A collection of intriguing topics and fascinating stories
about the rare, the paranormal, and the strange
Volume 4
Journey into the world of folklore, old wives tales and superstitions. Discover mysteries behind myths and legends.
Pablo C. Agsalud Jr. Revision 6
Foreword
In the past, things like television, and words and ideas like advertising, capitalism, microwave and cancer all seemed too strange for the ordinary man.
As man walks towards the future, overloaded with information, more mysteries have been solved through the wonders of science. Although some things remained too odd for science to reproduce or disprove, man had placed them in the gray areas between truth and skepticism and labeled them with terminologies fit for the modern age.
But the truth is, as long as the strange and unexplainable cases keep piling up, the more likely it would seem normal or natural. Answers are always elusive and far too fewer than questions. And yet, behind all the wonderful and frightening phenomena around us, it is possible that what we call mysterious today wont be too strange tomorrow.
This book might encourage you to believe or refute what lies beyond your own understanding. Nonetheless, I hope it will keep you entertained and astonished.
The content of this book remains believable for as long as the sources and/or the references from the specified sources exist and that the validity of the information remains unchallenged.
Old Wives Tales and Superstitions
These are collections of old wives sayings and superstitions that have been traditionally kept within the household.
An acorn should be carried to bring luck and ensure a long life. An acorn at the window will keep lightning out.
Amber http://www.corsinet.com
Amber beads, worn as a necklace, can protect against illness or cure colds.
Ambulance http://www.corsinet.com
Seeing an ambulance is very unlucky unless you pinch your nose or hold your breath until you see a black or a brown dog.
Touch your toes Touch your nose Never go in one of those Until you see a dog.
Apple http://www.corsinet.com
Sayings:
Think of five or six names of boys or girls you might marry, As you twist the stem of an apple, recite the names until the stem comes off. You will marry the person whose name you were saying when the stem fell off.
An apple a day Keeps the doctor away.
Belief:
If you cut an apple in half and count how many seeds are inside, you will also know how many children you will have.
Baby http://www.corsinet.com
To predict the sex of a baby: Suspend a wedding band held by a piece of thread over the palm of the pregnant girl. If the ring swings in an oval or circular motion the baby will be a girl. If the ring swings in a straight line the baby will be a boy.
Bamboo Wikipedia.org
Considered a sign of good luck for Chinese. Baseball Bat http://www.corsinet.com
Spit on a new bat before using it for the first time to make it lucky.
Bed http://www.corsinet.com
It's bad luck to put a hat on a bed. If you make a bedspread, or a quilt, be sure to finish it or marriage will never come to you. Placing a bed facing north and south brings misfortune. You must get out of bed on the same side that you get in or you will have bad luck. When making the bed, don't interrupt your work, or you will spend a restless night in it.
Bee http://www.corsinet.com
If a bee enters your home, it's a sign that you will soon have a visitor. If you kill the bee, you will have bad luck, or the visitor will be unpleasant. A swarm of bees settling on a roof is an omen that the house will burn down.
Bell http://www.corsinet.com
The sound of bells drives away demons because they're afraid of the loud noise.
When a bell rings, a new angel has received his wings.
Bird http://www.corsinet.com
A bird in the house is a sign of a death. If a robin flies into a room through a window, death will shortly follow.
Birth http://www.corsinet.com
Monday's child is fair of face; Tuesday's child is full of grace; Wednesday's child is full of woe; Thursday's child has far to go; Friday's child is loving and giving; Saturday's child works hard for a living. But the child that is born on the Sabbath day is fair and wise, good and gay.
Birthday Cake http://www.corsinet.com
If you blow out all the candles on your birthday cake with the first puff you will get your wish.
Blarney Stone http://www.corsinet.com
The Blarney Stone is a stone set in the wall of the Blarney Castle tower in the Irish village of Blarney. Kissing the stone is supposed to bring the kisser the gift of persuasive eloquence.
Blue http://www.corsinet.com
To protect yourself from witches, wear a blue bead.
Touch blue And your wish will come true.
Bread http://www.corsinet.com
Before slicing a new loaf of bread, make the sign of the cross on it. A loaf of bread should never be turned upside down after a slice has been cut from it.
Bridge http://www.corsinet.com
If you say good-bye to a friend on a bridge, you will never see each other again.
Broom http://www.corsinet.com
Do not lean a broom against a bed. The evil spirits in the broom will cast a spell on the bed. If you sweep trash out the door after dark, it will bring a stranger to visit. If someone is sweeping the floor and sweeps over your feet, you'll never get married. Never take a broom along when you move. Throw it out and buy a new one. To prevent an unwelcome guest from returning, sweep out the room they stayed in immediately after they leave.
Butterfly http://www.corsinet.com
If the first butterfly you see in the year is white, you will have good luck all year. Three butterflies together mean good luck.
Candle http://www.corsinet.com
If a candle lighted as part of a ceremony blows out, it is a sign that evil spirits are nearby.
Calf http://www.corsinet.com
If the first calf born during the winter is white, the winter will be a bad one.
Cat http://www.Wikipedia.org
Black cats: superstition, prejudice, bringer of good or bad luck
The folklore surrounding black cats varies from culture to culture. In Great Britain, black cats are seen as lucky and are often given in token form to brides. The Scottish believe that a strange black cat's arrival to the home signifies prosperity. In Celtic mythology, a fairy known as the Cat Sth takes the form of a black cat. Black cats are also considered good luck in Japan. Furthermore, it is believed that a lady who owns a black cat will have many suitors. However in Western history, black cats have often been looked upon as a symbol of evil omens, specifically being suspected of being the familiars of witches, and so most of western and southern Europe considers the black cat a symbol of bad luck, especially if one crosses paths with a person, which is believed to be an omen of misfortune and death. In Germany, some believe that black cats crossing a person's path from left to right, is a bad omen. But from right to left, the cat is granting favorable times.
The gambling world is afraid of black cats: it is believed that if, while traveling to a casino, a black cat crosses a gambler's road or path, that person should not go to the casino; most players believe that black cats bring bad luck.
The character Behemoth in "The Master and Margarita", an enormous black cat (said to be as large as a hog), capable of standing on two legs and talking, and has a penchant for chess, vodka and pistols.
The black cat in folklore has been able to change into human shape to act as a spy or courier for witches or demons. When the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock, they brought with them a devout faith in the Bible. They also brought a deepening suspicion of anything deemed of the devil and were a deeply suspicious group. They viewed the black cat as a companion, or a familiar to witches. Anyone caught with a black cat would be severely punished or even killed. They viewed the black cat as part demon and part sorcery. During the Middle Ages, these superstitions led people to kill black cats. This had the unintended consequence of increasing the rat population and the spread of the Black Death (bubonic plague) and other diseases carried by rodents. There is no evidence from England of regular large-scale massacres of "satanic" cats, or of burning them in midsummer bonfires, as sometimes occurred in Europe.
However, the supernatural powers ascribed to black cats were sometimes viewed positively, for example sailors considering a "ship's cat" would want a black one because it would bring good luck. Sometimes, fishermen's wives would keep black cats at home too, in the hope that they would be able to use their influence to protect their husbands at sea. The view of black cats being favorable creatures is attributed specifically to the Egyptian goddess Bast (or Bastet), the cat goddess. Egyptian households believed they could gain favor from Bastet by hosting black cats in their household. This view was held in the early 17th century by the English monarch Charles I. Upon the death of his treasured pet black cat, he is said to have lamented that his luck was gone. True to his claim, he was arrested the very next day and charged with high treason.
Pirates of the 18th century believed that a black cat would bring different kinds of luck. If a black cat walks towards someone, that person will have bad luck. If a black cat walks away from someone then that person will have good luck. If a black cat walks onto a ship and then walks off it, the ship is doomed to sink on its next trip. Black cats have been found to have lower odds of adoption in American shelters compared to other colors except brown, although black animals in general take more time to find homes. Some shelters also suspend or limit adoptions of black cats around Halloween for fear they will be tortured, or used as "living decorations" for the holiday and then abandoned. However, in the history of humane work, no one has ever documented any relationship between adopting black cats, and cats being killed or injured. When such killings are reported, forensic evidence has pointed to natural predators, such as coyotes, eagles, or raptors as the likely cause. August 17 is "Black Cat Appreciation Day".
In the early days of television in the United States, many stations located on VHF channel 13 used a black cat as a mascot in order to make sport of being located on an "unlucky" channel number.
Anarcho-syndicalism
The black cat of the Industrial Workers of the World, also adopted as a symbol by anarcho-syndicalists
Since the 1880s, the color black has been associated with anarchism. The black cat, in an alert, fighting stance was later adopted as an anarchist symbol.
More specifically, the black catoften called the "sab cat" or "sabo-tabby"is associated with anarcho- syndicalism, a branch of anarchism that focuses on labor organizing (see Wildcat strike).
In testimony before the court in a 1918 trial of Industrial Workers of the World leaders, Ralph Chaplin, who is generally credited with creating the IWW's black cat symbol, stated that the black cat "was commonly used by the boys as representing the idea of sabotage. The idea being to frighten the employer by the mention of the name sabotage, or by putting a black cat somewhere around. You know if you saw a black cat go across your path you would think, if you were superstitious, you are going to have a little bad luck. The idea of sabotage is to use a little black cat on the boss."
http://www.corsinet.com
Black cats were believed to be evil:
In ancient Egypt, the Goddess Bast was a black, female cat. Christians, wanting to rid society of all traces of other religions, convinced the ignorant that black cats were demons in disguise and should thus be destroyed. In the process, they also destroyed the kindly women who cared for the cats, believing them to be witches. Being demons, a black cat crossing your path would create a barrier of evil, cutting you off from God and blocking the entrance to heaven.
Cats can physically see spirits, so they make excellent guardians against evil spirits. They also love to play with friendly or beneficial spirits.
Belief:
If a black cat crosses your path, bad luck will befall you. If a black cat walks towards you, it brings good fortune, but if it walks away, it takes the good luck with it. Keep cats away from babies because they "suck the breath" of the child. A cat onboard a ship is considered to bring luck. If you can take the one white hair off an otherwise all black cat without getting scratched, you have a very powerful good luck talisman.
Cemetery http://www.corsinet.com
Belief:
You must hold your breath when you go past a cemetery or else you will breath in the soul of someone who has recently died.
Supposedly, this is because you will either wake a spirit with each breath or else you, still being alive, will make the spirits jealous. Some people think that it is order to avoid inhaling evil spirits. This last idea seems to be the most prevalent and the one that makes the most sense as a belief; the others may just be variations on the idea.
This superstition is related to the one that admonishes people to cover their mouths when they yawn -- not so much out of politeness as to block (usually evil) spirits from entering. Breath has long been analogous with life; in the Bible, God breathed life into Adam. This could mean that God imbued Adam with life force, a soul or spirit, or both, through his mouth.
The associations between breath, life, and spirits:
Let us consider that in Indo-European languages the word for "soul" always derives from the word for "breath", "wind", "air" etc.: psuche, "breath"; anima and spiritus meaning breath and wind; ghost and Geist "breath"; atman and prana "breath". In classical Chinese as well qi meaning air was thought to be the life principle running through and animating the body and mind, and even the whole cosmos. So are Hebrew ruah and nefesh, Egyptian ka, Iroquoian orenda, Polynesian mana, all meaning "air" or "breath" (c.f. Ellison Banks Findly, "Breath and Breathing", Encycl. of Rel., vol. 2, p. 302; consider also the Algonkien manitou).
The primitive humans made this identification between their self-awareness (soul) and breath probably because all life breathes and so they saw the essence of being alive -- and thus being sentient in breathing. [...] "Soul" thus came from a compactification of consciousness-breath-metabolism, i.e. (sentient) "life force" in general. When the father dies, his lungs collapse, and the last breath gushes out his mouth. It is easy for the tribal men, already convinced of the immortality of the soul, to take the last breath as the soul (the consciousness) exiting the body.
"Origin of Primitive Religion, 'Soul' & Rituals" by Lawrence C. Chin http://www.geocities.com/therapeuter2002/geneaology.html
Some cultures would ensure that their mouths and noses were covered when around corpses so that they would not breathe in whatever illness had killed them. So it is possible that over time people have, as they are wont to do, twisted the stories of some of those old practices.
Chain letter
Belief:
The recipient will suffer bad luck or even physical violence or death if he or she "breaks the chain" and refuses to adhere to the conditions set out in the letter. Cheeks http://www.corsinet.com
If your cheeks suddenly feel on fire, someone is talking about you.
Chill http://www.corsinet.com
If you get a chill up your back or goosebumps, it means that someone is walking over your grave.
Chimney Sweep http://www.corsinet.com
It's very lucky to meet a chimney sweep by chance. Make a wish when sighting one, and the wish will come true.
Cigarettes http://www.corsinet.com
It is bad luck to light three cigarettes with the same match.
Circle http://www.corsinet.com
Evil spirits can't harm you when you stand inside a circle.
Clock http://www.corsinet.com
If a clock which has not been working suddenly chimes, there will be a death in the family.
Clover Wikipedia.org
The four-leaf clover is an uncommon variation of the common, three-leaved clover. According to tradition, such leaves bring good luck to their finders, especially if found accidentally. In addition, each leaf is believed to represent something: the first is for faith, the second is for hope, the third is for love, and the fourth is for luck.
It has been estimated that there are approximately 10,000 three-leaf clovers for every four-leaf clover; however, this probability has not deterred collectors who have reached records as high as 160,000 four-leaf clovers.
Clovers can have more than four leaves: the most ever recorded is 56, discovered by Shigeo Obara of Morioka, Japan, on May 12, 2009. Five-leaf clovers are less commonly found naturally than four-leaf clovers; however, they, too, have been successfully cultivated. Children are traditionally told that a five-leaved clover is even luckier than a four-leaved one. Some four-leaf clover collectors, particularly in Ireland, regard the five-leaf clover, known as a rose clover as a particular prize.
Cause
It is debated whether the fourth leaflet is caused genetically or environmentally. Its relative rarity suggests a possible recessive gene appearing at a low frequency. Alternatively, four-leaf clovers could be caused by somatic mutation or a developmental error of environmental causes. They could also be caused by the interaction of several genes that happen to segregate in the individual plant. It is possible all four explanations could apply to individual cases.
Researchers from the University of Georgia have reported finding the gene that turns ordinary three-leaf clovers into the coveted four-leaf types. Masked by the three-leaf gene and strongly influenced by environmental condition, molecular markers now make it possible to detect the presence of the gene for four-leaves and for breeders to work with it. The results of the study, which also located two other leaf traits in the white-clover genome, were reported in the July/August 2010 edition of Crop Science, published by the Crop Science Society of America.
The other leaf traits, the red fleck mark and red midrib, a herringbone pattern that runs down the center of each leaflet in a bold red color, were mapped to nearby locations, resolving a century-old question as to whether these leaf traits were controlled by one gene or two separate genes.
White clover has many genes that affect leaf color and shape, and the three in the study were very rare. These traits can be strikingly beautiful, particularly if combined with others, and can turn clover into an ornamental plant for use in flower beds.
There are reports of farms in the US which specialize in four-leaf clovers, producing as many as 10,000 a day (to be sealed in plastic as "lucky charms") by feeding a secret, genetically engineered ingredient to the plants to encourage the aberration (there are, however, widely available cultivars that regularly produce leaves with multiple leaflets).
Multi-leaved cultivars
There are some cultivars of white clover (Trifolium repens) which regularly produce more than three leaflets, including purple-leaved T. repens 'Purpurascens Quadrifolium' and green-leaved T. repens 'Quadrifolium'.
Trifolium repens 'Good Luck' is a cultivar which has three, four, or five green, dark-centered leaflets per leaf.
Other species
Other plants may be mistaken for, or misleadingly sold as, "four-leaf clovers"; for example, Oxalis tetraphylla is a species of wood sorrel with leaves resembling a four-leaf clover. Other species that have been sold as "four-leaf clovers" include Marsilea quadrifolia.
Belief
It's good luck to find a four-leaf clover. Clover protects human beings and animals from the spell of magicians and the wiles of fairies, and brings good luck to those who keep it in the house.
Coin http://www.corsinet.com
It's bad luck to pick up a coin if it's tails side up. Good luck comes if it's heads up.
Comb http://www.corsinet.com
To drop a comb while you are combing your hair is a sign of a coming disappointment.
Cough http://www.corsinet.com
To cure a cough: take a hair from the coughing person's head, put it between two slices of buttered bread, feed it to a dog, and say:
Eat well you hound, may you be sick and I be sound.
Cow http://www.corsinet.com
Cows lifting their tails is a sure sign that rain is coming.
Crack http://www.corsinet.com
Don't step on a crack on a sidewalk or walkway.
Step on a crack Break your mother's back.
Cricket http://www.corsinet.com
A cricket in the house brings good luck.
Counting Crows http://www.corsinet.com
One's bad, Two's luck, Three's health, Four's wealth, Five's sickness, Six is death.
Dandelion http://www.corsinet.com
Pick a dandelion that has gone to seed. Take a deep breath and blow the seeds into the wind. Count the seeds that remain on the stem. That is the number of children you will have.
Dog http://www.corsinet.com
A dog howling at night when someone in the house is sick is a bad omen.
Door http://www.corsinet.com
It's bad luck to leave a house through a different door than the one used to come into it.
Dreamcatcher Wikipedia.org
Considered a sign of good luck for Native Americans (Ojibwe).
Ears Itching http://www.corsinet.com
If your right ear itches, someone is speaking well of you. If your left ear itches, someone is speaking ill of you.
Left for love and right for spite: Left or right, good at night.
Easter http://www.corsinet.com
For good luck throughout the year, wear new clothes on Easter.
Elephant http://www.corsinet.com
Pictures of an elephant bring luck, but only if they face a door.
Eye http://www.corsinet.com
If your right eye twitches there will soon be a birth in the family. If the left eye twitches there will soon be a death in the family. To cure a sty, stand at a crossroads and recite:
Sty, sty, leave my eye Take the next one coming by.
Eyelash http://www.corsinet.com
If an eyelash falls out, put it on the back of the hand, make a wish and throw it over your shoulder. If it flies off the hand the wish will be granted.
Fingers Crossed http://www.corsinet.com
Crossing two fingers (the middle and pointing fingers) on one hand as a sign of hopefulness or desire for a particular outcome.
"This is probably the superstition that is most widely used today. By making the sign of the Christian faith with our fingers, evil spirits would be prevented from destroying our chances of good fortune,"
It is also used as an expression: "Cross your fingers" is often told to someone hoping for good luck or a particular outcome.
Sometimes, when someone tells a lie, they will cross their fingers (usually behind their back). This somehow absolves them from the consequences or makes the lie not count.
Fingernails http://www.corsinet.com
It is bad luck to cut your fingernails on Friday or Sunday. Fingernail cuttings should be saved, burned, or buried.
Fish http://www.corsinet.com
A fish should always be eaten from the head toward the tail. Dream of fish: someone you know is pregnant.
Considered a sign of good luck for Chinese, Hebrew, Ancient Egyptian, Tunisian, Indian, and Japanese.
Fishing http://www.corsinet.com
Throw back the first fish you catch then you'll be lucky the whole day fishing. If you count the number of fish you caught, you will catch no more that day. It's bad luck to say the word "pig" while fishing at sea.
Flag http://www.corsinet.com
It brings bad luck for a flag to touch the ground.
Flower http://www.corsinet.com
First Flower of Spring. The day you find the first flower of the season can be used as an omen:
Monday means good fortune, Tuesday means greatest attempts will be successful, Wednesday means marriage, Thursday means warning of small profits, Friday means wealth, Saturday means misfortune, Sunday means excellent luck for weeks.
Foot Itching http://www.corsinet.com
If the bottom of your right foot itches, you are going to take a trip.
Fork http://www.corsinet.com
To drop a fork means a man is coming to visit.
Friday http://www.corsinet.com
A bed changed on Friday will bring bad dreams. Any ship that sails on Friday will have bad luck. You should never start a trip on Friday or you will meet misfortune. Never start to make a garment on Friday unless you can finish it the same day.
It is traditionally believed that Eve tempted Adam with the apple on a Friday. Tradition also has it that the Flood in the Bible, the confusion at the Tower of Babel, and the death of Jesus Christ all took place on Friday.
Friday The 13th Wikipedia.org
Friday the 13th occurs when the thirteenth day of a month falls on a Friday, which superstition holds to be a day of bad luck. In the Gregorian calendar, this day occurs at least once, but at most three times a year. Any month's 13th day will fall on a Friday if the month starts on a Sunday.
Phobia
The fear of Friday the 13th is called friggatriskaidekaphobia (Frigga being the name of the Norse goddess for whom "Friday" is named and triskaidekaphobia meaning fear of the number thirteen), or paraskevidekatriaphobia a concatenation of the Greek words Paraskev (, meaning "Friday"), and dekatres (, meaning "thirteen") attached to phoba (, from phbos, , meaning "fear"). The latter word was derived in 1911 and first appeared in a mainstream source in 1953.
History
According to folklorists, there is no written evidence for a "Friday the 13th" superstition before the 19th century. The earliest known documented reference in English occurs in Henry Sutherland Edwards' 1869 biography of Gioachino Rossini:
Rossini was surrounded to the last by admiring and affectionate friends; Why Friday the 13th Is Unlucky
Consequently, several theories have been proposed about the origin of the Friday the 13th superstition.
One theory states that it is a modern amalgamation of two older superstitions: that thirteen is an unlucky number and that Friday is an unlucky day.
In numerology, the number twelve is considered the number of completeness, as reflected in the twelve months of the year, twelve hours of the clock, twelve gods of Olympus, twelve tribes of Israel, twelve Apostles of Jesus, etc., whereas the number thirteen was considered irregular, transgressing this completeness. There is also a superstition, thought by some to derive from the Last Supper or a Norse myth, that having thirteen people seated at a table will result in the death of one of the diners.
Friday has been considered an unlucky day at least since the 14th century's The Canterbury Tales, and many other professions have regarded Friday as an unlucky day to undertake journeys or begin new projects. Black Friday has been associated with stock market crashes and other disasters since the 1800s. It has also been suggested that Friday has been considered an unlucky day because, according to Christian scripture and tradition, Jesus was crucified on a Friday.
One author, noting that references are all but nonexistent before 1907 but frequently seen thereafter, has argued that its popularity derives from the publication that year of Thomas W. Lawson's popular novel Friday, the Thirteenth, in which an unscrupulous broker takes advantage of the superstition to create a Wall Street panic on a Friday the 13th. Records of the superstition are rarely found before the 20th century, when it became extremely common.
The connection between the Friday the 13th superstition and the Knights Templar was popularized in the 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code. However, experts agree that this is a relatively recent correlation, and most likely a modern-day invention.
Tuesday the 13th
In Spanish-speaking countries, instead of Friday, Tuesday the 13th is considered a day of bad luck, commonly referred to as 'Martes trece' (Literally translates to: Tuesday thirteenth). The Fall of Constantinople, when the city fell to the Ottomans marking the end of the Byzantine Empire, happened on Tuesday, May 29, 1453. That is why the Greeks also consider Tuesday to be an unlucky day. Any month starting on a Thursday will have a Tuesday the 13th. Either a common year starting on Monday or a leap year starting on Thursday will have three Tuesday the 13th's.
Social impact
According to the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina, an estimated 17 to 21 million people in the United States are affected by a fear of this day. Some people are so paralyzed by fear that they avoid their normal routines in doing business, taking flights or even getting out of bed. "It's been estimated that [US]$800 or $900 million is lost in business on this day". Despite this, representatives for both Delta and Continental Airlines say that their airlines do not suffer from any noticeable drop in travel on those Fridays.
Rate of accidents
There are conflicting studies about the risk of accidents on Friday the 13th. The Dutch Centre for Insurance Statistics (CVS) on June 12, 2008, stated that "fewer accidents and reports of fire and theft occur when the 13th of the month falls on a Friday than on other Fridays, because people are preventatively more careful or just stay home. Statistically speaking, driving is slightly safer on Friday the 13th, at least in the Netherlands; in the last two years, Dutch insurers received reports of an average 7,800 traffic accidents each Friday; but the average figure when the 13th fell on a Friday was just 7,500. However, a 1993 study in the British Medical Journal that compared the ratio of traffic accidents between Friday the 6th and Friday the 13th stated that there is a significant increase in traffic-related accidents on Friday the 13th. There are indications that there are more accidents on Fridays than average weekdays (irrespective of the date) probably because of alcohol consumption. Therefore it is less relevant for this purpose to compare Friday the 13th with any other 13th day of another month.
Notable events linked to Friday the 13th
The renowned rapper Tupac Amaru Shakur was pronounced dead on Friday, September 13, 1996. The asteroid 99942 Apophis will make a close encounter with Earth, closer than the orbits of communication satellites, on Friday, April 13, 2029. An engineering train on the Northern Line of the London Underground became uncoupled and went on a 13 minute journey southbound from Archway station, finally stopping at Warren Street tube station on the West End branch of the line. The train in front was forced to skip several stations and was diverted to the City branch of the line on Friday, August 13, 2010. The Knights Templar were rounded up and killed on Friday the 13 th :
"On October 13, 1307, a day so infamous that Friday the 13th would become a synonym for ill fortune, officers of King Philip IV [Philip the Fair] of France carried out mass arrests in a well-coordinated dawn raid that left several thousand Templars knights, sergeants, priests, and serving brethren in hains, charged with heresy, blasphemy, various obscenities, and homosexual practices. None of these charges was ever proven, even in France and the Order was found innocent elsewhere but in the seven years following the arrests, hundreds of Templars suffered excruciating tortures intended to force 'confessions,' and more than a hundred died under torture or were executed by burning at the stake."
(Katharine Kurtz, Tales of the Knights Templar, Warner Books, 1995).
Both Friday and the number 13 were once closely associated with capital punishment. In British tradition, Friday was the conventional day for public hangings, and there were supposedly 13 steps leading up to the noose.
Friday Before Easter (Good Friday) http://www.corsinet.com
A child born on Good Friday and baptized on Easter Sunday has a gift of healing. If a boy, he should go into the ministry. Cut your hair on Good Friday to prevent headaches in the year to come A person who dies on Good Friday will go right to heaven. Shed no blood on Good Friday, work no wood, hammer no nail.
Frog http://www.corsinet.com
A frog brings good luck to the house it enters. The dried body of a frog worn in a silk bag around the neck averts epilepsy and other fits.
Good luck charm Wikipedia.org
Good luck charm is a charm that is believed to bring good luck. An example of this is a blessing that a minister or a priest gives at the end of a ceremony. Later on, people assumed that spoken words were temporary whereas a solid object is more permanent. Objects that have extraordinary significance such as the splinter believed to be from the cross of Jesus Christ were substituted for the original spoken or sung charms.
Almost any object can be used as a charm. Coins and buttons are good examples. Small objects that are given to you make very good lucky charms. It is because of the favorable associations they make. Several souvenir shops have a range of tiny items that may be used as good luck charms. Good luck charms are usually worn on the body although there are exceptions.
History
The lucky rabbit charm was passed on and incorporated into our culture by the African slaves that were brought to the Americas.
The lucky bag or the Mojo is another borrowed idea from the African culture. It is used in voodoo ceremonies to carry several lucky objects or spells and intended to cause a specific effect. The concept is that particular objects placed in the bag and charged will create a supernatural effect for the bearer. Even today, mojo bags are still used.
Europe also contributed to the concept of lucky charms. Adherents of St. Patrick (the patron saint of Ireland), adopted the Four leaf clover as a symbol of Irish luck due to the fact that clovers are abundant in the hills of Ireland.
A four-leaf clover was consistently believed to be a lucky charm. This very old Irish verse describes why:
One leaf is for fame, And one leaf is for wealth, And one is for a faithful lover, And one to bring you glorious health, Are all in the four-leaved clover.
Hair http://www.corsinet.com
Pulling out a gray or white hair will cause ten more to grow in its place.
Lock of hair Wikipedia.org
A lock of hair is a piece or pieces of hair that has been cut from, or remains singly on, a human head, most commonly bunched or tied together in some way. A standard dictionary definition defines a lock as a tress, curl, or ringlet of hair.
Symbolic value
Locks of hair carry symbolic value and have been utilized throughout history in various religious, superstitious, and sentimental roles.
A primitive belief maintains that owning a lock of hair from another's head gives one power over that individual, in the same manner that owning a piece of clothing or image of an individual grants the owner such powers. During antiquity, Roman girls who were about to be married offered locks of hair to Jove (Jupiter) in his forest god aspect, Virbius (Virbio). An ancient and worldwide (e.g. China, Egypt, Thailand, Albania, Ukraine, India, Israel, etc.) pre-adolescent custom was to shave children's heads but leave a lock of hair (sometimes several locks) remaining on their heads. Upon reaching adulthood the lock of hair was usually cut off. The scalplock was a lock of hair kept throughout a man's life. Like childhood locks, the scalplock was also a worldwide phenomenon, particularly noted amongst eastern woodland Indians (see Iroquois, Huron, Mahican, Mohawk) in North America. Sviatoslav I of Kiev was reported to have worn a scalp lock by Leo the Deacon, a Byzantine historian. Later Ukrainian Cossacks (Zaporozhians) sported scalplocks called oseledets or khokhol. In India this custom remains active but usually only amongst orthodox Hindus. See Sikha. In Mark Twain's travel book The Innocents Abroad, he describes Moroccan men sporting scalp locks. Riffian (Berber) men of Morocco had the custom of shaving the head but leaving a single lock of hair on either the crown, left, or right side of the head, so that the angel Azrael is able "...to pull them up to heaven of the Last Day." A common superstition holds that a lock of hair from a baby's first haircut should be kept for good luck. An old Irish superstition holds that it is unlucky to accept a lock of hair (or a four- footed beast) from a lover. A lock of Beethoven's hair, cut from his head in 1827, was auctioned in 1994 through Sotheby's of London. Research on the hair determined that the composer's lifelong illness was caused by lead poisoning. A Polish plait (Koltun in Polish, meaning "Knot", but often referred to in English as an "Elf-Lock") is a lock of matted hair similar to a dreadlock. Due to a scalp disease (Plica polonica), King Christian IV of Denmark (15771648) had a Polish plait hanging from the left side of his head, adorned with a red ribbon. His courtiers were said to have adopted the hairstyle in order to flatter the king. Due to superstitious beliefs, the Polish plait used to be particularly common in Poland (hence its name). Initially, the plait was treated as an amulet, supposed to bring good health, as the plait was supposed to take the illness "out" of the body, and therefore it was rarely cut off. From the end of the 16th century until well into the 17th century it was popular amongst European "men of fashion" to wear a lovelock. The lovelock was a long lock of usually plaited (braided) hair made to rest over the left shoulder (the heart side) to show devotion to a loved one.
Hand, Palm Itching http://www.corsinet.com
If the palm of your right hand itches it means you will soon be getting money. If the palm of your left hand itches it means you will soon be paying out money.
(This superstition seems to have the most variations, some of which are complete opposites of others.)
Itchy hands, right to receive and left to leave (fortune and luck), rub on wood and it's sure to be good, rub on brass and it will come fast.
If the palm of your right hand is itchy, then it foretells that money is coming to you, but DON'T scratch it as that stops the money from coming! If it's your left palm that is itchy, then scratch away, as that means that you'll soon be paying out money for something. If your left hand itches, you're going to be rich. If your right hand itches, you're going to be poor. If your palm itches, you will receive money, and if the back of your hand itches you will lose money. If your palm itches, you will soon receive money. If you itch it, your money will never come.
Horseshoe http://www.corsinet.com
A horseshoe, hung above the doorway, will bring good luck to a home. A horseshoe hung in the bedroom will keep nightmares away.
In most of Europe protective horseshoes are placed in a downward facing position, but in some parts of Ireland and Britain people believe that the shoes must be turned upward or "the luck will run out."
In Scotland, iron was used as protection against fairies, and usually was a horseshoe placed over a door. As iron is stronger than other metals and able to withstand fire, it has long been thought to be imbued with magical properties and hold the power to ward off spirits, witches, fairies, and other malicious or mischievous supernatural beings.
"One legend [dating from the 10th Century] says that the Devil called on St. Dunstan, who was skilled in shoeing horses. St. Dunstan recognized him and fastened him to a wall. He then set to work with such roughness that the Devil roared for mercy. St Dunstan turned the Devil loose after making him promise never to enter a home on which a horseshoe was fixed. Witches fear horses, so they are also turned away by a door with a horseshoe mounted on it, The horseshoe must be hung with the points up to keep the luck from spilling out."
Ivy growing on a house protects the inhabitants from witchcraft and evil.
Jade Wikipedia.org
Considered a sign of good luck for Chinese. Knife http://www.corsinet.com
A knife as a gift from a lover means that the love will soon end. A knife placed under the bed during childbirth will ease the pain of labor. If a friend gives you a knife, you should give him a coin, or your friendship will soon be broken. It will cause a quarrel if knives are crossed at the table. It is bad luck to close a pocket knife unless you were the one who opened it.
Knife falls, gentleman calls; Fork falls, lady calls; Spoon falls, baby calls.
Knitting http://www.corsinet.com
It's bad luck to leave a project unfinished. The intended recipient will get bad luck from the unfinished item. Stabbing your needles though your yarn balls brings bad luck to anyone who wears something made from that yarn. Don't knit a pair of socks for your boyfriend or he'll walk away from you. If you knit one of your own hairs into a garment, it will bind the recipient to you. Knitting for children you may have in the future, but before you are pregnant, is bad luck (it may prevent one from getting pregnant, or bring ill health to the baby).
Ladder http://www.corsinet.com
It is bad luck to walk under a ladder.
Excluding the obvious that something might fall on you from above the belief that walking under a ladder will bring bad luck seems to stem from the ladder forming a triangle with the wall and the ground. This represents the "Holy Trinity", and if you violate this by entering the space, it puts you in league with the devil, and you're likely to incur God's wrath.
According to Tia Dawson (984020568@98.lincoln.ac.uk):
"The reason 'It's bad luck to walk under a ladder' is that hangmen used to use a ladder to hang someone from the gallows, and it was believed that if you walked under a ladder, the hangmen would turn his gaze your way, or 'Death would notice you'. I'm from Yorkshire England, and I was told this by a museum historian."
Ladybug http://www.corsinet.com
If a young girl catches a ladybug and then releases it, the direction in which it flies away will be the direction from which her future husband will come. It is bad luck to kill a ladybug.
Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home. Your house is on fire, Your children all roam.
Leaf http://www.corsinet.com
If you catch a falling leaf on the first day of autumn you will not catch a cold all winter.
Lettuce http://www.corsinet.com
Lettuce is believed to have magical and healing properties, including the power to arouse love and counteract the effects of wine. Lettuce promotes child bearing if eaten by young women, and certain types of salad can bring on labor in pregnant women.
Lie http://www.corsinet.com
Cross my heart and hope to die, Cut my throat if I tell a lie.
Lizard http://www.corsinet.com
To dream of a lizard is a sign that you have a secret enemy.
Mandrake http://www.corsinet.com
Mandrake is a mysterious plant believed to have powers of preventing sterility in men and animals, causing barren women to bear children, and compelling love.
Mandrake is thought to have aphrodisiac and fertilizing properties.
Clairvoyants use mandrake to increase their visions to enable them to see strange and wonderful things.
Milk http://www.corsinet.com
It's bad luck to let milk boil over.
Mirror http://www.corsinet.com
To break a mirror means 7 years bad luck. It is unlucky to see your face in a mirror by candlelight. A mirror should be covered during a thunderstorm because it attracts lightning. If a mirror in the house falls and breaks by itself, someone in the house will die soon.
One's reflection in a mirror is thought to be the representation of his or her soul or spiritual state. Breaking the mirror, and therefore the person's reflection, would bring damage to their soul and spiritual hardship. Taking the pieces outside and burying them in the moonlight could avoid this.
"The true reason that breaking a mirror was 7 years bad luck is because when mirrors were first made they were so expensive that if you broke on you would serve 7 years as an indentured servant to the owner of the mirror because not too many people could afford to buy another one to replace it."
(JUMPMAS842@aol.com)
"Origin of Common Superstitions: Breaking a Mirror" (http://www.trivialibrary. com/a/origin-of-common-superstitions-breaking-a-mirror.htm) states:
"Before the invention of mirrors, man gazed at his reflection, his 'other self', in pools, ponds, and lakes. If the image was distorted, it was a mark of impending disaster. The 'unbreakable' metal mirrors of the early Egyptians and Greeks were valued items because of their magical properties. After glass mirrors were introduced, it was the Romans who tagged the broken mirror a sign of bad luck. The length of the prescribed misfortune, 7 years, came from the Roman belief that man's body was physically rejuvenated every 7 years, and he became, in effect, a new man."
Mistletoe http://www.corsinet.com
Mistletoe in the house protects it from thunder and lightning. It also cures many diseases, is an antidote to poison and brings good luck and fertility. A girl standing under a mistletoe cannot refuse to be kissed by anyone who claims the privilege.
Moth http://www.corsinet.com
A white moth inside the house or trying to enter the house means death.
Nose http://www.corsinet.com
If your nose itches you will soon be kissed by a fool.
If your nose itches Your mouth is in danger. You'll kiss a fool, And meet a stranger. Rub an itch to wood It will come to good.
If your nose itches, someone is coming to see you. If it's the right nostril, the visitor will be a female, left nostril, male.
Onion http://www.corsinet.com
An onion cut in half and placed under the bed of a sick person will draw off fever and poisons. A wish will come true if you make it while burning onions.
Opal http://www.corsinet.com
Unless you were born in October, it's unlucky to wear opals.
Owl http://www.corsinet.com
It is bad luck to see an owl in the sunlight.
Pencil http://www.corsinet.com
If you use the same pencil to take a test that you used for studying for the test, the pencil will remember the answers.
Penny Wikipedia.org
Finding a penny is sometimes considered lucky and gives rise to the saying, "Find a penny, pick it up, and all the day you'll have good luck." This may be a corruption of "See a pin and pick it up, all the day you'll have good luck" and similar verses, as quoted in The Frank C. Brown collection of North Carolina folklore and other places.
Pepper http://www.corsinet.com
If you spill pepper you will have a serious argument with your best friend.
Photograph http://www.corsinet.com
If 3 people are photographed together, the one in the middle will die first.
Pin Wikipedia.org
"See a pin and pick it up, all the day you'll have good luck" as quoted in The Frank C. Brown collection of North Carolina folklore and other places. Pig Wikipedia.org
Considered a sign of good luck for Chinese and Germans.
Powder of sympathy Wikipedia.org
Powder of sympathy was a form of sympathetic magic, current in 17th century in Europe, whereby a remedy was applied to the weapon that had caused a wound in the hope of healing the injury it had made.
History
The method was first proposed by Rudolf Goclenius, Jr. and was later expanded upon by Sir Kenelm Digby. An abstract of Digby's theory is found in an address given before an assembly of learned men in Montpellier, France, and which is discussed in Thomas Joseph Pettigrew's Superstitions Connected with Medicine and Surgery. The recipe for the powder is: "take Roman vitriol [copper sulphate] six or eight ounces, beat it very small in a mortar, shift it through a fine sieve when the sun enters Leo; keep it in the heat of the sun and dry by night."
The powder was also applied to solve the longitude problem in the suggestion of an anonymous pamphlet of 1687 entitled "Curious Enquiries." The pamphlet theorised that a wounded dog could be put aboard a ship, with the animal's discarded bandage left in the trust of a timekeeper on shore, who would then dip the bandage into the powder at a predetermined time and cause the creature to yelp, thus giving the captain of the ship an accurate knowledge of the time. There are no records of the effectiveness of this procedure. It is also uncertain if it had ever been tried, and it is possible that the pamphlet was a form of satire.
The powder of sympathy was termed weaponsalve ("A salve which was supposed to cure the wound, being applied to the weapon that made it.") by Dr. Johnson in his Dictionary of the English Language (1755).
In literature and media
Samuel Butler makes fun of sympathetic powders in his Hudibras (1663):
Learned he was in med'c'nal lore, For by his side a pouch he wore, Replete with strange hermetic powder, That wounds nine miles point-blank would solder; By skilful chymist, with great cost, Extracted from a rotten post;
The concept of the powder of sympathy plays a significant role in the plot of Umberto Eco's novel The Island of the Day Before. In the novel, set in the 17th century, the protagonist learns of the powder, and gives a lecture on it in a salon. He is then ordered by Cardinal Mazarin to spy on a secret English Pacific voyage to test an unknown application of the powder to solve the longitude problem. The method attempted in the novel involved a dog wounded with a weapon which would then be heated every day at noon in London. The men on the ship would interpret the dog's suffering as a sympathetic response, and thus would try to calculate the difference between local time and London time.
In 2010, BBC series James May's Man Lab attempted to navigate the English Channel using the Powder of Sympathy, among other traditional methods. Rather than injure the dog with a knife, they played "I Dreamed a Dream" to it, dipping the CD in the powder at the appropriate time. It is unclear if this had the necessary effect, as the dog barked incessantly during the voyage regardless.
Rabbit's Foot Wikipedia.org
Victorian silver mounted rabbit's foot charm
In some cultures, the foot of a rabbit is carried as an amulet believed to bring good luck. This belief is held by individuals in a great number of places around the world including Europe, China, Africa, and North and South America. It is likely that this belief has existed in Europe since 600 BC amongst Celtic people. In variations of this superstition, the donor rabbit must possess certain attributes, or have been killed in a particular place, or killed by a particular method, or by a person possessing particular attributes (e.g. by a cross-eyed man).
The rabbit foot charm in North American and anan culture
The belief in North American folklore may originate in the system of African-American folk magic known as hoodoo. A number of strictures attached to the charm that are now observed mostly in the breach:
First, not any foot from a rabbit will do: it is the left hind foot of a rabbit that is useful as a charm. Second, not any left hind foot of a rabbit will do; the rabbit must have been shot or otherwise captured in a cemetery. Third, at least according to some sources, not any left hind foot of a rabbit shot in a cemetery will do: the phase of the moon is also important. Some authorities say that the rabbit must be taken in the full moon, while others hold instead that the rabbit must be taken in the new moon. Some sources say instead that the rabbit must be taken on a Friday, or a rainy Friday, or Friday the 13th. Some sources say that the rabbit should be shot with a silver bullet, while others say that the foot must be cut off while the rabbit is still alive.
As a substitute for bones from a human corpse
The various rituals suggested by the sources, though they differ widely one from another, share a common element of the uncanny, and the reverse of what is considered good-omened and auspicious. A rabbit is an animal into which shapeshifting witches such as Isobel Gowdie claimed to be able to transform themselves. Witches were said to be active at the times of the full and new moon. Silver bullets, of course, are reputed to be sovereign against uncanny creatures such as werewolves.
These widely varying circumstances may share a common thread of suggestion that the true lucky rabbit's foot is actually cut from a shapeshifted witch. The suggestion that the rabbit's foot is a substitute for a body part from a witch's body is corroborated by other folklore from hoodoo. Willie Dixon's song "Hoochie Coochie Man" mentions a "black cat bone" along with his mojo and his John the Conqueror: all are artifacts in hoodoo magic. Given the traditional association between black cats and witchcraft, a black cat bone is also potentially a substitute for a human bone from a witch. Hoodoo lore also uses graveyard dust, soil from a cemetery, for various magical purposes. Dust from a good person's grave keeps away evil; dust from a sinner's grave is used for more nefarious magic. The use of graveyard dust may also be a symbolic appropriation of the parts of a corpse as a relic, and a form of sympathetic magic.
In any case, the rabbit's foot is dried out and preserved, and carried around by gamblers and other people who believe it will bring them luck. Rabbit's feet, either authentic or imitation, are frequently sold by curio shops and vending machines. Often, these rabbit's feet have been dyed various colors, and they are often turned into keychains. Few of these rabbit's feet carry any warranty concerning their provenance, or any evidence that the preparers have made any effort to comply with the rituals required by the original tradition. Some may be confected from fake fur and latex "bones."
President Theodore Roosevelt wrote in his autobiography that he had been given a gold- mounted rabbit's foot by John L. Sullivan as well as a penholder made by Bob Fitzsimmons out of a horseshoe. A 1905 anecdote also tells that Booker T. Washington and Baron Ladislaus Hengelmuller, the ambassador from Austria, got their overcoats confused when they were both in the White House to speak with President Roosevelt; the ambassador noticed that the coat he had taken was not his when he went to the pockets searching for his gloves, and instead found "the left hind foot of a graveyard rabbit, killed in the dark of the moon." Other newspaper stories reported the incident but omitted the detail about the rabbit's foot.
In addition to being mentioned in blues lyrics, the rabbit's foot is mentioned in the American folk song "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight," once popular in minstrel shows; one line goes: "And you've got a rabbit's foot To keep away de hoo-doo."
Humorist R. E. Shay is credited with the witticism, "Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember it didn't work for the rabbit."
http://www.corsinet.com
A rabbit's foot will bring luck and protect the owner from evil spirits if carried in the pocket.
Although the practice is also prevalent in England, it was originally considered a Southern (United States) tradition to carry a rabbit's foot; particularly among African Americans. The tradition made its way to the States with African slaves, and it is thought to be among the oldest traditions in the world, dating from around 600 BC.
Rabbits and hares have long been considered symbols of fertility and, by extension, abundance. To have rabbits traipsing through your yard was a sign that your garden would be fertile. When a rabbit runs, its stride is unusual because the back feet hit the ground ahead of it's front feet, and so the back feet were considered lucky. Therefore, to possess the rabbit's hind foot would be to acquire good fortune.
Over 10 million rabbits feet are bought every year in the United States to feed the rage for this fetish. Animal lovers and animal rights activists alike (and rabbits) discourage the practice due to the cruelty and senseless deaths involved in producing these amulets.
Rainbow http://www.corsinet.com
A rainbow in the Eastern sky, The morrow will be fine and dry. A rainbow in the West that gleams, Rain tomorrow falls in streams.
Raven http://www.corsinet.com
To kill a raven is to harm the spirit of King Arthur who visits the world in the form of a raven.
Red http://www.corsinet.com
A red ribbon should be placed on a child who has been sick to keep the illness from returning.
Robin http://www.corsinet.com
A wish made upon seeing the first robin in spring will come true - but only if you complete the wish before the robin flies away. If a robin flies into a room through a window, death will shortly follow.
Rocking Chair http://www.corsinet.com
If you leave a rocking chair rocking when empty, it invites evil spirits to come into your house to sit in the rocking chair.
Rosemary http://www.corsinet.com
Rosemary planted by the doorstep will keep witches away.
