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mercurygray · 3 years

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So, I Hear You Liked: 1917

More World War One Films

I was very excited about 1917 when it first came out because it almost perfectly coincided with the 100th anniversary of the First World War, a conflict that I love to read about, write about, and watch movies about. This period is my JAM, and there's such a lot of good content for when you're done with Sam Mendes's film.

Obviously there are a lot of movies and TV shows out there - this is just a selection that I enjoyed, and wish more people knew about.

Note: Everyone enjoys a show or movie for different reasons. These shows are on this list because of the time period they depict, not because of the quality of their writing, the accuracy of their history or the political nature of their content. Where I’m able to, I’ve mentioned if a book is available if you’d like to read more.

I'd like to start the list with a movie that isn't a fiction piece at all - Peter Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old (2019) is a beautifully produced film that allows the soldiers and archival images themselves, lovingly retimed and tinted into living color, to tell their own story. It is a must watch for anyone interested in the period.

Wings (1927), All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), A Farewell to Arms (1932, 1957), The Dawn Patrol (1938), Sergeant York (1941), and Paths of Glory (1957) are all classics with a couple of Oscars between them, and it's sort of fun to watch how the war gets changed and interpreted as the years pass. (The Dawn Patrol, for instance, might as just as easily be about the RAF in World War 2.)

All Quiet is based on a famous memoir, and A Farewell to Arms on a Hemingway novel; both have several adaptations and they're all a little different. Speaking of iconic novels, Doctor Zhivago (1965) based on the Pasternak novel of the same title, examines life of its protagonist between 1905 and the start of the second World War.

I think one thing historians agree on is that the start of World War One is worth discussing - and that there's a lot of backstory. Fall of Eagles (1974), a 13 part BBC miniseries, details the relationships between the great houses of Europe, starting in the 1860s; it's long but good, and I think might be on YouTube. The Last Czars (2019) takes a dramatized look at the Romanovs and how their reactions to the war lead to their eventual demise.

As far as the war itself, Sarajevo (2014) and 37 Days (2014) both discuss the outbreak of hostilities and the slow roll into actual battle.

The Passing Bells (2014) follows the whole war through the eyes of two soldiers, one German and one British, beginning in peacetime.

Joyeux Noel ( 2005) is a cute story - it takes place early in the war during the Christmas Peace and approaches the event from a multinational perspective.

War Horse (2011) is, of course, a name you'll recognize. Based on the breakout West End play, which is itself based on a YA novel by Michael Morpurgo, the story follows a horse who's requisitioned for cavalry service and the young man who owns him. Private Peaceful (2012) is also based on a Morpurgo novel, but I didn't think it was quite as good as War Horse.

The Wipers Times (2013) is one of my all-time favorites; it's about a short lived trench paper written and produced by soldiers near Ypres, often called Wipers by the average foot soldier. The miniseries, like the paper, is laugh out loud funny in a dark humor way.

My Boy Jack (2007) is another miniseries based on a play, this one about Rudyard Kipling and his son, Jack, who served in the Irish Guards and died at Loos. Kipling later wrote a poem about the death of his son, and helped select the phrase that appears on all commonwealth gravestones of the First World War.

Gallipoli (1981) is stunning in a way only a Peter Weir movie can be; this is a classic and a must-see.

Gallipoli is a big story that's been told and retold a lot. I still haven't seen Deadline Gallipoli (2015) an Australian miniseries about the men who wrote about the battle for the folks back home and were subject to censorship about how bad things really were. For a slightly different perspective, the Turkish director Yesim Sezgin made Çanakkale 1915 in 2012, detailing the Turkish side of the battle. Although most of The Water Diviner (2014) takes place after the war is over, it also covers parts of Gallipoli and while it didn't get great reviews, I enjoy it enough to own it on DVD.

I don't know why all of my favorite WWI films tend to be Australian; Beneath Hill 60 (2010) is another one of my favorites, talking about the 1st Australian Tunneling Company at the Ypres Salient. The War Below (2021) promises to tell a similar story about the Pioneer companies at Messines, responsible for building the huge network of mines there.

Passchendaele (2008) is a Canadian production about the battle of the same name. I'd forgotten I've seen this film, which might not say very much for the story.

Journey's End (2017) is an adaptation of an RC Sheriff play that takes place towards the end of the war in a dugout amongst British officers.

No look at the Great War is complete without a nod to developing military technologies, and this is the war that pioneers the aviation battle for us. I really wish Flyboys (2006) was better than it is, but The Red Baron (2008) makes up for it from the German perspective.

One of the reasons I like reading about the First World War is that everyone is having a revolution. Technology is growing by leaps and bounds, women are fighting for the right to vote, and a lot of colonial possessions are coming into their own, including (but not limited to) Ireland. Rebellion (2016) was a multi-season miniseries that went into the Easter Rising, as well as the role the war played there. Michael Collins (1996) spends more time with the Anglo-Irish war in the 1920s but is still worth watching (or wincing through Julia Roberts' bad accent, you decide.) The Wind that Shakes the Barley covers the same conflict and is excellent.

The centennial of the war meant that in addition to talking about the war, people were also interested in talking about the Armenian Genocide. The Promise (2016) and The Ottoman Lieutenant (2017) came out around the same time and two different looks at the situation in Armenia.

This is a war of poets and writers, of whom we have already mentioned a few. Hedd Wynn ( 1992) which is almost entirely in Welsh, and tells the story of Ellis Evans, a Welsh language poet who was killed on the first day of the Battle of Passchendaele. I think Ioan Gruffudd has read some of his poetry online somewhere, it's very pretty. A Bear Named Winnie (2004) follows the life of the bear who'd become the inspiration for Winnie the Pooh. Tolkien (2019) expands a little on the author's early life and his service during the war. Benediction (2021) will tell the story of Siegfried Sassoon and his time at Craiglockhart Hospital. Craiglockhart is also represented in Regeneration (1997) based on a novel by Pat Barker.

Anzac Girls (2014) is probably my favorite mini-series in the history of EVER; it follows the lives of a group of Australian and New Zealand nurses from hospital duty in Egypt to the lines of the Western Front. I love this series not only because it portrays women (ALWAYS a plus) but gives a sense of the scope of the many theatres of the war that most movies don't. It's based on a book by Peter Rees, which is similarly excellent.

On a similar note, The Crimson Field (2014) explores the lives of members of a Voluntary Aid Detachment, or VADs, lady volunteers without formal nursing training who were sent to help with menial work in hospitals. It only ran for a season but had a lot of potential. Testament of Youth (2014) is based on the celebrated memoirs of Vera Brittain, who served as a VAD for part of the war and lead her to become a dedicated pacifist.

Also, while we're on the subject of women, though these aren't war movies specifically, I feel like the additional color to the early 20th century female experience offered by Suffragette (2015) and Iron-Jawed Angels (2004) is worth the time.

As a general rule, Americans don't talk about World War One, and we sure don't make movies about it, either. The Lost Battalion (2001) tells the story of Major Charles Whittlesey and the 9 companies of the 77th Infantry division who were trapped behind enemy lines during the battle of the Meuse Argonne.

I should add that this list is curtailed a little bit by what's available for broadcast or stream on American television, so it's missing a lot of dramas in other languages. The Road to Calvary (2017) was a Russian drama based on the novels of Alexei Tolstoy. Kurt Seyit ve Şura (2014) is based on a novel and follows a love story between a Crimean officer (a Muslim) and the Russian woman he loves. The show is primarily in Turkish, and Kıvanç Tatlıtuğ, who plays the lead, is *very* attractive.

