces people to slaughter one another.  Famine is on a black horse and carries scales.  He tells people that they'll only get a quart of wheat or three quarts of barley for a day's pay.  Death is on a pale green horse (A/K/A The Pale Horse).  Death and Famine are pretty clearly identified, but I might have War (or Sword, as identified in the NRSV) and Pestilence switched.

These are not to be confused with the Four Horsemen of the Apocralypse (the apocryphal apocalypse) of Terry Pratchett's Discworld.  Death in that case is a pretty fun character who can only be recognized as Death by those of magical inclination, or cats.  DEATH TALKS IN SMALL CAPS, but that ability has been taken away for this forum.  Pestilence talks in italics.  War and Famine speak normally, I think.

The satyr was a goatlike character in satirical plays.  The satyr character was a stock character like the chorus in Greek plays.  One of the more famous satires was the Satyricon, but I'm not sure if satyrs were present in the thing.

Quote from: Tapewolf on January 31, 2007, 05:09:15 PMYou're doing Atlantis - have you got any goodies on Lemuria, Mu, Ys and Lyonesse?

Ooh!  And Brazil (which the real country of Brazil was presumably named after)!

Quote from: Tiger_T on January 31, 2007, 05:04:13 PM
The four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

This is hardly informative, but I'm always reminded of it whenever the four horsemen come up (15-rated).  Unfortunately this sketch is right on the join, so you'll need to wind this one to about 7-8 minutes where the missionary appears:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ0jT9bf74c
...and then play this one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SKYpCjjnEU