Salt http://www.corsinet.com
Historically, salt has been highly valued and considered to be a purifying substance, capable of driving away evil. The Romans paid their soldiers in salt hence the word "salary". It has long been useful as a preservative, in medicine, and is also used in magick, ritual, and superstition to purify, bless things, and drive away evil.
Bad luck will follow the spilling of salt unless a pinch is thrown over the left shoulder into the face of the devil waiting there. Put salt on the doorstep of a new house and no evil can enter. Salty soup is a sign that the cook is in love.
Spilling Salt Wikipedia.org
A European superstition holds that spilling salt is an evil omen.
One widespread explanation of the belief that it is unlucky to spill salt is that Judas Iscariot spilled the salt at the Last Supper. Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper depicts Judas Iscariot having knocked over a salt-cellar.
This may not be the actual explanation; salt was a valuable commodity in ancient times, and as such a symbol of trust and friendship. A German proverb held that "whoever spills salt arouses enmity". According to Charles Nodier, among "savages", the "action of spilling salt ... indicates among them the refusal of protection and hospitality from such strangers as they may have reason to suspect are thieves and murderers."
Salt is also a religious symbol. Salt is used to make holy water in the Roman Catholic Church rite, and as such figures as a religious symbol of sanctity, associated with exorcism. The meals served at the witches' sabbath were thought to be salt-free as a consequence. Salt is a symbol of the preserving value of sanctity in Jesus' reference to the "salt of the earth". As an emblem of sanctity and protection, its inadvertent loss may be more than a natural misfortune.
A variety of methods are used to avert the evil omen of spilt salt. The most common contemporary belief requires you to toss a pinch of the spilt salt over your left shoulder, into the face of the Devil who lurks there.[8] Others hold that it is lucky to spill wine, and as such one report holds that a diner who spilt salt became quite agitated until a waiter had poured wine into his lap.
The belief in the ill luck that comes from spilt salt is quite old, going back to ancient Rome. The 1556 Hieroglyphica of Piero Valeriano Bolzani reports that "(s)alt was formerly a symbol of friendship, because of its lasting quality. For it makes substances more compact and preserves them for a long time: hence it was usually presented to guests before other food, to signify the abiding strength of friendship. Wherefore many consider it ominous to spill salt on the table, and, on the other hand, propitious to spill wine, especially if unmixed with water."
Some have scoffed at the omen. Herbert Spencer wrote that "A consciousness in which there lives the idea that spilling salt will be followed by some evil, obviously allied as it is to the consciousness of the savage, filled with beliefs in omens and charms, gives a home to other beliefs like those of the savage."
Scissors http://www.corsinet.com
If you drop scissors, it means your lover is being unfaithful to you.
Sea Gull http://www.corsinet.com
Three seagulls flying together, directly overhead, are a warning of death soon to come.
Seven (7) Wikipedia.org
Considered a sign of good luck for Christians. Shoes http://www.corsinet.com
Do not place shoes upon a table, for this will bring bad luck for the day, cause trouble with your mate and you might even lose your job as a result. It's bad luck to leave shoes upside down.
Singing http://www.corsinet.com
If you sing before seven, you will cry before eleven.
Sleep http://www.corsinet.com
You sleep best with your head to the north and your feet to the south.
Sneeze http://www.corsinet.com
If you sneeze on a Monday, you sneeze for danger; Sneeze on a Tuesday, kiss a stranger; Sneeze on a Wednesday, sneeze for a letter; Sneeze on a Thursday, something better; Sneeze on a Friday, sneeze for sorrow; Sneeze on a Saturday, see your sweetheart tomorrow. Sneeze on a Sunday, and the devil will have domination over you all week.
One for sorrow Two for joy Three for a letter Four for a boy. Five for silver Six for gold Seven for a secret, never to be told
Place a hand in front of your mouth when sneezing. Your soul may escape otherwise. The devil can enter your body when you sneeze. Having someone say, "God bless you," drives the devil away.
History:
"The reason why Tiberius would say 'Bless you' was due to the belief that the more blessings offered to the sufferer may help lessen the chance of death. However, according to Claudia DeLys in A Treasury of Superstitions, the phrase wasn't a simple 'Bless you'. The disease running through the Roman civilization at that time made sneezing a dreaded symptom. So when someone sneezed it was felt this warranted a short prayer to the gods. 'Long may you live', 'May you enjoy good health', or a simple 'Jupiter, help me.' Whatever variant used was uttered and offered up in hopes that it would help protect those present and, hopefully, expel the disease from the person who happened to have sneezed."
"The blessing of those who sneeze started when the great plague took hold of Europe. Sufferers began sneezing violently, and as such, were bound to die. The Pope therefore passed a law requiring people to bless the sneezer. At the same time, it was expected that anybody sneezing would cover their mouth with a cloth or their hand. This was obviously to stop the spreading of the disease, but many believed that it was to keep the soul intact. Sneezing 'into the air' would allow the soul to escape and death would be imminent. Up until this time, the opposite was true. Those who sneezed were congratulated [Sanguinarius notes that this practice dates from the 6th century], as it was believed that a violent sneeze would expel evil from their bodies."
Sparrows carry the souls of the dead; it's unlucky to kill one.
Spider http://www.corsinet.com
Seeing a spider run down a web in the afternoon means you'll take a trip. A spider is a repellent against plague when worn around the neck in a walnut shell.
Fork http://www.corsinet.com
To drop a spoon means a woman is coming to visit. Stars http://www.corsinet.com
All wishes on shooting stars come true.
Star light, star bright First star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might Have the wish I wish tonight.
Swan http://www.corsinet.com
A swan's feather, sewed into the husband's pillow, will ensure fidelity.
Thirteen (13) http://www.corsinet.com
Numerologists consider 12 a "complete" number. There are 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, and 12 apostles of Jesus. In exceeding 12 by 1, 13's association with bad luck has to do with just being a little beyond completeness.
In ancient Rome, witches reportedly gathered in groups of 12. The 13th was believed to be the devil.
There is a Norse myth about 12 gods having a dinner party at Valhalla, their heaven. In walked the uninvited 13th guest, the mischievous Loki. Once there, Loki arranged for Hoder, the blind god of darkness, to shoot Balder the Beautiful, the god of joy and gladness, with a mistletoe-tipped arrow. Balder died and the Earth got dark. The whole Earth mourned.
"To the ancient Egyptians, we are told, life was a quest for spiritual ascension which unfolded in stages 12 in this life and a 13th beyond, thought to be the eternal afterlife. The number 13 therefore symbolized death not in terms of dust and decay, but as a glorious and desirable transformation. Though Egyptian civilization perished, the death symbolism they conferred on the number 13 survived, only to be corrupted by later cultures who associated it with a fear of death instead of a reverence for the afterlife."
In the Code of Hammurabi, an early law code dating from ancient Babylon, the laws are numbered and skip from 12 to 14. It is not clear why the Babylonians considered 13 to be extremely unlucky. Matt Rhodes offers one explanation: "One of my English professors from college (Mythology class) told me that the earliest documented example of the number thirteen as something bad came from the Song of Ishtar, an ancient Babylonian epic poem. The thirteenth line contains the name of the Goddess of the Dead (which is never a good thing)."
There is a Biblical reference to the unlucky number 13. Judas, the apostle who betrayed Jesus, was the 13th guest to the Last Supper.
People omit or avoid the number 13, like the following examples:
More than 80 percent of high-rises lack a 13th floor. Many airports skip the 13th gate. Airplanes have no 13th aisle. Hospitals and hotels regularly have no room number 13. Italians omit the number 13 from their national lottery. On streets in Florence, Italy, the house between number 12 and 14 is addressed as 12 and a half. Many cities do not have a 13th Street or a 13th Avenue In France, socialites known as the quatorziens (fourteeners) once made themselves available as 14th guests to keep a dinner party from an unlucky fate.
Many triskaidekaphobes, as those who fear the unlucky integer are known, point to the ill- fated mission to the moon, Apollo 13.
If you have 13 letters in your name, you will have the devil's luck. Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy and Albert De Salvo all have 13 letters in their names. If 13 people sit down at a table to eat, one of them will die before the year is over.
Tongue http://www.corsinet.com
If you bite your tongue while eating, it is because you have recently told a lie. Trick or Treat http://www.corsinet.com
This tradition can be traced back 2,000 years (and quite possibly much longer) to the Celtic belief that the spirits of the dead still remained present on our plane of existence, and required food and drink to be placated. Failing to leave out an offering was sure to invite the disgruntled spirits to cause mischief and ill fortune in retaliation. Later, people began dressing up as the spirits in order to receive these offerings of food, and playing practical jokes on those who did not furnish them.
In Ireland, "an old Irish peasant practice called for going door to door to collect money, bread cake, cheese, eggs, butter, nuts, apples, etc., in preparation for the festival of St. Columbus Kill." ("Trick or Treat")
In England, the poor would go around to different households on "All Souls Day" begging for food and be given "soul cakes" in exchange for the promise to pray for the family's dead relatives. This practice was known as "going a-souling".
"In Scotland children or guisers will have to impress the members of the houses they visit with a song, trick, joke or dance in order to earn their treats."
Umbrella http://www.corsinet.com
Dropping an umbrella on the floor means that there will be a murder in the house. It's bad luck to open an umbrella inside the house, especially if you put it over your head. It's only bad luck if the umbrella is black, was a gift, has never been used outdoors, or if there's someone sick in the house (it will supposedly cause them to become sicker). Having an umbrella on a ship is considered bad luck.
Opening an umbrella indoors was not always considered to bring bad luck, according to some only if certain factors apply:
"Many believe it is only bad luck when the umbrella is opened without it first being outdoors. That means bringing a wet umbrella in and leaving it open at the door is not part of the superstition."
"Are You Superstitious?" http://www.fifty-fiveplus.com/family/SP0028.htm
Valentine's Day http://www.corsinet.com
If a woman sees a robin flying overhead on Valentine's Day, it means she will marry a sailor. If she sees a sparrow, she will marry a poor man and be very happy. If she sees a goldfinch, she will marry a millionaire.
Veil http://www.corsinet.com
A bride's veil protects her from evil spirits who are jealous of happy people.
Watermelon http://www.corsinet.com
A watermelon will grow in your stomach if you swallow a watermelon seed.
Weather http://www.corsinet.com
Red sky at night, Sailor's delight. Red sky at morning Sailors take warning
Rain, rain, go away, Come again another day. Rain on the green grass Rain on the hillside, But not on me.
Wood Wikipedia.org
Knocking on wood, or to touch wood, refers to the apotropaic tradition in western folklore of literally touching/knocking on wood, or merely stating that you are doing or intend same, in order to avoid "tempting fate" after making a favourable observation, a boast, or declaration concerning one's own death.
Cultural origins
In some countries, such as Spain, it is traditional literally to touch wood after an event occurs that is considered to bring bad luck, such as crossing paths with a black cat or walking under a ladder or noticing it's Friday the 13th. This is usually done when there's no salt at hand to spill over your shoulder, which is considered the "traditional" way of avoiding the bad luck caused by those situations.
In Italy, "tocca ferro" (touch iron) is used, especially after seeing an undertaker or something related to death.
In old English folklore, "knocking on wood" also referred to when people spoke of secrets they went into the isolated woods to talk privately and "knocked" on the trees when they were talking to hide their communication from evil spirits who would be unable to hear when they knocked. Another version holds that the act of knocking was to perk up the spirits to make them work in the requester's favor. Yet another version holds that a sect of Monks who wore large wooden crosses around their necks would tap or "knock" on them to ward away evil.
In Romania, there is also a superstition that one can avoid bad things aforementioned by literally knocking on wood ("a bate n lemn"). One of the possible reasons could be that there is a monastery practice to call people to pray by playing / knocking the simantron.
In Bulgaria the use of "knock on wood" is basically for protection against the evil news (not necessary for luck or anything else). The people use it mainly against illness or if they heard that something very bad has happened to some one far away, or if a bad word or news is heard. In this "knock on wood" ritual you must say "God keep us" and knock on the nearest wood (except on wooden table) then pull your ear (on the bottom) with the same hand you knocked. If there is not a wood near by its allowed to knock on your head. The knock on your head instead of wood comes from the ironical idea that "the stupid man has a wooden head"
In Serbia there is also the habit of knocking on wood when saying something positive or affirmative about someone or something and not wanting that to change. Frequently the movement of knocking on nearby wood is followed by (I will knock on wood), or sometimes by (I don't want to jinx it).
In Poland there is a habit of knocking on (unpainted) wood (which may be preceded by saying odpuka w niemalowane drewno or simply odpuka, literally meaning to knock on unpainted wood) when saying something negative - to prevent it from happening - or, more rarely, something positive - in order not to "spoil it".
In the United States of America folklore tells of the forefathers knocking on wood referencing knocking of the wood stock of their muzzle-loading rifles to settle or compress the black powder charge to ensure clean ignition or firing of the weapon.
http://www.corsinet.com
Belief:
Knock three times on wood after mentioning good fortune so evil spirits won't ruin it. You must knock on wood 3 times after mentioning good fortune or the evil spirits will ruin things for you.
The American version is "knock on wood", while the British version is merely "touch wood". The tradition traces back to an ancient pagan belief that spirits resided in trees, particularly Oaks, and that by knocking on or touching the wood, you were paying a small tribute to them by remembering or acknowledging them, and could call on them for protection against ill- fortune. Also, you were thanking them for their continued blessings and good luck.
It may be traced back even further to an ancient Greek belief:
"that if they touched an Oak tree, they communicate with Zeus, who would protect them from misfortune."
All windows should be opened at the moment of death so that the soul can leave.
Wish http://www.corsinet.com
If you make a wish while throwing a coin into a well or fountain, the wish will come true. If you tell someone your wish, it won't come true.
Wish I may, Wish I might Have the wish I wish tonight.
Wishbone http://www.corsinet.com
Two people pull apart the dried breastbone of a chicken or turkey until it cracks and breaks, each one making a wish while doing so. The person who gets the long half of the wishbone will have his or her wish come true.
History:
The Etruscans were the earliest civilization to live on the Italian peninsula, settling in between 900 and 800 BC; although much is not known about this mysterious early people, they were actually responsible for much of which is mistakenly attributed to the Romans, -- and from whom the Romans drew a substantial portion of their culture, ideals, etc. The Etruscans practiced a form of divination involving a hen pecking at grains of corn scattered about in a circle divided into sections with letters (which could be viewed as an early form of Ouija-style fortune telling).
"When the fowl was killed, the birds collarbone was laid in the sun to dry. An Etruscan still wishing to benefit from the oracles powers had only to pick up the bone and stroke it (not break it) and make a wish; hence the name 'wishbone'. For more than two centuries they wished on unbroken clavicles."
The number of Xs in the palm of your right hand is the number of children you will have.
Yawn http://www.corsinet.com
A yawn is a sign that danger is near. Cover your mouth when you yawn, or your soul can go out of your body along with the yawn.
Sailors Superstitions
These are collections of mariners superstitions, traditions, Myths, legends, and folk belief.
Albatross Wikipedia.org
Considered a sign of good luck if seen by sailors.
The albatross as a superstitious relic is referenced in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's well-known poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It is considered very unlucky to kill an albatross; in Coleridge's poem, the narrator killed the bird and his fellow sailors eventually force him to wear the dead bird around his neck. This is evident in such proverbs and stories as 'an albatross around his neck.
Bananas Wikipedia.org
Having bananas on a ship, especially on a private boat or fishing yacht, is considered bad luck.
Candlemas Day Wikipedia.org
Sailors are often reluctant to set sail on Candlemas Day, believing that any voyage begun then will end in disaster.
Cat Wikipedia.org
While in many cultures, a black cat is considered unlucky, British and Irish sailors considered adopting a black "ship's cat" because it would bring good luck. Cats eat rodents, which can damage ropes and stores of grain on board, and they are intelligent animals, so a high level of care was directed toward them to keep them happy. A ship's cat would also create a sense of home and security to sailors who could be away from home for a long time.
Tiddles, a Black cat who gained fame as a Royal Navy Ship's cat.
Some sailors believed that polydactyl cats were better at catching pests, possibly connected with the suggestion that extra digits give a polydactyl cat better balance, important when at sea. Cats were believed to have miraculous powers that could protect ships from dangerous weather. Sometimes, fishermen's wives would keep black cats at home too, in the hope that they would be able to use their influence to protect their husbands at sea. It was believed to be lucky if a cat approached a sailor on deck, but unlucky if it only came halfway, and then retreated.
Pirates of the 18th century believed that a black cat would bring different kinds of luck. If a black cat walks towards someone, that person will have bad luck. If a black cat walks away from someone then that person will have good luck. If a black cat walks onto a ship and then walks off it, the ship is doomed to sink on its next trip.
Another popular belief was that cats could start storms through magic stored in their tails. If a ship's cat fell or was thrown overboard, it was thought that it would summon a terrible storm to sink the ship and that if the ship was able to survive, it would be cursed with nine years of bad luck. Other beliefs included: if a cat licked its fur against the grain, it meant a hailstorm was coming; if it sneezed it meant rain; and if it was frisky it meant wind.
Davy Jones' Locker Wikipedia.org
Genre Nautical folklore Type Euphemism for sea floor, or resting place for sailors drowned at sea.
Davy Jones' Locker, also Davy Jones's Locker, is an idiom for the bottom of the sea: the state of death among drowned sailors and shipwrecks. It is used as a euphemism for drowning or shipwrecks which the sailor(s)'s and/or ship(s)'s remains are consigned to the bottom of the sea (to be sent to Davy Jones' Locker).
Davy Jones's Locker, by John Tenniel, 1892
The origins of the name of Davy Jones, the sailor's devil, are unclear, with a 19th-century dictionary tracing Davy Jones to a "ghost of Jonah". Other explanations of this nautical superstition have been put forth, including an incompetent sailor or a pub owner who kidnapped sailors.
History
The earliest known reference of the negative connotation of Davy Jones occurs in the Four Years Voyages of Capt. George Roberts, by the author Daniel Defoe, published in 1726 in London.
Some of Loe's Company said, They would look out some things, and give me along with me when I was going away; but Ruffel told them, they should not, for he would toss them all into Davy Jones's Locker if they did. Daniel Defoe
An early description of Davy Jones occurs in Tobias Smollett's The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, published in 1751:
This same Davy Jones, according to sailors, is the fiend that presides over all the evil spirits of the deep, and is often seen in various shapes, perching among the rigging on the eve of hurricanes:, ship-wrecks, and other disasters to which sea-faring life is exposed, warning the devoted wretch of death and woe. Tobias Smollett
In the story Jones is described as having saucer eyes, three rows of teeth, horns, a tail, and blue smoke coming from his nostrils.
Theories
The origin of the tale of "Davy Jones" is unclear, and many conjectural or folklore explanations have been proposed:
The 1898 Dictionary of Phrase and Fable connects Dave to the West Indian duppy (duffy) and Jones to biblical Jonah:
Hes gone to Davy Joness locker, i.e. he is dead. Jones is a corruption of Jonah, the prophet, who was thrown into the sea. Locker, in seamans phrase, means any receptacle for private stores; and duffy is a ghost or spirit among the West Indian negroes. So the whole phrase is, "He is gone to the place of safe keeping, where duffy Jonah was sent to." E. Cobham Brewer
David Jones, a real pirate, although not a very known one, living on the Indian Ocean in the 1630s.
Duffer Jones, a notoriously myopic sailor who often found himself over-board.
A British pub owner who supposedly threw drunken sailors into his ale locker and then gave them to be drafted on any ship. He may be the pub owner who is referenced in the 1594 song "Jones's Ale is Newe."
Davy Jones is another name for Satan, or "Devil Jonah", the biblical Jonah who became the "evil angel" of all sailors, who would identify more with the beset-upon ship-mates of Jonah than with the unfortunate man himself. Upon death, a wicked sailor's body supposedly went to Davy Jones' locker (a chest, as lockers were back then), but a pious sailor's soul went to Fiddler's Green.
Reputation
Crossing the equator ceremony with "Davy Jones" with yellow cape and a plunger as sceptre) aboard the USS Triton, 24 February 1960 as part of the Operation Sandblast cruise
The tale of Davy Jones causes fear among sailors, who may refuse to discuss Davy Jones in any great detail. Not all traditions dealing with Davy Jones are fearful. In traditions associated with sailors crossing the Equatorial line, there was a "raucous and rowdy" initiation presided over by those who had crossed the line before, known as shellbacks, or Sons of Neptune. The eldest shellback was called King Neptune, and Davy Jones would be re-enacted as his first assistant. Friday Wikipedia.org
Friday is considered to be an unlucky day in some cultures, and perhaps the most enduring sailing superstition is that it is unlucky to begin a voyage or 'set sail' on a Friday. However, this superstition is not universal.
In the 19th century Admiral William Henry Smyth, writing in his nautical lexicon The Sailor's Word-Book, described Friday as:
The Dies Infaustus, on which old seamen were desirous of not getting under weigh, as ill-omened.
(Dies Infaustus means "unlucky day".) This superstition is the root of the well-known urban legend of HMS Friday.
Jonah Wikipedia.org
A "Jonah" is a long-established expression among sailors, meaning a person (either a sailor or a passenger) who is bad luck, which is based on the Biblical prophet Jonah.
Klabautermann Wikipedia.org
Traditionally, a type of kobold, called a Klabautermann, lives aboard ships and helps sailors and fishermen on the Baltic and North Sea in their duties. He is a merry and diligent creature, with an expert understanding of most watercraft, and an unsupressable musical talent. He also rescues sailors washed overboard.
The name comes from the Low German verb klabastern meaning "rumble" or "make a noise". An etymology deriving the name from the verb kalfatern ("to caulk") has also been suggested.
A carved klabautermann image, of a small sailor dressed in yellow with a tobacco pipe and woollen sailor's cap, often wearing a caulking hammer, is attached to the mast as a symbol of good luck. However, despite the positive attributes, there is one omen associated with his presence: no member of a ship blessed by his presence shall ever set eyes on him; he only ever becomes visible to the crew of a doomed ship. The belief in Klabautermanns dates to at least the 1770s.
Line Crossing Wikipedia.org
U.S. Sailors and Marines participate in a line- crossing ceremony aboard USS Blue Ridge (LCC- 19) as the ship passes the Equator May 16, 2008. It has been a long naval tradition to initiate pollywogs, sailors who have never crossed the Equator, into the Kingdom of Neptune upon their first crossing of the Equator.
The Line-crossing ceremony commemorates a sailor's first crossing of the Equator. Its practices invoke good luck on the new sailor. The ceremony of Crossing the Line is an initiation rite in the Royal Navy, U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Marine Corps, and other navies that commemorates a sailor's first crossing of the Equator. The tradition may have originated with ceremonies when passing headlands, and become a "folly" sanctioned as a boost to morale, or have been created as a test for seasoned sailors to ensure their new shipmates were capable of handling long rough times at sea. Sailors who have already crossed the Equator are nicknamed (Trusty) Shellbacks, often referred to as Sons of Neptune; those who have not are nicknamed (Slimy) Pollywogs (in 1832 the nickname griffins was noted).
After crossing the line, Pollywogs receive subpoenas to appear before King Neptune and his court (usually including his first assistant Davy Jones and her Highness Amphitrite and often various dignitaries, who are all represented by the highest ranking seamen), who officiate at the ceremony, which is often preceded by a beauty contest of men dressing up as women. Afterwards, some wogs may be "interrogated" by King Neptune and his entourage. During the ceremony, the Pollywogs undergo a number of increasingly embarrassing ordeals (such as wearing clothing inside out and backwards; crawling on hands and knees; being swatted with short lengths of firehose; kissing the Royal Baby's belly coated with axle grease, etc.), largely for the entertainment of the Shellbacks. Once the ceremony is complete, a Pollywog receives a certificate declaring his new status.
St. Elmos Fire Wikipedia.org
Saint Erasmus of Formiae may have become the patron of sailors because he is said to have continued preaching even after a thunderbolt struck the ground beside him. This prompted sailors, who were in danger from sudden storms and lightning, to claim his prayers. The electrical discharges at the mastheads of ships were read as a sign of his protection and came to be called "Saint Elmo's Fire". Thus, Saint Elmo's Fire was usually good luck in traditional sailor's lore, but because it is a sign of electricity in the air and interferes with compass readings, sailors sometimes regarded it as an omen of bad luck and stormy weather.
Tattoo Wikipedia.org
Sailor tattoos are a visual way to preserve the culture of the maritime superstitions. Sailors believed that certain symbols and talismans would help them in when facing certain events in life; they thought that those symbols would attract good luck or bad luck in the worst of the cases:
Sailors, at the constant mercy of the elements, often feel the need for religious images on their bodies to appease the angry powers that caused storms and drowning far from home. Tattoo Archives
For example, the images of a pig and a hen were good luck; both animals are not capable of swimming, but they believed that God would look down upon a shipwreck and see an animal not capable of swimming and would take them into his hand and place them on land. Another example of superstitions is the North Star (Nautical Start or compass rose); sailors had the belief that by wearing this symbol it would help them to find his or her way home. Sailors designed mariner motifs of their own, according to their travel experiences in the ocean. By the 19th century, about 90% of all United States Navy sailors had tattoos.
Weather http://www.corsinet.com
Red sky at night, Sailor's delight. Red sky at morning Sailors take warning
Whistling Wikipedia.org
Whistling on board a sailing ship is thought to encourage the wind strength to increase. This is regularly alluded to in the Aubrey-Maturin books by Patrick O'Brian. A United States Navy saying alluded to a supposition that only homosexuals whistled.
Folklore
A collection of folk beliefs
Hour of the wolf Wikipedia.org
The hour of the wolf is the hour between night and dawn during which the wolf is said to lurk outside people's doors (Between 3 and 5 AM).
In popular culture
The marketing tagline for a 1968 Ingmar Bergman horror film entitled Hour of the Wolf reads:
"The Hour of the Wolf is the hour between night and dawn. It is the hour when most people die, when sleep is deepest, when nightmares are most real. It is the hour when the sleepless are haunted by their deepest fear, when ghosts and demons are most powerful. The Hour of the Wolf is also the hour when most children are born."
In an episode of the science fiction television show Babylon 5 entitled "The Hour of the Wolf", Commander Susan Ivanova says:
"Have you ever heard of the hour of the wolf? ... It's the time between 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning. You can't sleep, and all you can see is the troubles and the problems and the ways that your life should've gone but didn't. All you can hear is the sound of your own heart."
Jinx Wikipedia.org
A jinx, in popular superstition and folklore, is:
A type of curse placed on a person that makes them prey to many minor misfortunes and other forms of bad luck; A person afflicted with a similar curse, who, while not directly subject to a series of misfortunes, seems to attract them to anyone in his vicinity. An object or person that brings bad luck. A penalty that one person can invoke on another when the two of them say the same thing at the same time.
The superstition can also be referenced when talking about a future event with too much confidence. A statement such as "We're sure to win the contest!" can be seen as a jinx because it tempts fate, thereby bringing bad luck. The event itself is referred to as "jinxed". A dramatic historical example of this type of jinxing is the RMS Titanic, which was said to be unsinkable, then sank on its maiden voyage.
In a similar way, calling attention to good fortune e.g. noting that a certain athlete is having a streak of particularly good fortune is thought to "jinx" it. If the good fortune ends immediately afterward, the jinx is then blamed for the turn of events, often jokingly.
Origins
The etymology of the word is obscure.
It may come from Latin iynx, that is, the wryneck bird, which has occasionally been used in magic and divination and is remarkable for its ability to twist its head almost 180 degrees while hissing like a snake. The Jinx bird is found in Africa and Eurasia. It may be the plural of jink treated as singular.
The Online Etymology Dictionary entry for jinx states that the word was first used, as a noun, in American English in 1911. It traces it to a 17th century word jyng, meaning "a spell", and ultimately to the Latin word iynx.
Barry Popik of the American Dialect Society suggests that the word should be traced back to an American folksong called Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, which was first popular in 1868. One verse in one version goes:
The first day I went out to drill The bugle sound made me quite ill, At the Balance step my hat it fell,
And that wouldn't do for the Army.
The officers they all did shout, They all cried out, they all did shout, The officers they all did shout,
"Oh, that's the curse of the Army."
The reference to various misfortunes and a curse lend plausibility to this.
A Mr Jinx appeared in Ballou's monthly magazine - Volume 6 - Page 276 in 1857.
Law of contagion Wikipedia.org
The law of contagion is a folk belief described axiom found in magical thinking which suggests that once two people or objects have been in contact, that a magical link persists between unless or until a formal exorcism or other act of banishing breaks the non-material bond. The first description of the law of contagion appeared in The Golden Bough by James George Frazer.
Conscious belief in the law of contagion
According to this idea, the law of contagion has both dangers and benefits. On the good side, the holiness of a saint, god or other venerated figure confers benefits to relics, as do temples and churches, by virtue of their having religious rituals conducted within them.
On the bad side, this means that in according to the belief system of many cultures, a sorcerer or witch might acquire a lock of hair, nail clipping or scrap of clothing in order to facilitate a curse. Voodoo dolls, among many other practices. A voodoo doll resembles the victim and often incorporates hair or clothing from them. Cultures that believe in sorcery, therefore often exercise care that their hair or nails do not end up in the hands of sorcerers.
Psychics and mediums commonly utilize an object once owned by a missing or deceased subject as their "focus" for psychometry, clairvoyance or during sances.
Unconscious belief in the law of contagion
Even among supposedly sophisticated people psychological experiments have shown a reluctance on the part of the public to, say, try on a sweater worn by a serial murderer, as if subjects assume that their evil somehow lingers in the article of clothing.
Mooncalf Wikipedia.org
A mooncalf (or moon-calf) is the abortive fetus of a cow or other farm animal. The term was occasionally applied to an abortive human fetus.
The term derives from the formerly widespread superstition, present in many European folk traditions, that such malformed creatures were the product of the sinister influence of the Moon on fetal development.
Modern usage
The term came to be used to also refer to any monstrous or grotesque thing. Shakespeare, for instance, used the term to describe Caliban, the deformed servant of Prospero, in The Tempest.
In H. G. Wells' 1901 novel The First Men in the Moon, large creatures domesticated by the Selenites are referred to as "mooncalves."
Mooncalf is used as a derogatory term to indicate someone is a dullard, fool or otherwise not particularly bright or sharp. For example, W. C. Fields in "The Bank Dick" (1940) advises his prospective son-in-law to avoid being a "mooncalf" by buying shares he has been beguiled into believing are worth much more than the proffered price.
Mooncalf is also the name of a species of magical creatures in the world of the Harry Potter series. It is described in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them as a shy, nocturnal creature with a smooth, pale grey body, bulging eyes and four spindly legs with large flat feet. Mooncalfs perform dances in the moonlight, and are apparently responsible for crop circles.
Sign of the horns Wikipedia.org
The sign of the horns is a hand gesture with a variety of meanings and uses in various cultures. It is most commonly used in Italy and the Mediterranean either for superstitious purposes or as an offensive gesture. It is formed by extending the index and little fingers while holding the middle and ring fingers down with the thumb.
Superstition
In Italy and some Mediterranean cultures, when confronted with unfortunate events, or simply when these events are mentioned, the sign of the horns may be given to ward off bad luck. It is also used traditionally to counter or ward off the "evil eye" (malocchio). With fingers down, it is a common apotropaic gesture, by which superstitious people seek protection in unlucky situations (It is a more Mediterranean equivalent of knocking on wood). Thus for example the President of the Italian Republic Giovanni Leone shocked the country when, while in Naples during an outbreak of cholera, he shook the hands of patients with one hand while with the other behind his back he made the corna. This act was well documented by the journalists and photographers who were right behind him, a fact that had escaped President Leone's mind in that moment. In Italy, one can also "touch iron" (tocca ferro) or touch one's nose. Males in Italy and some other countries may grab their testicles when confronted by bad luck; however, this is considered more vulgar.
In Peru one says contra (against). In the Dominican Republic the expression is zafa, said against curses known as fuk. All of these gestures are meant to conjure supernatural protection.
Satan displaying the Sign of the horns in the Kitab al- Bulhan (A late 14th century A.D. Arabic manuscript)
Offensive Gesture
However, when directed towards someone, the sign is instead used as an insult in Italy to imply that another person is a cuckold, and thus the gesture can be offensive and insulting in a manner similar to giving the finger or the "bras d'honneur" (or gesto dell'ombrello in Italian). In Italy, pointing the index and little finger towards someone aggressively or upward with the palm side outward is a common insult as well as an accusation of having an unfaithful wife. A common Italian word for cuckolded is cornuto, which literally means "horned," and this is the probable origin of the insulting meaning of the gesture. During a European Union meeting in February 2002, former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was photographed performing this gesture behind the back of the Spanish foreign minister. When questioned about the incident, he replied "I was only joking."
European and North American popular culture
Contemporary use by musicians and fans
The 1969 back album cover for Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls on Mercury Records by Chicago-based psychedelic-occult rock band Coven, led by singer Jinx Dawson, pictured Coven band members giving the "sign of the horns" correctly and included a Black Mass poster showing members at a ritual making the sign. Starting in early 1968, Coven concerts always began and ended with Jinx giving the sign on stage.
On the cover of The Beatles' Yellow Submarine album (1969), the cartoon of John Lennon's right hand is making the sign above Paul McCartney's head. For many fans, this was one of the many "Paul is dead" clues. Some may think it is possible that the cartoonist misrepresented the sign for "I love you", which is very similar and more in keeping with the band's public message and image. However, the 1969 cartoon is based on many photos of John Lennon making the hand sign in 1967. One of these photos of Lennon doing the hand sign appears on the cover of a Beatles single release shortly after, making it the first time the hand sign appears on a rock release.
Beginning in the early 1970s, the horns were known as the "P-Funk sign" to fans of Parliament-Funkadelic. It was used by George Clinton and Bootsy Collins as the password to the Mothership, a central element in Parliament's science-fiction mythology, and fans used it in return to show their enthusiasm for the band. Collins is depicted showing the P-Funk sign on the cover of his 1977 album Ahh... The Name Is Bootsy, Baby! Frank Zappa can be seen jokingly making the gesture in the 1979 film Baby Snakes in response to the audience, commenting, "That's right, spindle twice."
Heavy metal subculture
It also has a variety of meanings in heavy metal subcultures, where it is known by a variety of terms, most commonly maloik, metal sign, horns, Leviathan Horns, or metal horns, among others.
Ronnie James Dio was known for popularizing the sign of the horns in heavy metal. He claimed his Italian grandmother used it to ward off the evil eye (which is known in the Italian culture as malocchio). Dio began using the sign soon after joining (1979) the metal band Black Sabbath. The previous singer in the band, Ozzy Osbourne, was rather well known at using the "peace" sign at concerts, raising the index and middle finger in the form of a V. Dio, in an attempt to connect with the fans, wanted to similarly use a hand gesture. However, not wanting to copy Osbourne, he chose to use the sign his grandmother always made. The horns became famous in metal concerts very soon after Black Sabbath's first tour with Dio. The sign would later be appropriated by heavy metal fans under the name "maloik", a corruption of the original malocchio.
Terry "Geezer" Butler of Black Sabbath can be seen "raising the horns" in a photograph taken in 1971. This would indicate that the "horns" and their association with metal occurred much earlier than Ronnie James Dio suggests. The photograph is included in the CD booklet of the Symptom of the Universe: The Original Black Sabbath 19701978 compilation album.
From a 2001 interview with Ronnie James Dio on Metal-Rules.com:
Metal-Rules.com "I want to ask you about something people have asked you about before but will no doubt continue to talk about, and that is the sign created by raising your index and little finger. Some call it the "evil eye." I would like to know if you were the first one to introduce this to the metal world and what this symbol represents to you?"
R.J. Dio "I doubt very much if I would be the first one who ever did that. That's like saying I invented the wheel, I'm sure someone did that at some other point. I think you'd have to say that I made it fashionable. I used it so much and all the time and it had become my trademark until the Britney Spears audience decided to do it as well. So it kind of lost its meaning with that. But it was.... I was in Sabbath at the time. It was a symbol that I thought was reflective of what that band was supposed to be all about. It's NOT the devil's sign like we're here with the devil. It's an Italian thing I got from my Grandmother called the "Malocchio". It's to ward off the Evil Eye or to give the Evil Eye, depending on which way you do it. It's just a symbol but it had magical incantations and attitudes to it and I felt it worked very well with Sabbath. So I became very noted for it and then everybody else started to pick up on it and away it went. But I would never say I take credit for being the first to do it. I say because I did it so much that it became the symbol of rock and roll of some kind."[6]
Electronic communication
In electronic communication, the sign of the horns is represented with the \m/ or |m| emoticon and sometimes \,,/ and /,,/.
Sports Culture
Hook 'em Horns is the slogan and hand signal of The University of Texas at Austin. Students and alumni of the university employ a greeting consisting of the phrase "Hook 'em" or "Hook 'em Horns" and also use the phrase as a parting good-bye or as the closing line in a letter or story. The gesture is meant to approximate the shape of the head and horns of the UT mascot, the Texas Longhorn Bevo.
Fans of The University of South Florida Bulls use the same hand sign at their athletic events, except that the hand is turned around and facing the other way. With the middle and ring finger extending towards the person presenting the "Go Bulls" sign.
Fans of North Dakota State University Bison athletics also use a similar hand gesture, known as "Go Bison!" The pinky and index fingers are usually slightly bent, however, to mimic the shape of a bison's horns.
Fans of North Carolina State University Wolfpack athletics use a similar gesture with the middle and ring fingers moving up and down over the pinky to mimic a wolf's jaw
Fans of University of California, Irvine Anteaters use a similar sign with the middle and ring fingers out to resemble the head of the mighty anteater.
Fans of University of Nevada, Reno Wolf Pack athletics use a similar sign with the middle and ring fingers out to resemble the wolf's snout.
Fans of University of Utah athletics, particularly football and gymnastics, use a gesture where the index and pinky finger are straight and parallel to each other, forming a block "U." [7]
Fans of Northwestern State University Demon athletics also use a similar hand gesture, known as "Fork 'em!" The pinky and index fingers are extended but a little more parallel to each other resembling the horns on a demon.
Arizona State University Sun Devil fans make a pitchfork sign by extending the index and middle fingers, as well as the pinky. The thumb holds down the ring finger to complete the gesture.
Fans of the University of Oklahoma, a Big 12 Conference rival of The University of Texas, typically invert the "Hook 'em Horns" as a symbol of defiance toward The University of Texas. This symbol is especially prevalent during football season, leading up to the Red River Rivalry game, played each October in Dallas, Texas.
Fans of the Wichita State University Shockers frequently hold up their middle finger in addition to the pointer and pinky fingers as a reference to the comic sexual act.
*Will o' the Wisp Wikipedia.org
The phenomenon of strange light flickering over peat bogs, called ignis fatuus or jack-o'- lantern.
The term jack-o'-lantern originally meant a night watchman, or man with a lantern, with the earliest known use in the 1660s in East Anglia; and later, meaning an ignis fatuus or will-o'- the-wisp. In Newfoundland and Labrador, both names "Jacky Lantern" and "Jack the Lantern" refer to the will-o'-the-wisp concept rather than the pumpkin carving aspect.
A will-o'-the-wisp or ignis fatuus (Medieval Latin: "foolish fire") are atmospheric ghost lights seen by travellers at night, especially over bogs, swamps or marshes. It resembles a flickering lamp and is said to recede if approached, drawing travellers from the safe paths. The phenomenon is known by a variety of names, including jack-o'-lantern, hinkypunk, and hobby lantern in English folk belief, well attested in English folklore and in much of European folklore.
Continental Europe
In European folklore, these lights are held to be either mischievous spirits of the dead, or other supernatural beings or spirits such as fairies, attempting to lead travellers astray.
A modern Americanized adaptation of this travellers' association frequently places swaying ghost-lights along roadsides and railroad tracks. Here a swaying movement of the lights is alleged to be that of 19th- and early 20th-century railway workers supposedly killed on the job.
Sometimes the lights are believed to be the spirits of unbaptized or stillborn children, flitting between heaven and hell. Modern occultist elaborations bracket them with the salamander, a type of spirit wholly independent from humans (unlike ghosts, which are presumed to have been humans at some point in the past).
Northern Europe
Danes, Finns, Swedes, Estonians, Irish people and Latvians amongst some other groups believed that a will-o'-the-wisp marked the location of a treasure deep in ground or water, which could be taken only when the fire was there. Sometimes magical tricks, and even dead man's hand, were required as well, to uncover the treasure. In Finland and other northern countries it was believed that early autumn was the best time to search for will-o'-the-wisps and treasures below them. It was believed that when someone hid treasure, in the ground, he made the treasure available only at the midsummer, and set will-o'-the-wisp to mark the exact place and time so that he could come to take the treasure back. Finns also believed that the creature guarding the treasure, aarni, used fire (aarnivalkea) to clean precious metals.
Britain
The will-o'-the-wisp can be found in numerous folk tales around the United Kingdom, and is often a malicious character in the stories. In Welsh folklore, it is said that the light is "fairy fire" held in the hand of a pca, or pwca, a small goblin-like fairy that mischievously leads lone travelers off the beaten path at night. As the traveler follows the pca through the marsh or bog, the fire is extinguished, leaving them lost. The pca is said to be one of the Tylwyth Teg, or fairy family. In Wales the light predicts a funeral that will take place soon in the locality. Wirt Sikes in his book British Goblins mentions the following Welsh tale about pca.
A peasant traveling home at dusk sees a bright light traveling along ahead of him. Looking closer, he sees that the light is a lantern held by a "dusky little figure", which he follows for several miles. All of a sudden he finds himself standing on the edge of a vast chasm with a roaring torrent of water rushing below him. At that precise moment the lantern-carrier leaps across the gap, lifts the light high over its head, lets out a malicious laugh and blows out the light, leaving the poor peasant a long way from home, standing in pitch darkness at the edge of a precipice. This is a fairly common cautionary tale concerning the phenomenon; however, the ignis fatuus was not always considered dangerous. There are some tales told about the will-o'-the-wisp being guardians of treasure, much like the Irish leprechaun leading those brave enough to follow them to sure riches. Other stories tell of travelers getting lost in the woodland and coming upon a will-o'-the-wisp, and depending on how they treated the will-o'- the-wisp, the spirit would either get them lost further in the woods or guide them out.
Also related, the Pixy-light from Devon and Cornwall is most often associated with the Pixie who often has "pixie-led" travelers away from the safe and reliable route and into the bogs with glowing lights. "Like Poltergeist they can generate uncanny sounds. They were less serious than their German Weisse Frauen kin, frequently blowing out candles on unsuspecting courting couples or producing obscene kissing sounds, which were always misinterpreted by parents." Pixy-Light was also associated with "lambent light" which the "Old Norse" might have seen guarding their tombs. In Cornish folklore, Pixy-Light also has associations with the Colt Pixy. "A colt pixie is a pixie that has taken the shape of a horse and enjoys playing tricks such as neighing at the other horses to lead them astray". In Guernsey, the light is known as the faeu boulanger (rolling fire), and is believed to be a lost soul. On being confronted with the spectre, tradition prescribes two remedies. The first is to turn one's cap or coat inside out. This has the effect of stopping the faeu boulanger in its tracks. The other solution is to stick a knife into the ground, blade up. The faeu, in an attempt to kill itself, will attack the blade.
Asia
Aleya (or marsh ghost-light) is the name given to an unexplained strange light phenomena occurring over the marshes as observed by the Bengali people, specially the fishermen of Bengal. This marsh light is attributed to some kind of unexplained marsh gas apparitions that confuse fishermen, make them lose their bearings, and may even lead to drowning if one decided to follow them moving over the marshes. Local communities in the region believe that these strange hovering marsh-lights are in fact Ghost-lights representing the ghosts of fisherman who died fishing. Sometimes they confuse the fishermen, and sometimes they help them avoid future dangers.
A Japanese rendition of a Russian will-o'-the-wisp.
Chir batti (ghost-light), also spelled chhir batti or cheer batti, is a yet unexplained strange dancing light phenomena occurring on dark nights reported from the Banni grasslands, its seasonal marshy wetlands and the adjoining desert of the marshy salt flats of the Rann of Kutch near Indo-Pakistani border in Kutch district, Gujarat State, India. Local villagers have been seeing these sometimes hovering, sometimes flying balls of lights since time immemorial and call it Chir Batti in their KutchhiSindhi language, with Chir meaning ghost and Batti meaning light.
Similar phenomena are described in Japanese folklore, including Hitodama (literally "Human Soul" as a ball of energy), Hi no Tama (Ball of Flame), Aburagae, Koemonbi, Ushionibi, etc. All these phenomena are described as balls of flame or light, at times associated with graveyards, but occurring across Japan as a whole in a wide variety of situations and locations. These phenomena are described in Shigeru Mizuki's 1985 book Graphic World of Japanese Phantoms.
South America
Boi-tat is the Brazilian equivalent of the will-o'-the-wisp. Regionally it is called Boitat, Baitat, Batat, Bitat, Batato, Biatat, M'boiguau, Mboitat and Mba-Tata. The name comes from the Old Tupi language and means "fiery serpent" (mbo tat). Its great fiery eyes leave it almost blind by day, but by night, it can see everything. According to legend, Boi-tat was a big serpent which survived a great deluge. A "boiguau" (a cave anaconda) left its cave after the deluge and, in the dark, went through the fields preying on the animals and corpses, eating exclusively its favorite morsel, the eyes. The collected light from the eaten eyes gave "Boitat" its fiery gaze. Not really a dragon but a giant snake (in the native language, "boa" or "mboi" or "mboa").
In Argentina the will-o'-the-wisp phenomenon is known as Luz Mala (evil light) or Fuego Fatuo and is one of the most important myths in Argentine and Uruguayan Folklore. This phenomenon is quite feared and is mostly seen on Argentine rural areas. It consists of an extremely shiny ball of light floating a few inches from the ground.
North America
Mexico has its own equivalent as well. Folklore explains will-o-the-wisp to be witches who transformed into these lights. The reason for this, however, varies according to the region.
The swampy area of Massachusetts known as the Bridgewater Triangle has folklore of ghostly orbs of light, and there have been modern observations of these ghost-lights in this area as well.
Australia
Min Min Light is the name given to an unusual light formation that has been reported numerous times in eastern Australia. The lights have been reported from as far south as Brewarrina in western New South Wales, to as far north as Boulia in northern Queensland. The majority of sightings are reported to have occurred in Channel Country.