Finally, although it might seem silly to mention them, Upstairs Downstairs (1971-1975 ) Downton Abbey (2010-2015) and Peaky Blinders (2013-present) are worth a mention and a watch. All of them are large ensemble TV shows that take place over a much longer period than just the Great War, but the characters in each are shaped tremendously by the war.

#so i hear you liked #preaching the period drama gospel i am #world war one #period drama #period drama trash #1917

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mterhunesblog · 2 years

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The Celtic Gods part 2

The gods and goddesses of the pre-Christian Celtic peoples are known from a variety of sources, including ancient places of worship, statues, engravings, cult objects and place or personal names. The ancient Celts appear to have had a pantheon of deities comparable to others in Indo-European religion, each linked to aspects of life and the natural world. By a process of syncretism, after the Roman conquest of Celtic areas, these became associated with their Roman equivalents, and their worship continued until Christianization. Pre-Roman Celtic art produced few images of deities, and these are hard to identify, lacking inscriptions, but in the post-conquest period many more images were made, some with inscriptions naming the deity. Most of the specific information we have therefore comes from Latin writers and the archaeology of the post-conquest period. More tentatively, links can be made between ancient Celtic deities and figures in early medieval Irish and Welsh literature, although all these works were produced well after Christianization.

Epona, the Celtic goddess of horses and riding, lacked a direct Roman equivalent, and is therefore one of the most persistent distinctly Celtic deities. This image comes from Germany, about 200 AD.

Replica of the incomplete Pillar of the Boatmen, from Paris, with four gods, including the only depiction of Cernunnos to name him (left, 2nd from top).

The locus classicus for the Celtic gods of Gaul is the passage in Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico (The Gallic War, 52–51 BC) in which he names six of them, together with their functions. He says that Mercury was the most honoured of all the gods and many images of him were to be found. Mercury was regarded as the inventor of all the arts, the patron of travellers and of merchants, and the most powerful god in matters of commerce and gain. After him, the Gauls honoured Apollo, who drove away diseases, Mars, who controlled war, Jupiter, who ruled the heavens, and Minerva, who promoted handicrafts. He adds that the Gauls regarded Dis Pater as their ancestor.[1]

In characteristic Roman fashion, Caesar does not refer to these figures by their native names but by the names of the Roman gods with which he equated them, a procedure that complicates the task of identifying his Gaulish deities with their counterparts in the insular Celtic literatures. He also presents a neat schematic equation of god and function that is quite foreign to the vernacular literary testimony. Yet, given its limitations, his brief catalog is a valuable witness.

The gods named by Caesar are well-attested in the later epigraphic record of Gaul and Britain. Not infrequently, their names are coupled with native Celtic theonyms and epithets, such as Mercury Visucius, Lenus Mars, Jupiter Poeninus, or Sulis Minerva. Unsyncretised theonyms are also widespread, particularly among goddesses such as Sulevia, Sirona, Rosmerta, and Epona. In all, several hundred names containing a Celtic element are attested in Gaul. The majority occur only once, which has led some scholars to conclude that the Celtic gods and their cults were local and tribal rather than national. Supporters of this view cite Lucan's mention of a god called Teutates, which they interpret as "god of the tribe" (it is thought that teuta- meant "tribe" in Celtic).[2] The multiplicity of deity names may also be explained otherwise – many, for example, may be simply epithets applied to major deities by widely extended cults.[citation needed]

General characteristics Edit

Evidence from the Roman period presents a wide array of gods and goddesses who are represented by images or inscribed dedications.[3] Certain deities were venerated widely across the Celtic world, while others were limited only to a single region or even to a specific locality.[3] Certain local or regional deities might have greater popularity within their spheres than supra-regional deities. For example, in east-central Gaul, the local healing goddess Sequana of present-day Burgundy, was probably more influential in the minds of her local devotees than the Matres, who were worshipped all over Britain, Gaul and the Rhineland.[4]

Supra-regional cults Edit

Among the divinities transcending tribal boundaries were the Matres, Cernunnos, the sky-god Taranis, and Epona. Epona, the horse-goddess, was invoked by devotees living as far apart as Britain, Rome and Bulgaria. A distinctive feature of the mother-goddesses was their frequent depiction as a triad in many parts of Britain, in Gaul and on the Rhine, although it is possible to identify strong regional differences within this group.[5]

The Celtic sky-god too had variations in the way he was perceived and his cult expressed. Yet the link between the Celtic Jupiter and the solar wheel is maintained over a wide area, from Hadrian's Wall to Cologne and Nîmes.[6]

Local cults Edit

It is sometimes possible to identify regional, tribal, or sub-tribal divinities. Specific to the Remi of northwest Gaul is a distinctive group of stone carvings depicting a triple-faced god with shared facial features and luxuriant beards. In the Iron Age, this same tribe issued coins with three faces, a motif found elsewhere in Gaul.[6] Another tribal god was Lenus, venerated by the Treveri. He was worshipped at a number of Treveran sanctuaries, the most splendid of which was at the tribal capital of Trier itself. Yet he was also exported to other areas: Lenus has altars set up to him in Chedworth in Gloucestershire and Caerwent in Wales.[6]

Many Celtic divinities were extremely localised, sometimes occurring in just one shrine, perhaps because the spirit concerned was a genius loci, the governing spirit of a particular place.[6] In Gaul, over four hundred different Celtic god-names are recorded, of which at least 300 occur just once. Sequana was confined to her spring shrine near Dijon, Sulis belonged to Bath. The divine couple Ucuetis and Bergusia were worshipped solely at Alesia in Burgundy. The British god Nodens is associated above all with the great sanctuary at Lydney (though he also appears at Cockersand Moss in Cumbria). Two other British deities, Cocidius and Belatucadrus, were both Martial gods and were each worshipped in clearly defined territories in the area of Hadrian's Wall.[6] There are many other gods whose names may betray origins as topographical spirits. Vosegus presided over the mountains of the Vosges, Luxovius over the spa-settlement of Luxeuil and Vasio over the town of Vaison in the Lower Rhône Valley.

Divine couples Edit

One notable feature of Gaulish and Romano-Celtic sculpture is the frequent appearance of male and female deities in pairs, such as Rosmerta and ‘Mercury’, Nantosuelta and Sucellos, Sirona and Apollo Grannus, Borvo and Damona, or Mars Loucetius and Nemetona.[7]

Notable deity types Edit

Antlered gods Edit

Detail of the antlered figure holding a torc and a ram-headed snake depicted on the 1st or 2nd century BC Gundestrup cauldron discovered in Jutland, Denmark.

Main article: Cernunnos

A recurrent figure in Gaulish iconography is a deity sitting cross-legged with antlers, sometimes surrounded by animals, often wearing or holding a torc. The name usually applied to him, Cernunnos, is attested only a few times: on the Pillar of the Boatmen, a relief in Paris (currently reading ERNUNNOS, but an early sketch shows it as having read CERNUNNOS in the 18th century); on an inscription from Montagnac (αλλετ[ει]νος καρνονου αλ[ι]σο[ντ]εας, "Alletinos [dedicated this] to Carnonos of Alisontea"[8]); and on a pair of identical inscriptions from Seinsel-Rëlent ("Deo Ceruninco"[9]). Figured representations of this sort of deity, however, are widespread; the earliest known was found at Val Camonica in northern Italy,[citation needed] while the most famous is plate A of the Gundestrup Cauldron, a 1st-century BC vessel found in Denmark. On the Gundestrup Cauldron and sometimes elsewhere, Cernunnos, or a similar figure, is accompanied by a ram-headed serpent. At Reims, the figure is depicted with a cornucopia overflowing with grains or coins.[2]

Healing deities Edit

Main articles: Airmed, Belenus, Borvo, Brighid, and Grannus

Healing deities are known from many parts of the Celtic world; they frequently have associations with thermal springs, healing wells, herbalism and light.

Brighid, the triple goddess of healing, poetry and smithcraft is perhaps the most well-known of the Insular Celtic deities of healing. She is associated with many healing springs and wells. A lesser-known Irish healing goddess is Airmed, also associated with a healing well and with the healing art of herbalism.

In Romano-Celtic tradition Belenus (traditionally derived from a Celtic root *belen- ‘bright’,[10] though other etymologies have been convincingly proposed[11]) is found chiefly in southern France and northern Italy. Apollo Grannus, though concentrated in central and eastern Gaul, also “occurs associated with medicinal waters in Brittany [...] and far away in the Danube Basin”.[12] Grannus's companion is frequently the goddess Sirona. Another important Celtic deity of healing is Bormo/Borvo, particularly associated with thermal springs such as Bourbonne-les-Bains and Bourbon-Lancy. Such hot springs were (and often still are) believed to have therapeutic value. Green interprets the name Borvo to mean “seething, bubbling or boiling spring water”.[12]

Solar deities Edit

Though traditionally gods like Lugh and Belenos have been considered to be male sun gods, this assessment is derived from their identification with the Roman Apollo, and as such this assessment is controversial.[citation needed] The sun in Celtic culture is nowadays assumed to have been feminine,[13][14] and several goddesses have been proposed as possibly solar in character.

In Irish, the name of the sun, Grian, is feminine. The figure known as Áine is generally assumed to have been either synonymous with her, or her sister, assuming the role of Summer Sun while Grian was the Winter Sun.[15] Similarly, Étaín has at times been considered to be another theonym associated with the sun; if this is the case, then the pan-Celtic Epona might also have been originally solar in nature,[15] though Roman syncretism pushed her towards a lunar role.[citation needed]

The British Sulis has a name cognate with that of other Indo-European solar deities such as the Greek Helios and Indic Surya,[16][17] and bears some solar traits like the association with the eye as well as epithets associated with light. The theonym Sulevia, which is more widespread and probably unrelated to Sulis,[18] is sometimes taken to have suggested a pan-Celtic role as a solar goddess.[13] She indeed might have been the de facto solar deity of the Celts.[citation needed]

The Welsh Olwen has at times been considered a vestige of the local sun goddess, in part due to the possible etymological association[19] with the wheel and the colours gold, white and red.[13]

Brighid has at times been argued as having had a solar nature, fitting her role as a goddess of fire and light.[13]

Deities of sacred waters Edit

Main articles: Sulis, Damona, and Sequana

Goddesses Edit

In Ireland, there are numerous holy wells dedicated to the goddess Brighid. There are dedications to ‘Minerva’ in Britain and throughout the Celtic areas of the Continent. At Bath Minerva was identified with the goddess Sulis, whose cult there centred on the thermal springs.

Other goddesses were also associated with sacred springs, such as Icovellauna among the Treveri and Coventina at Carrawburgh. Damona and Bormana also serve this function in companionship with the spring-god Borvo (see above).

A number of goddesses were deified rivers, notably Boann (of the River Boyne), Sinann (the River Shannon), Sequana (the deified Seine), Matrona (the Marne), Souconna (the deified Saône) and perhaps Belisama (the Ribble).

Gods Edit

While the most well-known deity of the sea is the god Manannán, and his father Lir mostly considered as god of the ocean. Nodens is associated with healing, the sea, hunting and dogs.

In Lusitanian and Celtic polytheism, Borvo (also Bormo, Bormanus, Bormanicus, Borbanus, Boruoboendua, Vabusoa, Labbonus or Borus) was a healing deity associated with bubbling spring water.[20]Condatis associated with the confluences of rivers in Britain and Gaul, Luxovius was the god of the waters of Luxeuil, worshipped in Gaul. Dian Cécht was the god of healing to the Irish people. He healed with the fountain of healing, and he was indirectly the cause of the name of the River Barrow.[21]Grannus was a deity associated with spas, healing thermal and mineral springs, and the sun.

Horse deities Edit

Goddesses Edit

Epona, 3rd century CE, from Freyming (Moselle), France (Musée Lorrain, Nancy)

Main articles: Epona and Macha

The horse, an instrument of Indo-European expansion, plays a part in all the mythologies of the various Celtic cultures. The cult of the Gaulish horse goddess Epona was widespread. Adopted by the Roman cavalry, it spread throughout much of Europe, even to Rome itself. She seems to be the embodiment of "horse power" or horsemanship, which was likely perceived as a power vital for the success and protection of the tribe. She has insular analogues in the Welsh Rhiannon and in the Irish Édaín Echraidhe (echraidhe, "horse riding") and Macha, who outran the fastest steeds.

A number of pre-conquest Celtic coins show a female rider who may be Epona.

The Irish horse goddess Macha, perhaps a threefold goddess herself, is associated with battle and sovereignty. Though a goddess in her own right, she is also considered to be part of the triple goddess of battle and slaughter, the Morrígan. Other goddesses in their own right associated with the Morrígan were Badhbh Catha and Nemain.

God Edit

Atepomarus in Celtic Gaul was a healing god, and inscriptions were found in Mauvières (Indre). The epithet is sometimes translated as "Great Horseman" or "possessing a great horse".

Mother goddesses Edit

Main article: Matronae

Terracotta relief of the Matres, from Bibracte, city of the Aedui in Gaul

Mother goddesses are a recurrent feature in Celtic religions. The epigraphic record reveals many dedications to the Matres or Matronae, which are particularly prolific around Cologne in the Rhineland.[7] Iconographically, Celtic mothers may appear singly or, quite often, triply; they usually hold fruit or cornucopiae or paterae;[2] they may also be full-breasted (or many-breasted) figures nursing infants.

Welsh and Irish tradition preserve a number of mother figures such as the Welsh Dôn, Rhiannon (‘great queen’) and Modron (from Matrona, ‘great mother’), and the Irish Danu, Boand, Macha and Ernmas. However, all of these fulfill many roles in the mythology and symbolism of the Celts, and cannot be limited only to motherhood. In many of their tales, their having children is only mentioned in passing, and is not a central facet of their identity. "Mother" Goddesses may also be Goddesses of warfare and slaughter, or of healing and smithcraft.

Mother goddesses were at times symbols of sovereignty, creativity, birth, fertility, sexual union and nurturing. At other times they could be seen as punishers and destroyers: their offspring may be helpful or dangerous to the community, and the circumstances of their birth may lead to curses, geasa or hardship, such as in the case of Macha's curse of the Ulstermen or Rhiannon's possible devouring of her child and subsequent punishment.