Stories about the lights can be found in aboriginal myth pre-dating western settlement of the region and have since become part of wider Australian folklore. Indigenous Australians hold that the number of sightings has increased alongside the increasing ingression of Europeans into the region. According to folklore, the lights sometime follow or approached people and have disappeared when fired upon, only to reappear later on.
Myths and Legends
These are stories that have been handed down and told for generations that it is almost impossible to trace if the origin of the story is real or not.
Numerous quests for legendary artifacts have been recorded but not one the expert could verify the validity of the claims.
List of mythological objects Wikipedia.org
Mythological objects (also known as mythical objects, mythic objects, or even god weapons in some cases) encompasses a variety of items (e.g. weapons, armor, clothing) appearing in world mythologies. This list will be organized according to category of object.
Armor
The Armor of Achilles, created by Hephaestus and said to be impenetrable. (Greek mythology) The Armor of Thor, consisting of the Girdle of Might, a magic belt (Megingjr) that doubled his strength; and an iron glove (Jrngreipr) so he could wield Mjolnir. (see below) The Armor of Beowulf, made by Wayland the Smith. The Armor of Karna, known as Kavacha.
Headgear
The Helmet of Rostam, upon which was fixed the head of the white giant Div-e- Sepid, from the Persian epic Shahnameh. The Helm of Darkness (or Cap of Invisibility), created by the Cyclopes for Hades. It made the wearer invisible. Also used by Perseus. (Greek mythology) The Tarnhelm, a helmet giving the wearer the ability to change form or become invisible. Used by Alberich in Der Ring des Nibelungen.
Shields
The Aegis, Zeus' shield, often loaned to his daughter Athena, also used by Perseus. (Greek mythology) Ancile, shield of the Roman god Mars. Priwen, the shield of King Arthur. The Shield of Achilles. (Greek mythology) The Shield of Ajax. (Greek mythology) The Shield of Galahad, made by King Evelake and adorned with a red cross painted with the blood of Joseph of Arimathea. The Shield of Joseph of Arimathea, according to Arthurian legend it was carried by three maidens to Arthur's castle where it was discovered by Sir Percival. In Perlesvaus he uses it to defeat the Knight of the Burning Dragon. The Shield of Judas Maccabee, a red shield emblazoned with a golden eagle. According to Arthurian legend the same shield was later found and used by Gawain after he defeated an evil knight. The Shield of El Cid, according to the epic poem Carmen Campidoctoris, bears the image of a fierce shining golden dragon. The Shield of Evalach, a white shield belonging to the titular king. Josephus of Arimathea painted a red cross upon it with his own blood, which granted the owner heavenly protection. It was later won by Sir Galahad. Svalinn is a shield which stands before the sun and protects earth from burning. (Norse mythology) Wynebgwrthucher, a shield of King Arthur.
Weapons
Axe of Perun, the axe wielded by the Slavic god of thunder and lightning, Perun. (Slavic mythology) Carnwennan, the dagger of King Arthur. Cronus' sickle, made of Adamantine and able to cut through anything. Cronus was given this sword by Gaia so that he could slay Uranus. (Greek mythology) Death's Scythe, a large scythe appearing in the hands of the Grim Reaper. This stems mainly from the Christian Biblical belief of death as a "harvester of souls". Lin of Celtchar,the flaming spear of Lugh,the Irish solar god.It had to be kept in a vase of water because it was forever blazing. Mjlnir, the magic hammer of Thor. It was invulnerable and when thrown it would return to the user's hand. (Norse mythology) Narayanastra, the personal missile of Vishnu in his Narayana or Naraina form. (Hindu mythology) Sudarshana Chakra, a legendary spinning disc like weapon used by the Hindu God Vishnu. Sharur, the enchanted mace of the Sumerian god Ninurta. It can fly unaided and also may communicate with its wielder. The Thunderbolts of Zeus, given to him by the Cyclops in Greek mythology, or by Vulcan in Roman mythology. Ukonvasara, the symbol and magical weapon of the Finnish thunder god Ukko, and was similar to Thor's Mjlnir. (Finnish mythology) Vajra, the lightning bolts of Indra. (Hindu mythology)
Swords
Asi, a legendary sword mentioned in the epic Mahabharata. Crocea Mors, the sword of Julius Caesar and later Nennius according to the legends presented by Geoffrey of Monmouth. Gan Jiang and Mo Ye, the legendary Chinese twin swords named after their creators. Harpe, the sword used by Perseus to decapitate the Medusa. (Greek mythology) Heaven's Will, also known as Thun Thin, was the sword of Vietnamese King Le Loi. Keris Mpu Gandring, the cursed Empu Gandring for Ken Arok. Not yet finished but had been used and killed the beloved ones of the user. Kladenets, a magic sword in Russian and Slavic mythology. Probably inspired by the sword of the god Swentowit. Kusanagi-no-tsurugi (Japanese: ) (also known as Ama-no-Murakumo-no- Tsurugi (?) or Tsumugari no Tachi Japanese: ), sword of the Japanese god Susanoo, later given to his sister Amaterasu. It is one of three Imperial Regalia of Japan. (Japanese mythology) Sword of Attila, the legendary sword that was wielded by Attila the Hun; claimed to have originally been the sword of Mars, the Roman god of war. Sword of Peleus, a magic sword that makes its wielder victorious in the battle or the hunt. (Greek mythology) Taming Sari, the Kris belonging to the Malay warrior Hang Tuah of the Malacca Sultanate. Shamshir-e Zomorrodnegar (Persian: ), "The emerald-studded Sword" in the Persian mythical story Amir Arsalan. The hideous horned demon called Fulad- zereh was invulnerable to all weapons except the blows of Shamshir-e Zomorrodnegar. This blade originally belonged to King Solomon. Totsuka-no-Tsurugi, the sword Susanoo used to slay the Yamata no Orochi. Jokulsnaut, a sword belonging to Grettir which was later given to his brother Atli. (Sagas of Icelanders)
Swords from Celtic mythology
Caladbolg (also Caladcholg), the sword of Fergus mac Rich and powerful enough to cut the tops off three hills; related to the Caledfwlch of Welsh mythology. Caledfwlch, often compared to Excalibur. This sword is used by Llenlleawg Wyddel to kill Diwrnach Wyddel and his men. Ceard-nan Gallan, the Smith of the Branches, sword of Oisin. Claomh Solais (The Sword of Light), the sword of Nuada Airgeadlmh. Cosgarach Mhor, the Great Triumphant One, sword of Oscar. Cruadh-Chosgarach, the Hard Destroying One, sword of Calte mac Rnin. Dyrnwyn, the Sword of Rhydderch. Fragarach (also The Sword of Air, The Answerer or The Retaliator), forged by the gods, wielded by Manannn mac Lir and Lugh Lamfada. No armor could stop it, and it would grant its wielder command over the powers of wind. Mac an Luin, the Son of the Waves, sword of Fionn mac Cumhaill. Moralltach (Great Fury) and Beagalltach (Little Fury), swords given to Diarmuid Ua Duibhne by his father Aengus. The Singing Sword of Conaire Mr.
Swords from Continental Germanic mythology
Mimung, sword that Wudga inherits from his father Wayland the Smith. Nagelring, the sword of Dietrich von Bern. Nothung, the sword from Die Walkre (Wagnerian mythology), also known as Gram, or Balmung wielded by Siegfried, hero of the Nibelungenlied.
Swords from Anglo-Saxon mythology
Hrunting, the magical sword lent to Beowulf by Unferth. (Anglo-Saxon verse) Ngling, the other magical sword of Beowulf. Found in the cave of Grendel's mother.
Swords from the Matter of Britain
Arondight, Lancelot's sword. Carnwennan, The dagger Arthur used. Clarent, a ceremonial sword of King Arthur stolen and used by Mordred. Coreiseuse, The sword of King Ban, Lancelot's father. Coreiseuse means wrathful. Excalibur, also known as Caledfwlch in Welsh and Caliburnus in Latin, the sword which Merlin received from the Lady of the Lake. Galatine, Gawain's sword. Grail Sword, a cracked holy sword which Sir Percival bonded back together, though the crack remained. Secace, The sword that Lancelot used to battle the Saxons at Saxon Rock. It is translated as Seure (Sequence) in the Vulgate Cycle. The Sword in the Stone which Arthur pulled free to become King of Britain. Sometimes equated with Excalibur. Sword with the Red Hilt, One of the swords wielded by Sir Balin. After his death Merlin sealed it in the float stone where it remained until it was drawn by Sir Galahad.
Swords from Norse mythology
Angurvadal, a magical sword of Frithiof. Dinsleif is king Hgni's sword, according to Snorri Sturluson's account of the battle known as the Hjaningavg. Freyr's Sword, Freyr's magic sword which fought on its own. It might be Lvateinn. Gram/Balmung, the sword that Odin struck into the Branstock tree which only Sigmund the Vlsung was able to pull out. It broke in battle with Odin but was later reforged by Sigmund's son Sigurd/Siegfried and used it to slay the dragon Fafnir. After being reforged, it could cleave an anvil in half. Hfu, the sword of Heimdallr, the guardian of Bifrst. Hrotti, the sword is mentioned in the Vlsung cycle. It was part of Ffnir's treasure, which Sigurr took after he slew the dragon. Lvateinn, a sword mentioned in an emendation to the Poetic Edda Fjlsvinnsml by Sophus Bugge. Legbiter, the sword of Magnus III of Norway. Mistilteinn, the magical sword of Prainn, the draugr, later owned by Hromundr Gripsson. Quern-biter, sword of Haakon I of Norway and his follower, Thoralf Skolinson the Strong. Ridill, sword of the dwarf Regin. Skofnung, a sword with mythical properties associated with the legendary Danish king Hrlf Kraki. Surtr's Flaming Sword, a bright and flaming sword. Tyrfing (also Tirfing or Tervingi), the cursed sword of Svafrlami, from the Elder Edda; also said to be the sword of Odin in Richard Wagner's works.
Swords from the Matter of France
Almace (also Almice or Almacia), sword of Turpin, Archbishop of Reims. Balisarda, the sword of Rogero from Orlando Furioso. Courtain (also Curtana or Cortana in Italian), first of the two magical swords of Ogier the Dane, a legendary Danish hero. Durendal (also Durandal or Durlindana in Italian), the sword of Roland, one of Charlemagne's paladins, (Orlando in medieval Italian verse) alleged to be the same sword as the one wielded by Hector of Ilium. Flamberge, the sword of Renaud de Montauban. The name was later used to denote a style of wave-bladed sword. Hauteclere (also Halteclere or Altachiara in Italian), the sword of Olivier. Joyeuse, (sword of earth) sword of Charlemagne. Murgleis, sword of Ganelon, traitor and cousin of Roland. Prcieuse, sword of Baligant, Emir of Babylon. Sauvagine, second of the two magical swords of Ogier the Dane.
Swords from Spanish mythology
Colada, the other sword of El Cid. Lobera, the sword of the king Saint Ferdinand III of Castile, inheritance of the epic hero Fernn Gonzlez, according to Don Juan Manuel, Prince of Villena. Tizona, the sword of El Cid, it frightens unworthy opponents, as shown in the heroic poem Cantar de Mio Cid.
Polearms
Amenonuhoko (heavenly spear), the naginata used by the Shinto deities Izanagi and Izanami to create the world - also called tonbogiri (Japanese mythology). Ascalon, the spear said that St. George used to kill the dragon. Ge Buide (Yellow Shaft) and the Ge Derg (Red Javelin), spears of Diarmuid Ua Duibhne, could inflict wound that none can recover from. Ge Bulg, the spear of C Chulainn. Gungnir, Odin's magic spear created by the dwarf Dvalinn. Hades' Bident, the traditional weapon of Hades and is supposedly black. The bident was never used by anyone other than Hades. (Greek mythology) Lance of Olyndicus, the celtiberians' war chief who fought against Rome. According to Florus, he wielded a silver lance that was sent to him by the gods from the sky. Lin of Celtchar (also Spear of Fire or Spear of Destiny), forged by the Smith of Falias for Lugh to use in his fight against Balor. Nihongo, is one of three legendary Japanese spears created by the famed swordsmith Masazane Fujiwara. A famous spear that was once used in the Imperial Palace. Nihongo later found its way into the possession of Masanori Fukushima, and then Tahei Mori. Ogma's Whip - the spear of Ogma (the Celtic sun god). Otegine, is one of three legendary Japanese spears created by the famed swordsmith Masazane Fujiwara. Rhongomiant, which was the spear of King Arthur. Sha Wujing's Yuychn, a double-headed staff with a crescent-moon (yuy) blade at one end and a spade (chn) at the other, with six xzhng rings in the shovel part to denote its religious association. The Spear of Achilles, created by Hephaestus and given to Peleus at his wedding with Thetis. Spear of Destiny (also Spear of Longinus or the Holy Lance), the spear said to have pierced the side of Jesus at the crucifixion. Spears of the Valkyrie. Tonbogiri, is one of three legendary Japanese spears created by the famed swordsmith Masazane Fujiwara, said to be wielded by the legendary daimy Honda Tadakatsu. The spear derives its name from the myth that a dragonfly landed on its blade and was instantly cut in two. Thus Tonbo (Japanese for "dragonfly") and giri (Japanese for "cutting"), translating this spear's name as "Dragonfly Cutter/Cutting spear". Zeus'/Jupiter's Thunderbolt. In Greco-Roman mythology, the thunderbolt was the weapon given to Zeus/Jupiter by the Cyclops and was thrown like a spear.
Tridents and Pitchforks
Hades' Pitchfork, the Bident. Kong, A trident-shaped staff which emits a bright light in the darkness, and grants wisdom and insight. The staff belonged originally to the Japanese mountain god Kya- no-Myjin (). It is the equivalent of the Sanskrit Vajra, the indestructible lightning-diamond pounder of the king of the gods/rain-god Indra. There the staff represents the three flames of the sacrificial fire, part of the image of the vajra wheel. Poseidon's Trident, used to create horses and some water sources in Greece. It could cause earthquakes when struck on the ground. (Greek) Trishula, the trident of the Hindu deity Shiva, stylized by some as used as a missile weapon and often included a crossed stabilizer to facilitate flight when thrown. Considered to be the most powerful weapon.
Bows
Apollo's bow, which could cause health or cause famine and death in sleep.(Greek and Roman mythology) Artemis's bow, crafted by moonlight and silver wood or made of gold.(Greek and Roman mythology) Brahmastra is a weapon created by Brahma. Cupid's bow, which, along with dove- and owl-fletched arrows, could cause one to love or hate (respectively) the person he/she first saw after being struck.(Roman mythology) Fail-not, the bow of Tristan. (Arthurian Legend) Gandiva, Arjuna's bow in The Mahabharata and The Bhagavad-Gita ("Song of God"). Heracles's bow, which also belonged to Philoctetes, its arrows had the Lernaean Hydra poison. (Greek mythology) Shiva Dhanush, Shiva's bow in Hindu mythology. Sharanga, Vishnu's bow. (Hindu mythology)
Staves
Aaron's rod, refers to any of the staves carried by Aaron, it was endowed with miraculous power during the Plagues of Egypt. (Old Testament) Caduceus, the staff carried by Hermes or Mercury. It is a short staff entwined by two serpents, sometimes surmounted by wings. (Greek mythology) Gambanteinn, appears in two poems in the Poetic Edda. (Norse mythology) Grarvlr, an iron staff given to Thor so he could kill the giant Geirrd. (Norse mythology) Nehushtan, a sacred object in the form of a snake of brass upon a pole. (Hebrew Bible) Rod of Asclepius, a serpent-entwined rod wielded by the Greek god Asclepius, a deity associated with healing and medicine. (Greek mythology) Ruyi Jingu Bang, the staff of Sun Wukong; the staff of the Monkey King could alter its size from a tiny needle to a mighty pillar. Staff of Moses, the staff used by Moses was by his side throughout the miracles of the exodus. (Hebrew Bible) Thyrsus is a staff tipped with a pine cone and entwined with ivy leaves. These staffs were carried by Dionysus and his followers. (Greek mythology)
Clothing
Aphrodite's Magic Girdle, a magic material that made whoever you desired fall in love with you. (Greek mythology) Babr-e Bayan, the mythical coat worn by the Persian legendary hero Rostam in combat. The Falcon Cloak, owned by Freyja, it allows the wielder to turn into a falcon and fly. The Girdle of Hippolyta, sometimes called a magical girdle and sometimes a magical belt. It was a symbol of Hippolyta's power over the Amazons; given to her by Ares. Heracles' 9th Labor was to retrieve it. (Greek mythology) The Hide of Leviathan was supposedly able to be turned into everlasting clothing or impenetrable suits of armor. The Hide of the Nemean lion, which Heracles earned overcoming the Nemean lion, was supposedly able to endure every weapon and was unbreakable. (Greek mythology) Llen Arthyr yng Nghernyw: The Mantle of Arthur in Cornwall, whoever was under it could not be seen, and he could see everyone. One of the Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain. Pais Badarn Beisrydd, The Coat of Padarn Red-Coat: if a well-born man put it on, it would be the right size for him; if a churl, it would not go upon him. One of the Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain. Seven-league boots allowed the wearer to travel seven leagues with each step. The Shoes of Varr, these shoes gave the god Vidar unparalleled foot protection. (Norse mythology) Talaria, Hermes's winged sandals which allowed him to fly. (Greek mythology) Tarnkappe, Sigurd's magical cloak that made the wearer invisible. (Norse mythology)
Jewelry Necklaces
Brsingamen is the necklace of the goddess Freyja. (Norse mythology) Necklace of Harmonia, allowed any woman wearing it to remain eternally young and beautiful, but also brought great misfortune to all of its wearers or owners. It was made by Hephaestus and given to Harmonia, the daughter of Aphrodite and Ares, as a curse on the House of Thebes for Aphrodite's infidelity. (Greek mythology) Necklace of a Lady of the Lake was a jeweled necklace given to Sir Pelleas after assisting an old woman across a river. It was enchanted so that its wearer would be unfathomably loved. Its true name is unknown.
Rings
Andvarinaut was a magical ring capable of producing gold, first owned by Andvari. (Norse mythology) Draupnir is a golden arm ring possessed by Odin. The ring was a source of endless wealth. (Norse mythology) Ring of Dispel is a ring given to Sir Lancelot by the Lady of the Lake which could dispel any enchantment. In Le Chevalier de la Charrette it is given to him by a fairy instead. He used the ring to cross the Sword Bridge. Ring of Mudarra is the ring that Gonzalo Bustos breaks in two pieces to later on recognize his future son. When Mudarra joins the two halves, it becomes again a complete ring and Gonzalo Bustos heals his blindness, as shown in the epic poem Cantar de los siete infantes de Lara. Ring of Gyges is a mythical magical artifact that granted its owner the power to become invisible at will. (Greek mythology) Seal of Solomon is a magical brass or steel ring that could imprison demons. (Judeo Christian mythology) Svagris is Adils' prized ring in the Hrlfr Kraki's saga. (Norse mythology)
Other
Agimat or bertud or anting-anting. Kaustubha is a divine jewel, the most valuable stone "Mani" is in the possession of Vishnu. (Hindu mythology)
Vehicles Airborne
The Dandu Monara is the king Ravana's flying machine in Ramayana. The Flying carpet or the "Prince Housain's carpet", the magic carpet from Tangu in Persia. The Flying mortar and pestle of Baba Yaga. (Slavic Mythology) The Flying Throne of Kai Kavus was an eagle-propelled craft built by the Persian king Kay Kvus, used for flying the king all the way to China. The Vimana is a mythological flying machine from the Sanskrit epics, of Hindu origin.
Boats
The Argo, the ship of the Argonauts. Its bow could talk and it had the power of prophecy. (Greek mythology) Caleuche, a mythical ghost ship of the Chilote mythology and local folklore of the Chilo Island, in Chile. (Chilote mythology) The Canoe of Gluskab, able to expand so it could hold an army or shrink to fit in the palm of your hand. (Abenaki mythology) The Canoe of Mui, it became the South Island of New Zealand. (Mori mythology) Ellida, a magic dragon ship given to Vking as a gift by Aegir. (Norse mythology) Hringhorni, is the name of the ship of the god Baldr, described as the "greatest of all ships". (Norse mythology) Naglfar, a ship made out of fingernails and toenails of the dead. It will set sail during Ragnark. (Norse mythology) Noah's Ark, the vessel in the Genesis flood narrative. (Biblical Hebrew) Ra's Solar Barge, a boat that carries the resurrected king with the sun god Ra across the heavens. (Egyptian mythology) Sessrmnir, is both the goddess Freyja's hall located in Flkvangr, a field where Freyja receives half of those who die in battle, and also the name of a ship. (Norse mythology) Skblanir, a boat owned by Freyr. (Norse mythology)
Chariots
The Chariot of Fire, of the Angels of God who descended to earth, which he used to carry several persons in the Old Testament to heaven. The Chariot of the Sea, the oceanic chariot teamed by hippocampi and/or dolphins, driven across the sky by the Greek god Poseidon. The Chariot of the Sun, the fiery chariot driven across the sky by the Greek god Helios. The Chariot of Thunder, driven across the sky by Thor and pulled by his two magic goats Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjstr. (Norse mythology) The Vitthakalai a gold-decorated chariot of Kali according to Ayyavazhi mythology.
Treasures
The Four Treasures of the Tuatha D Danann (also Hallows of Ireland), consisting of the Claomh Solais and Spear Luin (see both above), the Ardagh Chalice and the Lia Fil. The Golden Fleece, sought by Jason and the Argonauts. (Greek mythology) The Three Sacred Treasures of Japan, consisting of the Kusanagi (see above), the jewel necklace Yasakani no magatama (), and the mirror Yata no Kagami ( ). The Karun Treasure, said to belong to King Croesus of Lydia. (Persian mythology) The Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain. (Matter of Britain)
Relics
Baetylus, a sacred stone which was supposedly endowed with life. Cintamani Stone, a stone believed to have fallen from the skies during the reign of king Lha Tototi Nyentsen in a chest with four other objects. The Holy Grail, the cup that Jesus of Nazareth and his disciples drank from during the Last Supper, and which was used to catch drops of his blood upon his crucifixion. Pandora's box, the sealed box that contained all the evils of mankind. (Greek mythology) The Relics of Jesus. Sessho-seki, a stone that kills anyone who comes into contact with it. Stone of Giramphiel, a stone described in Diu Crne. Sir Gawain wins from the knight Fimbeus and it offers him protection against the fiery breath of dragons and the magic of the sorcerer Laamorz. Yasakani no Magatama, a bejeweled necklace of magatamas offered to Amaterasu in Japanese shinto mythology. One of three Sacred Imperial Relics of Japan. It represents benevolence. Yata no Kagami, a mirror offered to the goddess of the sun, Amaterasu in Japanese mythology. One of three Sacred Imperial Relics of Japan. It represents Wisdom.
Books
The Book of Thoth is a legendary book containing powerful spells and knowledge, said to have been buried with the Prince Neferkaptah in Necropolis. (Egyptian mythology) The Jade Books in Heaven are described in several Daoist cosmographies. The Sibylline Books are described to have helped Rome in many situations. The Tablet of Destinies is mentioned in Mesopotamian mythology as a set of clay tablets which hold the power of creation and destruction.
Miscellaneous
The Apple of Discord, the goddess Eris inscribed "to the fairest" and tossed in the midst of the festivities at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. (Greek mythology) The Bone of Ullr, the god Ullr had a bone upon which spells were carved. (Norse mythology) The Clue of Ariadne, the magical ball of string given to Theseus by Ariadne to help him navigate the Labyrinth. (Greek Mythology) The Cornucopia, or "Horn of Plenty", was the horn of the goat-nymph Amalthea from which poured an unceasing abundance of nectar, ambrosia and fruit. (Greek mythology) The Cup of Jamshid, a cup of divination in the Persian mythology. It was long possessed by rulers of ancient Persia and was said to be filled with an elixir of immortality. The whole world was said to be reflected in it. Eldhrmnir, the cauldron in which Andhrmnir cooks Shrmnir. (Norse mythology) Gleipnir, the magic chain that bound the wolf Fenrir. It was light and thin as silk but strong as creation itself and made from six wonderful ingredients. (Norse mythology) Golden apple, an element that appears in various national and ethnic folk legends or fairy tales. Helskr, ("hel-shoes") were put on the dead so that they could go to Valhll. (Norse mythology) Hlidskjalf, Odin's all-seeing throne in his palace Valaskjlf. Horn of Gabriel, the name refers to the tradition identifying the Archangel Gabriel with the angel who blows the horn to announce Judgement Day, associating the infinite with the divine. The Lantern of Diogenes, according to popular legend, carried in broad daylight by the Cynic philosopher Diogenes of Sinope to aid in his fruitless search for an honest man. Mui's Fishhook, used to catch the fish that would become New Zealand's North Island; the hook was also used to create the Hawaiian Islands. (Polynesian mythology) Olivant is the horn of Roland, paladin of Charlemagne in the Song of Roland. It was won from the giant Jutmundus and is made of ivory. When blown, it is so loud that it kills birds flying in the sky and causes whole armies to rout. The Palladium was a wooden statue that fell from the sky. As long as it stayed in Troy, the city-state could not lose a war. (Greek mythology) Peaches of Immortality, consumed by the immortals due to their mystic virtue of conferring longevity on all who eat them. (Chinese mythology) Reginnaglar, (Old Norse "god nails") are nails used for religious purposes. Sampo, a magical artifact of indeterminate type constructed by Ilmarinen that brought good fortune to its holder. (Finnish mythology) Singasteinn is an object that appears in the account of Loki and Heimdallr's fight in the form of seals. (Norse mythology) The Smoking Mirror, the mirror that the god Tezcatlipoca uses to see the whole cosmos. Winnowing Oar is an object that appears in Books XI and XXIII of Homer's Odyssey. (Greek mythology)
Amazons Wikipedia.org
The Amazons (Greek: , Amaznes, singular , Amazn) are a nation of all-female warriors in Greek mythology and Classical antiquity. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia (modern territory of Ukraine). Other historiographers place them in Asia Minor, or Libya.
LEFT: Amazon preparing for a battle (Queen Antiop or Armed Venus), by Pierre-Eugne-Emile Hbert 1860 (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.)
Notable queens of the Amazons are Penthesilea, who participated in the Trojan War, and her sister Hippolyta, whose magical girdle, given to her by her father Ares, was the object of one of the labours of Hercules. Amazonian raiders were often depicted in battle with Greek warriors in amazonomachies in classical art.
The Amazons have become associated with various historical peoples throughout the Roman Empire period and Late Antiquity. In Roman historiography, there are various accounts of Amazon raids in Asia Minor. From the Early Modern period, their name has become a term for woman warriors in general.
Etymology
The origin of the word is uncertain. It may be derived from an Iranian ethnonym *ha-mazan-, "warriors", a word attested as a denominal verb (formed with the Indo-Iranian root kar- "make" also in kar-ma) in Hesychius of Alexandria's gloss . ("hamazakaran: 'to make war' (Persian)"). Alternatively, a Greek derivation from *-m-gw- jon-es "manless, without husbands" (a- privative and a derivation of *man- also found in Slavic muzh) has been proposed, an explanation deemed "unlikely" by Hjalmar Frisk. 19th century scholarship also connected the term to the ethnonym Amazigh. A further explanation proposes Iranian *ama-janah "virility-killing" as source.
Among Classical Greeks, amazon was given a popular etymology as from a-mazos, "without breast", connected with an etiological tradition that Amazons had their right breast cut off or burnt out, so they would be able to use a bow more freely and throw spears without the physical limitation and obstruction; there is no indication of such a practice in works of art, in which the Amazons are always represented with both breasts, although the right is frequently covered.
Origins
LEFT: A Woodcut depicting defeated Greeks being cruelly executed by Amazons.
Amazons were said to have lived in Pontus, which is part of modern day Turkey near the shore of the Euxine Sea (the Black Sea). There they formed an independent kingdom under the government of a queen named Hippolyta or Hippolyte ("loose, unbridled mare"). The Amazons were supposed to have founded many towns, amongst them Smyrna, Ephesus, Sinope, and Paphos. According to the dramatist Aeschylus, in the distant past they had lived in Scythia (modern Crimea), at the Palus Maeotis ("Lake Maeotis", the Sea of Azov), but later moved to Themiscyra on the River Thermodon (the Terme river in northern Turkey). Herodotus called them Androktones ("killers of men"), and he stated that in the Scythian language they were called Oiorpata, which he asserted had this meaning.
The myth
In some versions of the myth, no men were permitted to have sexual encounters or reside in Amazon country; but once a year, in order to prevent their race from dying out, they visited the Gargareans, a neighbouring tribe. The male children who were the result of these visits were either killed, sent back to their fathers or exposed in the wilderness to fend for themselves; the females were kept and brought up by their mothers, and trained in agricultural pursuits, hunting, and the art of war. In other versions when the Amazons went to war they would not kill all the men. Some they would take as slaves, and once or twice a year they would have sex with their slaves.
LEFT: Amazon wearing trousers and carrying a shield with an attached patterned cloth and a quiver. Ancient Greek Attic white-ground alabastron, ca. 470 BC, British Museum, London
The intermarriage of Amazons and men from other tribes was also used to explain the origin of various peoples. For example, the story of the Amazons settling with the Scythians (Herodotus Histories 4.110.1-117.1, see Wikisource).
In the Iliad, the Amazons were referred to as Antianeirai ("those who fight like men").
The Amazons appear in Greek art of the Archaic period and in connection with several Greek legends. They invaded Lycia, but were defeated by Bellerophon, who was sent against them by Iobates, the king of that country, in the hope that he might meet his death at their hands. The tomb of Myrine is mentioned in the Iliad; later interpretation made of her an Amazon: according to Diodorus, Queen Myrine led her Amazons to victory against Libya and much of Gorgon.
They attacked the Phrygians, who were assisted by Priam, then a young man. Although in his later years, towards the end of the Trojan War, his old opponents took his side again against the Greeks under their queen Penthesilea "of Thracian birth", who was slain by Achilles.
One of the tasks imposed upon Heracles by Eurystheus was to obtain possession of the girdle of the Amazonian queen Hippolyta. He was accompanied by his friend Theseus, who carried off the princess Antiope, sister of Hippolyta, an incident which led to a retaliatory invasion of Attica, in which Antiope perished fighting by the side of Theseus. In some versions, however, Theseus marries Hippolyta and in others, he marries Antiope and she does not die; by this marriage with the Amazon Theseus had a son Hippolytus. The battle between the Athenians and Amazons is often commemorated in an entire genre of art, amazonomachy, in marble bas-reliefs such as from the Parthenon or the sculptures of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus.
LEFT: Thalestris, Queen of the Amazons, visits Alexander (1696)
The Amazons are also said to have undertaken an expedition against the island of Leuke, at the mouth of the Danube, where the ashes of Achilles had been deposited by Thetis. The ghost of the dead hero appeared and so terrified the horses, that they threw and trampled upon the invaders, who were forced to retire. Pompey is said to have found them in the army of Mithridates.
They are heard of in the time of Alexander, when some of the king's biographers make mention of Amazon Queen Thalestris visiting him and becoming a mother by him (the story is known from the Alexander Romance). However, several other biographers of Alexander dispute the claim, including the highly regarded secondary source, Plutarch. In his writing he makes mention of a moment when Alexander's secondary naval commander, Onesicritus, was reading the Amazon passage of his Alexander history to King Lysimachus of Thrace who was on the original expedition: the king smiled at him and said "And where was I, then?"
The Roman writer Virgil's characterization of the Volscian warrior maiden Camilla in the Aeneid borrows heavily from the myth of the Amazons.
Jordanes' Getica (c. 560), purporting to give the earliest history of the Goths, relates that the Goths' ancestors, descendants of Magog, originally dwelt within Scythia, on the Sea of Azov between the Dnieper and Don Rivers. After a few centuries, following an incident where the Goths' women successfully fended off a raid by a neighboring tribe, while the menfolk were off campaigning against Pharaoh Vesosis, the women formed their own army under Marpesia and crossed the Don, invading Asia. Her sister Lampedo remained in Europe to guard the homeland. They procreated with men once a year. These Amazons conquered Armenia, Syria, and all of Asia Minor, even reaching Ionia and Aeolia, holding this vast territory for 100 years. Jordanes also mentions that they fought with Hercules, and in the Trojan War, and that a smaller contingent of them endured in the Caucasus Mountains until the time of Alexander. He mentions by name the Queens Menalippe, Hippolyta, and Penthesilea.
Lists
There are several (conflicting) lists of names of Amazons.
Quintus Smyrnaeus lists the attendant warriors of Penthesilea: "Clonie was there, Polemusa, Derinoe, Evandre, and Antandre, and Bremusa, Hippothoe, dark-eyed Harmothoe, Alcibie, Derimacheia, Antibrote, and Thermodosa glorying with the spear."
Diodorus Siculus enlists nine Amazons who challenged Heracles to single combat during his quest for Hippolyta's girdle and died against him one by one: Aella, Philippis, Prothoe, Eriboea, Celaeno, Eurybia, Phoebe, Deianeira, Asteria, Marpe, Tecmessa, Alcippe. After Alcippe's death, a group attack followed.
Another list of Amazons' names is found in Hyginus' Fabulae. Along with Hippolyta, Otrera, Antiope and Penthesilea, it attests the following names: Ocyale, Dioxippe, Iphinome, Xanthe, Hippothoe, Laomache, Glauce, Agave, Theseis, Clymene, Polydora.
Yet another different set of names is found in Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica: he mentions Euryale, Harpe, Lyce, Menippe and Thoe. Of these Lyce also appears in a fragment preserved in the Latin Anthology where she is said to have killed the hero Clonus of Moesia, son of Doryclus, with her javelin.
John Tzetzes in Posthomerica enumerates the Amazons that fell at Troy: Hippothoe, Antianeira, Toxophone, Toxoanassa, Gortyessa, Iodoce, Pharetre, Andro, Ioxeia, Ostrophe, Androdaxa, Aspidocharme, Enchesimargos, Cnemis, Thorece, Chalcaor, Eurylophe, Hecate, Anchimache, Andromache the queen. Concerning Antianeira and Andromache, see below; for almost all the other names on the list, this is a unique attestation.
Stephanus of Byzantium provides an alternate list of the Amazons that fell against Heracles, describing them as "the most prominent" of their people: Tralla, Isocrateia, Thiba, Palla, Coea (Koia), Coenia (Koinia). Eustathius gives the same list minus the last two names. Both Stephanus and Eustathius write of these Amazons in connection with the placename Thibais, which they report to have been derived from Thiba's name.
Other names of Amazons from various sources include:
Aegea, queen of the Amazons who was thought by some to have been the eponym of the Aegean Sea. Ainia, enemy of Achilles and an Amazon, one of the twelve who accompanied Penthesilea to the Trojan War. Her name means "swiftness." Ainippe, an Amazon who confronted Telamon in the battle against Heracles' troops Alce, who was said to have killed the young Oebalus of Arcadia, son of Ida (otherwise unknown), with her spear during the Parthian War. Amastris, who was believed to be the eponym of the city previously known as Kromna, although the city was also thought to have been named after the historical Amastris Anaea, an Amazon whose tomb was shown at the island of Samos Andromache, an Amazon who fought Heracles and was defeated; only known from vase paintings. Not to be confused with Andromache, wife of Hector. Antianeira, succeeded Penthesilea as Queen of the Amazons. She was best known for ordering her male servants to be crippled "as the lame best perform the acts of love". Areto and Iphito, two little-known Amazons, whose names are only attested in inscriptions on artefacts. Clete, one of the twelve followers of Penthesilea. After Penthesilea's death she, in accord with the former's will, sailed off and eventually landed in Italy, founding the city of Clete. Cyme, who gave her name to the city of Cyme (Aeolis) Cynna , one of the two possible eponyms (the other one being "Cynnus, brother of Coeus") of Cynna, a small town not far from Heraclea. Ephesos, a Lydian Amazon, after whom the city of Ephesus was thought to have been named; she was also said to have been the first to honor Artemis and to have surnamed the goddess Ephesia. Eurypyle, queen of the Amazons who was reported to have led an expedition against Ninus and Babylon around 1760 BC Gryne, an Amazon who was thought to be the eponym of the Gryneian grove in Asia Minor. She was loved by Apollo and consorted with him in said grove. Helene, daughter of Tityrus. She fought Achilles and died after he seriously wounded her. Hippo, an Amazon who took part in the introduction of religious rites in honor of the goddess Artemis. She was punished by the goddess for not having performed a ritual dance. Lampedo, queen of the Amazons, co-ruler with Marpesia Latoreia, who had a small village near Ephesus named after her. Lysippe, mother of Tanais by Berossos. Her son only venerated Ares and was fully devoted to war, neglecting love and marriage. Aphrodite cursed him with falling in love with his own mother. Preferring to die rather than give up his chastity, he threw himself into the river Amazonius, which was subsequently renamed Tanais. Marpesia, queen of the Amazons, co-ruler with Lampedo Melanippe, sister of Hippolyta. Heracles captured her and demanded Hippolyta's girdle in exchange for her freedom. Hippolyta complied and Heracles let her go. According to some, however, she was killed by Telamon. Molpadia, an Amazon who killed Antiope. Myrleia, possible eponym of a city in Bithynia, which was later known as Apamea. Myrto, in one source, mother of Myrtilus by Hermes (elsewhere his mother is called Theobule). Mytilene, Myrina's sister and one of the possible eponyms for the city of Mytilene Orithyia, daughter and successor of Marpesia, famous for her conquests Otrera, consort of Ares and mother of Hippolyta and Penthesilea. Pantariste, who killed Timiades in the battle between the Amazons and Heracles' troops. Pitane and Priene, two commanders in Myrina's army, after whom the cities of Pitane (Aeolis) and Priene were named. Sinope, successor of Lampedo and Marpesia. Sisyrbe, after whom a part of Ephesus was called Sisyrba, and its inhabitants the Sisyrbitae. Smyrna, who obtained possession of Ephesus and gave her name to a quarter in this city, as well as to the city of Smyrna
Hero cults
According to ancient sources, (Plutarch Theseus, Pausanias), Amazon tombs could be found frequently throughout what was once known as the ancient Greek world. Some are found in Megara, Athens, Chaeronea, Chalcis, Thessaly at Skotousa, in Cynoscephalae and statues of Amazons are all over Greece. At both Chalcis and Athens Plutarch tells us that there was an Amazoneum or shrine of Amazons that implied the presence of both tombs and cult. On the day before the Thesea at Athens there were annual sacrifices to the Amazons. In historical times Greek maidens of Ephesus performed an annual circular dance with weapons and shields that had been established by Hippolyta and her Amazons. They had initially set up wooden statues of Artemis, a bretas, (Pausanias, (fl.c.160): Description of Greece, Book I: Attica).
In art
LEFT: Two female gladiators with their names Amazonia and Achillea
In works of art, battles between Amazons and Greeks are placed on the same level as and often associated with battles of Greeks and centaurs. The belief in their existence, however, having been once accepted and introduced into the national poetry and art, it became necessary to surround them as far as possible with the appearance of not unnatural beings. Their occupation was hunting and war; their arms the bow, spear, axe, a half shield, nearly in the shape of a crescent, called pelta, and in early art a helmet, the model before the Greek mind having apparently been the goddess Athena. In later art they approach the model of Artemis, wearing a thin dress, girt high for speed; while on the later painted vases their dress is often peculiarly Persian that is, close-fitting trousers and a high cap called the kidaris. They were usually on horseback but sometimes on foot. They can also be identified in vase paintings by the fact that they are wearing one earring. The battle between Theseus and the Amazons (Amazonomachy) is a favourite subject on the friezes of temples (e.g. the reliefs from the frieze of the temple of Apollo at Bassae, now in the British Museum), vases and sarcophagus reliefs; at Athens it was represented on the shield of the statue of Athena Parthenos, on wall-paintings in the Theseum and in the Stoa Poikile. There were also three standard Amazon statue types.
In historiography
Herodotus reported that the Sarmatians were descendants of Amazons and Scythians, and that their females observed their ancient maternal customs, "frequently hunting on horseback with their husbands; in war taking the field; and wearing the very same dress as the men". Moreover, said Herodotus, "No girl shall wed till she has killed a man in battle". In the story related by Herodotus, a group of Amazons was blown across the Maeotian Lake (the Sea of Azov) into Scythia near the cliff region (today's southeastern Crimea). After learning the Scythian language, they agreed to marry Scythian men, on the condition that they not be required to follow the customs of Scythian women. According to Herodotus, this band moved toward the northeast, settling beyond the Tanais (Don) river, and became the ancestors of the Sauromatians. According to Herodotus, the Sarmatians fought with the Scythians against Darius the Great in the 5th century B.C.
Hippocrates describes them as: "They have no right breasts...for while they are yet babies their mothers make red-hot a bronze instrument constructed for this very purpose and apply it to the right breast and cauterize it, so that its growth is arrested, and all its strength and bulk are diverted to the right shoulder and right arm."
Amazons came to play a role in Roman historiography. Caesar reminded the Senate of the conquest of large parts of Asia by Semiramis and the Amazons. Successful Amazon raids against Lycia and Cilicia contrasted with effective resistance by Lydian cavalry against the invaders (Strabo 5.504; Nicholas Damascenus). Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus pays particularly detailed attention to the Amazons. The story of the Amazons as deriving from a Cappadocian colony of two Scythian princes Ylinos and Scolopetos is due to him. Philostratus places the Amazons in the Taurus Mountains. Ammianus places them east of Tanais, as neighbouring the Alans. Procopius places them in the Caucasus. Diodorus Siculus (Bibliotheca historica chapter 49) derived the Amazons from Atlantis and located them in western Libya. He also relates the story of Hercules defeating the Amazons at Themiscyre. Although Strabo shows scepticism as to their historicity, the Amazons in general continue to be taken as historical throughout Late Antiquity. Several Church Fathers speak of the Amazons as of a real people. Solinus embraces the account of Plinius. Under Aurelianus, captured Gothic women were identified as Amazons (Claudianus). The account of Justinus was influential, and was used as a source by Orosius who continued to be read during the European Middle Ages. Medieval authors thus continue the tradition of locating the Amazons in the North, Adam of Bremen placing them at the Baltic Sea and Paulus Diaconus in the heart of Germania.
Renaissance literature
Amazons continued to be discussed by authors of the European Renaissance, and with the Age of Exploration, they were located in ever more remote areas. In 1542, Francisco de Orellana reached the Amazon River (Amazonas in Spanish), naming it after a tribe of warlike women he claimed having encountered and fought there. Afterwards the whole basin and region of the Amazon (Amazona in Spanish) were named after the river. Amazons also figure in the accounts of both Christopher Columbus and Walter Raleigh. Famous medieval traveller John Mandeville mentions them in his book:
"Beside the land of Chaldea is the land of Amazonia, that is the land of Feminye. And in that real is all woman and no man; not as some may say, that men may not live there, but for because that the women will not suffer no men amongst them to be their sovereigns."
Medieval and Renaissance authors credit the Amazons with the invention of the battle-axe. This is probably related to the Sagaris, an axe-like weapon associated with both Amazons and Scythian tribes by Greek authors (see also Thracian tomb of Aleksandrovo kurgan). Paulus Hector Mair expresses astonishment that such a "manly weapon" should have been invented by a "tribe of women", but he accepts the attribution out of respect for his authority, Johannes Aventinus.
Ariosto's Orlando Furioso contains a country of warrior women, ruled by Queen Orontea; the epic describes an origin much like that in Greek myth, in that the women, abandoned by a band of warriors and unfaithful lovers, rallied together to form a nation from which men were severely reduced, to prevent them from regaining power.They and Queen Hippolyta were also referenced in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in The Knight's Tale.
Historical background
Classicist Peter Walcot wrote, "Wherever the Amazons are located by the Greeks, whether it is somewhere along the Black Sea in the distant north-east, or in Libya in the furthest south, it is always beyond the confines of the civilized world. The Amazons exist outside the range of normal human experience."
Nevertheless, there are various proposals for a historical nucleus of the Amazons of Greek historiography, the most obvious candidates being historical Scythia and Sarmatia in line with the account by Herodotus, but some authors prefer a comparison to cultures of Asia Minor or even Minoan Crete.
Archaeology
Scythians and Sarmatians
Speculation that the idea of Amazons contains a core of reality is based on archaeological findings from burials, pointing to the possibility that some Sarmatian women may have participated in battle. These findings have led scholars to suggest that the Amazonian legend in Greek mythology may have been "inspired by real warrior women", though this remains a minority opinion among classical historians.
Evidence of high-ranking warrior women comes from kurgans in southern Ukraine and Russia. David Anthony notes, "About 20% of Scythian-Sarmatian "warrior graves" on the lower Don and lower Volga contained females dressed for battle as if they were men, a phenomenon that probably inspired the Greek tales about the Amazons."
LEFT: Mounted Amazon in Scythian costume, on an Attic red-figure vase, ca 420 BCE
Up to 25% of military burials were of armed Sarmatian women usually including bows. Russian archaeologist Vera Kovalevskaya points out that when Scythian men were away fighting or hunting, nomadic women would have to be able to defend themselves, their animals and pasture-grounds competently. During the time that the Scythians advanced into Asia and achieved near-hegemony in the Near-East, there was a period of twenty-eight years when the men would have been away on campaigns for long periods. During this time the women would not only have had to defend themselves, but to reproduce and this could well be the origin of the idea that Amazons mated once a year with their neighbours, if Herodotus actually intended to base this on a factual base.
Before modern archaeology uncovered some of the Scythian burials of warrior-maidens entombed under kurgans in the region of Altai Mountains and Sarmatia, giving concrete form at last to the Greek tales of mounted Amazons, the origin of the story of the Amazons has been the subject of speculation among classics scholars. In the 1911 Encyclopdia Britannica speculation ranged along the following lines:
"While some regard the Amazons as a purely mythical people, others assume an historical foundation for them. The deities worshipped by them were Ares (who is consistently assigned to them as a god of war, and as a god of Thracian and generally northern origin) and Artemis, not the usual Greek goddess of that name, but an Asiatic deity in some respects her equivalent. It is conjectured that the Amazons were originally the temple-servants and priestesses (hierodulae) of this goddess; and that the removal of the breast corresponded with the self-mutilation of the god Attis and the galli, Roman priests of Rhea Cybele. Another theory is that, as the knowledge of geography extended, travellers brought back reports of tribes ruled entirely by women, who carried out the duties which elsewhere were regarded as peculiar to man, in whom alone the rights of nobility and inheritance were vested, and who had the supreme control of affairs. Hence arose the belief in the Amazons as a nation of female warriors, organized and governed entirely by women. According to J. Viirtheim (De Ajacis origine, 1907), the Amazons were of Greek origin [...] It has been suggested that the fact of the conquest of the Amazons being assigned to the two famous heroes of Greek mythology, Heracles and Theseus [...] shows that they were mythical illustrations of the dangers which beset the Greeks on the coasts of Asia Minor; rather perhaps, it may be intended to represent the conflict between the Greek culture of the colonies on the Euxine and the barbarism of the native inhabitants."