Lugh Edit

Main articles: Lugus, Lugh, and Lleu

Image of a tricephalic god identified as Lugus, discovered in Paris

According to Caesar the god most honoured by the Gauls was ‘Mercury’, and this is confirmed by numerous images and inscriptions. Mercury's name is often coupled with Celtic epithets, particularly in eastern and central Gaul; the commonest such names include Visucius, Cissonius, and Gebrinius.[7] Another name, Lugus, is inferred from the recurrent place-name Lugdunon ('the fort of Lugus') from which the modern Lyon, Laon, and Loudun in France, Leiden in the Netherlands, and Lugo in Galicia derive their names; a similar element can be found in Carlisle (formerly Castra Luguvallium), Legnica in Poland and the county Louth in Ireland, derived from the Irish "Lú", itself coming from "Lugh". The Irish and Welsh cognates of Lugus are Lugh and Lleu, respectively, and certain traditions concerning these figures mesh neatly with those of the Gaulish god. Caesar's description of the latter as "the inventor of all the arts" might almost have been a paraphrase of Lugh's conventional epithet samildánach ("possessed of many talents"), while Lleu is addressed as "master of the twenty crafts" in the Mabinogi.[22] An episode in the Irish tale of the Battle of Magh Tuireadh is a dramatic exposition of Lugh's claim to be master of all the arts and crafts.[23] Inscriptions in Spain and Switzerland, one of them from a guild of shoemakers, are dedicated to Lugoves, widely interpreted as a plural of Lugus perhaps referring to the god conceived in triple form.[citation needed] The Lugoves are also interpreted as a couple of gods corresponding to the Celtic Dioscures being in this case Lugh and Cernunnos[24]

The Gaulish Mercury often seems to function as a god of sovereignty. Gaulish depictions of Mercury sometimes show him bearded and/or with wings or horns emerging directly from his head, rather than from a winged hat. Both these characteristics are unusual for the classical god. More conventionally, the Gaulish Mercury is usually shown accompanied by a ram and/or a rooster, and carrying a caduceus; his depiction at times is very classical.[2]

Lugh is said to have instituted the festival of Lughnasadh, celebrated on 1 August, in commemoration of his foster-mother Tailtiu.[25]

In Gaulish monuments and inscriptions, Mercury is very often accompanied by Rosmerta, whom Miranda Green interprets to be a goddess of fertility and prosperity. Green also notices that the Celtic Mercury frequently accompanies the Deae Matres (see below).[12]

Taranis Edit

Gallo-Roman Taranis Jupiter with wheel and thunderbolt, carrying torcs. Haute Marne

Main article: Taranis

The Gaulish Jupiter is often depicted with a thunderbolt in one hand and a distinctive solar wheel in the other. Scholars frequently identify this wheel/sky god with Taranis, who is mentioned by Lucan. The name Taranis may be cognate with those of Taran, a minor figure in Welsh mythology, and Turenn, the father of the 'three gods of Dana' in Irish mythology.

Wheel amulets are found in Celtic areas from before the conquest.

Toutatis Edit

Teutates, also spelled Toutatis (Celtic: "Him of the tribe"), was one of three Celtic gods mentioned by the Roman poet Lucan in the 1st century,[26] the other two being Esus ("lord") and Taranis ("thunderer"). According to later commentators, victims sacrificed to Teutates were killed by being plunged headfirst into a vat filled with an unspecified liquid. Present-day scholars frequently speak of ‘the toutates’ as plural, referring respectively to the patrons of the several tribes.[2] Of two later commentators on Lucan's text, one identifies Teutates with Mercury, the other with Mars. He is also known from dedications in Britain, where his name was written Toutatis.

Paul-Marie Duval, who considers the Gaulish Mars a syncretism with the Celtic toutates, notes that:

Les représentations de Mars, beaucoup plus rares [que celles de Mercure] (une trentaine de bas-reliefs), plus monotones dans leur académisme classique, et ses surnoms plus de deux fois plus nombreux (une cinquantaine) s'équilibrent pour mettre son importance à peu près sur le même plan que celle de Mercure mais sa domination n'est pas de même nature. Duval (1993)[2]: 73

Mars' representations, much rarer [than Mercury's] (thirty-odd bas reliefs) and more monotone in their studied classicism, and his epithets which are more than twice as numerous (about fifty), balance each other to place his importance roughly on the same level as Mercury, but his domination is not of the same kind.

Esus Edit

Main article: Esus

Esus appears in two continental monuments, including the Pillar of the Boatmen, as an axeman cutting branches from trees.

Gods with hammers Edit

Main article: Sucellus

Sucellos, the 'good striker' is usually portrayed as a middle-aged bearded man, with a long-handled hammer, or perhaps a beer barrel suspended from a pole. His companion, Nantosuelta, is sometimes depicted alongside him. When together, they are accompanied by symbols associated with prosperity and domesticity. This figure is often identified with Silvanus, worshipped in southern Gaul under similar attributes; Dis Pater, from whom, according to Caesar, all the Gauls believed themselves to be descended; and the Irish Dagda, the 'good god', who possessed a cauldron that was never empty and a huge club.

Gods of strength and eloquence Edit

Main article: Ogmios

A club-wielding god identified as Ogmios is readily observed in Gaulish iconography. In Gaul, he was identified with the Roman Hercules. He was portrayed as an old man with swarthy skin and armed with a bow and club. He was also a god of eloquence, and in that aspect he was represented as drawing along a company of men whose ears were chained to his tongue.

Ogmios' Irish equivalent was Ogma. Ogham script, an Irish writing system dating from the 4th century AD, was said to have been invented by him.[27]

The divine bull Edit

Main article: Tarvos Trigaranus

The relief of Tarvos Trigaranus on the Pillar of the Boatmen.

Another prominent zoomorphic deity type is the divine bull. Tarvos Trigaranus ("bull with three cranes") is pictured on reliefs from the cathedral at Trier, Germany, and at Notre-Dame de Paris.

In Irish literature, the Donn Cuailnge ("Brown Bull of Cooley") plays a central role in the epic Táin Bó Cuailnge ("The Cattle-Raid of Cooley").

The ram-headed snake Edit

A distinctive ram-headed snake accompanies Gaulish gods in a number of representations, including the antlered god from the Gundestrup cauldron, Mercury, and Mars.

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loretranscripts · 5 years

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Lore Episode 32: Tampered (Transcript) - 18th April, 2016

tw: none

Disclaimer: This transcript is entirely non-profit and fan-made. All credit for this content goes to Aaron Mahnke, creator of Lore podcast. It is by a fan, for fans, and meant to make the content of the podcast more accessible to all. Also, there may be mistakes, despite rigorous re-reading on my part. Feel free to point them out, but please be nice!

I grew up watching a television show called MacGyver. If you’ve never had that chance to watch this icon of the 80s, do yourself a favour and give it a try. Sure, the clothes are outdated and the hair… oh my gosh, the hair. But aside from all the bits that didn’t age well, MacMullet and his trusty pocket knife managed to capture my imagination forever. Part of it was the adventure, part of it was the character of the man himself – I mean, the guy was essentially a spy who hated guns, played hockey and lived on a houseboat. But hovering above all those elements was the true core of the show. This man could make anything if his life depended on it. As humans, we have this innate drive inside ourselves to make things. This is how we managed to create things like the wheel, or stone tools and weapons. Our tendency towards technology pulled our ancient ancestors out of the Stone Age and into a more civilised world. Maybe for some of us, MacGyver represented what we wanted to achieve: complete mastery of our own world. But life is rarely that simple, and however hard we try to get our minds and hands around this world we want to rule, some things just slip through the cracks. Accidents happen. Ideas and concepts still allude our limited minds. We’re human, after all, not gods. So, when things go wrong, when our plans fall apart or our expectations fail to be met, we have this sense of pride that often refuses to admit defeat. So, we blame others, and when that doesn’t work, we look elsewhere for answers, and no realm holds more explanation for the unexplainable than folklore. 400 years ago, when women refused to follow the rules of society, they were labelled a witch. When Irish children failed to thrive it was because, of course, because they were a changeling. We’re good at excuses. So, when our ancestors found something broken or out of place, there was a very simple explanation – someone, or something, had tampered with it. I’m Aaron Mahnke, and this is Lore.

The idea of meddlesome creatures isn’t new to us. All around the world, we can find centuries-old folklore that speaks of creatures with a habit of getting in the way and making life difficult for humans. It’s an idea that seems to transcend borders and background, language and time. Some would say that it’s far too coincidental for all these stories of mischief-causing creatures to emerge in places separated by thousands of miles and vast oceans. The púca of Ireland and the ebu gogo of Indonesia are great examples of this – legends that seem to have no reason for their eerie similarities. Both legends speak of small, humanoid creatures that steal food and children, both recommend not making them angry, and both describe their creatures as intrusive pranksters. To many, the evidence is just too indisputable to ignore. Others would say it’s not coincidence at all, merely a product of human nature. We want to believe there’s something out there causing the problems we experience every day. So, of course, nearly every culture in the world has invented a scapegoat. This scapegoat would have to be small to avoid discovery, and they need respect because we’re afraid of what they can do. To a cultural anthropologist, it’s nothing more than logical evolution. Many European folktales include this universal archetype in the form of nature spirits, and much of it can be traced back to the idea of the daemon.

It’s an old word and concept, coming to us from the Greeks. In essence, a daemon is an otherworldly spirit that causes trouble. The root word, daomai, literally means to cut or divide. In many ways, it’s an ancient version of an excuse. If your horse was spooked while you were out for a ride, you’d probably blame it on a daemon. Ancient Minoans believed in them, and in the day of the Greek poet Homer, people would blame their illnesses on them. The daemon, in many ways, was fate. If it happened to you, there was a reason, and it was probably one of these little things that caused it. But over time, the daemon took on more and more names. Arab folklore has the djinn, Romans spoke of a personal companion known as the genius, in Japan, they tell tales of the kami, and Germanic cultures mention fylgja. The stories and names might be unique to each culture, but the core of them all is the same. There’s something interfering with humanity, and we don’t like it.

For the majority of the English-speaking world, the most common creature of this type in folklore, hands down, is the goblin. It’s not an ancient word, most likely originating from the middle ages, but it’s the one that’s front and centre in most of our minds, and from the start it’s been a creature associated with bad behaviour. A legend from the 10th century tells of how the first Catholic bishop of Évreux in France faced a daemon known to the locals there as Gobelinus. Why that name, though, is hard to trace. The best theory goes something like this: there’s a Greek myth about a creature named kobalos, who loved to trick and frighten people. That story influenced other cultures across Europe prior to Christianity’s spread, creating the notion of the kobold in ancient Germany. That word was most likely to root of the word goblin. Kobold, gobold, gobolin – you can practically hear it evolve. The root word of kobold is kobe, which literally means “beneath the earth”, or “cavity in a rock”. We get the English word “cove” from the same root, and so naturally kobolds and their English counterparts, the goblins, are said to live in caves underground, and if that reminds you of dwarves from fantasy literature, you’re closer than you think. The physical appearance of goblins in folklore vary greatly, but the common description is that they are dwarf-like creatures. They cause trouble, are known to steal, and they have tendency to break things and make life difficult. Because of this, people in Europe would put carvings of goblins in their homes to ward off the real thing. In fact, here’s something really crazy. Medieval door-knockers were often carved to resemble the faces of daemons or goblins, and it’s most likely purely coincidental, but in Welsh folklore, goblins are called coblyn, or more commonly, knockers. My point is this: for thousands of years, people have suspected that all of their misfortune could be blamed on small, meddlesome creatures. They feared them, told stories about them, and tried their best to protect their homes from them. But for all that time, they seemed like nothing more than story. In the early 20th century, though, people started to report actual sightings, and not just anyone. These sightings were documented by trained, respected military heroes. Pilots.

When the Wright brothers took their first controlled flight in December of 1903, it seemed like a revelation. It’s hard to imagine it today, but there was a time when flight wasn’t assumed as a method of travel. So, when Wilbur spent three full seconds in the air that day, he and his brother, Orville, did something else: they changed the way we think about our world. And however long it took humans to create and perfect the art of controllable, mechanical flight, once the cat was out of the bag, it bolted into the future without ever looking back. Within just nine years, someone had managed to mount a machine gun onto one of these primitive aeroplanes. Because of that, when the First World War broke out just two years later, military combat had a new element. Of course, guns weren’t the only weapon a plane could utilise, though. The very first aeroplane brought down in combat was an Austrian plane, which was literally rammed by a Russian pilot. Both pilots died after the wreckage plummeted to the ground below. It wasn’t the most efficient method of air combat, but it was a start. Clearly, we’ve spent the many decades since getting very, very good at it. Unfortunately, though, there have been more reasons for combat disasters than machine gun bullets and suicidal pilots, and one of the most unique and mysterious of those causes first appeared in British newspapers. In an article from the early 1900s, it was said that, and I quote, “the newly constituted royal air force in 1918 appears to have detected the existence of a hoard of mysterious and malicious sprites, whose sole purpose in life was to bring about as many as possible of the inexplicable mishaps which, in those days as now, trouble an airman’s life.” The description didn’t feature a name, but that was soon to follow. Some experts think that we can find roots of it in the old English word gremian, which means “to vex” or “to annoy”. It fits the behaviour of the creatures to the letter, and because of that they have been known from the beginning as gremlins.

Now, before we move forward, it might be helpful to take care of your memories of the 1984 classic film by the same name. I grew up in the 80s, and Gremlins was a fantastic bit of eye candy for my young, horror-loving mind, but the truth of the legend has little resemblance to the version that you and I witnessed on the big screen. The gremlins of folklore, at least the stories that came out of the early 20th century that is, describe the ancient stereotypical daemon, but with a twist. Yes, they were said to be small, ranging anywhere from six inches to three feet in height, and yes, they could appear and disappear at will, causing mischief and trouble wherever they went. But in addition, these modern versions of the legendary goblin seem to possess a supernatural grasp of human technology. In 1923, a British pilot was flying over open water when his engine stalled. He miraculously survived the crash into the sea and was rescued shortly after that. When he was safely aboard the rescue vessel, the pilot was quick to explain what had happened. Tiny creatures, he claimed, had appeared on the plane. Whether they appeared out of nowhere or smuggled themselves aboard prior to take-off, the pilot wasn’t sure. However they got there, he said that they proceeded to tamper with the plane’s engine and flight controls, and without power or control, he was left to drop helplessly into the sea.

These reports were infrequent in the 1920s, but as the world moved into the Second World War and the number of planes in the sky began to grow exponentially, more and more stories seemed to follow – small, troublesome creatures who had an almost supernatural ability to hold on to moving aircraft, and while they were there, to do damage and to cause accidents. In some cases, they were even cited inside planes, among the crew and cargo. Stories, as we’ve seen so many times before, have a tendency to spread like disease. Oftentimes, that’s because of fear, but sometimes it’s because of truth, and the trouble is in figuring out where to draw that line, and that line kept moving as the sightings were reported outside the British ranks. Pilots on the German side also reported seeing creatures during flights, as did some in India, Malta and the Middle East. Some might chalk these stories up to hallucinations, or a bit of pre-flight drinking. There are certainly a lot of stories of World War Two pilots climbing into the cockpit after a night of romancing the bottle – and who can blame them? In many cases, these pilots were going to their death, with a 20% chance of never coming back from a mission alive. But there are far too many reports to blame it all on drunkenness or delirium. Something unusual was happening to planes all throughout the Second World War, and with folklore as a lens, some of the reports are downright eerie. In 2014, a 92-year-old World War Two veteran from Jonesborough, Arkansas came forward to tell a story he had kept to himself for seven decades. He’d been a B-17 pilot during the war, one of the legendary flying fortresses that helped allied air forces carry out successful missions over Nazi territory, and it was on one of those missions that this man experienced something that, until recently, he had kept to himself. The pilot, who chose to identify himself with the initials L.W., spoke of how he was a 22-year-old flight commander on the B-17, when something very unusual happened on a combat mission in 1944. He described how, as he brought the aircraft to a higher altitude, the plane began to make strange noises. That wasn’t completely unusual, as the B-17 is an absolutely enormous plane and sometimes turbulence can rattle the structure, but he checked his instrument panel out of habit. According to his story, the instruments seemed broken and confused.