Minoan Crete
When Minoan archeology was still in its infancy, nevertheless, a theory raised in an essay regarding the Amazons contributed by Lewis Richard Farnell and John Myres to Robert Ranulph Marett's Anthropology and the Classics (1908), placed their possible origins in Minoan civilization, drawing attention to overlooked similarities between the two cultures. According to Myres, (pp. 153 ff), the tradition interpreted in the light of evidence furnished by supposed Amazon cults seems to have been very similar and may have even originated in Minoan culture.
LEFT: Departure of the Amazons, by Claude Deruet, 1620.
Ark of the Covenant Wikipedia.org
As described in the Old Testament book of Exodus, the Ark of the Covenant, a wooden chest covered with gold, is said to contain such sacred relics as the tablets of law from God that Moses (14th13th century B.C.E.) brought back from Mt. Sinai. The ark possessed super- natural powers and served as a means through which God could express his will to the Israelites. It was last known to have rested in the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, but ever since Babylonian forces conquered the city in 587 B.C.E. the whereabouts of the Ark of the Covenant has been a mystery. Interest in the Ark of the Covenant has inspired generations of those who would recover the sacred relic. In medieval times the Knights Templar supposedly came into possession of the ark.
The Ark of the Covenant (Hebrew: rn Hbrt, modern pron. Aron Habrit), also known as the Ark of the Testimony, is a chest described in Book of Exodus as solely containing the Tablets of Stone on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed. According to some traditional interpretations of the Book of Exodus, Book of Numbers, and the Letter to the Hebrews the Ark also contained Aaron's rod, a jar of manna and the first Torah scroll as written by Moses. However, Books of Kings is categoric in declaring that the Ark contained only the two Tablets of the Law. According to the Book of Exodus, the Ark was built at the command of God, in accordance with the instructions given to Moses on Mount Sinai. God was said to have communicated with Moses "from between the two cherubim" on the Ark's cover. Rashi and some Midrashim suggest that there were two arks - a temporary one made by Moses himself, and a later one constructed by Bezalel.
The biblical account relates that during the Israelites' exodus from Egypt, the Ark was carried by the priests some 2,000 cubits in advance of the people and their army, or host. When the Ark was borne by priests into the bed of the Jordan, water in the river separated, opening a pathway for the entire host to pass through (Josh. 3:15-16; 4:7-18). The city of Jericho was taken with no more than a shout after the Ark of the Covenant was paraded for seven days around its wall by seven priests sounding seven trumpets of rams' horns (Josh. 6:4-20). When carried, the Ark was always wrapped in a veil, in tachash skins and a blue cloth, and was carefully concealed, even from the eyes of the Kohanim who carried it. There are no contemporary extra-biblical references to the Ark.
The covered ark with golden staves carried by the Kohanim, and seven priests with rams' horns, at the siege of Jericho.
Biblical account
Construction and description
According to the Book of Exodus, God instructed Moses on Mount Sinai during his 40 day stay upon the mountain within the thick cloud and darkness where God was (Ex. 19:20; 24:18) and he was shown the pattern for the tabernacle and furnishings of the Ark to be made of shittim-wood to house the Tablets of Stone. Moses instructed Bezalel and Oholiab to construct the Ark (Exodus 31).
The Book of Exodus gives detailed instructions on how the Ark is to be constructed. It is to be 2 cubits in length, 1 in breadth, and 1 in height (as 2+121+121+12 royal cubits or 1.310.790.79 m). Then it is to be plated entirely with gold, and a crown or molding of gold is to be put around it. Four rings of gold are to be attached at its four feettwo on each side and through these rings staves of shittim-wood overlaid with gold for carrying the Ark are to be inserted; and these are not to be removed. A golden cover, adorned with golden cherubim, is to be placed above the Ark. The Ark is finally to be placed behind a veil (Parochet), a full description of which is also given.
Mobile vanguard
After its creation by Moses, the Ark was carried by the Israelites during their 40-years of wandering in the desert. Whenever the Israelites camped, the Ark was placed in a special and sacred tent, called the Tabernacle.
When the Israelites, led by Joshua toward the Promised Land, arrived at the banks of the River Jordan, the Ark was carried in the lead preceding the people and was the signal for their advance (Joshua 3:3, 6). During the crossing, the river grew dry as soon as the feet of the priests carrying the Ark touched its waters, and remained so until the priestswith the Ark left the river after the people had passed over (Josh. 3:15-17; 4:10, 11, 18). As memorials, twelve stones were taken from the Jordan at the place where the priests had stood (Josh. 4:1- 9).
In the Battle of Jericho, the Ark was carried round the city once a day for seven days, preceded by the armed men and seven priests sounding seven trumpets of rams' horns (Josh. 6:4-15). On the seventh day, the seven priests sounding the seven trumpets of rams' horns before the Ark compassed the city seven times and, with a great shout, Jericho's wall fell down flat and the people took the city (Josh. 6:16-20). After the defeat at Ai, Joshua lamented before the Ark (Josh. 7:6-9). When Joshua read the Law to the people between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, they stood on each side of the Ark. The Ark was again set up by Joshua at Shiloh, but when the Israelites fought against Benjamin at Gibeah, they had the Ark with them and consulted it after their defeat.
Capture by the Philistines
The Ark is next spoken of as being in the Tabernacle at Shiloh during Samuel's apprenticeship (1 Sam. 3:3). After the settlement of the Israelites in Canaan, the Ark remained in the Tabernacle at Gilgal for a season before being removed to Shiloh until the time of Eli, between 300 and 400 years (Jeremiah 7:12), when it was carried into the field of battle, so as to secure, as they had hoped, victory to the Hebrews. The Ark was taken by the Philistines (1 Sam. 4:3-11) who subsequently sent it back after retaining it for seven months (1 Sam. 5:7, 8) because of the events said to have transpired.
After their first defeat at Eben-ezer, the Israelites had the Ark brought from Shiloh, and welcomed its coming with great rejoicing. In the second battle, the Israelites were again defeated, and the Philistines captured the Ark (1 Sam. 4:3-5, 10, 11). The news of its capture was at once taken to Shiloh by a messenger "with his clothes rent, and with earth upon his head." The old priest, Eli, fell dead when he heard it; and his daughter-in-law, bearing a son at the time the news of the capture of the Ark was received, named him Ichabodexplained as "The glory has departed Israel." in reference to the loss of the Ark (1 Sam. 4:12-22).
The Philistines took the Ark to several places in their country, and at each place misfortune befell them (1 Sam. 5:1-6). At Ashdod it was placed in the temple of Dagon. The next morning Dagon was found prostrate, bowed down, before it; and on being restored to his place, he was on the following morning again found prostrate and broken. The people of Ashdod were smitten with tumors; a plague of rats was sent over the land (1 Sam. 6:5). The affliction of boils was also visited upon the people of Gath and of Ekron, whither the Ark was successively removed (1 Sam. 5:8-12).
After the Ark had been among them for seven months, the Philistines, on the advice of their diviners, returned it to the Israelites, accompanying its return with an offering consisting of golden images of the tumors and rats wherewith they had been afflicted. The Ark was set in the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite, and the Beth-shemites offered sacrifices and burnt offerings (1 Sam. 6:1-15). Out of curiosity the men of Beth-shemesh gazed at the Ark; and as a punishment, seventy of them (fifty thousand seventy in some ms.) were smitten by the Lord (1 Sam. 6:19). The Bethshemites sent to Kirjath-jearim, or Baal-Judah, to have the Ark removed (1 Sam. 6:21); and it was taken to the house of Abinadab, whose son Eleazar was sanctified to keep it. Kirjath-jearim remained the abode of the Ark for twenty years. Under Saul, the Ark was with the army before he first met the Philistines, but the king was too impatient to consult it before engaging in battle. In 1 Chronicles 13:3 it is stated that the people were not accustomed to consult the Ark in the days of Saul.
In the days of King David
At the beginning of his reign, King David removed the Ark from Kirjath-jearim amid great rejoicing. On the way to Zion, Uzzah, one of the drivers of the cart whereon the Ark was carried, put out his hand to steady the Ark, and was smitten by God for touching it. David, in fear, carried the Ark aside into the house of Obed-edom the Gittite, instead of carrying it on to Zion, and there it stayed three months (2 Samuel 6:1- 11; 1 Chronicles 13:1-13).
On hearing that God had blessed Obed-edom because of the presence of the Ark in his house, David had the Ark brought to Zion by the Levites, while he himself, "girded with a linen ephod," "danced before the Lord with all his might" and in the sight of all the public gathered in Jerusalem a performance that caused him to be scornfully rebuked by his first wife, Saul's daughter Michal (2 Sam. 6:12-16, 20-22; 1 Chron. 15). In Zion, David put the Ark in the tabernacle he had prepared for it, offered sacrifices, distributed food, and blessed the people and his own household (2 Sam. 6:17-20; 1 Chron. 16:1-3; 2 Chron. 1:4).
The Levites were appointed to minister before the Ark (1 Chron. 16:4). David's plan of building a temple for the Ark was stopped at the advice of God (2 Sam. 7:1-17; 1 Chron. 17:1-15; 28:2, 3). The Ark was with the army during the siege of Rabbah (2 Sam. 11:11); and when David fled from Jerusalem at the time of Absalom's conspiracy, the Ark was carried along with him until he ordered Zadok the priest to return it to Jerusalem (2 Sam. 15:24-29).
In Solomon's Temple
When Abiathar was dismissed from the priesthood by King Solomon for having taken part in Adonijah's conspiracy against David, his life was spared because he had formerly borne the Ark (1 Kings 2:26). Solomon worshipped before the Ark after his dream in which God promised him wisdom (1 Kings 3:15).
During the construction of Solomon's Temple, a special inner room, named Kodesh Hakodashim (Eng. Holy of Holies), was prepared to receive and house the Ark (1 Kings 6:19); and when the Temple was dedicated, the Arkcontaining the original tablets of the Ten Commandmentswas placed therein (1 Kings 8:6-9). When the priests emerged from the holy place after placing the Ark there, the Temple was filled with a cloud, "for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord" (1 Kings 8:10-11; 2 Chron. 5:13, 14).
When Solomon married Pharaoh's daughter, he caused her to dwell in a house outside Zion, as Zion was consecrated because of its containing the Ark (2 Chron. 8:11). King Josiah had the Ark put in the Temple (2 Chron. 35:3), whence it appears to have again been removed by one of his successors.
The Babylonian Conquest and aftermath
In 586 BC, the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and Solomon's Temple. There is no record of what became of the Ark in the Books of Kings and Chronicles. But in Greek 3-d Book of Ezra (1 Esdras) suggests that Babylonians:
"...took all the holy vessels of the Lord, both great and small, and the ark of God, and the king's treasures, and carried them away into Babylon." (1 Esdras 1:54)
Book of Revelation
According to the Christian New Testament Book of Revelation, the Ark is in the Temple of God in Heaven in vision: "Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and within his temple was seen the Ark of his Covenant" (Rev. 11:19 NIV).
References to the Ark in Scripture
Jewish Tanakh
The Ark is first mentioned in the Book of Exodus, and then numerous times in Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, I Samuel, II Samuel, I Kings, I Chronicles, II Chronicles, Psalms and Jeremiah. In the Book of Jeremiah, it is referenced by Jeremiah, who, speaking in the days of Josiah (Jer. 3:16), prophesied a future time when the Ark will no longer be talked about or be made again.
Second Book of Maccabees
In the Jewish Deuterocanonical book Second Maccabees, Chapter 2, "one finds in the records" that Jeremiah, having received an oracle of the Lord, ordered that the tent and the ark and the altar of incense should follow him to the mountain of God where he sealed them up in a cave, and he told those who followed him in order to mark the way, but they could not find it, "The place shall remain unknown until God gathers his people together again and shows his mercy, and then the Lord will disclose these things, and the glory of the Lord and the cloud shall appear, as they were shown in the case of Moses, and as Solomon asked that the place be specially consecrated." 2 Maccabees 2:4-8
Christian New Testament
In the New Testament, the Ark is mentioned in the Letter to the Hebrews and the Revelation to St. John. Hebrews 9:4 states that the Ark contained "the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant." Revelation 11:19 says the prophet saw God's temple in heaven opened, "and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple."
A number of Roman Catholic writers connect this verse with the Woman of the Apocalypse in Revelation 12:1, which immediately follows, and argue that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the "Ark of the New Covenant." Carrying the saviour of mankind within her, she herself became the Holy of Holies. This is the interpretation given in the fourth century by Saint Ambrose, Saint Ephraem of Syria and Saint Augustine. Athanasius the bishop of Alexandria wrote about the connections between the Ark and the Virgin Mary: "O noble Virgin, truly you are greater than any other greatness. For who is your equal in greatness, O dwelling place of God the Word? To whom among all creatures shall I compare you, O Virgin? You are greater than them all O (Ark of the) Covenant, clothed with purity instead of gold! You are the Ark in which is found the golden vessel containing the true manna, that is, the flesh in which Divinity resides" (Homily of the Papyrus of Turin).
Quran
In chapter 2 of the Islamic Quran (Verse 248), the Children of Israel, at the time of Samuel and Saul, were given back the Tabut E Sakina (the casket of Shekhinah) which contained remnants of the household of Musa (Moses) and Harun (Aaron) carried by angels which confirmed peace and reassurance for them from their Lord. The Qur'an states:
And (further) their Prophet said to them: "A Sign of his authority is that there shall come to you the Ark of the covenant, with (an assurance) therein of security (Sakina) from your Lord, and the relics left by the family of Moses and the family of Aaron, carried by angels. In this is a symbol for you if ye indeed have faith.
The Islamic scholar Al Baidawi mentioned that the sakina could be Tawrat, the Books of Moses. According to Al-Jalalan, the relics in the Ark were the fragments of the two tablets, rods, robes, shoes, mitres of Moses and the vase of manna. Al-Tha'alibi, in Qisas Al-Anbiya (The Stories of the Prophets), has given an earlier and later history of the Ark.
According to most Muslim scholars, the Ark of the Covenant has a religious basis in Islam, and Islam gives it special significance. Shia sects of Muslims believe that it will be found by Mahdi near the end of times from Lake Tiberias.
Rumoured current locations
Since its disappearance from the Biblical narrative, there have been a number of claims of having discovered or of having possession of the Ark, and several possible places have been suggested for its location.
Mount Nebo
2 Maccabees 2:4-10, written around 100 BC, says that the prophet Jeremiah, "being warned by God" before the Babylonian invasion, took the Ark, the Tabernacle, and the Altar of Incense, and buried them in a cave on Mount Nebo (Jordan), informing those of his followers who wished to find the place that it should remain unknown "until the time that God should gather His people again together, and receive them unto mercy."
Ethiopia
The Chapel of the Tablet at the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum allegedly houses the original Ark of the Covenant.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Church claims to possess the Ark of the Covenant, or Tabot, in Axum. The object is currently kept under guard in a treasury near the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion and is used occasionally in ritual processions. Replicas of the Axum tabot are kept in every Ethiopian church, each with its own dedication to a particular saint, the most popular of these include Mary, George and Michael.
The Kebra Nagast, composed to legitimise the new dynasty ruling Ethiopia following its establishment in 1270, narrates how the real Ark of the Covenant was brought to Ethiopia by Menelik I with divine assistance, while a forgery was left in the Temple in Jerusalem. Although the Kebra Nagast is the best-known account of this belief, the belief predates the document. Abu Salih the Armenian, writing in the last quarter of the twelfth century, makes one early reference to this belief that they possessed the Ark. "The Abyssinians possess also the Ark of the Covenant", he wrote, and, after a description of the object, describes how the liturgy is celebrated upon the Ark four times a year, "on the feast of the great nativity, on the feast of the glorious Baptism, on the feast of the holy Resurrection, and on the feast of the illuminating Cross."
On 25 June 2009, the patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia, Abune Paulos, said he would announce to the world the next day the unveiling of the Ark of the Covenant, which he said had been kept safe and secure in a church in Axum, Ethiopia. The following day, on 26 June 2009, the patriarch announced that he would not unveil the Ark after all, but that instead he could attest to its current status.
Southern Africa
The Lemba people of South Africa and Zimbabwe have claimed that their ancestors carried the Ark south, calling it the ngoma lungundu or "voice of God", eventually hiding it in a deep cave in the Dumghe mountains, their spiritual home.
On 14 April 2008, in a UK Channel 4 documentary broadcast, Tudor Parfitt, taking a literalist approach to the Biblical story, described his research into this claim. He says that the object described by the Lemba has attributes similar to the Ark. It was of similar size, was carried on poles by priests, was not allowed to touch the ground, was revered as a voice of their God, and was used as a weapon of great power, sweeping enemies aside.
In his book The Lost Ark of the Covenant (2008), Parfitt also suggests that the Ark was taken to Arabia following the Second Book of Maccabees, and cites Arabic sources which maintain it was brought in distant times to Yemen. One Lemba clan, the Buba, which was supposed to have brought the Ark to Africa, have a genetic signature called the Cohen Modal Haplotype. This suggests a male Semitic link to the Levant. Lemba tradition maintains that the Ark spent some time in Sena in Yemen. Later, it was taken across the sea to East Africa and may have been taken inland at the time of the Great Zimbabwe civilization. According to their oral traditions, some time after the arrival of the Lemba with the Ark, it self-destructed. Using a core from the original, the Lemba priests constructed a new one. This replica was discovered in a cave by a Swedish German missionary named Harald von Sicard in the 1940s and eventually found its way to the Museum of Human Science in Harare.
Parfitt had this artifact radio-carbon dated to about 1350 AD, which coincided with the sudden end of the Great Zimbabwe civilization.
Europe
Chartres Cathedral, France
French author Louis Charpentier claimed that the Ark was taken to Chartres Cathedral by the Knights Templar.
Rennes-le-Chteau, then to America
Several recent authors have theorised that the Ark was taken from Jerusalem to the village of Rennes-le-Chteau in Southern France. Karen Ralls has cited Freemason Patrick Byrne, who believes the Ark was moved from Rennes-le-Chteau at the outbreak of World War I to America.
Italy
The Ark of the Covenant is alleged to be kept in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, surviving the pillages of Rome by Genseric and Alaric I.
United Kingdom
In 2003, author Graham Phillips hypothetically concluded that the Ark was taken to Mount Sinai in the Valley of Edom by the Maccabees. Phillips claims it remained there until the 1180s, when Ralph de Sudeley, the leader of the Templars found the Maccabean treasure at Jebel al-Madhbah, returned home to his estate at Herdewyke in Warwickshire, UK, taking the treasure with him.
Ireland
During the turn of the 20th century British Israelites carried out some excavations of the Hill of Tara in Ireland looking for the Ark of the Covenant the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland campaigned successfully to have them stopped before they destroyed the hill.
Aztln Wikipedia.org
Aztln is the mythical ancestral home of the Nahua peoples, one of the main cultural groups in Mesoamerica. And, by extension, is the mythical homeland of the Uto-Aztecan peoples. Aztec is the Nahuatl word for "people from Aztlan".
Legend
Nahuatl legends relate that seven tribes lived in Chicomoztoc, or "the place of the seven caves". Each cave represented a different Nahua group: the Xochimilca, Tlahuica, Acolhua, Tlaxcalan, Tepaneca, Chalca, and Mexica. Because of a common linguistic origin, those groups also are called "Nahuatlaca" (Nahua people). These tribes subsequently left the caves and settled "near" Aztln, or Aztatlan.
The various descriptions of Aztln are seemingly contradictory. While some legends describe Aztln as a paradise, the Aubin Codex says that the Aztecs were subject to a tyrannical elite called the Azteca Chicomoztoca. Guided by their priest, the Aztec fled, and, on the road, their god Huitzilopochtli forbade them to call themselves Azteca, telling them that they should be known as Mexica. Ironically, scholars of the 19th centuryin particular Alexander von Humboldt and William H. Prescottwould name them Aztec. Humboldt's suggestion was widely adopted in the 19th century as a way to distance "modern" Mexicans from pre-conquest Mexicans.
The role of Aztln is slightly less important to Aztec legendary histories than the migration to Tenochtitln itself. According to the legend, the southward migration began on May 24, 1064 CE; 1064 is also the year of a volcanic explosion at Sunset Crater in Arizona and the first Aztec solar year, beginning on May 24, after the Crab Nebula events from May to July of 1054. Each of the seven groups is credited with founding a different major city-state in Central Mexico. The city- states reputed to have an Aztec foundation were:
Tepaneca (now Azcapotzalco, a delegacin of the Mexican Federal District), and Matlatzinca (whose language was Otomian and not of the Uto-Aztecan family).
These city-states formed during the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerican chronology (ca. 13001521 CE).
According to Aztec legends, the Mexica were the last tribe to emigrate. When they arrived at their ancestral homeland, the present-day Valley of Mexico, all available land had been taken, and they were forced to squat on the edge of Lake Texcoco. The seven caves of Chicomoztoc, from Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca.
After the Spanish conquest of Mexico, the story of Aztln gained importance and was reported by Fray Diego Durn in 1581 and others to be a kind of Eden-like paradise, free of disease and death, which existed somewhere in the far north. These stories helped fuel Spanish expeditions to what is now the U.S. state of California.
Places postulated as Aztln
While Aztln has many trappings of myth, similar to Tamoanchan, Chicomoztoc, Tollan and Cibola, archaeologists have nonetheless attempted to identify the geographic place of origin for the Mexica.
Friar Diego Durn (c. 15371588), who chronicled the history of the Aztecs, wrote of Aztec emperor Moctezuma I's attempt to recover the history of the Mexica by congregating warriors and wise men on an expedition to locate Aztln. According to Durn, the expedition was successful in finding a place that offered characteristics unique to Aztln. However, his accounts were written shortly after the conquest of Tenochtitlan and before an accurate mapping of the American continent was made, therefore, he was unable to provide a precise location. Durn, himself, considered Aztln, Colhuacan, and Chicomoztoc to be different names for the same place of origin which he believed to be located to the north of New Spain, near present-day Florida.
In 1789, Francisco Javier Clavijero, a Jesuit priest and historian, deduced that Aztln lay north of the Colorado River.
The name of Aztalan, Wisconsin (a Mississippian site), was proposed by N. F. Hyer in 1837, because he thought it might have been Aztln, following a suggested etymology of Aztatlan by Alexander von Humboldt. This is outdated information with modern scholarship's matching of chroniclers' accounts taken in Tenochtitlan directly after the Spanish conquest.
There is a lake around Cerro Culiacan, Lake Yuriria, that makes the mountain look very much like an island when photographed from the water, and similar to the illustration at right.
In the mid-19th century, fringe theorist Ignatius L. Donnelly, in his book Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, sought to establish a connection between Aztln and the fabled "lost continent" of Atlantis of Greek mythology; Donnelly's views, however, have never been recognised as credible by mainstream scholarship.
In 1887, Mexican anthropologist Alfredo Chavero claimed that Aztln was located on the Pacific coast in the state of Nayarit. While this was disputed by contemporary scholars, it achieved some popular acceptance. In the early 1980s, Mexican President Jos Lpez Portillo suggested that Mexcaltitn, also in Nayarit, was the true location of Aztln, but this was denounced by Mexican historians as a political move. Even so, the state of Nayarit Depiction of the departure from Aztln in the 16th- century Codex Boturini
incorporated the symbol of Aztln in its coat of arms with the legend "Nayarit, cradle of Mexicans". All kinds of new scholarly articles now prove this artificial claim to be a political ploy for increased tourism to this coastal area.
Eduardo Matos Moctezuma presumes Aztln to be somewhere in the modern-day states of Guanajuato, Jalisco, and Michoacn. Indeed, scholars are all consistent in naming the measures of "150 leagues" from Tenochtitlan that were documented by the Spanish scribes taking notes from conquered Mexica as the distance to the place of origin, coinciding in all ways at Chicomoztoc, "Cerro del Culiacan", which is indeed a humped mountain when seen from the south face.
It has also been proposed that the original site of Aztln was the area around what is now Lake Powell. Part of the migration legend also describes a stay at Culhuacn ("leaning hill" or "curved hill"). Proponents of the Lake Powell theory equate this Culhuacn with the ancient home of the Anasazi at Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park. Researchers who believe Aztln was located in the Lake Powell region also cite the fact that the language spoken by the Aztecs and the Ute people belong to the same Uto-Aztecan linguistic group.
Archaeologist Kelley Hays-Gilpin from Northern Arizona University acknowledges the linguistic connection between Mesoamerican and North American peoples. However, she theorizes that the Aztec's ancestors may have traveled north before returning south. Hayes-Gilpin believes Uto-Aztecan speaking people spread north to an area of the American West that could have included Utah. Out of those cultures, some groups could have migrated south to northern Mexico, and some could have, as she says, moved to the Valley of Mexico where they subjugated tribes in that region. Primary sources
The primary sources for Aztln are the Boturini Codex, the Codex Telleriano-Remensis, and the Aubin Codex. Aztln is also mentioned in the History of Tlaxcala (by Diego Muoz Camargo, a Tlaxcalan mestizo from the 17th century), as well as Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca.
Etymology
The meaning of the name Aztlan is uncertain. One suggested meaning is "place of egrets" the explanation given in the Crnica Mexicyotlbut this is not possible under Nahuatl morphology: "place of egrets" would be Aztatlan. Other proposed derivations include "place of whiteness" and "at the place in the vicinity of tools", sharing the z- element of words such as teponztli, "drum" (from tepontli, "log").
Aztln is the Spanish language spelling and pronunciation of Nahuatl Aztln. The spelling Aztln and its matching last-syllable stress cannot be Nahuatl, which always stresses words on the second-to-last syllable. The accent mark on the second a added in Spanish marks stress shift (from oxytone to paroxytone), typical of several Nahuatl words when loaned into Mexican Spanish. Atlantis Wikipedia.org
Atlantis (in Greek, , "island of Atlas") is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC.
According to Plato, Atlantis was a naval power lying "in front of the Pillars of Hercules" that conquered many parts of Western Europe and Africa 9,000 years before the time of Solon, or approximately 9600 BC. After a failed attempt to invade Athens, Atlantis sank into the ocean "in a single day and night of misfortune".
Scholars dispute whether and how much Plato's story or account was inspired by older traditions. In Critias, Plato claims that his accounts of ancient Athens and Atlantis stem from a visit to Egypt by the legendary Athenian lawgiver Solon in the 6th century BC. In Egypt, Solon met a priest of Sais, who translated the history of ancient Athens and Atlantis, recorded on papyri in Egyptian hieroglyphs, into Greek. Some scholars argue Plato drew upon memories of past events such as the Thera eruption or the Trojan War, while others insist that he took inspiration from contemporary events like the destruction of Helike in 373 BC or the failed Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415413 BC.
The possible existence of a genuine Atlantis was discussed throughout classical antiquity, but it was usually rejected and occasionally parodied by later authors. Alan Cameron states: "It is only in modern times that people have taken the Atlantis story seriously; no one did so in antiquity". The Timaeus remained known in a Latin rendition by Calcidius through the Middle Ages, and the allegorical aspect of Atlantis was taken up by Humanists in utopian works of several Renaissance writers, like Francis Bacon's "New Atlantis". Atlantis inspires today's literature, from science fiction to comic books to films. Its name has become a byword for any and all supposed advanced prehistoric lost civilizations.
Plato's account
Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written in 360 BC, contain the earliest references to Atlantis. For unknown reasons, Plato never completed Critias. Plato introduced Atlantis in Timaeus:
For it is related in our records how once upon a time your State stayed the course of a mighty host, which, starting from a distant point in the Atlantic ocean, was insolently advancing to attack the whole of Europe, and Asia to boot. For the ocean there was at that time navigable; for in front of the mouth which you Greeks call, as you say, 'the pillars of Heracles,' there lay an island which was larger than Libya and Asia together; and it was possible for the travelers of that time to cross from it to the other islands, and from the islands to the whole of the continent over against them which encompasses that veritable ocean. For all that we have here, lying within the mouth of which we speak, is evidently a haven having a narrow entrance; but that yonder is a real ocean, and the land surrounding it may most rightly be called, in the fullest and truest sense, a continent. Now in this island of Atlantis there existed a confederation of kings, of great and marvelous power, which held sway over all the island, and over many other islands also and parts of the continent.
The four persons appearing in those two dialogues are the politicians Critias and Hermocrates as well as the philosophers Socrates and Timaeus of Locri, although only Critias speaks of Atlantis. In his works Plato makes extensive use of the Socratic dialogues in order to discuss contrary positions within the context of a supposition.
The Timaeus begins with an introduction, followed by an account of the creations and structure of the universe and ancient civilizations. In the introduction, Socrates muses about the perfect society, described in Plato's Republic (c. 380 BC), and wonders if he and his guests might recollect a story which exemplifies such a society. Critias mentions an allegedly historical tale that would make the perfect example, and follows by describing Atlantis as is recorded in the Critias. In his account, ancient Athens seems to represent the "perfect society" and Atlantis its opponent, representing the very antithesis of the "perfect" traits described in the Republic.
According to Critias, the Hellenic gods of old divided the land so that each god might own a lot; Poseidon was appropriately, and to his liking, bequeathed the island of Atlantis. The island was larger than Ancient Libya and Asia Minor combined, but it afterwards was sunk by an earthquake and became an impassable mud shoal, inhibiting travel to any part of the ocean. The Egyptians, Plato asserted, described Atlantis as an island comprising mostly mountains in the northern portions and along the shore, and encompassing a great plain of an oblong shape in the south "extending in one direction three thousand stadia [about 555 km; 345 mi], but across the center inland it was two thousand stadia [about 370 km; 230 mi]." Fifty stadia [km; 6 mi] from the coast was a mountain that was low on all sides...broke it off all round about... the central island itself was five stades in diameter [about 0.92 km; 0.57 mi].
A 15th-century Latin translation of Plato's Timaeus
In Plato's myth, Poseidon fell in love with Cleito, the daughter of Evenor and Leucippe, who bore him five pairs of male twins. The eldest of these, Atlas, was made rightful king of the entire island and the ocean (called the Atlantic Ocean in his honor), and was given the mountain of his birth and the surrounding area as his fiefdom. Atlas's twin Gadeirus, or Eumelus in Greek, was given the extremity of the island towards the pillars of Hercules. The other four pairs of twinsAmpheres and Evaemon, Mneseus and Autochthon, Elasippus and Mestor, and Azaes and Diaprepeswere also given "rule over many men, and a large territory."
Poseidon carved the mountain where his love dwelt into a palace and enclosed it with three circular moats of increasing width, varying from one to three stadia and separated by rings of land proportional in size. The Atlanteans then built bridges northward from the mountain, making a route to the rest of the island. They dug a great canal to the sea, and alongside the bridges carved tunnels into the rings of rock so that ships could pass into the city around the mountain; they carved docks from the rock walls of the moats. Every passage to the city was guarded by gates and towers, and a wall surrounded each of the city's rings. The walls were constructed of red, white and black rock quarried from the moats, and were covered with brass, tin and the precious metal orichalcum, respectively.
According to Critias, 9,000 years before his lifetime a war took place between those outside the Pillars of Hercules at the Strait of Gibraltar and those who dwelt within them. The Atlanteans had conquered the parts of Libya within the Pillars of Hercules as far as Egypt and the European continent as far as Tyrrhenia, and subjected its people to slavery. The Athenians led an alliance of resistors against the Atlantean empire, and as the alliance disintegrated, prevailed alone against the empire, liberating the occupied lands.
But at a later time there occurred portentous earthquakes and floods, and one grievous day and night befell them, when the whole body of your warriors was swallowed up by the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner was swallowed up by the sea and vanished; wherefore also the ocean at that spot has now become impassable and unsearchable, being blocked up by the shoal mud which the island created as it settled down.
The logographer Hellanicus of Lesbos wrote an earlier work titled Atlantis, of which only a few fragments survive. Hellanicus' work appears to have been a genealogical one concerning the daughters of Atlas ( in Greek means "of Atlas"), but some authors have suggested a possible connection with Plato's island. John V. Luce notes that when he writes about the genealogy of Atlantis's kings Plato writes in the same style as Hellanicus and suggests a similarity between a fragment of Hellanicus's work and an account in the Critias. Robert Castleden suggests Plato may have borrowed his title from Hellanicus, and that Hellanicus may have based his work on an earlier work on Atlantis.
Reception
Ancient
Some ancient writers viewed Atlantis as fiction while others believed it was real. The philosopher Crantor, a student of Plato's student Xenocrates, is often cited as an example of a writer who thought the story to be historical fact. His work, a commentary on Plato's Timaeus, is lost, but Proclus, a Neoplatonist of the fifth century AD, reports on it. The passage in question has been represented in the modern literature either as claiming that Crantor actually visited Egypt, had conversations with priests, and saw hieroglyphs confirming the story or as claiming that he learned about them from other visitors to Egypt. Proclus wrote
As for the whole of this account of the Atlanteans, some say that it is unadorned history, such as Crantor, the first commentator on Plato. Crantor also says that Plato's contemporaries used to criticize him jokingly for not being the inventor of his Republic but copying the institutions of the Egyptians. Plato took these critics seriously enough to assign to the Egyptians this story about the Athenians and Atlanteans, so as to make them say that the Athenians really once lived according to that system.
The next sentence is often translated "Crantor adds, that this is testified by the prophets of the Egyptians, who assert that these particulars [which are narrated by Plato] are written on pillars which are still preserved." But in the original, the sentence starts not with the name Crantor but with the ambiguous He, and whether this referred to Crantor or to Plato is the subject of considerable debate. Proponents of both Atlantis as a myth and Atlantis as history have argued that the word refers to Crantor. Alan Cameron, however, argues that it should be interpreted as referring to Plato, and that when Proclus writes that "we must bear in mind concerning this whole feat of the Athenians, that it is neither a mere myth nor unadorned history, although some take it as history and others as myth", he is treating "Crantor's view as mere personal opinion, nothing more; in fact he first quotes and then dismisses it as representing one of the two unacceptable extremes". Cameron also points out that whether he refers to Plato or to Crantor, the statement does not support conclusions such as Otto Muck's "Crantor came to Sais and saw there in the temple of Neith the column, completely covered with hieroglyphs, on which the history of Atlantis was recorded. Scholars translated it for him, and he testified that their account fully agreed with Plato's account of Atlantis" or J. V. Luce's suggestion that Crantor sent "a special enquiry to Egypt" and that he may simply be referring to Plato's own claims.
Another passage from Proclus' commentary on the Timaeus gives a description of the geography of Atlantis:
That an island of such nature and size once existed is evident from what is said by certain authors who investigated the things around the outer sea. For according to them, there were seven islands in that sea in their time, sacred to Persephone, and also three others of enormous size, one of which was sacred to Hades, another to Ammon, and another one between them to Poseidon, the extent of which was a thousand stadia [200 km]; and the inhabitants of itthey addpreserved the remembrance from their ancestors of the immeasurably large island of Atlantis which had really existed there and which for many ages had reigned over all islands in the Atlantic sea and which itself had like-wise been sacred to Poseidon. Now these things Marcellus has written in his Aethiopica".
Marcellus remains unidentified.
Other ancient historians and philosophers believing in the existence of Atlantis were Strabo and Posidonius.
Plato's account of Atlantis may have also inspired parodic imitation: writing only a few decades after the Timaeus and Critias, the historian Theopompus of Chios wrote of a land beyond the ocean known as Meropis. This description was included in Book 8 of his voluminous Philippica, which contains a dialogue between King Midas and Silenus, a companion of Dionysus. Silenus describes the Meropids, a race of men who grow to twice normal size, and inhabit two cities on the island of Meropis (Cos?): Eusebes (, "Pious-town") and Machimos (, "Fighting-town"). He also reports that an army of ten million soldiers crossed the ocean to conquer Hyperborea, but abandoned this proposal when they realized that the Hyperboreans were the luckiest people on earth. Heinz-Gnther Nesselrath has argued that these and other details of Silenus' story are meant as imitation and exaggeration of the Atlantis story, for the purpose of exposing Plato's ideas to ridicule.
Zoticus, a Neoplatonist philosopher of the 3rd century AD, wrote an epic poem based on Plato's account of Atlantis.
The 4th century historian Ammianus Marcellinus, relying on a lost work by Timagenes, a historian writing in the 1st century BC, writes that the Druids of Gaul said that part of the inhabitants of Gaul had migrated there from distant islands. Some have understood Ammianus's testimony as a claim that at the time of Atlantis's actual sinking into the sea, its inhabitants fled to western Europe; but Ammianus in fact says that the Drasidae (Druids) recall that a part of the population is indigenous but others also migrated in from islands and lands beyond the Rhine" (Res Gestae 15.9), an indication that the immigrants came to Gaul from the north (Britain, the Netherlands or Germany), not from a theorized location in the Atlantic Ocean to the south-west. Instead, the Celts that dwelled along the ocean were reported to venerate twin gods (Dioscori) that appeared to them coming from that ocean.
Jewish and Christian
The Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo in the early 1st century AD wrote about the destruction of Atlantis in his On the Eternity of the World, xxvi. 141:
...And the island of Atalantes which was greater than Africa and Asia, as Plato says in the Timaeus, in one day and night was overwhelmed beneath the sea in consequence of an extraordinary earthquake and inundation and suddenly disappeared, becoming sea, not indeed navigable, but full of gulfs and eddies.
Some scholars believe Clement of Rome cryptically referenced Atlantis in his First Epistle of Clement, 20: 8:
...The ocean which is impassable for men, and the worlds beyond it, are directed by the same ordinances of the Master.
On this passage the theologian Joseph Barber Lightfoot (Apostolic Fathers, 1885, II, p. 84) noted: "Clement may possibly be referring to some known, but hardly accessible land, lying without the pillars of Hercules. But more probably he contemplated some unknown land in the far west beyond the ocean, like the fabled Atlantis of Plato..."
Other early Christian writers wrote about Atlantis, though they had mixed views on whether it once existed or was an untrustworthy myth of pagan origin. Tertullian believed Atlantis was once real and wrote that in the Atlantic Ocean once existed "(the isle) that was equal in size to Libya or Asia" referring to Plato's geographical description of Atlantis. The early Christian apologist writer Arnobius also believed Atlantis once existed but blamed its destruction on pagans.
Cosmas Indicopleustes in the 6th century AD wrote of Atlantis in his Christian Topography in attempt to prove his theory the world was flat and surrounded by water:
...In like manner the philosopher Timaeus also describes this Earth as surrounded by the Ocean, and the Ocean as surrounded by the more remote earth. For he supposes that there is to westward an island, Atlantis, lying out in the Ocean, in the direction of Gadeira (Cadiz), of an enormous magnitude, and relates that the ten kings having procured mercenaries from the nations in this island came from the earth far away, and conquered Europe and Asia, but were afterwards conquered by the Athenians, while that island itself was submerged by God under the sea. Both Plato and Aristotle praise this philosopher, and Proclus has written a commentary on him. He himself expresses views similar to our own with some modifications, transferring the scene of the events from the east to the west. Moreover he mentions those ten generations as well as that earth which lies beyond the Ocean. And in a word it is evident that all of them borrow from Moses, and publish his statements as their own.
A Hebrew treatise on computational astronomy dated to AD 1378/79, alludes to the Atlantis myth in a discussion concerning the determination of zero points for the calculation of longitude:
Some say that they [the inhabited regions] begin at the beginning of the western ocean [the Atlantic] and beyond. For in the earliest times [literally: the first days] there was an island in the middle of the ocean. There were scholars there, who isolated themselves in [the pursuit of] philosophy. In their day, that was the [beginning for measuring] the longitude[s] of the inhabited world. Today, it has become [covered by the?] sea, and it is ten degrees into the sea; and they reckon the beginning of longitude from the beginning of the western sea.
A map showing the supposed extent of the Atlantean Empire. From Ignatius L. Donnelly's Atlantis: the Antediluvian World, 1882.
Modern
Francis Bacon's 1627 essay The New Atlantis describes a utopian society that he called Bensalem, located off the western coast of America. A character in the narrative gives a history of Atlantis that is similar to Plato's and places Atlantis in America. It is not clear whether Bacon means North or South America. The Swedish scholar Olaus Rudbeck published Atland in several volumes, starting in 1679. This attempted to prove that Sweden was Atlantis, the cradle of civilization, and Swedish the original language of Adam from which Latin and Hebrew had evolved. The Latin parallel title is Atlantica and the subtitle of both is Manheim, that is, home of mankind. According to Rudbeck, Atland means fatherland, and it was the original name of Atlantis. Isaac Newton's 1728 The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended studies a variety of mythological links to Atlantis. In the middle and late 19th century, several renowned Mesoamerican scholars, starting with Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, and including Edward Herbert Thompson and Augustus Le Plongeon proposed that Atlantis was somehow related to Mayan and Aztec culture. The 1882 publication of Atlantis: the Antediluvian World by Ignatius L. Donnelly stimulated much popular interest in Atlantis. Donnelly attempted to establish that all known ancient civilizations were descended from Atlantis, which he saw as a technologically sophisticated culture, saying that Atlanteans invented gunpowder and the compass thousands of years before the rest of the world invented written language.
During the late 19th century, ideas about the legendary nature of Atlantis were combined with stories of other lost continents such as Mu and Lemuria. The esoteric text Oera Linda, published in 1872, mentions it under the name Atland (the name used by Olaus Rudbeck). The book claims that it was submerged in 2193 BC, the same year that 19th century almanacs, following traditional Biblical chronology, gave for Noah's flood. Helena Blavatsky wrote in The Secret Doctrine (1888) that the Atlanteans were cultural heroes (contrary to Plato who describes them mainly as a military threat), and are the fourth "Root Race", succeeded by the "Aryan race". Furthermore, she expressed the belief that it was Homer before Plato who first wrote of Atlantis. Theosophists believe the civilization of Atlantis reached its peak between 1,000,000 and 900,000 years ago but destroyed itself through internal warfare brought about by the inhabitants' dangerous use of magical powers. William Scott-Elliot in The Story of Atlantis (1896) elaborated on Blavatsky's account, claiming that Atlantis eventually split into two linked islands, one called Daitya, and the other Ruta, which was later reduced to a final remnant called Poseidonis. Scott-Elliot's information came from the clairvoyant Charles Webster Leadbeater. Rudolf Steiner wrote of the cultural evolution of Atlantisin much the same vein. Edgar Cayce first mentioned Atlantis in 1923, and later suggested that it was originally a continent-sized region extending from the Azores to the Bahamas, holding an ancient, highly evolved civilization which had ships and aircraft powered by a mysterious form of energy crystal. He also predicted that parts of Atlantis would rise in 1968 or 1969. The Bimini Road, a submerged rock formation of large rectangular stones just off North Bimini Island in the Bahamas, was claimed by Robert Ferro and Michael Grumley to be evidence of the lost civilization. Edgar Cayce and others have often described Atlantis using techniques associated with Psychic archaeology.
According to Herodotus (c. 430 BC), a Phoenician expedition had circumnavigated Africa at the behest of Pharaoh Necho, sailing south down the Red Sea and Indian Ocean and northwards in the Atlantic, re-entering the Mediterranean Sea through the Pillars of Hercules. His description of northwest Africa makes it very clear that he located the Pillars of Hercules precisely where they are located today. Nevertheless, a supposed belief that they had been placed at the Strait of Sicily prior to Eratosthenes has been cited in some Atlantis theories.
Ignatius L. Donnelly, American congressman, and writer on Atlantis.
Nazism and occultism
The concept of Atlantis attracted Nazi theorists. In 1938, Reichsfhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler organized a German expedition to Tibet in 1939 to search for Aryan Atlanteans, although this suggestion has been criticised as inaccurate and that the expedition was looking for the origins of the 'Europoid' race or that it was a more general biological expedition. According to Julius Evola, writing in 1934, the Atlanteans were HyperboreansNordic supermen who originated on the North pole (see Thule). Similarly, Alfred Rosenberg (The Myth of the Twentieth Century, 1930) spoke of a "Nordic-Atlantean" or "Aryan- Nordic" master race.
Recent times
As continental drift became more widely accepted during the 1960s, and the increased understanding of plate tectonics demonstrated the impossibility of a lost continent in the geologically recent past, most Lost Continent theories of Atlantis began to wane in popularity.
Plato scholar Dr. Julia Annas, Regents Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona, had this to say on the matter:
The continuing industry of discovering Atlantis illustrates the dangers of reading Plato. For he is clearly using what has become a standard device of fictionstressing the historicity of an event (and the discovery of hitherto unknown authorities) as an indication that what follows is fiction. The idea is that we should use the story to examine our ideas of government and power. We have missed the point if instead of thinking about these issues we go off exploring the sea bed. The continuing misunderstanding of Plato as historian here enables us to see why his distrust of imaginative writing is sometimes justified.
Kenneth Feder points out that Critias's story in the Timaeus provides a major clue. In the dialogue, Critias says, referring to Socrates' hypothetical society:
And when you were speaking yesterday about your city and citizens, the tale which I have just been repeating to you came into my mind, and I remarked with astonishment how, by some mysterious coincidence, you agreed in almost every particular with the narrative of Solon. ...
Feder quotes A. E. Taylor, who wrote, "We could not be told much more plainly that the whole narrative of Solon's conversation with the priests and his intention of writing the poem about Atlantis are an invention of Plato's fancy."
American psychic Edgar Cayce, 1910
Location hypotheses
Since Donnelly's day, there have been dozens of locations proposed for Atlantis, to the point where the name has become a generic concept, divorced from the specifics of Plato's account. This is reflected in the fact that many proposed sites are not within the Atlantic at all. Few today are scholarly or archaeological hypotheses, while others have been made by psychic or other pseudoscientific means. Many of the proposed sites share some of the characteristics of the Atlantis story (water, catastrophic end, relevant time period), but none has been demonstrated to be a true historical Atlantis.