Looking for an answer to the mystery, he glanced out the right-side window, and then froze. There, outside the glass of the cockpit window, was the face of a small creature. The pilot described it as about three feet tall with red eyes and sharp teeth. The ears, he said, were almost owl-like, and its skin was grey and hairless. He looked back toward the front and noticed a second creature, this one moving along the nose of the aircraft. He said it was dancing and hammering away at the metal body of the plane. He immediately assumed he was hallucinating. I can picture him rubbing his eyes and blinking repeatedly like some old Loony Toons film. But according to him, he was as sharp and alert as ever. Whatever it was that he witnessed outside the body of the plane, he said that he managed to shake them off with a bit of “fancy flying”, and that’s his term, not mine. But while the creatures themselves might have vanished, the memory of them would haunt him for the rest of his life. He told only one person afterwards, a gunner on another B-17, but rather than laugh at him his friend acknowledged that he, too, had seen similar creatures on a flight just the day before.

Years prior, in the summer of 1939, an earlier encounter was reported, this time in the Pacific. According to the account, a transport plane took off from the airbase in San Diego in the middle of the afternoon and headed toward Hawaii. Onboard were 13 marines, some of whom were crew of the plane and others were passengers – it was a transport, after all. About halfway through the flight, whilst still over the vast expanse of the blue Pacific, the transport issued a distress signal. After that, the signal stopped, as did all other forms of communication. It was as if the plane had simply gone silent and then vanished, which made it all the more surprising when it reappeared later, outside the San Diego airfield and prepared for landing. But the landing didn’t seem right. The plane came in too fast, it bounced on the runway in rough, haphazard ways, and then finally came to a dramatic emergency stop. Crew on the runway immediately understood why, too – the exterior of the aircraft was extensively damaged, some said it looked like bombs had ripped apart the metal skin of the transport. It was a miracle, they said, that the thing even landed at all. When no one exited the plane to greet them, they opened it up themselves and stepped inside, only to be met with a scene of horror and chaos.

Inside, they discovered the bodies of 12 of the 13 passengers and crew. Each seemed to have died from the same types of wounds, large, vicious cuts and injuries that almost seemed to have originated from a wild animal. Added to that, the interior of the transport smelled horribly of sulphur and the acrid odour of blood. To complicate matters, empty shell casings were found scattered about the interior of the cockpit. The pistols responsible, belonging to the pilot and co-pilot, were found on the floor near their feet, completely spent. 12 men were found, but there was a thirteenth. The co-pilot had managed to stay conscious despite his extensive injuries, just long enough to land the transport at the base. He was alive but unresponsive when they found him, and quickly removed him for emergency medical care. Sadly, the man died a short while later. He never had the chance to report what happened.

Stories of the gremlins have stuck around in the decades since, but they live mostly in the past. Today they are mentioned more like a personified Murphy’s Law, muttered as a humorous superstition by modern pilots. I get the feeling that the persistence of the folklore is due more to its place as a cultural habit than anything else. We can ponder why, I suppose. Why would sightings stop after World War II? Some think it’s because of advancements in aeroplane technology: stronger structures, faster flight speeds, and higher altitudes. The assumption is that, sure, gremlins could hold on to our planes, but maybe we’ve gotten so fast that even that’s become impossible for them. The other answer could just be that the world has left those childhood tales of little creatures behind. We’ve moved beyond belief now. We’ve outgrown it. We know a lot more than we used to, after all, and to our thoroughly modern minds these stories of gremlins sound like just so much fantasy. Whatever reason you subscribe to, it’s important to remember that many people have believed with all their being that gremlins are real, factual creatures, people we would respect and believe.

In 1927, a pilot was over the Atlantic in a plane that, by today’s standards, would be considered primitive. He was alone, and he had been in the air for a very long time but was startled to discover that there were creatures in the cockpit with him. He described them as small, vaporous beings with a strange, otherworldly appearance. The pilot claimed that these creatures spoke to him and kept him alert in a moment when he was overly tired and passed the edge of exhaustion. They helped with the navigation for his journey and even adjusted some of his equipment. This was a rare account of gremlins who were benevolent rather than meddlesome or hostile. Even still, this pilot was so worried about what the public might think of his experience that he kept the details to himself for over 25 years. In 1953, this pilot included the experience in a memoir of his flight. It was a historic journey, after all, and recording it properly required honesty and transparency. The book, you see, was called The Spirit of St. Louis, and the man was more than just a pilot. He was a military officer, an explore, an inventor, and on top of all of that he was also a national hero because of his successful flight from New York to Paris – the first man to do so, in fact. This man, of course, was Charles Lindbergh.

[Closing Statements]

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The dialect spoken by Appalachian people has been given a variety of names, the majority of them somewhat less than complimentary. Educated people who look with disfavor on this particular form of speech are perfectly honest in their belief that something called The English Language, which they conceive of as a completed work - unchanging and fixed for all time - has been taken and, through ignorance, shamefully distorted by the mountain folk.

The fact is that this is completely untrue. The folk speech of Appalachia instead of being called corrupt ought to be classified as archaic. Many of the expressions heard throughout the region today can be found in the centuries-old works of some of the greatest English authors: Alfred, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and the men who contributed to the King James version of the Bible, to cite but a few.

Most editors who work with older materials have long assumed the role of officious busy bodies: never so happy, apparently, as when engaged in tidying up spelling, modernizing grammar, and generally rendering whatever was written by various Britons in ages past into a colorless conformity with today's Standard English.

To this single characteristic of the editorial mind must be ascribed the almost total lack of knowledge on the part of most Americans that the language they speak was ever any different than it is right now. How many people know, for example, that when the poet Gray composed his famous "Elegy" his title for it was "An Elegy Wrote in a Country Churchyard?"

Southern mountain dialect (as the folk speech of Appalachia is called by linguists) is certainly archaic, but the general historical period it represents can be narrowed down to the days of the first Queen Elizabeth, and can be further particularized by saying that what is heard today is actually a sort of Scottish-flavored Elizabethan English. This is not to say that Chaucerian forms will not be heard in everyday use, and even an occasional Anglo-Saxon one as well. When we remember that the first white settlers in what is today Appalachia were the so-called Scotch-Irish along with some Palatine Germans, there is small wonder that the language has a Scottish tinge; the remarkable thing is that the Germans seem to have influenced it so little. About the only locally used dialect word that can be ascribed to them is briggity. The Scots appear to have had it all their own way.

When I first came to Lincoln County as a bride it used to seem to me that everything that did not pooch out, hooved up.

Pooch is a Scottish variant of the word pouch and was in use in the 1600's. Numerous objects can pooch out including pregnant women and gentlemen with "bay windows." Hoove is a very old past participle of the verb to heave and was apparently in use on both sides of the border by 1601. The top of an old-fashioned trunk may be said to hoove up. Another word heard occasionally in the back country is ingerns. Ingems are onions. In Scottish dialect the word is inguns; however, if our people are permitted the intrusive r in potaters, tomaters, tobaccer, and so on, there seems to be no reason why they should not use it in ingems as well.

It is possible to compile a very long list of these Scots words and phrases. I will give only a few more illustrations, and will wait to mention some points on Scottish pronunciation and grammar a little further on.