In or near the Mediterranean Sea
Most of the historically proposed locations are in or near the Mediterranean Sea: islands such as Sardinia, Crete and Santorini, Sicily, Cyprus, and Malta; land- based cities or states such as Troy, Tartessos, and Tantalus (in the province of Manisa), Turkey; Israel-Sinai or Canaan; and northwestern Africa. The Thera eruption, dated to the 17th or 16th century BC, caused a large tsunami that experts hypothesize devastated the Minoan civilization on the nearby island of Crete, further leading some to believe that this may have been the catastrophe that inspired the story. A. G. Galanopoulos argued that Plato's dating of 9,000 years before Solon's time was the result of an error in translation, probably from Egyptian into Greek, which produced "thousands" instead of "hundreds". Such an error would also rescale Plato's Atlantis to the size of Crete, while leaving the city the size of the crater on Thera; 900 years before Solon would be the 15th century BC. In the area of the Black Sea the following locations have been proposed: Bosporus and Ancomah (a legendary place near Trabzon).
In the Atlantic Ocean and Europe
In 2011, a team, working on a documentary for the Discovery Channel, led by Professor Richard Freund, from the University of Hartford, claimed to have found evidence of the city in mud flats in South Western Andalusia, in Spain. The team identified its possible location within the marshlands of the Doana National Park, in the area that once was the Lacus Ligustinus, between Huelva, Cdiz and Seville provinces, and speculated that Atlantis had been destroyed by a tsunami, by extrapolating results from a previous study by Spanish researchers, published four years earlier. Spanish scientists have dismissed Freund's claims claiming that he was sensationalising their work. The anthropologist Juan Villaras-Robles, who works with the Spanish National Research Council, said "Richard Freund was a newcomer to our project and appeared to be involved in his own very controversial issue concerning King Solomon's search for ivory and gold in Tartessos, the well documented settlement in the Donaa area established in the first millennium BC" and described his claims as 'fanciful'. A similar theory had previously been put forward by a German researcher, Rainer W. Khne, but based only on satellite imagery and placing Atlantis in the Marismas de Hinojos, North of the city of Cdiz. Before that, Historian Adolf Schulten had stated in the 1920s that Plato had used Tartessos as the basis for his Atlantis myth.
Satellite image of the islands of Santorini. This location is one of many sites purported to have been the location of Atlantis
The location of Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean has certain appeal given the closely related names. Popular culture often places Atlantis there, perpetuating the original Platonic setting. Several hypotheses place the sunken island in northern Europe, including Doggerland in the North Sea, and Sweden (by Olof Rudbeck in Atland, 16721702). Some have proposed the Celtic Shelf as a possible locations, and that there is a link to Ireland.
The Canary Islands and Madeira Islands have also been identified as a possible location, west of the Straits of Gibraltar but in relative proximity to the Mediterranean Sea. Various islands or island groups in the Atlantic were also identified as possible locations, notably the Azores. However detailed geological studies of the Canary Islands, the Azores, Madeira, and the ocean bottom surrounding them found a complete lack of any evidence for the catastrophic subsidence of these islands at any time during their existence and a complete lack of any evidence that the ocean bottom surrounding them was ever dry land at any time in the recent past. The submerged island of Spartel near the Strait of Gibraltar has also been suggested.
Other locations
Several writers have speculated that Antarctica is the site of Atlantis, while others have proposed Caribbean locations such as Batabano Bay south of Cuba, the Bahamas, and the Bermuda Triangle. Areas in the Pacific and Indian Oceans have also been proposed including Indonesia (i.e. Sundaland). The stories of a lost continent off India, named "Kumari Kandam," have inspired some to draw parallels to Atlantis. Cantre'r Gwaelod Wikipedia.org
Cantre'r Gwaelod (also known as Cantref Gwaelod or Cantref y Gwaelod; English: The Lowland Hundred) is the legendary ancient sunken kingdom said to have occupied a tract of fertile land lying between Ramsey Island and Bardsey Island in what is now Cardigan Bay to the west of Wales.
MythCantre'r Gwaelod's capital was Caer Wyddno, seat of the ruler Gwyddno Garanhir. There are several versions of the myth. It is described as a walled country that was defended from the sea by a dyke called Sarn Badrig (Saint Patrick's causeway), over which two princes of the realm held charge. One of these princes, called Seithenyn, is described in one version as a notorious drunkard and carouser, and it was through his negligence that the sea swept through the open floodgates, ruining the land.
The church bells of Cantre'r Gwaelod are said to ring out in times of danger.
Origins of the myth
The myth, like so many others, may be a folk memory of gradually rising sea levels at the end of the ice age; and its structure is comparable to the deluge myth found in nearly every ancient culture. The physical remains of the preserved sunken forest at Borth, and of Sarn Badrig nearby, could have suggested that some great tragedy had overcome a community there long ago, and so the myth may have grown from that. There is no reliable physical evidence of the substantial community that legend promises lies under the sea.
Reported sighting
In 1770, Welsh antiquarian scholar William Owen Pughe reported seeing sunken human habitations about four miles (6.4 km) off the Ceredigion coast, between the rivers Ystwyth and Teifi.
Cornucopia Wikipedia.org
The cornucopia (from Latin cornu copiae) or horn of plenty is a symbol of abundance and nourishment, commonly a large horn-shaped container overflowing with produce, flowers, nuts, other edibles, or wealth in some form. Originating in classical antiquity, it has continued as a symbol in Western art, and it is particularly associated with the Thanksgiving holiday in North America.
Allegorical depiction of the Roman goddess Abundantia with a cornucopia, by Rubens (ca. 1630)
In mythology
Classical mythology offers multiple explanations of the origin of the cornucopia. One of the best- known involves the birth and nurturance of the infant Zeus, who had to be hidden from his devouring father Cronus. In a cave on Mount Ida on the island of Crete, baby Zeus was cared for and protected by a number of divine attendants, including the goat Amalthea ("Nourishing Goddess"), who fed him with her milk. The suckling future king of the gods had unusual abilities and strength, and in playing with his nursemaid accidentally broke off one of her horns, which then had the divine power to provide unending nourishment, as the foster mother had to the god.
In another myth, the cornucopia was created when Heracles (Roman Hercules) wrestled with the river god Achelous and wrenched off one of his horns; river gods were sometimes depicted as horned. This version is represented in the Achelous and Hercules mural painting by the American Regionalist artist Thomas Hart Benton.
The cornucopia became the attribute of several Greek and Roman deities, particularly those associated with the harvest, prosperity, or spiritual abundance, such as personifications of Earth (Gaia or Terra); the child Plutus, god of riches and son of the grain goddess Demeter; the nymph Maia; and Fortuna, the goddess of luck, who had the power to grant prosperity. In Roman Imperial cult, abstract Roman deities who fostered peace (pax Romana) and prosperity were also depicted with a cornucopia, including Abundantia, "Abundance" personified, and Annona, goddess of the grain supply to the city of Rome. Pluto, the classical ruler of the underworld in the mystery religions, was a giver of agricultural, mineral and spiritual wealth, and in art often holds a cornucopia to distinguish him from the gloomier Hades, who holds a drinking horn instead.
Modern depictions
A cornucopia made of bread, prepared for a Thanksgiving meal in 2005 for U.S. Navy personnel
In modern depictions, the cornucopia is typically a hollow, horn-shaped wicker basket filled with various kinds of festive fruit and vegetables. In North America, the cornucopia has come to be associated with Thanksgiving and the harvest. Cornucopia is also the name of the annual November Wine and Food celebration in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. Two cornucopias are seen in the flag and state seal of Idaho. The Great Seal of North Carolina depicts Liberty standing and Plenty holding a cornucopia. The coat of arms of Colombia, Panama, Peru and Venezuela, and the Coat of Arms of the State of Victoria, Australia, also feature the cornucopia, symbolising prosperity.
The horn of plenty is used on body art and at Halloween, as it is a symbol of fertility, fortune and abundance.
Angel with cornucopia Base of a statue of Louis XV of France Coat of arms of Copiap, Chile Seal of North Carolina
Poster of cornucopia for California A cornucopia made of bread, prepared for a Thanksgiving meal in 2005 for U.S. Navy personnel
Cup of Jamshid Wikipedia.org
The Cup of Jamshid (Cup of Djemscheed or Jaam-e Jam, in Persian: ) is a cup of divination which, in Persian mythology, was long possessed by the rulers of ancient Greater Iran. The cup has also been called Jam-e Jahan nama, Jam-e Jahan Ara, Jam-e Giti nama, and Jam-e Kei- khosrow. The latter refers to Kaei Husravah in the Avesta, and Sushravas in the Vedas.
Hafez looking at the Cup of Jamshid, Bibliothque nationale de France, Turkish manuscript of 1477, author unknown, from Shrz, Iran
The Cup of Jamshid has been the subject of many Persian poems and stories. Many authors ascribed the success of the Persian Empire to the possession of this artefact. It appears extensively in Persian literature.
Examples:
For years my heart was in search of the Grail (Cup of Jamshid) What was inside me, it searched for, on the trail
Divan of Hafez
The cup ("Jm") was said to be filled with an elixir of immortality and was used in scrying. As mentioned by Ali-Akbar Dehkhoda, it was believed that one could observe all the seven heavens of the universe by looking into it ( ). It was believed to have been discovered in Persepolis in ancient times. The whole world was said to be reflected in it, and divinations within the Cup were said to reveal deep truths. Sometimes, especially in popular depictions such as The Heroic Legend of Arslan, the cup has been visualized as a crystal ball. Helen Zimmern's English translation of the Shahnameh uses the term "crystal globe".
Crystal Skull http://www.cosmostv.org
The crystal skulls are a number of human skull hardstone carvings made of clear or milky quartz rock, known in art history as "rock crystal", claimed to be pre-Columbian Mesoamerican artifacts by their alleged finders. However, none of the specimens made available for scientific study have been authenticated as pre- Columbian in origin. The results of these studies demonstrated that those examined were manufactured in the mid-19th century or later, almost certainly in Europe. Despite some claims presented in an assortment of popularizing literature, legends of crystal skulls with mystical powers do not figure in genuine Mesoamerican or other Native American mythologies and spiritual accounts.
The crystal skull at the British Museum similar in dimensions to the more detailed Mitchell-Hedges skull.
The skulls are often claimed to exhibit paranormal phenomena by some members of the New Age movement, and have often been portrayed as such in fiction. Crystal skulls have been a popular subject appearing in numerous sci-fi television series,novels,and video games.
Crystal Skull Collections
A distinction has been made by some modern researchers between the smaller bead-sized crystal skulls, which first appear in the mid-19th century, and the larger (approximately life- sized) skulls that appear toward the end of that century.The larger crystal skulls have attracted nearly all the popular attention in recent times, and some researchers believe that all of these have been manufactured as forgeries in Europe.
Trade in fake pre-Columbian artifacts developed during the late 19th century to the extent that in 1886, Smithsonian archaeologist William Henry Holmes wrote an article called "The Trade in Spurious Mexican Antiquities" for Science. Although museums had acquired skulls earlier, it was Eugne Boban, an antiquities dealer who opened his shop in Paris in 1870, who is most associated with 19th-century museum collections of crystal skulls. Most of Boban's collection, including three crystal skulls, was sold to the ethnographer Alphonse Pinart, who donated the collection to the Trocadro Museum, which later became the Muse de l'Homme.
Research into crystal skull origins
Many crystal skulls are claimed to be pre-Columbian, usually attributed to the Aztec or Maya civilizations. Mesoamerican art has numerous representations of skulls, but none of the skulls in museum collections come from documented excavations. Research carried out on several crystal skulls at the British Museum in 1967, 1996 and again in 2004 has shown that the indented lines marking the teeth (for these skulls had no separate jawbone, unlike the Mitchell-Hedges skull) were carved using jeweler's equipment (rotary tools) developed in the 19th century, making a supposed pre-Columbian origin problematic.The type of crystal was determined by examination of chlorite inclusions, and is only to be found in Madagascar and Brazil, and thus unobtainable or unknown within pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. The study concluded that the skulls were crafted in the 19th century in Germany, quite likely at workshops in the town of Idar-Oberstein renowned for crafting objects made from imported Brazilian quartz at this period in the late 19th century.
It has been established that both the British Museum and Paris's Muse de l'Homme crystal skulls were originally sold by the French antiquities dealer Eugne Boban, who was operating in Mexico City between 1860 and 1880. The British Museum crystal skull transited through New York's Tiffany's, whilst the Muse de l'Homme's crystal skull was donated by Alphonse Pinart, an ethnographer who had bought it from Boban.
An investigation carried out by the Smithsonian Institution in 1992 on a crystal skull provided by an anonymous source who claimed to have purchased it in Mexico City in 1960 and that it was of Aztec origin concluded that it, too, was made in recent years. According to the Smithsonian, Boban acquired the crystal skulls he sold from sources in Germany findings that are in keeping with those of the British Museum.
A detailed study of the British Museum and Smithsonian crystal skulls was accepted for publication by the Journal of Archaeological Science in May 2008. Using electron microscopy and X-ray crystallography, a team of British and American researchers found that the British Museum skull was worked with a harsh abrasive substance such as corundum or diamond, and shaped using a rotary disc tool made from some suitable metal. The Smithsonian specimen had been worked with a different abrasive, namely the silicon-carbon compound carborundum which is a synthetic substance manufactured using modern industrial techniques.Since the synthesis of carborundum dates only to the 1890s and its wider availability to the 20th century, the researchers concluded "he suggestion is that it was made in the 1950s or later".
Speculations on smaller skulls
None of the skulls in museums come from documented excavations. A parallel example is provided by obsidian mirrors, ritual objects widely depicted in Aztec art. Although a few surviving obsidian mirrors come from archaeological excavations, none of the Aztec-style obsidian mirrors are so documented. Yet most authorities on Aztec material culture consider the Aztec-style obsidian mirrors as authentic pre-Columbian objects. Archaeologist Michael E. Smith reports a non peer-reviewed find of a small crystal skull at an Aztec site in the Valley of Mexico.Crystal skulls have been described as "A fascinating example of artifacts that have made their way into museums with no scientific evidence to prove their rumored pre- Columbian origins." A similar case is the "Olmec-style" face mask in jade; hardstone carvings of a face in a mask form. Curators and scholars refer to these as "Olmec-style", as to date no example has been recovered in an archaeologically controlled Olmec context, although they appear Olmec in style. However they have been recovered from sites of other cultures, including one deliberately deposited in the ceremonial precinct of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City), which would presumably have been about 2,000 years old when the Aztecs buried it, suggesting these were as valued and collected as Roman antiquities were in Europe.
Individual skulls
Mitchell-Hedges skull
Perhaps the most famous and enigmatic skull was allegedly discovered in 1924 by Anna Le Guillon Mitchell-Hedges, adopted daughter of British adventurer and popularist author F.A. Mitchell-Hedges. It is the subject of a video documentary made in 1990, Crystal Skull of Lubaantun. It has been noted upon examination by Smithsonian researchers to be "very nearly a replica of the British Museum skull--almost exactly the same shape, but with more detailed modeling of the eyes and the teeth." Anna Hedges claimed that she found the skull buried under a collapsed altar inside a temple in Lubaantun, in British Honduras, now Belize. As far as can be ascertained, F.A. Mitchell- Hedges himself made no mention of the alleged discovery in any of his writings on Lubaantun. Also, others present at the time of the excavation have not been documented as noting either the skull's discovery or Anna's presence at the dig.
In a 1970 letter, Anna also stated that she was, "told by the few remaining Maya that the skull was used by the high priest to will death."For this reason, the artifact is sometimes referred to as "The Skull of Doom". An alternative explanation is a play on 'Skull of Dunn' (Dunn being an associate of Mitchell-Hedges). Anna Mitchell-Hedges toured with the skull from 1967 exhibiting it on a pay-per-view basis, and she continued to give interviews about the artifact until her death in 2007.
The skull is made from a block of clear quartz about the size of a small human cranium, measuring some 5 inches (13 cm) high, 7 inches (18 cm) long and 5 inches wide. The lower jaw is detached. In the early 1970s it came under the temporary care of freelance art restorer Frank Dorland, who claimed upon inspecting it that it had been "carved" with total disregard to the natural crystal axes without the use of metal tools. Dorland reported being unable to find any tell-tale scratch marks, except for traces of mechanical grinding on the teeth, and he speculated that it was first chiseled into rough form, probably using diamonds, and the finer shaping, grinding and polishing was achieved through the use of sand over a period of 150 to 300 years. He said it could be up to 12,000 years old. Although various claims have been made over the years regarding the skull's physical properties, such as an allegedly constant temperature of 70 F (21 C), Dorland reported that there was no difference in properties between it and other natural quartz crystals.
While in Dorland's care the skull came to the attention of writer Richard Garvin, at the time working at an advertising agency where he supervised Hewlett-Packard's advertising account. Garvin made arrangements for the skull to be examined at HP's crystal labs at Santa Clara, where it was subjected to several tests. The labs determined only that it was not a composite (as Dorland had supposed), but that it was fashioned from a single crystal of quartz. The lab test also established that the lower jaw had been fashioned from the same left-handed growing crystal as the rest of the skull. No investigation was made by HP as to its method of manufacture or dating.
As well as the traces of mechanical grinding on the teeth noted by Dorland, Mayanist archaeologist Norman Hammond reported that the holes (presumed to be intended for support pegs) showed signs of being made by drilling with metal. Anna Mitchell-Hedges refused subsequent requests to submit the skull for further scientific testing.
F. A. Mitchell-Hedges mentioned the skull only briefly in the first edition of his autobiography, Danger My Ally (1954), without specifying where or by whom it was found.He merely claimed that "it is at least 3,600 years old and according to legend it was used by the High Priest of the Maya when he was performing esoteric rites. It is said that when he willed death with the help of the skull, death invariably followed". All subsequent editions of Danger My Ally omitted mention of the skull entirely.
Eugne Boban, main French dealer in pre-Columbian artifacts during the second half of the 19th century and probable source of many famous skullsThe earliest published reference to the skull is the July 1936 issue of the British anthropological journal Man, where it is described as being in the possession of Mr. Sydney Burney, a London art dealer who is said to have owned it since 1933. No mention was made of Mitchell-Hedges. There is documentary evidence that Mitchell-Hedges bought it from Burney in 1944. The skull was in the custody of Anna Mitchell-Hedges, the adopted daughter of Frederick. She steadfastly refused to let it be examined by experts (making very doubtful the claim that it was reported on by R. Stansmore Nutting in 1962). Somewhere between 19881990 Anna Mitchell-Hedges toured with the skull.
Eugne Boban, main French dealer in pre-Columbian artifactsduring the second half of the 19th century and probable source of many famous skulls
In her last eight years, Anna Mitchell-Hedges lived in Chesterton, Indiana, with Bill Homann, whom she married in 2002. She died on April 11, 2007. Since that time the Mitchell-Hedges Skull has been in the custody of Bill Homann. In April 2009, Five, a UK television channel, took the story and revealed that the Mitchell-Hedges Skull, recently tested under a special microscope in the Smithsonian Institution, had been manufactured with tools that Aztecs and Mayans simply did not have. Like the other skulls, this one is a fabrication dating from the second half of the 19th century. Bill Homann however continues to believe in its mystical properties.
British Museum skull
The crystal skull of the British Museum first appeared in 1881, in the shop of the Paris antiquarian, Eugne Boban. Its origin was not stated in his catalog of the time. He is said to have tried to sell it to Mexico's national museum as an Aztec artifact, but was unsuccessful. Boban later moved his business to New York City, where the skull was sold to George H. Sisson. It was exhibited at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in New York City in 1887 by George F. Kunz. It was sold at auction, and bought by Tiffany and Co., who later sold it at cost to the British Museum in 1897. This skull is very similar to the Mitchell-Hedges skull, although it is less detailed and does not have a movable lower jaw. The British Museum catalogues the skull's provenance as "probably European, 19th century AD"and describes it as "not an authentic pre-Columbian artefact". It has been established that this skull was made with modern tools, and that it is not authentic.
Paris skull
Crystal skull at the Muse du quai Branly, Paris
The largest of the three skulls sold by Eugne Boban to Alphonse Pinart (sometimes called the Paris Skull), about 10 cm (4 in) high, has a hole drilled vertically through its center.It is part of a collection held at the Muse du Quai Branly, and was subjected to scientific tests carried out in 200708 by France's national Centre de recherche et de restauration des muses de France (Centre for Research and Restoration of the Museums in France, or C2RMF). After a series of analyses carried out over three months, C2RMF engineers concluded that it was "certainly not pre- Columbian, it shows traces of polishing and abrasion by modern tools."Particle accelerator tests also revealed occluded traces of water that were dated to the 19th century, and the Quai Branly released a statement that the tests "seem to indicate that it was made late in the 19th century."
In 2009 the C2RMF researchers published results of further investigations to establish when the Paris skull had been carved. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis indicated the use of lapidary machine tools in its carving. The results of a new dating technique known as quartz hydration dating (QHD) demonstrated that the Paris skull had been carved later than a reference quartz specimen artifact, known to have been cut in 1740. The researchers conclude that the SEM and QHD results combined with the skull's known provenance indicate it was carved in the 18th or 19th century.
Smithsonian Skull
The "Smithsonian Skull" was mailed to the Smithsonian Institution anonymously in 1992, and was claimed to be an Aztec object by its donor and was purportedly from the collection of Porfirio Diaz. It is the largest of the skulls, weighing 31 pounds and is 15 inches high. It was carved using carborundum, a modern abrasive. It has been displayed as a fake at the National Museum of Natural History.
Paranormal claims and spiritual associations
Some believers in the paranormal claim that crystal skulls can produce a variety of miracles. Ann Mitchell-Hedges claimed that the skull she allegedly discovered could cause visions, cure cancer, that she once used its magical properties to kill a man, and that in another instance, she saw in it a premonition of the John F. Kennedy assassination. In the 1931 play The Satin Slipper, by Paul Claudel, King Philip II of Spain uses "a death's head made from a single piece of rock crystal," lit by "a ray of the setting sun," to see the defeat of his Armada in its attack on England (day 4, scene 4, pp. 24344).
Claims of the healing and supernatural powers of crystal skulls have no support in the scientific community, which has found no evidence of any unusual phenomena associated with the skulls nor any reason for further investigation, other than the confirmation of their provenance and method of manufacture.
Another novel and historically unfounded speculation ties in the legend of the crystal skulls with the completion of the current Maya calendar b'ak'tun-cycle on December 21, 2012, claiming the re-uniting of the thirteen mystical skulls will forestall a catastrophe allegedly predicted or implied by the ending of this calendar. An airing of this claim appeared (among an assortment of others made) in The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls, a 2008 program produced for the Sci Fi Channel in May and shown on Discovery Channel Canada in June. Interviewees included Richard Hoagland, who attempted to link the skulls and the Maya to life on Mars, and David Hatcher Childress, proponent of lost Atlantean civilizations and anti-gravity claims.
Crystal skulls are also referenced by author Drunvalo Melchizedek in his book Serpent of Light.He writes that he came across indigenous Mayan descendants in possession of crystal skulls at ceremonies at temples in the Yucatn, which he writes contained souls of ancient Mayans who had entered the skulls to await the time when their ancient knowledge would once again be required.
The alleged associations and origins of crystal skull mythology in Native American spiritual lore, as advanced by neoshamanic writers such as Jamie Sams, are similarly discounted. Instead, as Philip Jenkins notes, crystal skull mythology may be traced back to the "baroque legends" initially spread by F.A. Mitchell-Hedges, and then afterwards taken up:
By the 1970s, the crystal skulls [had] entered New Age mythology as potent relics of ancient Atlantis, and they even acquired a canonical number: there were exactly thirteen skulls.
None of this would have anything to do with North American Indian matters, if the skulls had not attracted the attention of some of the most active New Age writers.
Elixir of Life Wikipedia.org
The elixir of life, (Arabic: , Exeer Al-ayat), also known as the elixir of immortality and sometimes equated with the philosopher's stone, is a legendary potion, or drink, that grants the drinker eternal life or eternal youth. Many practitioners of alchemy pursued it. The elixir of life was also said to be able to create life. It is related to the myths of Enoch, Thoth, and Hermes Trismegistus, all of whom in various tales are said to have drunk "the white drops" (liquid gold) and thus achieved immortality. It is also associated with the Qur'an's Al Khidr ('The Green Man'), and is mentioned in one of the Nag Hammadi texts.
History
China
In ancient China various emperors sought the fabled elixir with varying results. In the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shi Huang sent Taoist alchemist Xu Fu with 500 young men and 500 young women to the eastern seas to find the elixir, but he never came back (legend has it that he found Japan instead). When Shi Huang Di visited, he brought 3000 young girls and boys, but none of them ever returned.
The ancient Chinese believed that ingesting long-lasting precious substances such as jade, cinnabar or hematite would confer some of that longevity on the person who consumed them. Gold was considered particularly potent, as it was a non-tarnishing precious metal; the idea of potable or drinkable gold is found in China by the end of the third century BC. The most famous Chinese alchemical book, the Tan Chin Yao Cheh ("Great Secrets of Alchemy," dating from approximately 650 AD), discusses in detail the creation of elixirs for immortality (mercury, sulfur, and the salts of mercury and arsenic are prominent) as well as those for curing certain diseases and the fabrication of precious stones.
Many of these substances, far from contributing to longevity, were actively toxic. Jiajing Emperor in the Ming Dynasty died from ingesting a lethal dosage of mercury in the supposed "Elixir of Life" conjured by alchemists. British historian Joseph Needham compiled a list of Chinese emperors whose death was likely due to elixir poisoning. Chinese interest in alchemy and the elixir of life declined in proportion to the rise of Buddhism, which claimed to have alternate routes to immortality.
India
Amrita (or the elixir of life) has been described in the Hindu scriptures. Anybody who consumes even a tiniest portion of Amrit has been described to gain immortality. The legend has it, at early times when the inception of the world had just taken place, evil demons had gained strength. This was seen as a threat to the gods who feared them. So these gods (including Indra-the god of rain, Vayu-the god of wind, Agni-the god of fire) went to seek advice and help from the three primary gods according to the Hindus; Vishnu (the preserver), Brahma (the creator) & Shiva (the destroyer). They suggested that Amrit could only be gained from the samudra manthan (or the churning of ocean) for the ocean in its depths hid mysterious and secret objects. Vishnu agreed to take the form of a turtle on whose shell a huge mountain was placed. This mountain was used as a churning pole.
With the help of a mighty and long serpent the churning process began at the surface of the ocean. The gods pulled the serpent from one side which had coiled itself around the mountain and the demons pulled it from the other side. (the churning process required immense strength and hence the demons were persuaded to do the job- they agreed but in return for a portion of Amrit). Finally with the combined effort of the gods and demons, Amrit emerged from the depths of the ocean. All the gods were offered the drink but the gods managed to trick the demons who did not get the holy drink.
The oldest Indian writings, the Vedas (Hindu sacred scriptures), contain the same hints of alchemy that are found in evidence from ancient China, namely vague references to a connection between gold and long life. Mercury, which was so vital to alchemy everywhere, is first mentioned in the 4th to 3rd century BC Arthashastra, about the same time it is encountered in China and in the West. Evidence of the idea of transmuting base metals to gold appears in 2nd to 5th century AD Buddhist texts, about the same time as in the West. Since Alexander the Great had invaded India in 325 BC, leaving a Greek state (Gandhara) that long endured, the possibility exists that the Indians acquired the idea from the Greeks, but it could have been the other way around.
It is also possible that the alchemy of medicine and immortality came to India from China, or vice versa; in any case, gold making appears to have been a minor concern, and medicine the major concern, of both cultures. But the elixir of immortality was of little importance in India (which had other avenues to immortality). The Indian elixirs were mineral remedies for specific diseases or, at the most, to promote long life.
It is also known to Sikhs as Amrit, the Nectar of Immortality (see Amrit Sanskar).
Middle East
The term elixir is derived from the Arabic Al-Ikseer, which means a combination or a mixture. Europe
The Comte de St. Germain, an 18th century nobleman of uncertain origin and mysterious capabilities, was also reputed to have the Elixir and to be several hundred years old. Many European recipes specify that elixir is to be stored in clocks to amplify the effects of immortality on the user. Frenchman Nicolas Flamel was also a reputed creator of the Elixir. Names
The Elixir has had hundreds of names (one scholar of Chinese history reportedly found over 1,000 names for it.), including (among others) Amrit Ras or Amrita, Aab-i-Hayat, Maha Ras, Aab-Haiwan, Dancing Water, Chasma-i-Kausar, Mansarover or the Pool of Nectar, Philosopher's stone, and Soma Ras. The word elixir was not used until the 7th century A.D. and derives from the Arabic name for miracle substances, "al iksir." Some view it as a metaphor for the spirit of God (e.g. Jesus' reference to "the Water of Life" or "the Fountain of Life") John 4:14 " But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.. The Scots and the Irish adopted the name for their "liquid gold": the Gaelic name for whiskey is uisge beatha, or water of life.
Note: Aab-i-Hayat and Aab-i-Haiwan are Persian and both mean "water of life". "Chashma-i-Kausar" (not "hasma") is the "Fountain of Bounty", which Muslims believe to be located in Paradise. As for the Indian names, "Amrit Ras" means "immortality juice", "Maha Ras" means "great juice", and "Soma Ras" means "juice of Soma"; Soma was a psychoactive drug, by which the poets of the Vedas Veda received their visions, but the plant is not known any more. Later, Soma came to mean the moon. "Ras" later came to mean "sacred mood, which is experienced by listening to good poetry or music"; there are altogether nine of them. Mansarovar, the "mind lake" is the holy lake at the foot of Mt. Kailash in Tibet, close to the source of the Ganges.
Fountain of Youth Wikipedia.org
The Fountain of Youth is a legendary spring which was, supposedly, found in Florida USA by Juan Ponce de Leon, an explorer in the Renaissance. Tales of such a fountain, that restores the health and youth of anyone who bathes in its waters, have been recounted across the world for thousands of years, appearing in writings by Herodotus, the Alexander romance, and the stories of Prester John. Stories of a similar waters were also evidently prominent among the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean during the Age of Exploration, who spoke of the restorative powers of the water in the mythical land of Bimini.
The legend became particularly prominent in the 16th century, when it became attached to the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Len, first Governor of Puerto Rico. According to an apocryphal story that features a combination of New World and Eurasian elements, Ponce de Len was searching for the Fountain of Youth when he traveled to what is now Florida in 1513. Since then, the fountain has been frequently associated with Florida.
Early accounts
Herodotus mentions a fountain containing a very special kind of water located in the land of the Ethiopians, which gives the Ethiopians their exceptional longevity. A story of the "Water of Life" appears in the Eastern versions of the Alexander romance, which describes Alexander the Great and his servant crossing the Land of Darkness to find the restorative spring. The servant in that story is in turn derived from Middle Eastern legends of Al-Khidr, a sage who appears also in the Qur'an. Arabic and Aljamiado versions of the Alexander Romance were very popular in Spain during and after the period of Moorish rule, and would have been known to the explorers who journeyed to America. These earlier accounts clearly inspired the popular medieval fantasy The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, which also mentions the Fountain of Youth as located at the foot of a mountain outside Polombe (modern Kollam) in India. Due to the influence of these tales, the Fountain of Youth legend remained popular through the European Age of Exploration.
There are countless indirect sources for the tale as well. Eternal youth is a gift frequently sought in myth and legend, and stories of things such as the philosopher's stone, universal panaceas, and the elixir of life are common throughout Eurasia and elsewhere. An additional hint may have been taken from the account of the Pool of Bethesda in the Gospel of John, in which Jesus heals a man at the pool in Jerusalem.
Bimini
According to legend, the Spanish heard of Bimini from the Arawaks in Hispaniola, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. The Caribbean islanders described a mythical land of Beimeni or Beniny (whence Bimini), a land of wealth and prosperity, to the Spanish, which became conflated with the fountain legend. Although by the time of Ponce de Leon, the land was thought to be located in northwest towards the Bahamas (called la Vieja during the Ponce expedition), the natives were probably referring to the Maya. This land somehow also became confused with the Boinca or Boyuca mentioned by Juan de Solis, although Solis's navigational data placed it in the Gulf of Honduras. It was this Boinca that originally held a legendary fountain of youth, rather than Bimini itself. Sequene, an Arawak chief from Cuba, purportedly was unable to resist the lure of Bimini and its restorative fountain. He gathered a troupe of adventurers and sailed north, never to return. Word spread among Sequene's more optimistic tribesmen that he and his followers had located the Fountain of Youth and were living in luxury in Bimini.
Bimini and its curative waters were widespread subjects in the Caribbean. The Italian-born chronicler Peter Martyr told of them in a letter to the pope in 1513, though he didn't believe the stories and was dismayed that so many others did.
Ponce de Len and Florida
In the 16th century the story of the Fountain of Youth became attached to the biography of the conquistador Juan Ponce de Len. As attested by his royal charter, Ponce de Len was charged with discovering the land of Beniny. Although the Indians were probably describing the land of the Maya in Yucatan, the name and legends about Boinca's fountain of youth became associated with the Bahamas instead. However, Ponce de Len did not mention the fountain in any of his writings throughout the course of his expedition. While he may well have heard of the Fountain and believed in it, his name was not associated with the legend in writing until after his death.
The connection was made in Gonzalo Fernndez de Oviedo's Historia General y Natural de las Indias of 1535, in which he wrote that Ponce de Len was looking for the waters of Bimini to cure his impotence. Some researchers have suggested that Oviedo's account may have been politically inspired to generate favor in the courts. A similar account appears in Francisco Lpez de Gmara's Historia General de las Indias of 1551. In the Memoir of Hernando D'Escalante Fontaneda in 1575, the author places the restorative waters in Florida and mentions de Len looking for them there; his account influenced Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas' history of the Spanish in the New World. Fontaneda had spent seventeen years as an Indian captive after being shipwrecked in Florida as a boy. In his Memoir he tells of the curative waters of a lost river he calls "Jordan" and refers to de Len looking for them. However, Fontaneda makes it clear he is skeptical about these stories he includes, and says he doubts de Len was actually looking for the fabled stream when he came to Florida.
It is Herrera who makes that connection definite in the romanticized version of Fontaneda's story included in his Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos en las islas y tierra firme del Mar Oceano. Herrera states that local caciques paid regular visits to the fountain. A frail old man could become so completely restored that he could resume "all manly exercises take a new wife and beget more children." Herrera adds that the Spaniards had unsuccessfully searched every "river, brook, lagoon or pool" along the Florida coast for the legendary fountain. It would appear the Sequene story is likewise based on a garbling of Fontaneda.
Fountain of Youth National Archaeological Park
The city of St. Augustine, Florida is home to the Fountain of Youth National Archaeological Park, a tribute to the spot where Ponce de Len is traditionally said to have landed. The tourist attraction was created by Luella Day McConnell in 1904. "Diamond Lil", as she was known, fabricated stories to amuse and appall the citys residents and tourists until her death in 1927.
Though there is no evidence that the fountain located in the park today is the storied fountain or has any restorative effects, visitors drink the water. The park exhibits native and colonial artifacts to celebrate St. Augustine's Timucuan and Spanish heritage.
Author Charlie Carlson claims to have spoken with a supposed St. Augustine-based secret society claiming to be the protectors of the Fountain of Youth, which has granted them extraordinary longevity. They claimed Old John Gomez, a protagonist in the Gasparilla legend from Florida folklore, had been one of their members.
Other claims
In August 2006, popular American magician David Copperfield claimed he had discovered a true "Fountain of Youth" amid a cluster of four small islands in the Exuma chain of the Bahamas which he recently purchased for roughly $50 million. "I've discovered a true phenomenon," he told Reuters. "You can take dead leaves, they come in contact with the water, they become full of life again. Bugs or insects that are near death, come in contact with the water, they'll fly away. It's an amazing thing, very, very exciting." Copperfield, who turned 50 in September 2006, says that he hired scientists to conduct an examination of the "legendary" water, but as of now, the fountain remains off limits to outside visitors.
Holy Grail Wikipedia.org
The Holy Grail is a sacred object figuring in literature and certain Christian traditions, most often identified with the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper and said to possess miraculous powers. The connection of Joseph of Arimathea with the Grail legend dates from Robert de Boron's Joseph d'Arimathie (late 12th century) in which Joseph receives the Grail from an apparition of Jesus and sends it with his followers to Great Britain; building upon this theme, later writers recounted how Joseph used the Grail to catch Christ's blood while interring him and that in Britain he founded a line of guardians to keep it safe. The quest for the Holy Grail makes up an important segment of the Arthurian cycle, appearing first in works by Chrtien de Troyes. The legend may combine Christian lore with a Celtic myth of a cauldron endowed with special powers.
The Grail legend's development has been traced in detail by cultural historians: It is a legend which first came together in the form of written romances, deriving perhaps from some pre- Christian folklore hints, in the later 12th and early 13th centuries. The early Grail romances centred on Percival and were woven into the more general Arthurian fabric. Some of the Grail legend is interwoven with legends of the Holy Chalice.
Origins
Grail
The Grail plays a different role everywhere it appears, but in most versions of the legend the hero must prove himself worthy to be in its presence. In the early tales, Percival's immaturity prevents him from fulfilling his destiny when he first encounters the Grail, and he must grow spiritually and mentally before he can locate it again. In later tellings the Grail is a symbol of God's grace, available to all but only fully realized by those who prepare themselves spiritually, like the saintly Galahad.
Early forms
There are two veins of thought concerning the Grail's origin. The first, championed by Roger Sherman Loomis, Alfred Nutt, and Jessie Weston, holds that it derived from early Celtic myth and folklore. Loomis traced a number of parallels between Medieval Welsh literature and Irish material and the Grail romances, including similarities between the Mabinogion's Bran the Blessed and the Arthurian Fisher King, and between Bran's life-restoring cauldron and the Grail. On the other hand, some scholars believe the Grail began as a purely Christian symbol. For example, Joseph Goering of the University of Toronto has identified sources for Grail imagery in 12th century wall paintings from churches in the Catalan Pyrenees (now mostly removed to the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona), which present unique iconic images of the Virgin Mary holding a bowl that radiates tongues of fire, images that predate the first literary account by Chrtien de Troyes. Goering argues that they were the original inspiration for the Grail legend.
Another recent theory holds that the earliest stories that cast the Grail in a Christian light were meant to promote the Roman Catholic sacrament of the Holy Communion. Although the practice of Holy Communion was first alluded to in the Christian Bible and defined by theologians in the 1st centuries AD, it was around the time of the appearance of the first Christianized Grail literature that the Roman church was beginning to add more ceremony and mysticism around this particular sacrament. Thus, the first Grail stories may have been celebrations of a renewal in this traditional sacrament. This theory has some basis in the fact that the Grail legends are a phenomenon of the Western church.
In several articles, Daniel Scavone, professor Emeritus of history at the University of Southern Indiana, puts forward a hypothesis which identifies the Shroud of Turin as the real object that inspires the romances of the Holy Grail.
Most scholars today accept that both Christian and Celtic traditions contributed to the legend's development, though many of the early Celtic-based arguments are largely discredited (Loomis himself came to reject much of Weston and Nutt's work). The general view is that the central theme of the Grail is Christian, even when not explicitly religious, but that much of the setting and imagery of the early romances is drawn from Celtic material.
Etymology
The word graal, as it is earliest spelled, comes from Old French graal or greal, cognate with Old Provenal grazal and Old Catalan gresal, meaning "a cup or bowl of earth, wood, or metal" (or other various types of vessels in Southern French dialects). The most commonly accepted etymology derives it from Latin gradalis or gradale via an earlier form, cratalis, a derivative of crater or cratus which was, in turn, borrowed from Greek krater (a two-handed shallow cup). Alternate suggestions include a derivative of cratis, a name for a type of woven basket that came to refer to a dish, or a derivative of Latin gradus meaning "'by degree', 'by stages', applied to a dish brought to the table in different stages or services during a meal".
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, after the cycle of Grail romances was well established, late medieval writers came up with a false etymology for sangral, an alternative name for "Holy Grail." In Old French, san graal or san gral means "Holy Grail" and sang ral means "royal blood"; later writers played on this pun. Since then, "Sang real" is sometimes employed to lend a medievalizing air in referring to the Holy Grail. This connection with royal blood bore fruit in a modern bestseller linking many historical conspiracy theories
Conceptions of the Grail
The Grail was considered a bowl or dish when first described by Chrtien de Troyes. Hlinand of Froidmont described a grail as a "wide and deep saucer" (scutella lata et aliquantulum profunda). Other authors had their own ideas: Robert de Boron portrayed it as the vessel of the Last Supper; and Peredur had no Grail per se, presenting the hero instead with a platter containing his kinsman's bloody, severed head. In Parzival, Wolfram von Eschenbach, citing the authority of a certain (probably fictional) Kyot the Provenal, claimed the Grail was a stone that fell from Heaven (called lapsit exillis), and had been the sanctuary of the Neutral Angels who took neither side during Lucifer's rebellion. The authors of the Vulgate Cycle used the Grail as a symbol of divine grace. Galahad, illegitimate son of Lancelot and Elaine, the world's greatest knight and the Grail Bearer at the castle of Corbenic, is destined to achieve the Grail, his spiritual purity making him a greater warrior than even his illustrious father. Galahad and the interpretation of the Grail involving him were picked up in the 15th century by Sir Thomas Malory in Le Morte d'Arthur, and remain popular today.
Later legend
Belief in the Grail and interest in its potential whereabouts has never ceased. Ownership has been attributed to various groups (including the Knights Templar, probably because they were at the peak of their influence around the time that Grail stories started circulating in the 12th and 13th centuries).
There are cups claimed to be the Grail in several churches, for instance the Saint Mary of Valencia Cathedral, which contains an artifact, the Holy Chalice, supposedly taken by Saint Peter to Rome in the 1st century, and then to Huesca in Spain by Saint Lawrence in the 3rd century. According to legend, the monastery of San Juan de la Pea, located at the south-west of Jaca, in the province of Huesca, Spain, protected the chalice of the Last Supper from the Islamic invaders of the Iberian Peninsula. Archaeologists say the artifact is a 1st century Middle Eastern stone vessel, possibly from Antioch, Syria (now Turkey); its history can be traced to the 11th century, and it now rests atop an ornate stem and base, made in the Medieval era of alabaster, gold, and gemstones. It was the official papal chalice for many popes, and has been used by many others, most recently by Pope Benedict XVI, on July 9, 2006. The emerald chalice at Genoa, which was obtained during the Crusades at Caesarea Maritima at great cost, has been less championed as the Holy Grail since an accident on the road, while it was being returned from Paris after the fall of Napoleon, revealed that the emerald was green glass.
In Wolfram von Eschenbach's telling, the Grail was kept safe at the castle of Munsalvaesche (mons salvationis), entrusted to Titurel, the first Grail King. Some, not least the monks of Montserrat, have identified the castle with the real sanctuary of Montserrat in Catalonia, Spain. Other stories claim that the Grail is buried beneath Rosslyn Chapel or lies deep in the spring at Glastonbury Tor. Still other stories claim that a secret line of hereditary protectors keep the Grail, or that it was hidden by the Templars in Oak Island, Nova Scotia's famous "Money Pit", while local folklore in Accokeek, Maryland says that it was brought to the town by a closeted priest aboard Captain John Smith's ship. Turn of the century accounts state that Irish partisans of the Clan Dhuir (O'Dwyer, Dwyer) transported the Grail to the United States during the 19th Century and the Grail was kept by their descendents in secrecy in a small abbey in the upper-Northwest (now believed to be Southern Minnesota).
Holy Lance Wikipedia.org
The Holy Lance (also known as the Spear of Destiny, Holy Spear, Lance of Longinus, Spear of Longinus or Spear of Christ) is the name given to the lance that pierced Jesus' side as he hung on the cross in John's account of the Crucifixion.
Biblical references
The lance (Greek: longche) is mentioned only in the Gospel of John (19:3137) and not in any of the Synoptic Gospels. The gospel states that the Romans planned to break Jesus' legs, a practice known as crucifragium, which was a method of hastening death during a crucifixion. Just before they did so, they realized that Jesus was already dead and that there was no reason to break his legs. To make sure that he was dead, a Roman soldier (named in extra-Biblical tradition as Longinus) stabbed him in the side.
but one of the soldiers pierced his side with a lance (), and immediately there came out blood and water. (John 19:34)
The phenomenon of blood and water was considered a miracle by Origen. Catholics generally choose to employ a more allegorical interpretation: it represents one of the main key teachings/mysteries of the Church, and one of the main themes of the Gospel of Matthew, which is the homoousian interpretation adopted by the First Council of Nicaea, that "Jesus Christ was both true God and true man." The blood symbolizes his true humanity, the water his divinity. A ceremonial remembrance of this is done when a Catholic priest says Mass. The priest pours a small amount of water into the wine before the consecration, an act which acknowledges Christ's humanity and divinity and recalls the issuance of blood and water from Christ's side on the cross. Saint Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun whose advocacy and writings led to the establishment of the Divine Mercy devotion, also acknowledged the miraculous nature of the blood and water, explaining that the blood is a symbol of the divine mercy of Christ, while the water is a symbol of His divine compassion.
Longinus
The name of the soldier who pierced Christ's side with a longche is not given in the Gospel of John, but in the oldest known references to the legend, the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus appended to late manuscripts of the 4th century Acts of Pilate, the soldier is identified as a centurion and called Longinus (making the spear's "correct" Latin name Lancea Longini).
A form of the name Longinus occurs on a miniature in the Rabula Gospels (conserved in the Laurentian Library, Florence), which was illuminated by one Rabulas in the year 586. In the miniature, the name LOGINOS (C) is written in Greek characters above the head of the soldier who is thrusting his lance into Christ's side. This is one of the earliest records of the name, if the inscription is not a later addition.
Relics claimed to be the Holy Lance
There have been three or four major relics that are claimed to be the Holy Lance or parts of it. Vatican lance
A mitred Adhmar de Monteil carrying one of the instances of the Holy Lance in one of the battles of the First CrusadeNo actual lance is known until the pilgrim Antoninus of Piacenza (AD 570), describing the holy places of Jerusalem, says that he saw in the Basilica of Mount Zion "the crown of thorns with which Our Lord was crowned and the lance with which He was struck in the side". A mention of the lance occurs in the so-called Breviarius at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The presence in Jerusalem of the relic is attested by Cassiodorus (c. 485 c. 585) as well as by Gregory of Tours (c. 538 594), who had not actually been to Jerusalem.