Fornenst is a word that has many variants. It can mean either "next to" or "opposite from." "Look at that big rattler quiled up fornenst the fence post!" (Quiled is an Elizabethan pronunciation of coiled.) "When I woke up this morning there was a little skift of snow on the ground." "I was getting better, but now I've took a backset with this flu." "He dropped the dish and busted it all to flinders." "Law, I hope how soon we get some rain!" (How soon is supposed to be obsolete, but it enjoys excellent health in Lincoln County.) "That trifling old fixin ain't worth a haet!" Haet means the smallest thing that can be conceived of, and comes from Deil hae't (Devil have it.) Fixin is the Old English or Anglo-Saxon word for she-fox as used in the northern dialect. In the south of England you would have heard vixen, the word used today in Standard English. It is interesting to note that it has been primarily the linguistic historians who have pointed out the predominately Scottish heritage of the Southern mountain people. Perhaps I may be allowed to digress for a moment to trace these people back to their beginnings.

Early in his English reign, James I decided to try to control the Irish by putting a Protestant population into Ireland. To do this he confiscated the lands of the earls of Ulster and bestowed them upon Scottish and English lords on the condition that they settle the territory with tenants from Scotland and England. This was known as the "Great Settlement" or the "King's Plantation," and was begun in 1610.

Most of the Scots who moved into Ulster came from the lowlands1 and thus they would have spoken the Scots variety of the Northumbrian or Northern English dialect. (Most highland Scots at that time still spoke Gaelic.) This particular dialect would have been kept intact if the Scots had had no dealings with the Irish, and this, according to records, was the case.

While in Ulster the Scots multiplied, but after roughly 100 years they became dissatisfied with the trade and religious restrictions imposed by England, and numbers of them began emigrating to the English colonies in America. Many of these Scots who now called themselves the "Scotch-Irish" came into Pennsylvania where, finding the better lands already settled by the English, they began to move south and west. "Their enterprise and pioneering spirit made them the most important element in the vigorous frontiersmen who opened up this part of the South and later other territories farther west into which they pushed."2

Besides the Scots who arrived from Ireland, more came directly from Scotland to America, particularly after "the '45", the final Jacobite uprising in support of "Bonnie Prince Charlie," the Young Pretender, which ended disastrously for the Scottish clans that supported him. By the time of the American Revolution there were about 50,000 Scots in this country.

But to get back to the dialect, let me quote two more linguistic authorities to prove my point about the Scottish influence on the local speech. Raven I. McDavid notes, "The speech of the hill people is quite different from both dialects of the Southern lowlands for it is basically derived from the Scotch-Irish of Western Pennsylvania."3 H. L. Mencken said of Appalachian folk speech, "The persons who speak it undiluted are often called by the Southern publicists, 'the purest Anglo-Saxons in the United States,' but less romantic ethnologists describe them as predominately Celtic in blood; though there has been a large infiltration of English and even German strains."4The reason our people still speak as they do is that when these early Scots and English and Germans (and some Irish and Welsh too) came into the Appalachian area and settled, they virtually isolated themselves from the mainstream of American life for generations to come because of the hills and mountains, and so they kept the old speech forms that have long since fallen out of fashion elsewhere. Things in our area are not always what they seem, linguistically speaking. Someone may tell you that "Cindy ain't got sense enough to come in outen the rain, but she sure is clever." Clever, you see, back in the 1600's meant "neighborly or accommodating." Also if you ask someone how he is, and he replies that he is "very well", you are not necessarily to rejoice with him on the state of his health. Our people are accustomed to use a speech so vividly colorful and virile that his "very well" only means that he is feeling "so-so." If you are informed that "several" people came to a meeting, your informant does not mean what you do by several - he is using it in its older sense of anywhere from about 20 to 100 people. If you hear a person or an animal referred to as ill, that person or animal is not sick but bad-tempered, and this adjective has been so used since the 1300's. (Incidentally, good English used sick to refer to bad health long, long before our forebearers ever started saying ill for the same connotation.)

Many of our people refer to sour milk as blinked milk. This usage goes back at least to the early 1600's when people still believed in witches and the power of the evil eye. One of the meanings of the word blink back in those days was "to glance at;" if you glanced at something, you blinked at it, and thus sour milk came to be called blinked due to the evil machinations of the witch. There is another phrase that occurs from time to time, "Man, did he ever feather into him!" This used to carry a fairly murderous connotation, having gotten its start back in the days when the English long bow was the ultimate word in destructive power. Back then if you drew your bow with sufficient strength to cause your arrow to penetrate your enemy up to the feathers on its shaft, you had feathered into him. Nowadays, the expression has weakened in meaning until it merely indicates a bit of fisticuffs.

One of the most baffling expressions our people use (baffling to "furriners," at least) is "I don't care to. . . ." To outlanders this seems to mean a definite "no," whereas in truth it actually means, "thank you so much, I'd love to." One is forevermore hearing a tale of mutual bewilderment in which a gentleman driving an out-of-state car sees a young fellow standing alongside the road, thumbing. When the gentleman stops and asks if he wants a lift, the boy very properly replies, "I don't keer to," using care in the Elizabethan sense of the word. On hearing this, the man drives off considerably puzzled leaving an equally baffled young man behind. (Even the word foreigner itself is used here in its Elizabethan sense of someone who is the same nationality as the speaker, but not from the speaker's immediate home area.

Reverend is generally used to address preachers, but it is a pretty versatile word, and full-strength whisky, or even the full-strength scent of skunk, are also called reverend. In these latter instances, its meaning has nothing to do with reverence, but with the fact that their strength is as the strength of ten because they are undiluted.

In the dialect, the word allow more often means "think, say, or suppose" than "permit." "He 'lowed he'd git it done tomorrow."A neighbor may take you into her confidence and announce that she has heard that the preacher's daughter should have been running after the mailman. These are deep waters to the uninitiated. What she really means is that she has heard a juicy bit of gossip: the preacher's daughter is chasing the local mail carrier. However, she takes the precaution of using the phrase should have been to show that this statement is not vouched for by the speaker. The same phrase is used in the same way in the Paston Letters in the 1400's.

Almost all the so-called "bad English" used by natives of Appalachia was once employed by the highest ranking nobles of the realms of England and Scotland. Few humans are really passionately interested in grammar so I'll skim as lightly over this section as possible, but let's consider the following bit of dialogue briefly: "I've been a-studying about how to say this, till I've nigh wearried myself to death. I reckon hit don't never do nobody no good to beat about the bush, so I'll just tell ye. Your man's hippoed. There's nothing ails him, but he spends more time using around the doctor's office than he does a-working."The only criticism that even a linguistic purist might offer here is that, in the eighteenth century, hippoed was considered by some, Jonathan Swift among others, to be slangy even though it was used by the English society of the day. (To say someone is hippoed is to say he is a hypochondriac.)