In 615, Jerusalem and its relics were captured by the Persian forces of King Khosrau II (Chosroes II). According to the Chronicon Paschale, the point of the lance, which had been broken off, was given in the same year to Nicetas, who took it to Constantinople and deposited it in the church of Hagia Sophia, and later to the Church of the Virgin of the Pharos. This point of the lance, which was now set in an icon, was acquired by the Latin Emperor, Baldwin II of Constantinople, who later sold it to Louis IX of France. The point of the lance was then enshrined with the Crown of Thorns in the Sainte Chapelle in Paris. During the French Revolution these relics were removed to the Bibliothque Nationale but subsequently disappeared. (The present "Crown of Thorns" is a wreath of rushes.)
As for the larger portion of the lance, Arculpus claimed he saw it at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre around 670 in Jerusalem, but there is otherwise no mention of it after the sack in 615. Some claim that the larger relic had been conveyed to Constantinople in the 8th century, possibly at the same time as the Crown of Thorns. At any rate, its presence at Constantinople seems to be clearly attested by various pilgrims, particularly Russians, and, though it was deposited in various churches in succession, it seems possible to trace it and distinguish it from the relic of the point. Sir John Mandeville declared in 1357 that he had seen the blade of the Holy Lance both at Paris and at Constantinople, and that the latter was a much larger relic than the former; it is worth adding that Mandeville is not generally regarded as one of the Middle Ages' most reliable witnesses, and his supposed travels are usually treated as an eclectic amalgam of myths, legends and other fictions. "The lance which pierced Our Lord's side" was among the relics at Constantinople shown in the 1430s to Pedro Tafur, who added "God grant that in the overthrow of the Greeks they have not fallen into the hands of the enemies of the Faith, for they will have been ill-treated and handled with little reverence."
Whatever the Constantinople relic was, it did fall into the hands of the Turks, and in 1492, under circumstances minutely described in Pastor's History of the Popes, the Sultan Bayazid II sent it to Innocent VIII to encourage the pope to continue to keep his brother and rival Zizim (Cem) prisoner. At this time great doubts as to its authenticity were felt at Rome, as Johann Burchard records, because of the presence of other rival lances in Paris (the point that had been separated from the lance), Nuremberg (see "Vienna lance" below), and Armenia (see "Echmiadzin lance" below). In the mid-18th century Benedict XIV states that he obtained from Paris an exact drawing of the point of the lance, and that in comparing it with the larger relic in St. Peter's he was satisfied that the two had originally formed one blade. This relic has never since left Rome, where it is preserved under the dome of Saint Peter's Basilica, although the Church makes no claim as to its authenticity.
Echmiadzin lance
A Holy Lance (in Armenian Geghard) is now conserved in Ejmiadzin, the religious capital of Armenia. The first source that mentions it is a text "Holy Relics of Our Lord Jesus Christ", in a thirteenth century Armenian manuscript. According to this text, the spear which pierced Jesus was to have been brought to Armenia by the apostle Thaddeus. The manuscript does not specify precisely where it is kept, but the Holy Lance gives a description that exactly matches the lance, the monastery gate, since the thirteenth century precisely, the name of Geghardavank (Monastery of the Holy Lance).
In 1655 the French traveler Jean-Baptiste Tavernier was the first Westerner to see this relic in Armenia. In 1805, the Russians took the monastery and the relic was moved to Tchitchanov Geghard Tbilisi (Georgia). It was later returned to Armenia at Ejmiadzin, where it is always visible to the museum Manougian, enshrined in a reliquary of the seventeenth century.
This Ejmiadzin Lance has never been a weapon. Rather, it is the point of a sigillum, perhaps Byzantine, with a diamond-shaped iron openwork Greek cross. Is this the Holy Lance of Antioch discovered by Pierre Barthelemy? That is a certain assumption: the relic of the Crusaders lost chronicles a century before the Geghard appears in Armenian sources.
Vienna Lance (Hofburg spear)
The Holy Roman Emperors had a lance of their own, attested from the time of Otto I (912-973). In 1000 Otto III gave Boleslaw I of Poland a replica of the Lance at the Congress of Gniezno. In 1084 Henry IV had a silver band with the inscription "Nail of Our Lord" added to it. This was based on the belief that this was the lance of Constantine the Great which enshrined a nail used for the Crucifixion. In 1273 it was first used in the coronation ceremony. Around 1350 Charles IV had a golden sleeve put over the silver one, inscribed "Lancea et clavus Domini" (Lance and nail of the Lord). In 1424 Sigismund had a collection of relics, including the lance, moved from his capital in Prague to his birth place, Nuremberg, and decreed them to be kept there forever. This collection was called the Reichskleinodien or Imperial Regalia.
When the French Revolutionary army approached Nuremberg in the spring of 1796 the city councilors decided to remove the Reichskleinodien to Vienna for safe keeping. The collection was entrusted to one "Baron von Hgel", who promised to return the objects as soon as peace had been restored and the safety of the collection assured. However, the Holy Roman Empire was disbanded in 1806 and the Reichskleinodien remained in the keeping of the Habsburgs. When the city councilors asked for the Reichskleinodien back, they were refused. As part of the imperial regalia it was kept in the Imperial Treasury Schatzkammer (Vienna) and was known as the lance of Saint Maurice.
During the Anschluss, when Austria was annexed to Germany, the Reichskleinodien were returned to Nuremberg and afterwards hidden. They were found by invading U.S. troops and returned to Austria by American General George S. Patton after World War II.
Dr. Robert Feather, an English metallurgist and technical engineering writer, tested the lance for a documentary in January 2003. He was given unprecedented permission not only to examine the lance in a laboratory environment, but was allowed to remove the delicate bands of gold and silver that hold it together. In the opinion of Feather and other academic experts, the likeliest date of the spearhead is the 7th century A.D. only slightly earlier than the Museum's own estimate. However, Dr. Feather stated in the same documentary that an iron pin long claimed to be a nail from the crucifixion, hammered into the blade and set off by tiny brass crosses is "consistent" in length and shape with a 1st century A.D. Roman nail. According to Paul the Deacon, the Lombard royal line bore the name of the Gungingi, which Karl Hauck and Stefano Gasparri maintain identified them with the name of Odins lance, Gungnir (a sign that they probably claimed descent from Odin, as did most of the Germanic royal lines) Paul the Deacon notes that the inauguration rite of a Lombard king consisted essentially of his grasping of a sacred/royal lance. Milan, which had been the capital of the Western Roman Empire in the time of Constantine, was the capital of the Lombard kings Perctarit and his son Cunipert, who became Catholic Christians in the 7th century. Thus it seems possible that the iron point of the Lombardic royal lance might have been recast in the 7th century in order to enshrine one of the 1st century Roman nails that St. Helena was reputed to have found at Calvary and brought to Milan, thus giving a new Christian sacred aura to the old pagan royal lance. If Charlemagnes inauguration as the King of the Lombards in 774 had likewise included his grasping of this now-Christianized sacred or royal lance, this would explain how it would have eventually become the oldest item in the German imperial regalia. The Iron Crown of Lombardy (dated to the 8th century), which eventually became the primary symbol of Lombardic kingship, takes its name from the tradition that it contains one of the holy nails. Gregory of Tours in his Libri Historiarum VII, 33, states that in 585 the Merovingian king Guntram designated his nephew Childebert II his heir by handing him his lance, it is possible that a royal lance was a symbol of kingship among the Merovingian kings and that a nail from Calvary was in the 7th century incorporated into this royal lance and thus eventually would have come into the German imperial regalia.
Other lances
Another lance has been preserved at Krakow, Poland, since at least the 13th century. However, German records indicate that it was a copy of the Vienna lance. Emperor Henry II had it made with a small sliver of the original lance. Another copy was given to the Hungarian king at the same time.
The story told by William of Malmesbury of the giving of the Holy Lance to King Athelstan of England by Hugh Capet seems to be due to a misconception.
Modern legends
Richard Wagner
In his opera Parsifal, Richard Wagner identifies the Holy Spear with two items that appear in Wolfram von Eschenbach's medieval poem Parzival, a bleeding spear in the Castle of the Grail and the spear that has wounded the Fisher King. The opera's plot concerns the consequences of the spear's loss by the Knights of the Grail and its recovery by Parsifal. Having decided that the blood on the Spear was that of the wounded Saviour Christ is never named in the opera Wagner has the blood manifest itself in the Grail rather than on the spearhead.
Trevor Ravenscroft
The "Spear of Destiny" is a name given to the Holy Lance in various accounts that attribute mystical powers to it. Many of these have originated in recent times, and several popular New Age and conspiracy theory books have popularized the legend of the Spear.
Trevor Ravenscroft's 1973 book, The Spear of Destiny (as well as a later book, The Mark of the Beast), claims that Adolf Hitler started World War II in order to capture the spear, with which he was obsessed. At the end of the war the spear came into the hands of US General George Patton. According to legend, losing the spear would result in death, and that was fulfilled when Hitler committed suicide.
Ravenscroft repeatedly attempted to define the mysterious "powers" that the legend says the spear serves. He found it to be a hostile and evil spirit, which he sometimes referred to as the Antichrist, though that is open to interpretation. He never actually referred to the spear as spiritually controlled, but rather as intertwined with all of mankind's ambitions.
Howard Buechner
Dr. Howard A. Buechner, M.D., professor of medicine at Tulane and then Louisiana State University, wrote two books on the spear. Buechner was a retired colonel with the U.S. Army who served in World War II and had written a book about the Dachau massacre. He claims he was contacted by a former U-boat submariner, the pseudonymous Capt. Wilhelm Bernhart, who claimed the spear currently on display in Vienna is a fake. "Bernhart" said the real spear was sent by Hitler to Antarctica along with other Nazi treasures, under the command of Col. Maximilian Hartmann. In 1979 Hartmann allegedly recovered the treasures. Bernhart presented Buechner with the log from this expedition as well as pictures of the objects recovered, claiming that after the Spear of Destiny was recovered, it was hidden somewhere in Europe by a Nazi secret society. After contacting most of the members of the alleged expedition and others involved, including Hitler Youth Leader Artur Axmann, Buechner became convinced the claims were true.
Holy Prepuce Wikipedia.org
The Holy Prepuce, or Holy Foreskin (Latin prputium or prepucium) is one of several relics attributed to Jesus, a product of the circumcision of Jesus.
At various points in history, a number of churches in Europe have claimed to possess Jesus' foreskin, sometimes at the same time. Various miraculous powers have been ascribed to it.
History and rival claims
All Jewish boys are required by Jewish religious law to be circumcised on the eighth day following their birth; the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ, still celebrated by many churches around the world, accordingly falls on January 1. Luke 2:21 (King James Version), reads: "And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb." The first reference to the survival of Christ's severed foreskin comes in the second chapter of the apocryphal Arabic Infancy Gospel which contains the following story:
1. And when the time of his circumcision was come, namely, the eighth day, on which the law commanded the child to be circumcised, they circumcised him in a cave. 2. And the old Hebrew woman took the foreskin (others say she took the navel-string), and preserved it in an alabaster-box of old oil of spikenard. 3. And she had a son who was a druggist, to whom she said, "Take heed thou sell not this alabaster box of spikenard-ointment, although thou shouldst be offered three hundred pence for it." 4. Now this is that alabaster-box which Mary the sinner procured, and poured forth the ointment out of it upon the head and feet of our Lord Jesus Christ, and wiped it off with the hairs of her head.
Foreskin relics began appearing in Europe during the Middle Ages. The earliest recorded sighting came on December 25, 800, when Charlemagne gave it to Pope Leo III when the latter crowned the former Emperor. Charlemagne claimed that it had been brought to him by an angel while he prayed at the Holy Sepulchre, although a more prosaic report says it was a wedding gift from the Byzantine Empress Irene. The Pope placed it into the Sanctum sanctorum in the Lateran basilica in Rome with other relics. Its authenticity was later considered to be confirmed by a vision of Saint Bridget of Sweden. The foreskin was then looted during the Sack of Rome in 1527. The German soldier who stole it was captured in the village of Calcata, 47 km north of Rome, later the same year. Thrown into prison, he hid the jeweled reliquary in his cell, where it remained until its rediscovery in 1557. Many miracles (freak storms and perfumed fog overwhelming the village) are claimed to have followed. Housed in Calcata, it was venerated from that time onwards, with the Church approving the authenticity by offering a ten-year indulgence to pilgrims. Pilgrims, nuns and monks flocked to the church. "Calcata was a must-see destination on the pilgrimage map." The foreskin was reported stolen by a local priest in 1983.
According to the author David Farley, "Depending on what you read, there were eight, twelve, fourteen, or even 18 different holy foreskins in various European towns during the Middle Ages." In addition to the Holy Foreskin of Rome (later Calcata), other claimants included the Cathedral of Le Puy-en-Velay, Santiago de Compostela, the city of Antwerp, Coulombs in the diocese of Chartres, France as well as Chartres itself, and churches in Besanon, Newport, Metz, Hildesheim, Charroux, Conques, Langres, Fcamp, Stoke-on-Trent, Calcata, and two in Auvergne.
One of the most famous prepuces arrived in Antwerp in the Brabant in 1100 as a gift from king Baldwin I of Jerusalem, who purchased it in Palestine in the course of the first crusade. This prepuce became famous when the bishop of Cambray, during the celebration of the Mass, saw three drops of blood blotting the linens of the altar. A special chapel was constructed and processions organised in honour of the miraculous relic, which became the goal of pilgrimages. In 1426 a brotherhood was founded in the cathedral "van der heiliger Besnidenissen ons liefs Heeren Jhesu Cristi in onser liever Vrouwen Kercke t' Antwerpen"; its 24 members were all abbots and prominent laymen. The relic disappeared in 1566, but the chapel still exists, decorated by two stained glass windows donated by king Henry VII of England and his wife Elizabeth of York in 1503.
The abbey of Charroux claimed the Holy Foreskin was presented to the monks by Charlemagne. In the early 12th century, it was taken in procession to Rome where it was presented before Pope Innocent III, who was asked to rule on its authenticity. The Pope declined the opportunity. At some point, however, the relic went missing, and remained lost until 1856 when a workman repairing the abbey claimed to have found a reliquary hidden inside a wall, containing the missing foreskin. The rediscovery, however, led to a theological clash with the established Holy Prepuce of Calcata, which had been officially venerated by the Church for hundreds of years; in 1900, the Roman Catholic Church resolved the dilemma by ruling that anyone thenceforward writing or speaking of the Holy Prepuce would be excommunicated. In 1954, after much debate, the punishment was changed to the harsher degree of excommunication, vitandi (shunned); and the Second Vatican Council later removed the Day of the Holy Circumcision from the Latin church calendar, although Eastern Catholics and Traditional Roman Catholics still celebrate the Feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord on January 1.
Modern practices
Most of the Holy Prepuces were lost or destroyed during the Reformation and the French Revolution.
The Holy Prepuce of Calcata is worthy of special mention, as the reliquary containing the Holy Foreskin was paraded through the streets of this Italian village as recently as 1983 on the Feast of the Circumcision, which was formerly marked by the Roman Catholic Church around the world on January 1 each year. The practice ended, however, when thieves stole the jewel- encrusted case, contents and all. Following this theft, it is unclear whether any of the purported Holy Prepuces still exist. In a 1997 television documentary for Channel 4, British journalist Miles Kington travelled to Italy in search of the Holy Foreskin, but was unable to find any remaining example. Lincoln Imp
Famous carved stone DEMON on a column in the Angel Choir at Lincoln Cathedral in Lincoln, England. According to lore, a rampaging demon was turned to stone there by an angel. The cathedral, once the tallest structure in the world, dates to the 11th century. The Angel Choir was consecrated in 1280.
There are different versions of the legend. One version tells in rhyme that one day the devil was in good spirits and let his young demons out to play. One rode on the wind to Lindum (Lincoln) and ordered the wind to take him into the church, intending to wreak havoc there. The wind demurred and dropped him off outside. The imp entered the church and set about tearing and breaking things, especially in the Angel Choir. Spying angels, the imp boasted,
Pretty things, A sackful of feathers Ill pluck from your wings To make me a couch when Im tired of this joke.
At that, the tiniest angel with amethyst eyes and hair of spun gold rose up before the altar and declared, O impious Imp, be ye turned into stone! The imp immediately was turned to stone and frozen on a column high above the choir.
The legend goes on to make points about several morals of the story: Dont meddle in the affairs of the church; dont play tricks on the clergy; dont chum with low people, and dont be clever but seek to be good. About angels, the legend says,
To angelswhen metbe extremely polite, Attentions too forward theyll keenly requite; Dont ruffle their feathers: just let them alone, Else, if youre converted, twill be into stone.
Another version says that in the 14th century the devil sent two imps out to make mischief. First they went to Chesterfield and twisted the spire of the church there. Then they went to Lincoln Cathedral. They tripped the bishop and smashed tables and chairs. They set about destroying the Angel Choir. An angel immediately appeared and told them to stop. One of the imps defiantly flew up to a stone pillar and began to throw heavy objects at the angel. The angel turned him into stone, leaving him there forever. The second imp hid in the wreckage and made his escape by latching onto the broomstick of a passing witch. The witch turned him into a black cat for companionship. This part of the legend explains why all witches are portrayed with black cats on their broomsticks.
The grinning imp is carved in a seated position with one leg crossed over the other. He is associated with both good luck and bad luck. The imp has been used in jewelry and even worn by royalty. In 1928 the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII) was given an Imp tie pin. It was noted that the next year two of his horses won major races, the Grand National and the Epsom Derby.
FURTHER READING
Kesson, H. J. The Legend of the Lincoln Imp. Lincoln: J. W. Ruddock and Sons, 1904.
The Real Story of the Lincoln Imp. Available online. URL: http://www.theimp.lincolnfans.co.uk/lincoln.shtml. Downloaded August 5, 2002.
Mjlnir
In Norse mythology, Mjlnir (play / mjlnr/ or / mjlnr/ myol-n(ee)r; also Mjlnir, Mjollnir, Mjlner or Mjlner) is the hammer of Thor, a major god associated with thunder in Norse mythology. Distinctively shaped, Mjlnir is depicted in Norse mythology as one of the most fearsome weapons, capable of leveling mountains. Though generally recognized and depicted as a hammer, Mjlnir is sometimes referred to as an axe or club. In the 13th century Prose Edda, Snorri Sturluson relates that the Svartlfar Sindri, the brother of Brokkr, made Mjllnir while in a contest with Loki to see who could make the most wonderful and useful items for the Gods and Goddesses in Asgard
Drawing of a 4.6 cm gold-plated silver Mjlnir pendant found at Bredstra in land, Sweden. The original is housed at the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities.
The Prose Edda gives a summary of Mjlnir's special qualities in that, with Mjlnir, Thor:
... would be able to strike as firmly as he wanted, whatever his aim, and the hammer would never fail, and if he threw it at something, it would never miss and never fly so far from his hand that it would not find its way back, and when he wanted, it would be so small that it could be carried inside his tunic.
Etymology
"The third giftan enormous hammer" (1902) by Elmer Boyd Smith.
Mjlnir simply means "crusher", referring to its pulverizing effect. Mjlnir might be related to the Russian word (molniya) and the Welsh word mellt (both words being translated as "lightning"). This second theory parallels with the idea that Thor, being a god of thunder, therefore might have used lightning as his weapon. It is related to words such as the Icelandic verbs mlva ("to crush") and mala ("to grind"), and Swedish noun mjl ("flour"), all related to English meal, mill, and miller. Similar words, all stemming from the Proto-Indo-European root *mel, can be found in almost all European languages, e.g. the Slavic melevo ("grain to be ground") and molot ("hammer"), the Russian (molot"hammer"), the Greek (mylos"mill"), the Spanish moler ("to grind"), and the Latin malleus "hammer", from which English mallet derives, as well as the Latin mola ("mill").
Attestations Prose Edda
The most popular version of the creation of Mjlnir myth, found in Skldskaparml from Snorri's Edda, is as follows. In one story Loki sends up to the dwarves called the Sons of Ivaldi that create precious items for the gods: Odin's spear Gungnir, and Freyr's foldable boat Skblanir. Then Loki bets his head that the two Dwarves, Sindri (or Eitri) and his brother Brokkr would never succeed in making items more beautiful than those of Ivaldi's sons. The bet is accepted and the two brothers begin working. Thus Eitri puts a pig's skin in the forge and tells his brother (Brokkr) never to stop blowing until he comes and takes out what he put in.
Loki, in disguise as a fly, comes and bites Brokkr on the arm but he continues to blow. Then Eitri takes out Gullinbursti which is Freyr's boar with shining bristles. Then Eitri puts some gold in the furnace and gives Brokkr the same order. Loki in the fly guise comes again and bites Brokkr's neck twice as hard. But as before nothing happens and Eitri takes out Draupnir, Odin's ring, having duplicates falling from itself every ninth night.
Drawing of hammer depicted on runic inscription S 86 located in by, Uppland, Sweden.
Eitri then puts iron in the forge and tells Brokkr to never stop blowing. Loki comes again and bites Brokkr on the eyelid much harder than before and the blood makes him stop blowing for a short while. When Eitri comes and takes out Mjllnir, the handle is a bit short (making it one handed). Eitri and Brokkr win the bet, which was Loki's head. However, the bet cannot be honoured, since they need to cut the neck as well, which was not part of the deal. As a result, Brokkr sews Loki's mouth to teach him a lesson.
Poetic Edda
Thor possessed a formidable chariot, which is drawn by two goats, Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjstr. A belt, Megingjr, and iron gloves, Jrngreipr, were used to lift Mjlnir. Mjlnir is the focal point of some of Thor's adventures.
This is clearly illustrated in a poem found in the Poetic Edda titled rymskvia. The myth relates that the giant, rymr, steals Mjlnir from Thor and then demands the goddess Freyja in exchange. Loki, the god notorious for his duplicity, conspires with the other sir to recover Mjlnir by disguising Thor as Freyja and presenting him as the "goddess" to rymr.
At a banquet rymr holds in honor of the impending union, rymr takes the bait. Unable to contain his passion for his new maiden with long, blond locks (and broad shoulders), as rymr approaches the bride by placing Mjlnir on "her" lap, Thor rips off his disguise and destroys rymr and his giant cohorts.
Archaeological record Emblemic pendants Hammer-shaped silver amulet found in Fitjar, Hordaland, Norway.
Myths, artifacts, and institutions revolving around Thor indicate his prominent place in the mind of medieval Scandinavians. His following ranged in influence, but the Viking warrior aristocracy were particularly inspired by Thor's ferocity in battle. In the medieval legal arena, according to Joseph Campbell, "And at the Icelandic Things (court assemblies) the god invoked in testimony of oaths, as 'the Almighty God,' was Thor."
Emblematic of their devotion were the appearance of miniature replicas of Mjllnir, widely popular in Scandinavia.
Many of these replicas were also found in graves and tended to be furnished with a loop, allowing them to be worn. Mjlnir amulets were most widely discovered in areas with a strong Christian influence including southern Norway, south-eastern Sweden, and Denmark. Due to the similarity of equal-armed, square crosses featuring figures of Christ on them at around the same time, the wearing of Thor's hammers as pendants may have come into fashion in defiance of the square amulets worn by newly converted Christians in the regions.
The shape taken by these pendants varied by region. The Icelandic variant was cross-shaped, while Swedish and Norwegian variants tended to be arrow or T-shaped. About 50 specimens of such hammers were found widely dispersed throughout Scandinavia, dating from the 9th to 11th centuries. A few such examples were also found in England. An iron Thor's hammer pendant excavated in Yorkshire, dating to ca. AD 1000 bears an unical inscription preceded and followed by a cross, interpreted as indicating a Christian owner syncretizing pagan and Christian symbolism. A 10th century soapstone mold found at Trendgrden, Jutland, Denmark is notable for allowing the casting of both crucifix and Thor's hammer pendants. A silver specimen found near Fossi, Iceland (now in the National Museum of Iceland) can be interpreted as either a Christian cross or a Thor's hammer. Unusually, the elongated limb of the cross ends in a beast's (perhaps a wolf's) head.
A precedent of these Viking Age Thor's hammer amulets are recorded for the migration period Alemanni, who took to wearing Roman "Hercules' Clubs" as symbols of Donar. A possible remnant of these Donar amulets was recorded in 1897, as a custom of Unterinn (South Tyrolian Alps) of incising a T-shape above front doors for protection against evils of all kinds, especially storms.
Stones The Stenkvista runestone in Sdermanland, Sweden, shows Thor's hammer instead of a cross.
Some image stones and runestones found in Denmark and southern Sweden bear an inscription of a hammer. Runestones depicting Thor's hammer include runestones U 1161 in Altuna, S 86 in by, S 111 in Stenkvista, S 140 in Jursta, Vg 113 in Lrkegapet, l 1 in Karlevi, DR 26 in Laeborg, DR 48 in Hanning, DR 120 in Spentrup, and DR 331 in Grdstnga. Other runestones included an inscription calling for Thor to safeguard the stone. For example, the stone of Virring in Denmark had the inscription ur uiki isi kuml, which translates into English as "May Thor hallow this memorial." There are several examples of a similar inscription, each one asking for Thor to "hallow" or protect the specific artifact. Such inscriptions may have been in response to the Christians, who would ask for God's protection over their dead.
Swastika symbol
According to some scholars, the swastika shape may have been a variant popular in Anglo- Saxon England prior to Christianization, especially in East Anglia and Kent. Wilson (1894) points out that while the swastika had been "vulgarly called in Scandinavia the hammer of Thor", the symbol properly so called had a Y or T shape.
Modern usage
Many practitioners of Germanic Neopagan faiths wear Mjllnir pendants as a symbol of that faith worldwide. Renditions of Mjllnir are designed, crafted and sold by some Germanic Neopagan groups and individuals. Some controversy has occurred concerning the potential recognition of the symbol as a religious symbol by the United States government.
A modern Mjllnir pendant. The coat of arms of the Torss Municipality, Sweden features a depiction of Mjllnir.
Outside of Germanic Neopaganism, depictions of Mjllnir are used in Scandinavian logos and iconography, such as the Mjllnir logo of the Bornholm Museum in Denmark and the coat of arms for Torss Municipality, Sweden. Mjllnir pendants are popular in general in Scandinavia and can be seen elsewhere in heavy metal (especially Black metal and Viking metal) and "Dark" subcultures, and, to a lesser extent, among Rockers and biker subcultures. Also Mjolnir is the name of the armor that Master Chief wears in the Halo series.
*Noahs Ark
So prevalent is the belief that Noah's Ark can be located on the slope of the tallest mountain in Turkey, Agri Dagi (Mt. Ararat), that some travel agencies include participation in expeditions to search for the ark as part of tour packages to Turkey. Several ark sightings on Mt. Ararat occurred during the twentieth century. During a thaw in the summer of 1916, a Russian Imperial Air Force lieutenant flying over Mt. Ararat reported seeing half the hull of some sort of ship poking out above surface of a lake. A photograph taken in 1972 by the Earth Research Technical Satellite (ERTS) is said to reveal an unusual feature at 14,000 feet on Mt. Ararat. It was reported to be the same size as the Ark. In the 1980s, former NASA astronaut James Irwin participated in expeditions up the mountain, but he found only the remnants of abandoned skis. With the breakup of the former Soviet Union, expeditions up the mountain intensified during the 1990s, and the search for Noah's Ark continues.
Pied Piper of Hamelin Wikipedia.org
The Pied Piper of Hamelin (German: Rattenfnger von Hameln) is the subject of a legend concerning the departure or death of a great many children from the town of Hamelin (Hameln), Lower Saxony, Germany, in the Middle Ages. The earliest references describe a piper, dressed in pied (multicolored) clothing, leading the children away from the town never to return. In the 16th century the story was expanded into a full narrative, in which the piper is a rat-catcher hired by the town to lure rats away with his magic pipe. When the citizenry refuses to pay for this service, he retaliates by turning his magic on their children, leading them away as he had the rats. This version of the story spread as a fairy tale. This version has also appeared in the writings of, among others, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the Brothers Grimm and Robert Browning.
The Pied Piper leads the children out of Hamelin. Illustration by Kate Greenaway.
The story may reflect a historical event in which Hamelin lost its children. Theories have been proposed suggesting that the Pied Piper is a symbol of the children's death by plague or catastrophe. Other theories liken him to figures like Nicholas of Cologne, who is said to have lured away a great number of children on a disastrous Children's Crusade. A recent theory ties the departure of Hamelin's children to the Ostsiedlung, in which a number of Germans left their homes to colonize Eastern Europe. It is also a story about paying those who are due
Plot
In 1284, while the town of Hamelin was suffering from a rat infestation, a man dressed in pied clothing appeared, claiming to be a rat-catcher. He promised the townsmen a solution for their problem with the rats. The townsmen in turn promised to pay him for the removal of the rats. The man accepted, and played a musical pipe to lure the rats with a song into the Weser River, where all but one drowned. Despite his success, the people reneged on their promise and refused to pay the rat-catcher the full amount of money. The man left the town angrily, but vowed to return some time later, seeking revenge.
On Saint John and Paul's day while the inhabitants were in church, he played his pipe yet again, dressed in green, like a hunter, this time attracting the children of Hamelin. One hundred and thirty boys and girls followed him out of the town, where they were lured into a cave and never seen again. Depending on the version, at most three children remained behind. One of the children was lame and could not follow quickly enough, the second was deaf and followed the other children out of curiosity, and the last was blind and unable to see where they were going. These three informed the villagers of what had happened when they came out of church.
Another version relates that the Pied Piper led the children into following him to the top of Koppelberg Hill, where he took them to a beautiful land and had his wicked way, or a place called Koppenberg Mountain. This version states that the Piper returned the children after payment, or that he returned the children after the villagers paid several times the original amount of gold.
History
The earliest mention of the story seems to have been on a stained glass window placed in the Church of Hamelin c. 1300. The window was described in several accounts between the 14th century and the 17th century. It was destroyed in 1660. Based on the surviving descriptions, a modern reconstruction of the window has been created by Hans Dobbertin (historian). It features the colorful figure of the Pied Piper and several figures of children dressed in white.
This window is generally considered to have been created in memory of a tragic historical event for the town. Also, Hamelin town records start with this event. The earliest written record is from the town chronicles in an entry from 1384 which states:
It is 100 years since our children left.
Although research has been conducted for centuries, no explanation for the historical event is agreed upon. In any case, the rats were first added to the story in a version from c. 1559 and are absent from earlier accounts. Natural causes
A number of theories suggest that children died of some natural causes and that the Piper was a symbolic figure of Death. Death is often portrayed dressed in motley, or "pied" clothing. Analogous themes which are associated with this theory include the Dance of Death, Totentanz or Danse Macabre, a common medieval type. Some of the scenarios that have been suggested as fitting this theory include that the children drowned in the river Weser, were killed in a landslide, or contracted some disease during an epidemic.
Others have suggested that the children left Hamelin to be part of a pilgrimage, a military campaign, or even a new Children's crusade (which is said to have occurred in 1212, not long before) but never returned to their parents. These theories see the unnamed Piper as their leader or a recruiting agent.
William Manchester's A World Lit Only by Fire proposes that the Pied Piper was a psychopathic pedophile.
Emigration theory
Added speculation on the migration is based on the idea that by the 13th century the area had too many people resulting in the oldest son owning all the land and power (majorat), leaving the rest as serfs. The Black Death later destroyed that imbalance. In any case, the motivation to leave was high and very much like the motivation for emigration to America in the 18th century i.e. freedom, opportunity, and land.
It has also been suggested that one reason the emigration of the children was never documented was that the children were sold to a recruiter from the Baltic region of Eastern Europe, a practice that was not uncommon at the time. In her essay Pied Piper Revisited, Sheila Harty states that surnames from the region settled are similar to those from Hamelin and that selling off illegitimate children, orphans or other children the town could not support is the more likely explanation. She states further that this may account for the lack of records of the event in the town chronicles. In his book, The Pied Piper: A Handbook, Wolfgang Mieder states that historical documents exist showing that people from the area including Hamelin did help settle parts of Transylvania. Transylvania had suffered under lengthy Mongol invasions of Central Europe, led by two grandsons of Genghis Khan and which date from around the time of the earliest appearance of the legend of the piper, the early 13th Century.
In the version of the legend posted on the official website for the town of Hameln, another aspect of the emigration theory is presented:
Among the various interpretations, reference to the colonization of East Europe starting from Low Germany is the most plausible one: The "Children of Hameln" would have been in those days citizens willing to emigrate being recruited by landowners to settle in Moravia, East Prussia, Pomerania or in the Teutonic Land. It is assumed that in past times all people of a town were referred to as "children of the town" or "town children" as is frequently done today. The "Legend of the children's Exodus" was later connected to the "Legend of expelling the rats". This most certainly refers to the rat plagues being a great threat in the medieval milling town and the more or less successful professional rat catchers.
This version states that "children" may simply have referred to residents of Hameln who chose to emigrate and not necessarily to youths.
Historian Ursula Sautter, citing the work of Linguist Jurgen Udolph, offers this hypothesis in support of the emigration theory:
"After the defeat of the Danes at the Battle of Bornhoved in 1227," explains Udolph, "the region south of the Baltic Sea, which was then inhabited by Slavs, became available for colonization by the Germans." The bishops and dukes of Pomerania, Brandenburg, Uckermark and Prignitz sent out glib "locators," medieval recruitment officers, offering rich rewards to those who were willing to move to the new lands. Thousands of young adults from Lower Saxony and Westphalia headed east. And as evidence, about a dozen Westphalian place names show up in this area. Indeed there are five villages called Hindenburg running in a straight line from Westphalia to Pomerania, as well as three eastern Spiegelbergs and a trail of etymology from Beverungen south of Hamelin to Beveringen northwest of Berlin to Beweringen in modern Poland.
Udolph favors the hypothesis that the Hamelin youths wound up in what is now Poland. Genealogist Dick Eastman cited Udolph's research on Hamelin surnames that have shown up in Polish phonebooks:
Linguistics professor Jurgen Udolph says that 130 children did vanish on a June day in the year 1284 from the German village of Hamelin (Hameln in German). Udolph entered all the known family names in the village at that time and then started searching for matches elsewhere. He found that the same surnames occur with amazing frequency in Priegnitz and Uckermark, both north of Berlin. He also found the same surnames in the former Pomeranian region, which is now a part of Poland. Udolph surmises that the children were actually unemployed youths who had been sucked into the German drive to colonize its new settlements in Eastern Europe. The Pied Piper may never have existed as such, but, says the professor, "There were characters known as Lokator who roamed northern Germany trying to recruit settlers for the East." Some of them were brightly dressed, and all were silver-tongued. Professor Udolph can show that the Hamelin exodus should be linked with the Battle of Bornhoeved in 1227 which broke the Danish hold on Eastern Europe. That opened the way for German colonization, and by the latter part of the thirteenth century there were systematic attempts to bring able-bodied youths to Brandenburg and Pomerania. The settlement, according to the professor's name search, ended up near Starogard in what is now northwestern Poland. A village near Hamelin, for example, is called Beverungen and has an almost exact counterpart called Beveringen, near Pritzwalk, north of Berlin and another called Beweringen, near Starogard. Local Polish telephone books list names that are not the typical Slavic names one would expect in that region. Instead, many of the names seem to be derived from German names that were common in the village of Hamelin in the thirteenth century. In fact, the names in today's Polish telephone directories include Hamel, Hamler and Hamelnikow, all apparently derived from the name of the original village.
Fourteenth-century Decan Lude chorus book
Decan Lude of Hamelin was reported, c. 1384, to have in his possession a chorus book containing a Latin verse giving an eyewitness account of the event. The verse was reportedly written by his grandmother. This chorus book is believed to have been lost since the late 17th century. The odd-looking name 'Decan Lude' may possibly indicate a priest holding the position of Dean (Latin: decanus, modern German: Dekan or Dechant) whose name was Ludwig; but as yet he has proved impossible to trace.
Fifteenth-century Lueneburg manuscript
The Lueneburg manuscript (c. 144050) gives an early German account of the event:
Anno 1284 am dage Johannis et Pauli war der 26. junii Dorch einen piper mit allerlei farve bekledet gewesen CXXX kinder verledet binnen Hamelen gebo[re]n to calvarie bi den koppen verloren
In the year of 1284, on the day of Saints John and Paul on 26 June 130 children born in Hamelin were seduced By a piper, dressed in all kinds of colours, and lost at the place of execution near the koppen.
This appears to be the oldest surviving account. Koppen (Old German meaning "hills") seems to be a reference to one of several hills surrounding Hamelin. Which of them was intended by the verse's author remains uncertain. Another possible meaning of the words 'to calvari bi den koppen verloren' could refer to the dutch 'koppen' which means heads. It could therefore be a double poetic meaning of 'lost in the hills', as well as 'lost their heads'. The latter could mean they were beheaded, or killed, or perhaps imply that they went mad, and lost the traditional way of their parents' thinking.
Calvari which translates directly to 'Calvary' refers to the Christian religion 'place of the skulls' where the crucifixion took place and could also refer to a situation involving great suffering. This would explain some of the above theories. In the sense of the exodus from Europe, it could mean that the people who stayed in Hamelin assumed that the people who had left with the 'piper' or lokator had been convinced to make the worst possible choice and had gone to 'calvari' being presumed dead. The piper in this sense being a good 'orator' able to convince a crowd as in religion. Related in Germanic languages to the word 'koppen' is the word 'to buy' but this may be unrelated to the story although it took place on market day of the Saints.
The herb valerian was used by rat-catchers to attract the rats and entice them away as it has a smell that attracts rats. Valerian can also be used to attract cats, leading one to believe that the piper may have led the cats away first and then threatened to take their children. There is a possible theory that the piper gave the children valerian and that this had a relaxing effect on them much like alcohol or perhaps some were given an overdose.
An alternate meaning of the poem, relating to theories cited above and unrelated to the legend and stories written by the Brothers Grimm and other creators of fairy tales, is that the piper himself was executed on this day, perhaps because he had misled or abused the children, or for another reason. However, the double meaning referring to the children as victims having 'lost their heads' as well as being 'lost in the hills' does provide a typical ambiguous poetic explanation.
Reportedly, there is a long-established law forbidding singing and music in one particular street of Hamelin, out of respect for the victims: the Bungelosenstrasse adjacent to the Pied Piper's House. During public parades which include music, including wedding processions, the band will stop playing upon reaching this street and resume upon reaching the other side.
Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sources
In 1556, De miraculis sui temporis (Latin: Concerning the Wonders of his Times) by Jobus Fincelius mentions the tale. The author identifies the Piper with the Devil.
Somewhere between 1559 and 1565, Count Froben Christoph von Zimmern included a version in his Zimmerische Chronik. This appears to be the earliest account which mentions the plague of rats. von Zimmern dates the event only as 'several hundred years ago' (vor etlichen hundert jarn [sic]), so that his version throws no light on the conflict of dates (see next paragraph).
The earliest English account is that of Richard Rowland Verstegan (1548 c. 1636), an antiquary and religious controversialist of partly Dutch descent, in his Restitution of Decayed Intelligence (Antwerp, 1605); he does not give his source. (It is unlikely to have been von Zimmern, since his manuscript chronicle was not discovered until 1776.) Verstegan includes the reference to the rats and the idea that the lost children turned up in Transylvania. The phrase 'Pide [sic] Piper' occurs in his version and seems to have been coined by him. Curiously enough his date is entirely different from that given above: July 22, 1376; this may suggest that two events, a migration in 1284 and a plague of rats in 1376, have become fused together.
The story is given, with a different date, in Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy of 1621, where it is used as an example of supernatural forces: 'At Hammel in Saxony, ann. 1484, 20 Junii, the devil, in likeness of a pied piper, carried away 130 children that were never after seen.' He does not give his immediate source.
Verstegan's account was copied in Nathaniel Wanley's Wonders of the Little World (1687), which was the immediate source of Robert Browning's well-known poem (see nineteenth century below). Verstegan's account is also repeated in William Ramesey's Wormes (1668) "... that most remarkable story in Verstegan, of the Pied Piper, that carryed away a hundred and sixty Children from the Town of Hamel in Saxony, on the 22. of July, Anno Dom. 1376. A wonderful permission of GOD to the Rage of the Devil". Nineteenth-century versions
In 1803, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote a poem based on the story that was later set to music by Hugo Wolf. He incorporated references to the story in his version of Faust. The first part of the Drama was first published in 1808 and the second in 1832.
Jakob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm, known as the Brothers Grimm, drawing from eleven sources included the tale in their collection "Deutsche Sagen", first published in 1816. According to their account two children were left behind as one was blind and the other lame, so neither could follow the others. The rest became the founders of Siebenbrgen (Transylvania).
Using the Verstegan/Wanley version of the tale and adopting the 1376 date, Robert Browning wrote a poem of that name which was published in 1842. Browning's verse retelling is notable for its humor, wordplay, and jingling rhymes.
Twentieth-century versions
China Miville's 1998 novel King Rat reimagines the Pied Piper as a flautist adding samples to drum and bass music and is opposed by sentient rats in London.
Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel, The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, published in 2001, gives a typically distorted version of the tale.
The Hooters 1986 top-40 hit "Where Do The Children Go?" refers to the Pied Piper in the song's chorus: "Where do the children go, between the bright night and darkest day? Where do the children go, and who's that deadly piper who leads them away?"
As metaphor
Merriam Webster definitions
a charismatic person who attracts followers one that offers strong but delusive enticement a leader who makes irresponsible promises
Allusions in linguistics
In linguistics pied-piping is the common, informal name for the ability of question words and relative pronouns to drag other words along with them when brought to the front, as part of the phenomenon called Wh-movement. For example, in "For whom are the pictures?", the word "for" is pied-piped by "whom" away from its declarative position ("The pictures are for me"), and in "The mayor, pictures of whom adorn his office walls" both words "pictures of" are pied-piped in front of the relative pronoun, which normally starts the relative clause.
Some researchers believe that the tale has inspired the common English phrase "pay the piper". To "pay the piper" now means to face the inevitable consequences of one's actions, possibly alluding to the story where the villagers broke their promise to pay the Piper for his assistance in ridding the town of the rats.
The phrase is also attributed to meaning to recompense a minstrel or similar musician (such as a piper) in the mediaeval period for services rendered. If a minstrel was not paid for his services by a hosting nobleman, they and future minstrels would not return to that particular nobleman's estate. Minstrels were a significant status symbol, hence refusing payment would be great mark on the nobleman's reputation and a noticeable loss in his social standing. Hence the phrase may sometimes be heard in reference to a financial transaction. Due to both the Pied Piper's tale, and the growing importance of social occasion over traditional heraldry occurring in the same historical period, it is a speculation that both origins resulted in an identical phrase with two separate meanings.
Also, some experts on pedophilia, such as Ken Lanning of the FBI, in writing about the seduction of children by some pedophiles, have used the term the "Pied Piper effect" to describe a "unique ability to identify with children."
Robin Hood Wikipedia.org
Robin Hood was an heroic outlaw in English folklore. A highly skilled archer and swordsman, he is known for "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor," assisted by a group of fellow outlaws known as his "Merry Men." Traditionally Robin Hood and his men are depicted wearing Lincoln green clothes.. The origin of the legend is claimed by some to have stemmed from actual outlaws, or from ballads or tales of outlaws.
Robin Hood became a popular folk figure starting in the medieval period continuing through modern literature, films, and television. In the earliest sources Robin Hood is a yeoman, but he was often later portrayed as an aristocrat wrongfully dispossessed of his lands and made into an outlaw by an unscrupulous sheriff.
History
In popular culture Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men are usually portrayed as living in Sherwood Forest, in Nottinghamshire, where much of the action in the early ballads takes place. So does the very first recorded Robin Hood rhyme, four lines from the early 15th century, beginning: "Robyn hode in scherewode stod." However, the overall picture from the surviving early ballads and other early references suggest that Robin Hood may have been based in the Barnsdale area of what is now South Yorkshire (which borders Nottinghamshire).
Other traditions point to a variety of locations as Robin's "true" home both inside Yorkshire and elsewhere, with the abundance of places named for Robin causing further confusion. A tradition dating back at least to the end of the 16th century gives his birthplace as Loxley, Sheffield in South Yorkshire, while the site of Robin Hood's Well in Skellow, South Yorkshire has been associated with Robin Hood since at least 1422. Records show a man named Robin Hood lived in Wakefield, Yorkshire in the 13th and 14th centuries. His grave has been claimed to be at Kirklees Priory near Mirfield in West Yorkshire, as implied by the 18th-century version of Robin Hood's Death, and there is a headstone there of dubious authenticity.
The first clear reference to "rhymes of Robin Hood" is from the late 14th-century poem Piers Plowman, but the earliest surviving copies of the narrative ballads which tell his story have been dated to the 15th century or the first decade of the 16th century. In these early accounts Robin Hood's partisanship of the lower classes, his Marianism and associated special regard for women, his outstanding skill as an archer, his anti-clericalism, and his particular animosity towards the Sheriff of Nottingham are already clear. Little John, Much the Miller's Son and Will Scarlet (as Will "Scarlok" or "Scathelocke") all appear, although not yet Maid Marian or Friar Tuck. It is not certain what should be made of these latter two absences as it is known that Friar Tuck, for one, has been part of the legend since at least the later 15th century.
In popular culture Robin Hood is typically seen as a contemporary and supporter of the late 12th-century king Richard the Lionheart, Robin being driven to outlawry during the misrule of Richard's brother John while Richard was away at the Third Crusade. This view first gained currency in the 16th century. It is not supported by the earliest ballads. The early compilation A Gest of Robyn Hode names the king as "Edward," and while it does show Robin Hood as accepting the King's pardon he later repudiates it and returns to the greenwood.
The oldest surviving ballad, Robin Hood and the Monk, gives even less support to the picture of Robin Hood as a partisan of the true king. The setting of the early ballads is usually attributed by scholars to either the 13th century or the 14th, although it is recognised they are not necessarily historically consistent.
The early ballads are also quite clear on Robin Hood's social status: he is a yeoman. While the precise meaning of this term changed over time, including free retainers of an aristocrat and small landholders, it always referred to commoners. The essence of it in the present context was "neither a knight nor a peasant or 'husbonde' but something in between." We know that artisans (such as millers) were among those regarded as "yeomen" in the 14th century. From the 16th century on there were attempts to elevate Robin Hood to the nobility and in two extremely influential plays Anthony Munday presented him at the very end of the 16th century as the Earl of Huntingdon, as he is still commonly presented in modern times.
As well as ballads, the legend was also transmitted by "Robin Hood games" or plays that were an important part of the late medieval and early modern May Day festivities. The first record of a Robin Hood game was in 1426 in Exeter, but the reference does not indicate how old or widespread this custom was at the time. The Robin Hood games are known to have flourished in the later 15th and 16th centuries. It is commonly stated as fact that Maid Marian and a jolly friar (at least partly identifiable with Friar Tuck) entered the legend through the May Games.
The early ballads link Robin Hood to identifiable real places and many are convinced that he was a real person, more or less accurately portrayed. A number of theories as to the identity of "the real Robin Hood" have their supporters. Some of these theories posit that "Robin Hood" or "Robert Hood" or the like was his actual name; others suggest that this may have been merely a nickname disguising a medieval bandit perhaps known to history under another name. One historian has claimed Robin Hood was a pseudonym by which the ancient Lords of Wellow, Nottinghamshire were once known. It is interesting that the village has such a strong connection with maypole celebrations, considering Robin Hood's links with the same thing.
At the same time it is possible that Robin Hood has always been a fictional character; the folklorist Francis James Child declared "Robin Hood is absolutely a creation of the ballad- muse" and this view has been neither proven or disproven. Another view is that Robin Hood's origins must be sought in folklore or mythology; Despite the frequent Christian references in the early ballads, Robin Hood has been claimed for the pagan witch-cult supposed by Margaret Murray to have existed in medieval Europe.
Early references
The oldest references to Robin Hood are not historical records, or even ballads recounting his exploits, but hints and allusions found in various works. From 1228 onwards, the names 'Robinhood', 'Robehod' or 'Robbehod' occur in the rolls of several English Justices. The majority of these references date from the late 13th century. Between 1261 and 1300, there are at least eight references to 'Rabunhod' in various regions across England, from Berkshire in the south to York in the north.
In a petition presented to Parliament in 1439, the name is used to describe an itinerant felon. The petition cites one Piers Venables of Aston, Derbyshire, "who having no liflode, ne sufficeante of goodes, gadered and assembled unto him many misdoers, beynge of his clothynge, and, in manere of insurrection, wente into the wodes in that countrie, like as it hadde be Robyn Hude and his meyne." The name was still used to describe sedition and treachery in 1605, when Guy Fawkes and his associates were branded "Robin Hoods" by Robert Cecil.
The first allusion to a literary tradition of Robin Hood tales occurs in William Langland's Piers Plowman (c. 1362c. 1386) in which Sloth, the lazy priest, confesses: "I kan [know] not parfitly [perfectly] my Paternoster as the preest it singeth,/ But I kan rymes of Robyn Hood and Randolf Erl of Chestre."
The first mention of a quasi-historical Robin Hood is given in Andrew of Wyntoun's Orygynale Chronicle, written in about 1420. The following lines occur with little contextualisation under the year 1283:
Lytil Jhon and Robyne Hude Wayth-men ware commendyd gude In Yngil-wode and Barnysdale Thai oysyd all this tyme thare trawale.
The next notice is a statement in the Scotichronicon, composed by John of Fordun between 1377 and 1384, and revised by Walter Bower in about 1440. Among Bower's many interpolations is a passage which directly refers to Robin. It is inserted after Fordun's account of the defeat of Simon de Montfort and the punishment of his adherents. Robin is represented as a fighter for de Montfort's cause. This was in fact true of the historical outlaw of Sherwood Forest Roger Godberd, whose points of similarity to the Robin Hood of the ballads have often been noted.
Bower writes:
Then [c. 1266] arose the famous murderer, Robert Hood, as well as Little John, together with their accomplices from among the disinherited, whom the foolish populace are so inordinately fond of celebrating both in tragedies and comedies, and about whom they are delighted to hear the jesters and minstrels sing above all other ballads.
The word translated here as "murderer" is the Latin siccarius, from the Latin for "knife." Bower goes on to tell a story about Robin Hood in which he refuses to flee from his enemies while hearing Mass in the greenwood, and then gains a surprise victory over them, apparently as a reward for his piety.
Another reference, discovered by Julian Luxford in 2009, appears in the margin of the "Polychronicon" in the Eton College library. Written around the year 1460 by a monk in Latin, it says:
Around this time, according to popular opinion, a certain outlaw named Robin Hood, with his accomplices, infested Sherwood and other law-abiding areas of England with continuous robberies.
William Shakespeare makes reference to Robin Hood in his late 16th-century play The Two Gentlemen of Verona, one of his earliest. In it, the character Valentine is banished from Milan and driven out through the forest where he is approached by outlaws who, upon meeting him, desire him as their leader. They comment, "By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar, this fellow were a king for our wild faction!"
References to Robin as Earl of Huntington
Another reference is provided by Thomas Gale, Dean of York (c. 16351702), but this comes nearly four hundred years after the events it describes:
[Robin Hood's] death is stated by Ritson to have taken place on the 18th of November, 1247, about the 87th year of his age; but according to the following inscription found among the papers of the Dean of York...the death occurred a month later. In this inscription, which bears evidence of high antiquity, Robin Hood is described as Earl of Huntington - his claim to which title has been as hotly contested as any disputed peerage upon record.
Hear undernead dis laitl stean Lais Robert Earl of Huntingun Near arcir der as hie sa geud An pipl kauld im Robin Heud Sic utlaws as hi an is men Vil England nivr si agen.
Obiit 24 Kal Dekembris 1247
This inscription also appears on a grave in the grounds of Kirklees Priory near Kirklees Hall.
Robert is largely fictional by this time. The Gale note is inaccurate. The medieval texts do not refer to him directly, but mediate their allusions through a body of accounts and reports: for Langland, Robin exists principally in "rimes," for Bower, "comedies and tragedies," while for Wyntoun he is, "commendyd gude." Even in a legal context, where one would expect to find verifiable references to Robert, he is primarily a symbol, a generalised outlaw-figure rather than an individual. Consequently, in the medieval period itself, Robin Hood already belongs more to literature than to history. In fact, in an anonymous song called Woman of c. 1412, he is treated in precisely this manner - as a joke, a figure that the audience will instantly recognise as imaginary:
He that made this songe full good, Came of the northe and the sothern blode, And somewhat kyne to Robert Hoad.
Sources
There is at present little scholarly support for the view that tales of Robin Hood have stemmed from mythology or folklore, from fairies or other mythological origins, any such associations being regarded as later development. The mythological theory does go back to at least to 1584, when Reginald Scot identified Robin Hood with the Germanic goblin "Hudgin" or Hodekin and associated him with Robin Goodfellow. Maurice Keen provides a brief summary and useful critique of the once-popular view that Robin Hood had mythological origins, while (unlike some) refraining from utterly and finally dismissing it. While Robin Hood and his men often show super skill in archery, swordplay, and disguise, they are no more exaggerated than those characters in other ballads, such as Kinmont Willie, which were based on historical events.
Robin Hood's role in the traditional May Day games could suggest pagan connections, but that role has not been traced earlier than the early 15th century. However, it is uncontroversial that a Robin and Marion figured in 13th-century French "pastourelles" (of which Jeu de Robin et Marion c. 1280 is a literary version) and presided over the French May festivities, "this Robin and Marion tended to preside, in the intervals of the attempted seduction of the latter by a series of knights, over a variety of rustic pastimes."
In the Jeu de Robin and Marion Robin and his companions have to rescue Marion from the clutches of a "lustful knight." Dobson and Taylor in their survey of the legend, in which they reject the mythological theory, nevertheless regard it as "highly probable" that this French Robin's name and functions travelled to the English May Games where they fused with the Robin Hood legend.
The origin of the legend is claimed by some to have stemmed from actual outlaws, or from tales of outlaws, such as Hereward the Wake, Eustace the Monk, Fulk FitzWarin, and William Wallace. Hereward appears in a ballad much like Robin Hood and the Potter, and as the Hereward ballad is older, it appears to be the source. The ballad Adam Bell, Clym of the Cloughe and Wyllyam of Cloudeslee runs parallel to Robin Hood and the Monk, but it is not clear whether either one is the source for the other, or whether they merely show that such tales were told of outlaws.
Some early Robin Hood stories appear to be unique, such as the story wherein Robin gives a knight, generally called Richard at the Lee, money to pay off his mortgage to an abbot, but this may merely indicate that no parallels have survived.
There are a number of theories that attempt to identify a historical Robin Hood. A difficulty with any such historical search is that "Robert" was in medieval England a very common given name, and "Robin" (or Robyn), especially in the 13th century, was its very common diminutive. The surname "Hood" (or Hude or Hode etc.), referring ultimately to the head- covering, was also fairly common. Unsurprisingly, therefore, there are a number of people called "Robert Hood" or "Robin Hood" to be found in medieval records. Some of them are on record for having fallen afoul of the law, but this is not necessarily significant to the legend.
The early ballads give a number of possible historical clues: notably, the Gest names the reigning king as "Edward," but the ballads cannot be assumed to be reliable in such details. For whatever it may be worth, however, King Edward I took the throne in 1272, and an Edward remained on the throne until the death of Edward III in 1377.
On the other hand, what appears to be the first known example of "Robin Hood" as stock name for an outlaw dates to 1262 in Berkshire, where the surname "Robehod" was applied to a man after he had been outlawed, and apparently because he had been outlawed. This could suggest two main possibilities: either that an early form of the Robin Hood legend was already well established in the mid 13th century; or alternatively that the name "Robin Hood" preceded the outlaw hero that we know; so that the "Robin Hood" of legend was so called because that was seen as an appropriate name for an outlaw.
It has long been suggested, notably by John Maddicott, that "Robin Hood" was a stock alias used by thieves. Another theory of the origin of the name needs to be mentioned here. The 1911 Encyclopdia Britannica remarks that 'hood' was a common dialectical form of 'wood'; and that the outlaw's name has been given as "Robin Wood." There are indeed a number of references to Robin Hood as Robin Wood, or Whood, or Whod, from the 16th and 17th centuries. The earliest recorded example, in connection with May games in Somerset, dates from 1518.
One well-known theory of origin was proposed by Joseph Hunter in 1852. Hunter identified the outlaw with a "Robyn Hode" recorded as employed by Edward II in 1323 during the king's progress through Lancashire. This Robyn Hode was identified with (one or more people called) Robert Hood living in Wakefield before and after that time. Comparing the available records with especially the Gest and also other ballads, Hunter developed a fairly detailed theory according to which Robin Hood was an adherent of the rebel Earl of Lancaster, defeated at the Battle of Boroughbridge in 1322.
According to this theory, Robin Hood was pardoned and employed by the king in 1323. (The Gest does relate that Robin Hood was pardoned by "King Edward" and taken into his service.) The theory supplies Robin Hood with a wife, Matilda, thought to be the origin of Maid Marian, and Hunter also conjectured that the author of the Gest may have been the religious poet Richard Rolle (12901349), who lived in the village of Hampole in Barnsdale.
This theory has long been recognised to have serious problems, one of the most serious being that "Robin Hood" and similar names were already used as nicknames for outlaws in the 13th century. Another is that there is no direct evidence that Hunter's Hood had ever been an outlaw or any kind of criminal or rebel at all; the theory is built on conjecture and coincidence of detail. Finally, recent research has shown that Hunter's Robyn Hood had been employed by the king at an earlier stage, thus casting doubt on this Robyn Hood's supposed earlier career as outlaw and rebel.
Another theory identifies him with the historical outlaw Roger Godberd, who was a die-hard supporter of Simon de Montfort, which would place Robin Hood around the 1260s. There are certainly parallels between Godberd's career and that of Robin Hood as he appears in the Gest. John Maddicott has called Godberd "that prototype Robin Hood." Some problems with this theory are that there is no evidence that Godberd was ever known as Robin Hood and no sign in the early Robin Hood ballads of the specific concerns of de Montfort's revolt.
Another well-known theory, first proposed by the historian L. V. D. Owen in 1936 and more recently floated by J.C. Holt and others, is that the original Robin Hood might be identified with an outlawed Robert Hood, or Hod, or Hobbehod, all apparently the same man, referred to in nine successive Yorkshire Pipe Rolls between 1226 and 1234. There is no evidence however that this Robert Hood, although an outlaw, was also a bandit.
Ballads and tales
The earliest surviving text of a Robin Hood ballad is "Robin Hood and the Monk." This is preserved in Cambridge University manuscript Ff.5.48, which was written shortly after 1450. It contains many of the elements still associated with the legend, from the Nottingham setting to the bitter enmity between Robin and the local sheriff.
The first printed version is A Gest of Robyn Hode (c. 1475), a collection of separate stories which attempts to unite the episodes into a single continuous narrative. After this comes "Robin Hood and the Potter," contained in a manuscript of c. 1503. "The Potter" is markedly different in tone from "The Monk": whereas the earlier tale is "a thriller" the latter is more comic, its plot involving trickery and cunning rather than straightforward force. The difference between the two texts recalls Bower's claim that Robin-tales may be both 'comedies and tragedies'.
Other early texts are dramatic pieces such as the fragmentary Robyn Hod and the Shryff off Notyngham (c. 1472). These are particularly noteworthy as they show Robin's integration into May Day rituals towards the end of the Middle Ages; Robyn Hod and the Shryff off Notyngham, among other points of interest, contains the earliest reference to Friar Tuck.
The plots of neither "the Monk" nor "the Potter" are included in the Gest; and neither is the plot of "Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne" which is probably at least as old as those two ballads although preserved in a more recent copy. Each of these three ballads survived in a single copy, so it is unclear how much of the medieval legend has survived, and what has survived may not be typical of the medieval legend. It has been argued that the fact that the surviving ballads were preserved in written form in itself makes it unlikely they were typical; in particular stories with an interest for the gentry were by this view more likely to be preserved. The story of Robin's aid to the "poor knight" that takes up much of the Gest may be an example.
The character of Robin in these first texts is rougher edged than in his later incarnations. In "Robin Hood and the Monk," for example, he is shown as quick tempered and violent, assaulting Little John for defeating him in an archery contest; in the same ballad Much the Miller's Son casually kills a "little page" in the course of rescuing Robin Hood from prison. No extant ballad actually shows Robin Hood "giving to the poor," although in a "A Gest of Robyn Hode" Robin does make a large loan to an unfortunate knight which he does not in the end require to be repaid; and later in the same ballad Robin Hood states his intention of giving money to the next traveller to come down the road if he happens to be poor.
Of my good he shall haue some, Yf he be a por man.
As it happens the next traveller is not poor, but it seems in context that Robin Hood is stating a general policy. From the beginning Robin Hood is on the side of the poor; the Gest quotes Robin Hood as instructing his men that when they rob:
loke ye do no husbonde harme That tilleth with his ploughe. No more ye shall no gode yeman That walketh by gren-wode shawe; Ne no knyght ne no squyer That wol be a gode felawe.
And in its final lines the Gest sums up:
he was a good outlawe, And dyde pore men moch god.
Within Robin Hood's band medieval forms of courtesy rather than modern ideals of equality are generally in evidence. In the early ballads Robin's men usually kneel before him in strict obedience: in A Gest of Robyn Hode the king even observes that "His men are more at his byddynge/Then my men be at myn." Their social status, as yeomen, is shown by their weapons; they use swords rather than quarterstaffs. The only character to use a quarterstaff in the early ballads is the potter, and Robin Hood does not take to a staff until the 18th century Robin Hood and Little John.
The political and social assumptions underlying the early Robin Hood ballads have long been controversial. It has been influentially argued by J. C. Holt that the Robin Hood legend was cultivated in the households of the gentry, and that it would be mistaken to see in him a figure of peasant revolt. He is not a peasant but a yeoman, and his tales make no mention of the complaints of the peasants, such as oppressive taxes. He appears not so much as a revolt against societal standards as an embodiment of them, being generous, pious, and courteous, opposed to stingy, worldly, and churlish foes. Other scholars have by contrast stressed the subversive aspects of the legend, and see in the medieval Robin Hood ballads a plebeian literature hostile to the feudal order.
Although the term "Merry Men" belongs to a later period, the ballads do name several of Robin's companions. These include Will Scarlet (or Scathlock), Much the Miller's Son, and Little John - who was called "little" as a joke, as he was quite the opposite. Even though the band is regularly described as being over a hundred men, usually only three or four are specified. Some appear only once or twice in a ballad: Will Stutely in Robin Hood Rescuing Will Stutly and Robin Hood and Little John; David of Doncaster in Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow; Gilbert with the White Hand in A Gest of Robyn Hode; and Arthur a Bland in Robin Hood and the Tanner.
Printed versions of the Robin Hood ballads, generally based on the Gest, appear in the early 16th century, shortly after the introduction of printing in England. Later that century Robin is promoted to the level of nobleman: he is styled Earl of Huntingdon, Robert of Locksley, or Robert Fitz Ooth. In the early ballads, by contrast, he was a member of the yeoman classes, which included common freeholders possessing a small landed estate.
By the early 15th century at the latest, Robin Hood had become associated with May Day celebrations, with revellers dressing as Robin or as members of his band for the festivities. This was not common throughout England, but in some regions the custom lasted until Elizabethan times, and during the reign of Henry VIII, was briefly popular at court. Robin was often allocated the role of a May King, presiding over games and processions, but plays were also performed with the characters in the roles, sometimes performed at church ales, a means by which churches raised funds.
A complaint of 1492, brought to the Star Chamber, accuses men of acting riotously by coming to a fair as Robin Hood and his men; the accused defended themselves on the grounds that the practice was a long-standing custom to raise money for churches, and they had not acted riotously but peaceably.
It is from the association with the May Games that Robin's romantic attachment to Maid Marian (or Marion) apparently stems. The naming of Marian may have come from the French pastoral play of c. 1280, the Jeu de Robin et Marion, although this play is distinct from the English legends. Both Robin and Marian were certainly associated with May Day festivities in England (as was Friar Tuck), but these may have been originally two distinct types of performance - Alexander Barclay in his Ship of Fools, writing in c. 1500, refers to "some merry fytte of Maid Marian or else of Robin Hood" - but the characters were brought together. Marian did not immediately gain the unquestioned role; in Robin Hood's Birth, Breeding, Valor, and Marriage, his sweetheart is 'Clorinda the Queen of the Shepherdesses'. Clorinda survives in some later stories as an alias of Marian.
In the 16th century, Robin Hood is given a specific historical setting. Up until this point there was little interest in exactly when Robin's adventures took place. The original ballads refer at various points to "King Edward," without stipulating whether this is Edward I, Edward II, or Edward III. Hood may thus have been active at any point between 1272 and 1377. However, during the 16th century the stories become fixed to the 1190s, the period in which King Richard was absent from his throne, fighting in the crusades. This date is first proposed by John Mair in his Historia Majoris Britanni (1521), and gains popular acceptance by the end of the century.
Giving Robin an aristocratic title and female love interest, and placing him in the historical context of the true king's absence, all represent moves to domesticate his legend and reconcile it to ruling powers. In this, his legend is similar to that of King Arthur, which morphed from a dangerous male-centred story to a more comfortable, chivalrous romance under the troubadours serving Eleanor of Aquitaine. From the 16th century on, the legend of Robin Hood is often used to promote the hereditary ruling class, romance, and religious piety. The "criminal" element is retained to provide dramatic colour, rather than as a real challenge to convention.
In 1598, Anthony Munday wrote a pair of plays on the Robin Hood legend, The Downfall and The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington (published 1601). The 17th century introduced the minstrel Alan-a-Dale. He first appeared in a 17th century broadside ballad, and unlike many of the characters thus associated, managed to adhere to the legend. This is also the era in which the character of Robin became fixed as stealing from the rich to give to the poor.
In the 18th century, the stories began to develop a slightly more farcical vein. From this period there are a number of ballads in which Robin is severely "drubbed" by a succession of professionals including a tanner, a tinker and a ranger. In fact, the only character who does not get the better of Hood is the luckless Sheriff. Yet even in these ballads Robin is more than a mere simpleton: on the contrary, he often acts with great shrewdness. The tinker, setting out to capture Robin, only manages to fight with him after he has been cheated out of his money and the arrest warrant he is carrying. In Robin Hood's Golden Prize, Robin disguises himself as a friar and cheats two priests out of their cash. Even when Robin is defeated, he usually tricks his foe into letting him sound his horn, summoning the Merry Men to his aid. When his enemies do not fall for this ruse, he persuades them to drink with him instead.
The continued popularity of the Robin Hood tales is attested by a number of literary references. In As You Like It, the exiled duke and his men "live like the old Robin Hood of England," while Ben Jonson produced the (incomplete) masque The Sad Shepherd, or a Tale of Robin Hood as a satire on Puritanism. Somewhat later, the Romantic poet John Keats composed Robin Hood. To A Friend and Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote a play The Foresters, or Robin Hood and Maid Marian, which was presented with incidental music by Sir Arthur Sullivan in 1892. Later still, T. H. White featured Robin and his band in The Sword in the Stone - anachronistically, since the novel's chief theme is the childhood of King Arthur.
The Victorian era generated its own distinct versions of Robin Hood. The traditional tales were often adapted for children, most notably in Howard Pyle's The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, which influenced accounts of Robin Hood through the 20th century. These versions firmly stamp Robin as a staunch philanthropist, a man who takes from the rich to give to the poor. Nevertheless, the adventures are still more local than national in scope: while King Richard's participation in the Crusades is mentioned in passing, Robin takes no stand against Prince John, and plays no part in raising the ransom to free Richard. These developments are part of the 20th century Robin Hood myth.
The idea of Robin Hood as a high-minded Saxon fighting Norman lords also originates in the 19th century. The most notable contributions to this idea of Robin are Jacques Nicolas Augustin Thierry's Histoire de la Conqute de l'Angleterre par les Normands (1825) and Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (1819). In this last work in particular, the modern Robin Hood - "King of Outlaws and prince of good fellows!" as Richard the Lionheart calls him - makes his debut.
The 20th century grafted still further details on to the original legends. The 1938 film The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, portrayed Robin as a hero on a national scale, leading the oppressed Saxons in revolt against their Norman overlords while Richard the Lionheart fought in the Crusades; this movie established itself so definitively that many studios resorted to movies about his son (invented for that purpose) rather than compete with the image of this one.
In the 1973 animated Disney film Robin Hood, the title character is portrayed as an anthropomorphic fox voiced by Brian Bedford. Years before Robin Hood had even entered production, Disney had considered doing a project on Reynard the Fox. However, due to concerns that Reynard was unsuitable as a hero, animator Ken Anderson lifted many elements from Reynard into Robin Hood, thus making the titular character a fox.
The 1976 British-American film Robin and Marian, starring Sean Connery as Robin Hood and Audrey Hepburn as Maid Marian, portrays the figures in later years after Robin has returned from service with Richard the Lion Hearted in a foreign crusade and Marian has gone into seclusion in a nunnery.
Since the 1980s, it has become commonplace to include a Saracen among the Merry Men, a trend which began with the character Nasir in the Robin of Sherwood television series. Later versions of the story have followed suit: the 1991 movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and 2006 BBC TV series Robin Hood each contain equivalents of Nasir, in the figures of Azeem and Djaq respectively. The latest movie version released in spring of 2010 is simply entitled Robin Hood and is directed by Ridley Scott, with Robin played by Russell Crowe.
The Robin Hood legend has thus been subject to numerous shifts and mutations throughout its history. Robin himself has evolved from a yeoman bandit to a national hero of epic proportions, who not only supports the poor by taking from the rich, but heroically defends the throne of England itself from unworthy and venal claimants.
Connections to existing locations
In modern versions of the legend, Robin Hood is said to have taken up residence in the verdant Sherwood Forest in the county of Nottinghamshire. For this reason the people of present-day Nottinghamshire have a special affinity with Robin Hood, often claiming him as the symbol of their county. For example, major road signs entering the shire depict Robin Hood with his bow and arrow, welcoming people to 'Robin Hood County.' BBC Radio Nottingham also uses the phrase 'Robin Hood County' on its regular programmes. The Robin Hood Way runs through Nottinghamshire and the county is home to literally thousands of other places, roads, inns and objects bearing Robin's name.
Specific sites linked to Robin Hood include the Major Oak tree, claimed to have been used by him as a hideout, Robin Hood's Well, located near Newstead Abbey (within the boundaries of Sherwood Forest), and the Church of St. Mary in the village of Edwinstowe, where Robin and Maid Marian are historically thought to have wed. To reinforce this belief, the University of Nottingham in 2010 has begun the Nottingham Caves Survey with the goal "to increase the tourist potential of these sites." The project "will use a 3D laser scanner to produce a three dimensional record of more than 450 sandstone caves around Nottingham."
However, the Nottingham setting is a matter of some contention. While the Sheriff of Nottingham and the town itself appear in early ballads, and Sherwood is specifically mentioned in the early ballad Robin Hood and the Monk, certain of the original ballads (even those with Nottingham references) locate Robin on occasion in Barnsdale (the area between Pontefract and Doncaster), approximately fifty miles north of Nottingham, in the county of Yorkshire; furthermore, it has been suggested that the ballads placed in this area are far more geographically specific and accurate. This is reinforced for some by the alleged similarity of Locksley to the area of Loxley, South Yorkshire in Sheffield, where in nearby Tideswell, which was the "Kings Larder" in the Royal Forest of the Peak, a record of the appearance of a "Robert de Lockesly" in court is found, dated 1245. As "Robert" and its diminutives were amongst the most common of names at the time, and also since it was usual for men to adopt the name of their hometown ("De Lockesly" means simply, "Of [or from] Lockesly"), the record could just as easily be referring to any man from the area named Robert. Although it cannot be proven whether or not this is the man himself, it is further believed by some that Robin had a brother called Thomas - an assertion with no documentary evidence whatsoever to support it in any of the stories, tales or ballads. If the Robert mentioned above was indeed Robin Hood, and if he did have a brother named Thomas, then consideration of the following reference may lend this theory a modicum of credence:
24) No. 389, f0- 78. Ascension Day, 29 H. III., Nic Meverill, with John Kantia, on the one part, and Henry de Leke. Henry released to Nicholas and John 5 m. rent, which he received from Nicolas and John and Robert de Lockesly for his life from the lands of Gellery, in consideration of receiving from each of them 2M (2 marks). only, the said Henry to live at table with one of them and to receive 2M. annually from the other. T., Sampson de Leke, Magister Peter Meverill, Roger de Lockesly, John de Leke, Robert fil Umfred, Rico de Newland, Richard Meverill. (25) No. 402, p. 80 b. Thomas de Lockesly bound himself that he would not sell his lands at Leke, which Nicolas Meveril had rendered to him, under a penalty of L40 (40 pounds).
A pound was 240 silver pence, and a mark was 160 silver pence (i.e., 13 shillings and fourpence).
It is again, however, equally likely that Nicolas, John, Robert and Thomas were simply members of a family which came from the area.
In Barnsdale Forest, Yorkshire, there is a well known as Robin Hood's Well (by the side of the Great North Road), a Little John's Well (near Hampole) and a Robin Hood's stream (in Highfields Wood at Woodlands). There is something of a modern movement amongst Yorkshire residents to attempt to claim the legend of Robin Hood, to the extent that South Yorkshire's new airport, on the site of the redeveloped RAF Finningley airbase near Doncaster, although ironically in the historic county of Nottinghamshire, has been given the name Robin Hood Airport Doncaster Sheffield. Centuries ago, a variant of "as plain as the nose on your face" was "Robin Hood in Barnesdale stood."
In the city centre of Leeds, West Yorkshire at 71, Vicar Lane is a retail clothing store operated by Hugo Boss. This was the previous location of a pub/music venue known as The Duchess of York which was previously known as the Robin Hood. During an interior refurbishment, wallpaper was removed to reveal a wall mural depicting Robin Hood and his Merry Men in the small snug of the pub. The Landlord at the time, Robin Dover, was photographed standing next to the mural which was published in The Yorkshire Evening Post.
There have been further claims made that he is from Swannington in Leicestershire or Loxley, Warwickshire.
This debate is hardly surprising of course, given the considerable value that the Robin Hood legend has for local tourism. The Sheriff of Nottingham also had jurisdiction in Derbyshire that was known as the "Shire of the Deer," and this is where the Royal Forest of the Peak is found, which roughly corresponds to today's Peak District National Park. The Royal Forest included Bakewell, Tideswell, Castleton, Ladybower and the Derwent Valley near Loxley. The Sheriff of Nottingham possessed property near Loxley, amongst other places both far and wide including Hazlebadge Hall, Peveril Castle and Haddon Hall. Mercia, to which Nottingham belonged, came to within three miles of Sheffield City Centre. The supposed grave of Little John can be found in Hathersage, also in the Peak District.
Robin Hood himself was once thought to have been buried in the grounds of Kirklees Priory between Brighouse and Mirfield in West Yorkshire, although for the reasons given above this theory has now largely been abandoned. There is an elaborate grave there with the inscription referred to above. The story said that the Prioress was a relative of Robin's. Robin was ill and staying at the Priory where the Prioress was supposedly caring for him. However, she betrayed him, his health worsened, and he eventually died there.
Before he died, he told Little John (or possibly another of his Merry Men) where to bury him. He shot an arrow from the Priory window, and where the arrow landed was to be the site of his grave. The grave with the inscription is within sight of the ruins of the Kirklees Priory, behind the Three Nuns pub in Mirfield, West Yorkshire. The grave can be visited on occasional organised walks, organised by Calderdale Council Tourist Information office.
Further indications of the legend's connection with West Yorkshire (and particularly Calderdale) are noted in the fact that there are pubs called the Robin Hood in both nearby Brighouse and at Cragg Vale; higher up in the Pennines beyond Halifax, where Robin Hood Rocks can also be found. Robin Hood Hill is near Outwood, West Yorkshire, not far from Lofthouse. There is a village in West Yorkshire called Robin Hood, on the A61 between Leeds and Wakefield and close to Rothwell and Lofthouse. Considering these references to Robin Hood, it is not surprising that the people of both South and West Yorkshire lay some claim to Robin Hood, who, if he existed, could easily have roamed between Nottingham, Lincoln, Doncaster and right into West Yorkshire.
A British Army Territorial (reserves) battalion formed in Nottingham in 1859 was known as The Robin Hood Battalion through various reorganisations until the "Robin Hood" name finally disappeared in 1992. With the 1881 Childers reforms that linked regular and reserve units into regimental families, the Robin Hood Battalion became part of The Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment).
A Neolithic causewayed enclosure on Salisbury Plain has acquired the name Robin Hood's Ball, although had Robin Hood existed it is doubtful that he would have travelled so far south. List of traditional ballads
Elizabethan song of Robin HoodBallads are the oldest existing form of the Robin Hood legends, although none of them are recorded at the time of the first allusions to him, and many are much later. They share many common features, often opening with praise of the greenwood and relying heavily on disguise as a plot device, but include a wide variation in tone and plot. The ballads below are sorted into three groups, very roughly according to date of first known free-standing copy. Ballads whose first recorded version appears (usually incomplete) in the Percy Folio may appear in later versions and may be much older than the mid 17th century when the Folio was compiled. Any ballad may be older than the oldest copy which happens to survive, or descended from a lost older ballad. For example, the plot of Robin Hood's Death, found in the Percy Folio, is summarised in the 15th-century A Gest of Robyn Hode, and it also appears in an 18th-century version.
Early ballads (i.e., surviving in 15th- or early 16th-century copies)
A Gest of Robyn Hode Robin Hood and the Monk Robin Hood and the Potter Ballads appearing in 17th-century Percy Folio
Note: The first two ballads listed here (the "Death" and "Gisborne"), although preserved in 17th century copies, are generally agreed to preserve the substance of late medieval ballads. The third (the "Curtal Friar") and the fourth (the "Butcher"), also probably have late medieval origins.
Robin Hood's Death Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar Robin Hood and the Butcher Robin Hood Rescuing Will Stutly Robin Hood Rescuing Three Squires The Jolly Pinder of Wakefield Robin Hood and Queen Katherine
Other ballads
A True Tale of Robin Hood Robin Hood and the Bishop Robin Hood and the Bishop of Hereford Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow Robin Hood and the Prince of Aragon Robin Hood and the Ranger Robin Hood and the Scotchman Robin Hood and the Tanner Robin Hood and the Tinker Robin Hood and the Valiant Knight Robin Hood Newly Revived Robin Hood's Birth, Breeding, Valor, and Marriage Robin Hood's Chase Robin Hood's Delight Robin Hood's Golden Prize Robin Hood's Progress to Nottingham The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood The King's Disguise, and Friendship with Robin Hood The Noble Fisherman
Some ballads, such as Erlinton, feature Robin Hood in some variants, where the folk hero appears to be added to a ballad pre-existing him and in which he does not fit very well. He was added to one variant of Rose Red and the White Lily, apparently on no more connection than that one hero of the other variants is named "Brown Robin." Francis James Child indeed retitled Child ballad 102; though it was titled The Birth of Robin Hood, its clear lack of connection with the Robin Hood cycle (and connection with other, unrelated ballads) led him to title it Willie and Earl Richard's Daughter in his collection.
Sampo Wikipedia.org
In Finnish mythology, the Sampo or Sammas was a magical artifact of indeterminate type constructed by Ilmarinen that brought good fortune to its holder. When the Sampo was stolen, it is said that Ilmarinen's homeland fell upon hard times and sent an expedition to retrieve it, but in the ensuing battle it was smashed and lost at sea.
The Defense of the Sampo by Akseli Gallen-Kallela
The Sampo has been interpreted in many ways: a world pillar or world tree, a compass or astrolabe, a chest containing a treasure, a Byzantine coin die, a decorated Vendel period shield, a Christian relic, etc. In the Kalevala, compiler Lnnrot interpreted it to be a quern or mill of some sort that made flour, salt, and gold out of thin air. The world pillar hypothesis, originally developed by historian of religions Uno Harva and the linguist Eemil Nestor Setl in the early 20th century, is the most widely accepted one.
According to Giorgio de Santillana, professor of the history of science at MIT, and student of mythology, the sampo and the world pillar both refer to the precession of the equinox. In Hamlet's Mill, co-authored with Hertha von Deschend, the authors find that the sampo or precession process was believed to grind out different world ages, from dark age to golden age and back again over the long precession cycle.
Description in the Kalevala
The Sampo is a pivotal element of the plot of the Finnish epic poem Kalevala, compiled in 1835 (and expanded in 1849) by Elias Lnnrot based on earlier Finnish oral tradition.
In the expanded second version of the poem, the Sampo is forged by Ilmarinen, a legendary smith, as a task set by the Mistress of Pohjola in return for her daughter's hand.
"Ilmarinen, worthy brother, Thou the only skilful blacksmith, Go and see her wondrous beauty, See her gold and silver garments, See her robed in finest raiment, See her sitting on the rainbow, Walking on the clouds of purple. Forge for her the magic Sampo, Forge the lid in many colors, Thy reward shall be the virgin, Thou shalt win this bride of beauty; Go and bring the lovely maiden To thy home in Kalevala."
Ilmarinen works for several days at a mighty forge until finally the Sampo is created:
On one side the flour is grinding, On another salt is making, On a third is money forging, And the lid is many-colored. Well the Sampo grinds when finished, To and fro the lid in rocking, Grinds one measure at the day-break, Grinds a measure fit for eating, Grinds a second for the market, Grinds a third one for the store-house.
Later, Louhi the sorceress steals the Sampo, provoking Ilmarinen and Vinminen to enter her stronghold in secret and retrieve it. Louhi, in reply, pursues them and combats Vinminen. In the struggle, Louhi is vanquished but the Sampo is destroyed.
Similar devices
The Cornucopia of Greek mythology also produces endless goods.
Some versions of the Grail myth emphasize how the Grail creates food and goods.
The Mill Grtti of the Grottasngr in Nordic mythology also produces gold (as well as peace and happiness) and salt.
Japanese folktale Shiofuki usu speaks of a grindstone that could be used to create anything. Like Sampo, it too was lost to the sea, endlessly grinding salt.
The Mahabharatha speaks about the Akshaya Pathram, a vessel/bowl capable of creating food. It stopped providing at the end of the day when the lady of the house had her last meal. This vessel was provided to the Pandavas, when in exile, by Krishna.
The World Mill is a hypothesized mytheme shared by the mythologies of certain Indo- European-speaking peoples, involving the analogy of the cosmos or the firmament (Finnish: Taivaankansi) and a rotating millstone. The aforementioned Grtti is sometimes seen as an example of the mytheme.
Talking tree Wikipedia.org
Talking trees are a form of sapient vegetable life in mythologies and stories.
Tree with what looks like a face and mouth
Some of the more well known talking trees:
The Greek Talking Elm: Philostratus spoke about two philosophers arguing beneath an elm tree in Ethiopia which spoke up to add to the conversation. The Indian Tree of the Sun and the Moon: Told the future. Two parts of the tree trunk spoke depending on the time of day; in the daytime the tree spoke as a male and at night it spoke as a female. Alexander the Great and Marco Polo are said to have visited this tree. The weeping Date palm tree: The Prophet Muhammad, when delivering his sermons used to stand by or lean on a date palm tree. When a pulpit was built elsewhere and Muhammad started to give his sermon from the pulpit, the tree began to cry like a child. Muhammad then descended from his pulpit and consoled the tree by embracing it and stroking it. The Prophet said, "It was crying for (missing) what it used to hear of religious knowledge given near to it." This incident is recorded in the authentic Islamic Hadith traditions and is said to have been witnessed by everyone present at the congregation. Oracular Trees are sometimes attributed with the ability to speak to individuals, especially those gifted in divination. In particular, Druids were said to be able to consult Oak trees for divinatory purposes, as were the Streghe with Rowan trees. In Ireland, a tree may help a person look for a leprechaun's gold, although it normally does not know where the gold is.
*The Great Flood
Flood Myth Wikipedia.org
A flood myth or deluge myth is a mythical or religious story of a great flood sent by a deity or deities to destroy civilization as an act of divine retribution. It is a theme widespread among many cultures, though it is perhaps best known in modern times through the biblical and Quranic account of Noah's Ark, the foundational myths of the Quich and Mayas, through Deucalion in Greek mythology, the Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh or the Hindu puranic story of Manu which has some very strong parallels with the story of Noah.
Parallels are often drawn between the flood waters of these myths and the primeval waters found in some creation myths since the flood waters are seen to cleanse humanity in preparation for rebirth. Most flood myths also contain a culture hero who strives to ensure this rebirth. Origin of flood myths
Adrienne Mayor's The First Fossil Hunters and Fossil Legends of the First Americans promoted the hypothesis that flood stories were inspired by ancient observations of seashells and fish fossils inland and on mountains. The ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, and Chinese all wrote about finding such remains in these locations, and the Greeks hypothesized that Earth had been covered by water several times, noting seashells and fish fossils found on mountain tops as evidence. Native Americans also expressed this belief in their early encounters with Europeans, though they had not written it down previously. However, Leonardo da Vinci postulated that an immediate deluge could not have caused the neatly ordered strata he found in the Italian Apennines.
Some geologists believe that quite dramatic, unusually great flooding of rivers in the distant past might have influenced the legends. Also episodes of massive flooding of short duration of ocean coastal areas have been caused by tsunamis. One of the latest, and quite controversial, hypotheses of long term flooding is the Ryan-Pitman Theory, which argues for a catastrophic deluge about 5600 BC from the Mediterranean Sea into the Black Sea. This has been the subject of considerable discussion, and a news article from National Geographic News in February 2009 reported that the flooding might have been "quite mild".
There also has been speculation that a large tsunami in the Mediterranean Sea caused by the Thera eruption, dated about 16301600 BC geologically, was the historical basis for folklore that evolved into the Deucalion myth. Although the tsunami hit the South Aegean Sea and Crete it did not affect cities in the mainland of Greece, such as Mycenae, Athens, and Thebes, which continued to prosper, indicating that it had a local rather than a regionwide effect.
"The Deluge", by John Martin, 1834. Oil on canvas. Yale University Another theory is that a meteor or comet crashed into the Indian Ocean around 30002800 BC, created the 30 kilometres (19 mi) undersea Burckle Crater, and generated a giant tsunami that flooded coastal lands.
It has been postulated that the deluge myth may be based on a sudden rise in sea levels caused by the rapid draining of prehistoric Lake Agassiz at the end of the last Ice Age, about 8,400 years ago.
The great deluge finds mention in Hindu mythology texts like the Satapatha Brahmana, where in the Matsya Avatar (Fish incarnation) of the Hindu deity Vishnu takes place to save the pious and the first man, Manu.
The Great Flood of China Wikipedia.org
The Great Flood of China (Chinese: ; pinyin: D Hngshu, or just ), traditionally dated to the Third Millennium, BCE, during the reign of the Emperor Yao, according to historical sources, was a major flood event that continued for many years, resulting in great population displacements and in association with various related disasters, such as storms and famine. The Great Flood of China has been treated both historically as well as mythologically. Either way, or both, it is a narrative foundational to Chinese culture. Among other things, the Great Flood of China is key to understanding the history of the founding of both the Xia Dynasty and the Zhou Dynasty, is one of the main flood motifs in Chinese mythology, and is a major source of allusion in Classical Chinese poetry.
Literary History
Chinese history as a continuously recorded literary tradition begins with the ancient documents transmitted to posterity through the Records of the Grand Historian, of Sima Qian, which begin this narrative with the reign of the Yellow Emperor, and incorporate two discourses by Confucius. According to these, the great-grandson (or fourth successor) of the Yellow Emperor was Yao. Beginning with the reign of Yao, additional literary sources become available, including the Book of History (collected and edited by Confucius),which begins with the "Canon of Yao", describing the events of Yao's reign. It was during Yao's reign that the Great Flood began, a flood so vast that no part of Yao's territory was spared, and both the Yellow River and the Yangzi valleys flooded. The alleged nature of the flood is shown in the following quote:
Like endless boiling water, the flood is pouring forth destruction. Boundless and overwhelming, it overtops hills and mountains. Rising and ever rising, it threatens the very heavens. How the people must be groaning and suffering!
-- Emperor Yao, as quoted in the Book of History, describing the flood
According to the historical sources, the flooding continued relentlessly. Yao sought to find someone who could control the flood, and turned for advice to his special adviser, or advisers, Four Mountains ( or , Syu). Upon the insistence of Four Mountains, and over Yao's initial hesitation, the person appointed to control the flood was Gun, the Prince of Chong, who was a distant relative of Yao's through common descent from the Yellow Emperor. Nine years later, despite the efforts of Gun, the flood continued to rage on, leading to all sorts of social disorders, with the administration of the empire becoming increasingly difficult; accordingly, at this point, Yao offered to resign the throne in favor of Four Mountains: however, Four Mountains declined, and instead recommended Shun another distant relative to Yao through the Yellow Emperor; but one who was living in obscurity, despite his royal lineage. Yao proceeded to put Shun through a series of tests, beginning with wiving Shun with his two daughters and ending by sending him down from the mountains to the plains below where he had to face fierce winds, thunder, and rain. After passing all of Yao's tests, Shun took on administrative responsibilities as co-emperor. Among these responsibilities, Shun had to deal with the Great Flood and its associated disruptions, especially in light of the fact that Yao's reluctant decision to appoint Gun to handle the problem had failed to fix the situation, despite having been working on it for the previous nine years. Shun took steps over the next four years to re-organize the empire, in such a way as to solve immediate problems and to put the imperial authority in a better position to deal with the flood and its effects. Despite the additional four years, Gun still had failed to achieve success.
Mythology
The story of the Great Flood plays a dramatic role in Chinese mythology. Actually, there are a number of flood narratives in Chinese mythology, which while somewhat lacking in internal consistency and as well incorporating various magical transformations and including the interventions of various divine or semi-divine beings, nevertheless share certain common features. As opposed to myths involving the flooding of specific rivers or Ma Gu and the periodic alteration of sea and mulberry orchards; as a whole, it seems that the myths centered around the Great Flood share certain similar outlooks, such as a certain emphasis on the flood being from natural causes, rather than the result of "universal punishment for human sin". Another common feature seems to be the alleviation of the flooding by constructing dikes and dams, digging canals, together with widening or deepening existing channels, as well as teaching these skills to others, as in the cases of Nwa, Gun, and Yu the Great.
Black Sea deluge theory Wikipedia.org
The Black Sea deluge is a hypothesized catastrophic rise in the level of the Black Sea circa 5600 BC due to waters from the Mediterranean Sea breaching a sill in the Bosporus Strait. The hypothesis made headlines when The New York Times published it in December 1996, shortly before it was published in an academic journal. While it is agreed that the sequence of events described did occur, there is debate over the suddenness, dating and magnitude of the events. Two opposing hypotheses have arisen to explain the rise of the Black Sea: gradual, and oscillating. The oscillating hypothesis specifies that over the last 30,000 years, water has intermittently flowed back and forth between the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea in relatively small magnitudes, and does not necessarily presuppose that there occurred any sudden "refilling" events.
Flood hypothesis
In 1997, William Ryan and Walter Pitman published evidence that a massive flooding of the Black Sea occurred about 5600 BC through the Bosporus, following this scenario. Before that date, glacial meltwater had turned the Black and Caspian Seas into vast freshwater lakes draining into the Aegean Sea. As glaciers retreated, some of the rivers emptying into the Black Sea declined in volume and changed course to drain into the North Sea. The levels of the lakes dropped through evaporation, while changes in worldwide hydrology caused sea level to rise. The rising Mediterranean finally spilled over a rocky sill at the Bosporus. The event flooded 155,000 km2 (60,000 sq mi) of land and significantly expanded the Black Sea shoreline to the north and west. According to the researchers, "40 km3 (10 cu mi) of water poured through each day, two hundred times what flows over Niagara Falls... The Bosporus flume roared and surged at full spate for at least three hundred days."
Samplings of sediments in the Black Sea by a series of expeditions carried out between 1998 to 2005 in the frame of a European Project ASSEMBLAGE and coordinated by a French oceanographer, Gilles Lericolais, brought some new inputs to the Ryan and Pitman's hypothesis. These results were also completed by the Noah project led by the Bulgarian Institute of Oceanography (IO-BAS). Furthermore, calculations made by Mark Siddall predicted an underwater canyon that was actually found.
Black Sea today (light blue) and in 5600 BC (dark blue) according to Ryan and Pitman's hypothesis. Criticism
While some geologists claim it as fact that the sequence of events described did occur, there is debate over their suddenness and magnitude. In particular, if the water level of the Black Sea had initially been higher, the effect of the spillover would have been much less dramatic. A large part of the academic geological community also continues to reject the idea that there could have been enough sustained long-term pressure by water from the Aegean to dig through a supposed isthmus at the present Bosporus, or enough of a difference in water levels (if at all) between the two water basins.
Countering the hypothesis of Ryan and Pitman are data collected prior to its publication by Ukrainian and Russian scientists including Valentina Yanko-Hombach, who claims that the water flow through the Bosporus repeatedly reversed direction over geological time depending on fluctuation in the levels of the Aegean Sea and the Black Sea. This contradicts the hypothesized catastrophic breakage of a Bosporus sill. Likewise, the water levels calculated by Yanko-Hombach differed widely from those hypothesized by Ryan and Pitman.
In 2007, a research anthology on the topic was published which makes available much of the earlier Russian research in English for the first time, and combines it with more recent scientific findings.
A five-year cross-disciplinary research project under the sponsorship of UNESCO and the International Union of Geological Sciences was conducted 20059.
A February 2009 article reported that the flooding might have been "quite mild".
According to a study by Giosan et al., the level in the Black Sea before the marine reconnection was 30 m below present sea level, rather than the 80 m, or lower, of the catastrophe theories. If the flood occurred at all, the sea level increase and the flooded area during the reconnection were significantly smaller than previously proposed. It also occurred earlier than initially surmised, ca. 7400 BC, rather than the originally proposed 5600 BC. Since the depth of the Bosphorus, in its middle furrow, at present varies from 36 to 124 m, with an average depth of 65 m, a calculated stone age shoreline in the Black Sea lying 30 m lower than in the present day would imply that the contact with the Mediterranean may never have been broken during the Holocene, and hence that there could have been no sudden waterfall- style transgression.
Evidence from archaeology
Although neolithic agriculture had by that time already reached the Pannonian plain, Ryan and Pittman link its spread with people displaced by the postulated flood. More recent examinations by oceanographers such as Teofilo A. "Jun" Abrajano Jr. at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his Canadian colleague Ali Aksu of the Memorial University of Newfoundland have cast some doubt on this linkage. Abrajano's team, finding sapropel mud deposits in the Sea of Marmara which are today associated with freshwater outflow over top of salt-water inflow, have concluded that there has been sustained fresh water outflow from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean for at least 10,000 years. In 2003, Michael Sperling concluded that the Black Sea was not a major freshwater source contributing to formation of the Marmara Sapropel S1. Aksu found an underwater delta south of the Bosporus; evidence for a strong flow of fresh water out of the Black Sea in the 8th millennium BC. Nevertheless, Erkan Gkaan and later Kadir Eris demonstrated that the development of the delta is clearly associated with the Kurbaal Stream on the east coast, and not with the Black Sea outflow through the strait.
In a series of expeditions, a team of marine archeologists led by Robert Ballard identified what appeared to be ancient shorelines, freshwater snail shells, drowned river valleys, tool-worked timbers, and man-made structures in roughly 100 metres (330 ft) of water off the Black Sea coast of modern Turkey. Although radiocarbon dating of freshwater mollusk remains indicated an age of about 7,500 years, radiocarbon dating in freshwater mollusks in particular can be inaccurate. Such inaccuracies, however, are always in the direction of objects appearing older than they actually are (containing less 14C than expected), so the time given is a maximum age of a freshwater shoreline at that location.
Before and after the flood, according to Ryan and Pitman The Shroud of Turin Wikipedia.org
The Shroud of Turin or Turin Shroud (Italian: Sindone di Torino, Sacra Sindone) is a linen cloth bearing the image of a man who appears to have suffered physical trauma in a manner consistent with crucifixion. It is kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, northern Italy. The image on the shroud is commonly associated with Jesus Christ, his crucifixion and burial. The origins of the shroud and its image are the subject of intense debate among scientists, theologians, historians and researchers. The Catholic Church has neither formally endorsed nor rejected the shroud, but in 1958 Pope Pius XII approved of the image in association with the Roman Catholic devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus.
The image on the shroud is much clearer in black- and-white negative than in its natural sepia color. The negative image was first observed in 1898, on the reverse photographic plate of amateur photographer Secondo Pia, who was allowed to photograph it while it was being exhibited in the Turin Cathedral. In 1978 a detailed examination was carried out by a team of American scientists called STURP. They found no reliable evidence of forgery, and called the question of how the image was formed "a mystery".
In 1988, a controversial radiocarbon dating test was performed on small samples of the shroud. The laboratories at the University of Oxford, the University of Arizona, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, concurred that the samples they tested dated from the Middle Ages, between 1260 and 1390. Three peer-reviewed articles have since been published contending that the samples used for the dating test may not have been representative of the whole shroud.
Scientific and popular publications have presented diverse arguments for both authenticity and possible methods of forgery. A variety of scientific theories regarding the shroud have since been proposed, based on disciplines ranging from chemistry to biology and medical forensics to optical image analysis. According to former Nature editor Philip Ball, "it's fair to say that, despite the seemingly definitive tests in 1988, the status of the Shroud of Turin is murkier than ever. Not least, the nature of the image and how it was fixed on the cloth remain deeply puzzling". The shroud is one of the most studied artifacts in human history, and one of the most controversial.
Description
The shroud is rectangular, measuring approximately 4.4 1.1 m (14.3 3.7 ft). The cloth is woven in a three-to-one herringbone twill composed of flax fibrils. Its most distinctive characteristic is the faint, brownish image of a front and back view of a naked man with his hands folded across his groin. The two views are aligned along the midplane of the body and point in opposite directions. The front and back views of the head nearly meet at the middle of the cloth.
Secondo Pia's 1898 negative of the image on the Shroud of Turin has an appearance suggesting a positive image. It is used as part of the devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus. Reddish brown stains that have been said to include whole blood are found on the cloth, showing various wounds that, according to proponents, correlate with the yellowish image, the pathophysiology of crucifixion, and the Biblical description of the death of Jesus.
Markings on the lines include:
one wrist bears a large, round wound, claimed to be from piercing (the second wrist is hidden by the folding of the hands) upward gouge in the side penetrating into the thoracic cavity. Proponents claim this was a post-mortem event and there are separate components of red blood cells and serum draining from the lesion small punctures around the forehead and scalp scores of linear wounds on the torso and legs. Proponents claim that the wounds are consistent with the distinctive dumbbell wounds of a Roman flagrum. swelling of the face from severe beatings streams of blood down both arms. Proponents claim that the blood drippings from the main flow occurred in response to gravity at an angle that would occur during crucifixion no evidence of either leg being fractured large puncture wounds in the feet as if pierced by a single spike
Left: Full length negatives of the shroud.
The details of the image on the shroud are not easily distinguishable by the naked eye, and were first observed after the advent of photography.
In May 1898 amateur Italian photographer Secondo Pia was allowed to photograph the shroud and he took the first photograph of the shroud on the evening of May 28, 1898. Pia was startled by the visible image of the negative plate in his darkroom. Negatives of the image give the appearance of a positive image, which implies that the shroud image is itself effectively a negative of some kind. Pia was at first accused of doctoring his photographs, but was vindicated in 1931 when a professional photographer, Giuseppe Enrie, also photographed the shroud and his findings supported Pia's. In 1978 Miller and Pellicori took ultraviolet photographs of the shroud.
The image of the "Man of the Shroud" has a beard, moustache, and shoulder-length hair parted in the middle. He is muscular and tall (various experts have measured him as from 1.70 m, or roughly 5 ft 7 in, to 1.88 m, or 6 ft 2 in). The shroud was damaged in a fire in 1532 in the chapel in Chambery, France. There are some burn holes and scorched areas down both sides of the linen, caused by contact with molten silver during the fire that burned through it in places while it was folded. Fourteen large triangular patches and eight smaller ones were sewn onto the cloth by Poor Clare nuns to repair the damage.
History
Left: Full-length image of the Turin Shroud before the 2002 restoration.
The historical records for the shroud can be separated into two time periods: before 1390 and from 1390 to the present. The period until 1390 is subject to debate and controversy among historians. Prior to the 14th century there are some congruent references such as the Pray Codex. It is often mentioned that the first certain historical record dates from 1353 or 1357. However the presence of the Turin Shroud in Lirey, France, is only undoubtedly attested in 1390 when Bishop Pierre d'Arcis wrote a memorandum to Antipope Clement VII, stating that the shroud was a forgery and that the artist had confessed. The history from the 15th century to the present is well understood. In 1453 Margaret de Charny deeded the Shroud to the House of Savoy. In 1578 the shroud was transferred in Turin. As of the 17th century the shroud has been displayed (e.g. in the chapel built for that purpose by Guarino Guarini) and in the 19th century it was first photographed during a public exhibition.
There are no definite historical records concerning the shroud prior to the 14th century. Although there are numerous reports of Jesus' burial shroud, or an image of his head, of unknown origin, being venerated in various locations before the 14th century, there is no historical evidence that these refer to the shroud currently at Turin Cathedral. A burial cloth, which some historians maintain was the Shroud, was owned by the Byzantine emperors but disappeared during the Sack of Constantinople in 1204.
Right: The pilgrim medallion of Lirey (before 1453), drawing by Arthur Forgeais, 1865.
Historical records seem to indicate that a shroud bearing an image of a crucified man existed in the small town of Lirey around the years 1353 to 1357 in the possession of a French Knight, Geoffroi de Charny, who died at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. However the correspondence of this shroud with the shroud in Turin, and its very origin has been debated by scholars and lay authors, with claims of forgery attributed to artists born a century apart. Some contend that the Lirey shroud was the work of a confessed forger and murderer or forged by Leonardo da Vinci.
The history of the shroud from the 15th century is well recorded. In 1532, the shroud suffered damage from a fire in a chapel of Chambry, capital of the Savoy region, where it was stored. A drop of molten silver from the reliquary produced a symmetrically placed mark through the layers of the folded cloth. Poor Clare Nuns attempted to repair this damage with patches. In 1578 Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy ordered the cloth to be brought from Chambry to Turin and it has remained at Turin ever since.
Repairs were made to the shroud in 1694 by Sebastian Valfr to improve the repairs of the Poor Clare nuns. Further repairs were made in 1868 by Clotilde of Savoy. The shroud remained the property of the House of Savoy until 1983, when it was given to the Holy See, the rule of the House of Savoy having ended in 1946.
A fire, possibly caused by arson, threatened the shroud on 11 April 1997. In 2002, the Holy See had the shroud restored. The cloth backing and thirty patches were removed, making it possible to photograph and scan the reverse side of the cloth, which had been hidden from view. A ghostly part-image of the body was found on the back of the shroud in 2004. The most recent public exhibition of the Shroud was in 2010.
Religious perspective
Religious beliefs about the burial cloths of Jesus have existed for centuries. The Gospels of Matthew [27:5960], Mark [15:46] and Luke [23:53] state that Joseph of Arimathea wrapped the body of Jesus in a piece of linen cloth and placed it in a new tomb. The Gospel of John [19:3840] refers to strips of linen used by Joseph of Arimathea and John [20:67] states that Apostle Peter found multiple pieces of burial cloth after the tomb was found open, strips of linen cloth for the body and a separate cloth for the head.
Although pieces of burial cloths of Jesus are claimed by at least four churches in France and three in Italy, none has gathered as much religious following as the Shroud of Turin. The religious beliefs and practices associated with the shroud predate historical and scientific discussions and have continued in the 21st century, although the Catholic Church has never claimed its authenticity. An example is the Holy Face Medal bearing the image from the shroud, worn by some Catholics.
John Calvin on the shroud
In 1543 John Calvin, in his Treatise on Relics, wrote of the shroud, which was then at Nice (it was moved to Turin in 1578), "How is it possible that those sacred historians, who carefully related all the miracles that took place at Christs death, should have omitted to mention one so remarkable as the likeness of the body of our Lord remaining on its wrapping sheet?" He also noted that, according to St. John, there was one sheet covering Jesus's body, and a separate cloth covering his head. He then stated that "either St. John is a liar," or else anyone who promotes such a shroud is "convicted of falsehood and deceit".
Devotions
Although the shroud image is currently associated with Catholic devotions to the Holy Face of Jesus, the devotions themselves predate Secondo Pia's 1898 photograph. Such devotions had been started in 1844 by the Carmelite nun Marie of St Peter (based on "pre-crucifixion" images associated with the Veil of Veronica) and promoted by Leo Dupont, also called the Apostle of the Holy Face. In 1851 Leo Dupont formed the "Archconfraternity of the Holy Face" in Tours, France, well before Secondo Pia took the photograph of the shroud.
Miraculous image
Left: A poster advertising the 1898 exhibition of the shroud in Turin. Secondo Pia's photograph was taken a few weeks too late to be included in the poster. The image on the poster includes a painted face, not obtained from Pia's photograph.
The religious concept of "miraculous image" has been applied to the Shroud of Turin, as it has been applied to other religious artifacts such as the image of the Virgin Mary on the cloak in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Tepeyac hill in Mexico.
Without debating scientific issues, some believers state as a matter of faith that empirical analysis and scientific methods will perhaps never advance to a level sufficient for understanding the divine methods used for image formation on the shroud, since the body around whom the shroud was wrapped was not merely human, but divine, and believe that the image on the shroud was miraculously produced at the moment of Resurrection.
Vatican position
Antipope Clement VII refrained from expressing his opinion on the shroud; however, subsequent popes from Julius II on took its authenticity for granted.
The Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano covered the story of Secondo Pia's photograph of May 28, 1898 in its June 15, 1898 edition, but it did so with no comment and thereafter Church officials generally refrained from officially commenting on the photograph for almost half a century.
The first official association between the image on the Shroud and the Catholic Church was made in 1940 based on the formal request by Sister Maria Pierina De Micheli to the curia in Milan to obtain authorization to produce a medal with the image. The authorization was granted and the first medal with the image was offered to Pope Pius XII who approved the medal. The image was then used on what became known as the Holy Face Medal worn by many Catholics, initially as a means of protection during World War II. In 1958 Pope Pius XII approved of the image in association with the devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus, and declared its feast to be celebrated every year the day before Ash Wednesday. Following the approval by Pope Pius XII, Catholic devotions to the Holy Face of Jesus have been almost exclusively associated with the image on the shroud.
In 1983 the Shroud was given to the Holy See by the House of Savoy. However, as with all relics of this kind, the Roman Catholic Church made no pronouncements claiming whether it is Jesus' burial shroud, or if it is a forgery. As with other approved Catholic devotions, the matter has been left to the personal decision of the faithful, as long as the Church does not issue a future notification to the contrary. In the Church's view, whether the cloth is authentic or not has no bearing whatsoever on the validity of what Jesus taught nor on the saving power of his death and resurrection.
Pope John Paul II stated in 1998 that: "Since it is not a matter of faith, the Church has no specific competence to pronounce on these questions. She entrusts to scientists the task of continuing to investigate, so that satisfactory answers may be found to the questions connected with this Sheet". Pope John Paul II showed himself to be deeply moved by the image of the Shroud and arranged for public showings in 1998 and 2000. In his address at the Turin Cathedral on Sunday May 24, 1998 (the occasion of the 100th year of Secondo Pia's May 28, 1898 photograph), he said: "The Shroud is an image of God's love as well as of human sin [...] The imprint left by the tortured body of the Crucified One, which attests to the tremendous human capacity for causing pain and death to one's fellow man, stands as an icon of the suffering of the innocent in every age." In 2000, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote that the Shroud of Turin is a truly mysterious image, which no human artistry was capable of producing. In some inexplicable way, it appeared imprinted upon cloth and claimed to show the true face of Christ, the crucified and risen Lord."
Pope Benedict XVI has not publicly commented on the Shroud's authenticity, but has taken steps that indirectly affect the Shroud. In June 2008 he approved the public display of the Shroud in the spring of 2010 and stated that he would like to go to Turin to see it along with other pilgrims. During his visit in Turin on Sunday May 2, 2010, Benedict XVI described the Shroud of Turin as an "extraordinary Icon", the "Icon of Holy Saturday [...] corresponding in every way to what the Gospels tell us of Jesus", "an Icon written in blood, the blood of a man who was scourged, crowned with thorns, crucified and whose right side was pierced". The pope said also that in the Turin Shroud "we see, as in a mirror, our suffering in the suffering of Christ". On May 30, 2010, Benedict XVI beatified Sister Maria Pierina De Micheli who coined the Holy Face Medal, based on Secondo Pia's photograph of the Shroud.
Scientific perspective
The term sindonology (from the Greek sindon, the word used in the Gospel of Mark [15:46] to describe the type of the burial cloth of Jesus) is used to refer to the formal study of the Shroud.
Secondo Pia's 1898 photographs of the shroud allowed the scientific community to begin to study it. A variety of scientific theories regarding the shroud have since been proposed, based on disciplines ranging from chemistry to biology and medical forensics to optical image analysis. Very few scientists (e.g. STURP and the Radiocarbon dating teams) have had direct access to the shroud or very small samples from it, and most theories have been proposed "long distance" by the analysis of images, or via secondary sources. The scientific approaches to the study of the Shroud fall into three groups: material analysis (both chemical and historical), biology and medical forensics and image analysis.
Early studies
The initial steps towards the scientific study of the shroud were taken soon after the first set of black and white photographs became available early in the 20th century. In 1902 Yves Delage, a French professor of comparative anatomy published the first study on the subject. Delage declared the image anatomically flawless and argued that the features of rigor mortis, wounds, and blood flows were evidence that the image was formed by direct or indirect contact with a corpse. William Meacham mentions several other medical studies between 1936 and 1981 that agree with Delage. However, these were all indirect studies without access to the shroud itself.
The first direct examination of the shroud by a scientific team was undertaken in 19691973 in order to advise on preservation of the shroud and determine specific testing methods. This led to the appointment of an 11-member Turin Commission to advise on the preservation of the relic and on specific testing. Five of the commission members were scientists, and preliminary studies of samples of the fabric were conducted in 1973.
In 1976 physicist John P. Jackson, thermodynamicist Eric Jumper and photographer William Mottern used image analysis technologies developed in aerospace science for analyzing the images of the Shroud. In 1977 these three scientists and over thirty others formed the Shroud of Turin Research Project. In 1978 this group, often called STURP, was given direct access to the Shroud.
Material chemical analysis
Radiocarbon dating
After years of discussion, the Holy See permitted radiocarbon dating on portions of a swatch taken from a corner of the shroud. Independent tests in 1988 at the University of Oxford, the University of Arizona, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology concluded that the shroud material dated to 12601390 AD, with 95% confidence. This 13th to 14th century dating matches the first appearance of the shroud in church history, and is somewhat later than art historian W.S.A. Dale's estimate of an 11th century date based on art-historical grounds. Criticisms have been raised regarding the sample taken for testing (it may have come from medieval repair fragments), although not the quality of the radiocarbon testing itself. In 2005, Raymond Rogers, who conducted chemical analysis for the Shroud of Turin Research Project stated that after further study he was convinced that: "The worst possible sample for carbon dating was taken."
Tests for pigmentsIn 1970s a special eleven-member Turin Commission conducted several tests. Conventional and electron microscopic examination of the Shroud at that time revealed an absence of heterogeneous coloring material or pigment. In 1979, Walter McCrone, upon analyzing the samples he was given by STURP, concluded that the image is actually made up of billions of submicrometre pigment particles. The only fibrils that had been made available for testing of the stains were those that remained affixed to custom-designed adhesive tape applied to thirty-two different sections of the image.
John Heller and Alan Adler examined the same samples and agreed with McCrone's result that the cloth contains iron oxide. However, they concluded, the exceptional purity of the chemical and comparisons with other ancient textiles showed that, while retting flax absorbs iron selectively, the iron itself was not the source of the image on the shroud. Other microscopic analysis of the fibers seems to indicate that the image is strictly limited to the carbohydrate layer, with no additional layer of pigment visible.
Phase contrast microscopic view of image- bearing fiber from the Shroud of Turin. Carbohydrate layer is visible along top edge. The lower-right edge shows that coating is missing. The coating can be scraped off or removed with adhesive or diimide. Material historical analysis
Historical fabrics
In 2000, fragments of a burial shroud from the 1st century were discovered in a tomb near Jerusalem, believed to have belonged to a Jewish high priest or member of the aristocracy. The shroud was composed of a simple two-way weave, unlike the complex herringbone twill of the Turin Shroud. Based on this discovery, the researchers stated that the Turin Shroud did not originate from Jesus-era Jerusalem.
According to textile expert Mechthild Flury-Lemberg of Hamburg, a seam in the cloth corresponds to a fabric found only at the fortress of Masada near the Dead Sea, which dated to the 1st century. The weaving pattern, 3:1 twill, is consistent with first-century Syrian design, according to the appraisal of Gilbert Raes of the Ghent Institute of Textile Technology in Belgium. Flury-Lemberg stated, "The linen cloth of the Shroud of Turin does not display any weaving or sewing techniques which would speak against its origin as a high-quality product of the textile workers of the first century."
In 1999, Mark Guscin investigated the relationship between the shroud and the Sudarium of Oviedo, claimed as the cloth that covered the head of Jesus in the Gospel of John [20:67] when the empty tomb was discovered. The Sudarium is also reported to have type AB blood stains. Guscin concluded that the two cloths covered the same head at two distinct, but close moments of time. Avinoam Danin (see below) concurred with this analysis, adding that the pollen grains in the Sudarium match those of the shroud. Skeptics criticize the polarized image overlay technique of Guscin and suggest that pollen from Jerusalem could have followed any number of paths to find its way to the sudarium.
In 2002, Aldo Guerreschi and Michele Salcito argued that many of these marks on the fabric of the shroud stem from a much earlier time because the symmetries correspond more to the folding that would have been necessary to store the cloth in a clay jar (like cloth samples at Qumran) than to that necessary to store it in the reliquary that housed it in 1532.
Dirt particles
Left: A piece of travertine.
Joseph Kohlbeck from the Hercules Aerospace Company in Utah and Richard Levi-Setti of the Enrico Fermi Institute examined some dirt particles from the Shroud surface. The dirt was found to be travertine aragonite limestone. Using a high-resolution microprobe, Levi-Setti and Kolbeck compared the spectra of samples taken from the Shroud with samples of limestone from ancient Jerusalem tombs. The chemical signatures of the Shroud samples and the tomb limestone were found identical except for minute fragments of cellulose linen fiber that could not be separated from the Shroud samples.
Biological and medical forensics
Blood stains
There are several reddish stains on the shroud suggesting blood, but it is uncertain whether these stains were produced at the same time as the image, or afterwards. McCrone (see painting hypothesis) identified these as containing iron oxide, theorizing that its presence was likely due to simple pigment materials used in medieval times. Other researchers, including Alan Adler, identified the reddish stains as blood and interpreted the iron oxide as a natural residue of hemoglobin.
Heller and Adler further studied the dark red stains and determined and identified hemoglobin, establishing, within claimed scientific certainty, the presence of porphyrin, bilirubin, albumin, and protein. Working independently forensic pathologist Pier Luigi Baima Bollone, concurred with Heller and Adler's findings and identified the blood as AB blood group. Subsequently, STURP sent blood flecks to the laboratory devoted to the study of ancient blood at the State University of New York (SUNY). Dr. Andrew Merriwether at SUNY stated that no blood typing could be confirmed, and the DNA was badly fragmented. He stated that it is almost certain that the blood spots are blood, but no definitive statements can be made about its nature or provenience, i.e., whether it is male and from the Near East."
Joe Nickell argues that results similar to Heller and Adler's could be obtained from tempera paint. Skeptics also cite other forensic blood tests whose results dispute the authenticity of the Shroud that the blood could belong to a person handling the shroud, and that the apparent blood flows on the shroud are unrealistically neat.
Flowers and pollen
Left: A Chrysanthemum coronarium
In 1997 Avinoam Danin, a botanist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, reported that he had identified the type of Chrysanthemum coronarium, Cistus creticus and Zygophyllum whose pressed image on the shroud was first noticed by Alan Whanger in 1985 on the photographs of the shroud taken in 1931. He reported that the outlines of the flowering plants would point to March or April and the environs of Jerusalem. In a separate report in 1978 Danin and Uri Baruch reported on the pollen grains on the cloth samples, stating that they were appropriate to the spring in Israel. Max Frei, a Swiss police criminologist who initially obtained pollen from the shroud during the STURP investigation stated that of the 58 different types of pollens found, 45 were from the Jerusalem area, while 6 were from the eastern Middle East, with one pollen species growing exclusively in Constantinople, and two found in Edessa, Turkey. Mark Antonacci argues that the pollen evidence and flower images are inherently interwoven and strengthen each other.
Skeptics have argued that the flower images are too faint for Danin's determination to be definite, that an independent review of the pollen strands showed that one strand out of the 26 provided contained significantly more pollen than the others, perhaps pointing to deliberate contamination. Skeptics also argue that Max Frei had previously been duped in his examination of the Hitler Diaries and that he may have also been duped in this case, or may have introduced the pollens himself. J. Beaulieau has stated that Frei was a self-taught amateur palynologist, was not properly trained, and that his sample was too small.
In 2008 Avinoam Danin reported analysis based on the ultraviolet photographs of Miller and Pellicori taken in 1978. Danin reported five new species of flower, which also bloom in March and April and stated that a comparison of the 1931 black and white photographs and the 1978 ultraviolet images indicate that the flower images are genuine and not the artifact of a specific method of photography.
Anatomical forensics
A number of studies on the anatomical consistency of the image on the shroud and the nature of the wounds on it have been performed, following the initial study by Yves Delage in 1902. While Delage declared the image anatomically flawless, others have presented arguments to support both authenticity and forgery.
In 1950 physician Pierre Barbet wrote a long study called A Doctor at Calvary which was later published as a book. Barbet stated that his experience as a battlefield surgeon during World War I led him to conclude that the image on the shroud was authentic, anatomically correct and consistent with crucifixion.
In 1997 physician and forensic pathologist Robert Bucklin constructed a scenario of how a systematic autopsy on the man of the shroud would have been conducted. He noted the series of traumatic injuries which extend from the shoulder areas to the lower portion of the back, which he considered consistent with whipping; and marks on the right shoulder blade which he concluded were signs of carrying a heavy object. Bucklin concluded that the image was of a real person, subject to crucifixion.
For over a decade, medical examiner Frederick Zugibe performed a number of studies using himself and volunteers suspended from a cross, and presented his conclusions in a book in 1998. Zugibe considers the shroud image and its proportions as authentic, but disagrees with Barbet and Bucklin on various details such as blood flow. Zugibe concluded that the image on the shroud is of the body of a man, but that the body had been washed.
In 2001, Pierluigi Baima Bollone, a professor of forensic medicine in Turin, stated that the forensic examination of the wounds and bloodstains on the Shroud indicate that the image was that of the dead body of a man who was whipped, wounded around the head by a pointed instrument and nailed at the extremities before dying.
In 2010 Giulio Fanti, professor of mechanical measurements, wrote that "apart from the hands afterward placed on the pubic area, the front and back images are compatible with the Shroud being used to wrap the body of a man 1752 cm tall, which, due to cadaveric rigidity, remained in the same position it would have assumed during crucifixion".
Artist Isabel Piczek stated in 1995 that while a general research opinion sees a flatly reclining body on the Shroud, the professional figurative artist can see substantial differences from a flatly reclining position. She stated that the professional arts cannot find discrepancies and distortions in the anatomy of the "Shroud Man".
Artist Lillian Schwartz, who had previously claimed to have matched the face of the Mona Lisa to a self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, stated in 2009 that the proportions of the face image on the shroud are correct, and that they match the dimensions of the face of da Vinci.
Authors Joe Nickell, in 1983, and Gregory S. Paul in 2010, separately state that the proportions of the image are not realistic. Paul stated that the face and proportions of the shroud image are impossible, that the figure cannot represent that of an actual person and that the posture was inconsistent. They argued that the forehead on the shroud is too small; and that the arms are too long and of different lengths and that the distance from the eyebrows to the top of the head is non-representative. They concluded that the features can be explained if the shroud is a work of a Gothic artist.
Image analysis
Both Digital image processing and analog techniques have been applied to the shroud images.
The VP8 Image Analyzer was produced by Pete Schumacher of Interpretations Systems Incorporated and was delivered by him to John Jackson and Eric Jumper in Colorado Springs in 1976. It showed the Shroud image has properties that, when processed through this analog computer, yield a 3-dimensional image. Rather than being like a photographic negative, the shroud image unexpectedly has the property of decoding into a 3-dimensional image of the man when the darker parts of the image are interpreted to be those features of the man that were closest to the shroud and the lighter areas of the image those features that were farthest. This is not a property that occurs in photography, and researchers could not replicate the effect when they attempted to transfer similar images using techniques of block print, engravings, a hot statue, and bas-relief.
NASA researchers Jackson, Jumper, and Stephenson report detecting the impressions of coins placed on both eyes after a digital study in 1978. The two-lepton coin on the right eyelid was presumably coined under Pilate in 29-30, while the one-lepton coin on the left eyebrow was minted in 29. Greek and Latin letters were reported as written near the face in 1979. These were further studied by Andr Marion, professor at the cole suprieure d'optique and his student Anne Laure Courage, in 1997. Subsequently, computerized analysis and microdensitometer, other writings were reported, among them INNECEM (a shortened form of Latin "in necem ibis""you will go to death"), NNAZAPE(N)NUS (Nazarene), IHSOY (Jesus) and IC (Iesus Chrestus). The uncertain letters IBE(R?) have been conjectured as "Tiberius". Linguist Mark Guscin disputed the reports of Marion and Courage. He stated that the inscriptions made little grammatical or historical sense and that they did not appear on the slides that Marion and Courage indicated. The authenticity of the alleged coins has also come under dispute.
In 2004, in an article in Journal of Optics A, Fanti and Maggiolo reported finding a faint second face on the backside of the cloth, after the 2002 restoration.
The front image of the Turin Shroud, 1.95 m long, is not directly compatible with the back image, 2.02 m long. In order to verify the possibility that both images were generated by the same human body, a numeric-anthropomorphous manikin was constructed by computer and wrapped in the digitized front and back images. Kinematic analysis showed that the front and back images are compatible with the Shroud being used to wrap the body of a man 1752 cm tall, which, due to cadaveric rigidity, remained in the same position it would have assumed during crucifixion.
Hypotheses on image origin
Many hypotheses have been formulated and tested to explain the image on the Shroud. To date, despite numerous and often media-related claims, it can be said that "the body image of the Turin Shroud has not yet been explained by traditional science; so a great interest in a possible mechanism of image formation still exists."
Painting
The technique used for producing the image is, according to W. McCrone, already described in a book about medieval painting published in 1847 by Charles Lock Eastlake ("Methods and Materials of Painting of the Great Schools and Masters"). Eastlake describes in the chapter "Practice of Painting Generally During the XIVth Century" a special technique of painting on linen using tempera paint, which produces images with unusual transparent featureswhich McCrone compares to the image on the shroud.
This hypothesis was declared to be unsound as the X-ray fluorescence examination, as well as infrared thermography, did not point out any pigment. It was also found that 25 different solvents, among them water, do not reduce or sponge out the image. The non-paint origin has been further claimed by Fourier transform of the image: common paintings show a directionality that is absent from the Turin Shroud.
Photographic image production
According to the art historian Nicholas Allen the image on the shroud was formed by a photographic technique in the 13th century. Allen maintains that techniques already available before the 14th centurye.g., as described in the Book of Optics, which was at just that time translated from Arabic to Latinwere sufficient to produce primitive photographs, and that people familiar with these techniques would have been able to produce an image as found on the shroud. To demonstrate this, he successfully produced photographic images similar to the shroud using only techniques and materials available at the time the shroud was made. He described his results in his PhD thesis, in papers published in several science journals, and in a book.
However a double photographic exposure, needed in that case, should have considered the distances and in such case there would be areas of photographic superimposition with different lights and shades. The distances on Shroud instead correspond to the body position.
Dust-transfer technique
Scientists Emily Craig and Randall Bresee have attempted to recreate the likenesses of the shroud through the dust-transfer technique, which could have been done by medieval arts. They first did a carbon-dust drawing of a Jesus-like face (using collagen dust) on a newsprint made from wood pulp (which is similar to 13th and 14th century paper). They next placed the drawing on a table and covered it with a piece of linen. They then pressed the linen against the newsprint by firmly rubbing with the flat side of a wooden spoon. By doing this they managed to create a reddish brown image with a life-like positive likeness of a person, a three dimensional image and no sign of brush strokes. However, according to Fanti and Moroni, this does not reproduce many special features of the Shroud at microscopic level.
Bas-relief
Another hypothesis suggests that the Shroud may have been formed using a bas-relief sculpture. Researcher Jacques di Costanzo, noting that the Shroud image seems to have a three-dimensional quality, suggested that perhaps the image was formed using an actual three-dimensional object, such as a sculpture. While wrapping a cloth around a life-sized statue would result in a distorted image, placing a cloth over a bas-relief would result in an image like the one seen on the shroud. To demonstrate the plausibility of his hypothesis, Costanzo constructed a bas-relief of a Jesus-like face and draped wet linen over the bas-relief. After the linen dried, he dabbed it with a mixture of ferric oxide and gelatine. The result was an image similar to that of the Shroud. The imprinted image turned out to be wash-resistant, impervious to temperatures of 250 C (482 F) and was undamaged by exposure to a range of harsh chemicals, including bisulphite which, without the help of the gelatine, would normally have degraded ferric oxide to the compound ferrous oxide. Similar results have been obtained by former stage magician and author Joe Nickell. Instead of painting, the bas-relief could also be heated and used to burn an image into the cloth.
According to Fanti and Moroni, after comparing the histograms of 256 different grey levels, it was found that the image obtained with a bas-relief has grey values included between 60 and 256 levels, but it is much contrasted with wide areas of white saturation (levels included between 245 and 256) and lacks of intermediate grey levels (levels included between 160 and 200). The face image on the Shroud instead has grey tonalities that vary in the same values field (between 60 and 256), but the white saturation is much less marked and the histogram is practically flat in correspondence of the intermediate grey levels (levels included between 160 and 200).
Maillard reaction
The Maillard reaction is a form of non-enzymatic browning involving an amino acid and a reducing sugar. The cellulose fibers of the shroud are coated with a thin carbohydrate layer of starch fractions, various sugars, and other impurities. In a paper entitled "The Shroud of Turin: an amino-carbonyl reaction may explain the image formation," Raymond Rogers and Anna Arnoldi propose that amines from a recently deceased human body may have undergone Maillard reactions with this carbohydrate layer within a reasonable period of time, before liquid decomposition products stained or damaged the cloth. The gases produced by a dead body are extremely reactive chemically and within a few hours, in an environment such as a tomb, a body starts to produce heavier amines in its tissues such as putrescine and cadaverine. However the potential source for amines required for the reaction is a decomposing body, while no signs of decomposition have been found on the Shroud. The image resolution and the uniform coloration of the linen resolution seem to be not compatible with a mechanism involving diffusion.
Alan A. Mills argued that the image was formed by the chemical reaction auto-oxidation. He noted that the image corresponds to what would have been produced by a volatile chemical if the intensity of the color change were inversely proportional to the distance from the body of a loosely draped cloth.
Energy source
This section discusses energy source hypotheses. However, the hypotheses presented here do not account for where the energy came from, e.g. the corona discharge requires high levels of energy, which would have needed to have been generated from a human body. None of the papers cited in this section have presented a detailed analysis regarding the application of the law of conservation of energy with respect to the generation of the energy needed to support the hypotheses presented. Moreover, none of these suggestions have produced a similar image in a scientific setting and remain untested hypotheses.
Since 1930, several researchers (J. Jackson, G. Fanti, T. Trenn, T. Phillips, J.-B. Rinaudo and others) endorsed the flash-like irradiation hypothesis. It was suggested that the relatively high definition of the image details can be obtained through the energy source (specifically, protonic) acting from inside. The Russian researcher Alexander Belyakov proposed an intense, but short flashlight source, which lasted some hundredths of second. Some other authors suggest the X-radiation or a burst of directional ultraviolet radiation may have played a role in the formation of the Shroud image. From the image characteristics, several researchers have theorized that the radiant source was prevalently vertical. These theories do not include the scientific discussion of a method by which the energy could have been produced.
A harsh criticism of the energy source hypothesis comes from Raymond N. Rogers who was involved in work with The Shroud since the conception of the STURP project in 1978. As he states, "If any form of radiation (thermal, electromagnetic, or particle) degraded the cellulose of the linen fibers to produce the image color, it would have had to penetrate the entire diameter of a fiber in order to color its back surface. Some lower fibers are colored, requiring more penetration. Radiation that penetrated the entire 10-15-mm-diameter of a fiber would certainly color the walls of the medulla. All image fibers show color on their surfaces but not in the medullas.".
Corona discharge
During restoration in 2002, the back of the cloth was photographed and scanned for the first time. An article on this subject by Giulio Fanti and others envisages the electrostatic corona discharge as the probable mechanism to produce the images of the body in the Shroud. Congruent with that mechanism, they also describe an image on the reverse side of the fabric, much fainter than that on the front view of the body, consisting primarily of the face and perhaps hands. As with the front picture, it is entirely superficial, with coloration limited to the carbohydrate layer. The images correspond to, and are in registration with, those on the other side of the cloth. No image is detectable in the reverse side of the dorsal view of the body.
Results of some new experiments propose that a Corona discharge mechanism could have been involved in the Turin Shroud body image formation, but it is impossible to reproduce all the characteristics of the image in a laboratory because the energy source required is too high. This theory and the experiment have not addressed a method by which the high level of energy could have been controlled and directed, without damaging the Shroud.
Recent developments
In 2009, Barbara Frale, a paleographer in the Vatican Secret Archives, published two books on the Shroud of Turin. She thinks that the shroud had been kept by the Templars after 1204 and that it is possible to read on the image the burial certificate of Jesus the Nazarene, or Jesus of Nazareth, imprinted in fragments of Greek, Hebrew and Latin writing. Her methodology has been criticized.
On October 5, 2009, Luigi Garlaschelli, professor of organic chemistry at the University of Pavia, announced that he had made a full size reproduction of the Shroud of Turin using only medieval technologies. Garlaschelli placed a linen sheet over a volunteer and then rubbed it with an acidic pigment. The shroud was then aged in an oven before being washed to remove the pigment. He then added blood stains, scorches and water stains to replicate the original. But according to Giulio Fanti, professor of mechanical and thermic measurements at the University of Padua, "the technique itself seems unable to produce an image having the most critical Turin Shroud image characteristics".
In 2010, professors of statistics Marco Riani and Anthony C. Atkinson wrote in a scientific paper that the statistical analysis of the raw dates obtained from the three laboratories for the radiocarbon test suggests the presence of an important contamination in the samples.
A team of graphic artists tried to recreate the real face of Jesus in a special two-hour documentary on the History Channel broadcast for the first time in March 2010. The image was made by taking information and blood encoded on the Turin Shroud and transforming it into a 3D image.
The Shroud was placed back on public display (the 18th time in its history) in Turin from 10 April to 23 May 2010. According to Church officials, more than 2 million visitors came to see the Shroud.
In December 2010 Professor Timothy Jull, editor of Radiocarbon, coauthored an article with a textile expert in this peer-reviewed journal. They analyzed an unknown sample of 1988 and concluded that they found no evidence of a repair. However this article was strongly criticized, even by traditional skeptics.
The Sword of St. Peter Wikipedia.org
The Sword of Saint Peter (Polish: Miecz witego Piotra) is allegedly the sword with which the Apostle Peter cut off the ear of the high priest's servant at the time of Jesus' arrest in Gethsemane.
The sword is wide-tipped, similar in shape to a dussack or machete. It currently resides in the Pozna Archdiocesan Museum.
An exact copy of the sword, made by Bogdan Puchalski, is displayed on the wall of the Pozna Archcathedral Basilica.
History
The sword is mentioned for the first time in the 1609 Vitae Episcoporum Posnaniensium of Jan Dugosz as being the original Roman sword (Gladius) used by Saint Peter in the Gospels, or a direct copy made for Pope Stephen VII. However, at this time Stephen was already dead, and the current pope was John XIII.
The sword arrived in Pozna in 968 as a gift from John XIII for either Bishop Jordan or Duke Mieszko I. The Archdeacon of Pozna Cathedral in 1699 writes about the sword, describing it as a part of St. Peter's sword brought to Pozna by Bishop Jordan, where it is usually kept in the cathedral treasury, except for the few times a year when it is shown to the people. The 1721 Decree of Pozna Cathedral Chapter refers to having the sword moved to the chapter house as a more proper placement for this noble artifact.
Folklore
According to British folklore, St. Joseph of Arimathea brought the sword to Britain and it was kept at Glastonbury Abbey for many years until the Abbot gave it to Saint George.
Authenticity
For many years, historians treated the sword as a copy, probably made in the 10th century, but research by scientists from the Polish Army Museum in Warsaw suggests that the weapon could have been made in the 1st century in the eastern borderlands of the Roman Empire.
However, scientists from the Greater Poland Army Museum in Pozna strongly consider it to be a medieval copy. Other experts, like Marian Gosek and Leszek Kajzer, suggest that the sword was made in the first quarter of the 14th century.
Regardless of when the sword was made, it has the longest documented history in Poland, along with the Szczerbiec.
Description
The blade was made from a single piece of iron with an added small cross-guard Total length: 70.2-centimetre (27.6 in), it was probably 1-centimetre (0.4 in) or 2- centimetre (0.8 in) longer, but the tip of the sword was destroyed by corrosion Maximal width, at the tip: 9.4-centimetre (3.7 in) There is a hole 10.3-centimetre (4.1 in) from the end of the hilt, which is 0.4- centimetre (0.2 in) in diameter.
*Urban Legends
A malicious gossip have spread and scared the whole town. Whats your version of the story? *Alligators in sewers
Chain letter Wikipedia.org
Top portion of a "Letter from Heaven," produced in England.
A typical chain letter consists of a message that attempts to convince the recipient to make a number of copies of the letter and then pass them on to as many recipients as possible. Common methods used in chain letters include emotionally manipulative stories, get-rich-quickly pyramid schemes, and the exploitation of superstition to threaten the recipient with bad luck or even physical violence or death if he or she "breaks the chain" and refuses to adhere to the conditions set out in the letter. Chain letters started as actual letters that one received in the mail. Today, chain letters are generally no longer actual letters. They are sent through email messages, postings on social network sites, and text messages.
There are two main types of chain letters:
Hoaxes - Hoaxes attempt to trick or defraud users. A hoax could be malicious, instructing users to delete a file necessary to the operating system by claiming it is a virus. It could also be a scam that convinces users to send money or personal information. Phishing attacks could fall into this.
Urban legends - Urban legends are designed to be redistributed and usually warn users of a threat or claim to be notifying them of important or urgent information. Another common form are the emails that promise users monetary rewards for forwarding the message or suggest that they are signing something that will be submitted to a particular group. Urban legends usually have no negative effect aside from wasted time.
In the United States, chain letters that request money or other items of value and promise a substantial return to the participants (such as the infamous Make Money Fast scheme) are illegal. Other types of chain letters are viewed as a general nuisance in that frequently multiplying letters clog up the postal system and do not function as correspondence mail, but rather, a game. Some colleges and military bases have passed regulations stating that in the private mail of college students and military personnel, respectively, chain letters are not authorized and will be thrown out. However, it is often difficult to distinguish chain letters from genuine correspondence.
Channels Print
The oldest known channel for chain letters is written, or printed, on letters on paper. These might be exchanged hand-to-hand or distributed through the mail. One notorious early example was the "Prosperity Club" or "Send-a-Dime" letter. This letter started in Denver, Colorado in 1935, based on an earlier luck letter. It soon swamped the Denver post office with hundreds of thousands of letters before spilling into St. Louis and other cities.
Chain letters take religious perspectives especially relating to Christianity. Often these letters originate from Photocopy centers, claiming to have originated from the Pope, with the intent of persuading people to make copies of such letters. The content usually gives one or two examples of people, sometimes public figures who obeyed and were rewarded and others who disobeyed and suffered heavily, which may even include cases of deaths and of someone becoming a millionaire overnight. These types of letters will flourish for some days and will die out naturally, partly based on the economic realities of the people, and maybe many would also reason that if that was truly the original letter, then it cannot contain cases of people who had broken or continued the chain.
Email
Some email messages may seem fairly harmless, for example, a grammar school student wishing to see how many people can receive his/her email for a science project, but can grow exponentially and be hard to stop. Messages sometimes include phony promises from companies or wealthy individuals (such as Bill Gates) promising a monetary reward to everyone who receives the message. They may also be politically motivated, such as "Save the Scouts, forward this to as many friends as possible" or a concept that a popular TV or radio show may be forced off the air. Some, like the "Hawaiian Good Luck Totem" which has spread in thousands of forms, threaten users with bad luck if not forwarded. There are many forms of chain email that threaten death or the taking of one's soul by telling tales of others' deaths, such as the Katu Lata Kulu chain email, stating that if it is not forwarded, the receivers of the message will be killed by the spirit. Another involves an email involving a homicidal Mickey Mouse, who will intrude the recipient's domain to kill him or her unless sent to the number of recipients (25). Any lower they will suffer death, injury, paranoia, and bad luck.
Platforms like Facebook, YouTube can host chain letters playing with users' emotions. They may also be in the form of a warning, such as stories of escaped convicts et cetera which urge the reader to pass the message on. One chain letter distributed on MSN Hotmail began, "Hey it's Tara and John the directors of MSN"... and tells you that your account will be deleted if you don't send that message to everyone.
Another common form of email chain letter is the virus hoax and a form of cyberbullying.
Web communities
Chain letters have become widespread on Myspace (in the form of Myspace bulletins) and YouTube (in the form of video comments) as well as on Facebook through messages or applications. For instance, the chain post/email of "Carmen Winstead", a girl who was pushed down a sewage drain in a firedrill, states that, "if you do not repost/send this to 10 people, Carmen will find you and kill you." Chain letters are often coupled with intimidating hoaxes or the promise of providing the sender with "secret" information once they've forwarded the message.
Legality
A chain letter may qualify as a fraudulent activity, as in the case of a pyramid scheme which asks recipients to funnel money up the chain while requesting the letter be distributed to multiple new recipients.
The legality of chain letters comes into question when they attempt to funnel monetary value to a single source. When a chain letter suggests a game of chance or a lottery with an opportunity for financial gain it is considered fraudulent under Title 18, United States Code, Section 1302, the Postal Lottery Statute. Chain letters that ask for items of minor value such as business cards or recipes are not covered by this law.
If pyramid scheme chain letters are sent through email it may constitute wire fraud. An email chain letter may contain trojans or another type of computer virus which is covered under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) [18 U.S.C. Section 1030]. This law makes it illegal to distribute computer codes or place them in the stream of commerce if their intent is to cause damage or economic loss.
Mon cher Mustapha letter a chain letter used as a form of black propaganda
D. P. Walker - Unclean Spirits - Possession and Exorcism in France and England in The Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries-University of Pennsylvania Press (1981)