Words like a-studying and a-working are verbal nouns and go back to Anglo-Saxon times; and from the 1300's on, people who studied about something, deliberated or reflected on it. Nigh is the old word for near, and weary was the pronunciation of worry in the 1300's and 1400's. The Scots also used this pronunciation. Reckon was current in Tudor England in the sense of consider or suppose. Hit is the Old English third person singular neuter pronoun for it and has come ringing down through the centuries for over a thousand years. All those multiple negatives were perfectly proper until some English mathematician in the eighteenth century decided that two negatives make a positive instead of simply intensifying the negative quality of some statement. Shakespeare loved to use them. Ye was once used accusatively, and man has been employed since early times to mean husband. And finally, to use means to frequent or loiter. Certain grammatical forms occurring in the dialect have caused it to be regarded with pious horror by school marms. Prominent among the offenders, they would be almost sure to list these: "Bring them books over here." In the 1500's this was good English. "I found three bird's nestes on the way to school." This disyllabic ending for the plural goes back to the Middle Ages. "That pencil's not mine, it her'n." Possessive forms like his'n, our'n, your'n evolved in the Middle Ages on the model of mine and thine. In the revision of the Wycliffe Bible, which appeared shortly after 1380, we find phrases such as ". . .restore to hir alle things that ben hern," and "some of ourn went in to the grave." "He don't scare me none." In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries do was used with he, she, and it. Don't is simply do not, of course. "You wasn't scared, was you?" During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries many people were careful to distinguish between singular you was and plural you were. It became unfashionable in the early nineteenth century although Noah Webster stoutly defended it. "My brother come in from the army last night." This usage goes back to late Anglo-Saxon times. You find it in the Paston Letters and in Scottish poetry. "I done finished my lessons," also has many echoes in the Pastons' correspondence and the Scots poets. From the late Middle Ages on up the Northern dialect of English used formations like this: "guiltless persons is condemned," and so do our people. And finally, in times past, participial forms like these abounded: has beat, has bore with it, has chose. Preterite forms were as varied: blowed, growed, catched, and for climbed you can find clum, clome, clim! all of which are locally used.

Pronunciation of many words has changed considerably, too. Deef for deaf, heered for heard, afeared for afraid, cowcumber for cucumber, bammy for balmy, holp for helped, are a very few. Several distinct characteristics of the language of Elizabeth's day are still preserved. Words that had oi in them were given a long i pronunciation: pizen, jine, bile, pint, and so on. Words with er were frequently pronounced as if the letters were ar: sarvice, sartin, narvous. It is from this time that we get our pronunciation of sergeant and the word varsity which is a clipping of the word university given the ar sound. Another Elizabethan characteristic was the substitution of an i sound for an e sound. You hear this tendency today when people say miny kittle, Chist, git, and so on. It has caused such confusion with the words pen and pin (which our people pronounce alike as pin) that they are regularly accompanied by a qualifying word - stick pin for the pin and pin and ink pin for the pen.You can hear many characteristic Scottish pronunciations. Whar, thar, dar (where, there, and dare) are typical. So also are poosh, boosh, eetch, deesh, (push, bush, itch, dish and fish.)

In some ways this vintage English reflects the outlook and spirit of the people who speak it; and, we find that not only is the language Elizabethan, but that some of the ways these people look at things are Elizabethan too. Many other superstitions still exist here. In some homes, when a death occurs all the mirrors and pictures are turned to the wall. Now I don't know if today the people still know why they do this, or if they just go through the actions because it's the thing to do, but this belief goes far back in history. It was once thought that the mirror reflected the soul of the person looking into it and if the soul of the dead person saw the soul of one of his beloved relatives reflected in the mirror, he might take it with him, so his relatives were taking no chances.

The belief that if a bird accidentally flies into a house, a member of the household will die, is also very old, and is still current in the region. Cedar trees are in a good deal of disfavor in Lincoln County, and the reason seems to stem from the conviction held by a number of people that if someone plants a cedar he will die when it grows large enough to shade his coffin.

Aside from its antiquity, the most outstanding feature of the dialect is its masculine flavor - robust and virile. This is a language spoken by a red-blooded people who have colorful phraseology born in their bones. They tend to call a spade a spade in no uncertain terms. "No, the baby didn't come early, the weddin' came late," remarked one proud grandpa. Such people have small patience with the pallid descriptive limitations of standard English. They are not about to be put off with the rather insipid remark, "My, it's hot!" or, "isn't it cold out today?" They want to know just how hot or cold: "It's hotter 'n the hinges of hell" or "Hit's blue cold out thar!" Other common descriptive phrases for cold are (freely) translated) "It's colder 'n a witch's bosom" or it's colder 'n a well-digger's backside."

Speakers of Southern mountain dialect are past masters of the art of coining vivid descriptions. Their everyday conversation is liberally sprinkled with such gems as: "That man is so contrary, if you throwed him in a river he'd float upstream!" "She walks so slow they have to set stakes to see if she's a-movin!" "Thet pore boy's an awkward size - too big for a man and not big enough for a horse." "Zeke, he come bustin' outta thar and hit it for the road quick as double-geared lightenin!"

Nudity is frowned upon in Appalachia, but for some reason there are numerous "nekkid as. ." phrases. Any casual sampling would probably contain these three: "Nekkid as a jaybird," "bare-nekkid as a hound dog's rump," and "start nekkid." Start-nekkid comes directly from the Anglo-Saxons, so it's been around for more than a thousand years. Originally "Start" was steort which meant "tail." Hence, if you were "start-nekkid," you were "nekkid to the tail." A similar phrase, "stark-naked" is a Johnny-come-lately, not even appearing in print until around 1530. If a lady tends to be gossipy, her friends may say that "her tongue's a mile long," or else that it "wags at both ends." Such ladies are a great trial to young dating couples. Incidentally, there is a formal terminology to indicate exactly how serious the intentions of these couples are, ranging from sparking which is simply dating, to courting which is dating with a more serious intent, on up to talking, which means the couple is seriously contemplating matrimony. Shakespeare uses talking in this sense in King Lear.

If a man has imbibed too much of who-shot-John, his neighbor may describe him as "so drunk he couldn't hit the ground with his hat," or, on the morning-after, the sufferer may admit that "I was so dang dizzy I had to hold on to the grass afore I could lean ag'in the ground."

One farmer was having a lot of trouble with a weasel killing his chickens. "He jest grabs 'em before they can git word to God," he complained.

Someone who has a disheveled or bedraggled appearance may be described in any one of several ways: "You look like you've been chewed up and spit out," or "you look like you've been a-sortin wildcats," or "you look like the hindquarters of hard luck," or, simply, "you look like somethin the cat drug in that the dog wouldn't eat!"

"My belly thinks my throat is cut" means "I'm hungry," and seems to have a venerable history of several hundred years. I found a citation for it dated in the early 1500's.A man may be "bad to drink" or "wicked to swear", but these descriptive adjectives are never reversed.

You ought not to be shocked if you hear a saintly looking grandmother admit she likes to hear a coarse-talking man; she means a man with a deep bass voice, (this can also refer to a singing voice, and in this case, if grandma prefers a tenor, she'd talk about someone who sings "Shallow.") Nor ought you to leap to the conclusion that a "Hard girl" is one who lacks the finer feminine sensibilities. "Hard" is the dialectal pronunciation of hired and seems to stem from the same source as do "far" engines that run on rubber "tars."

This language is vivid and virile, but so was Elizabethan English. However, some of the things you say may be shocking the folk as much as their combined lexicons may be shocking you. For instance, in the stratum of society in which I was raised, it was considered acceptable for a lady to say either "damn" or "hell" if strongly moved. Most Appalachian ladies would rather be caught dead than uttering either of these words, but they are pretty free with their use of a four letter word for manure which I don't use. I have heard it described as everything from bug _____ to bull ______. Some families employ another of these four letter words for manure as a pet name for the children, and seem to have no idea that it is considered indelicate in other areas of the country.Along with a propensity for calling a spade a spade, the dialect has a strange mid-victorian streak in it too. Until recently, it was considered brash to use either the word bull or stallion. If it was necessary to refer to a bull, he was known variously as a "father cow" or a "gentleman cow" or an "ox" or a "mas-cu-line," while a stallion was either a "stable horse" or else rather ominously, "The animal." Only waspers fly around Lincoln County, I don't think I've ever heard of a wasp there, and I've never been able to trace the reason for that usage, but I do know why cockleburrs are called cuckleburrs. The first part of the word cockleburr carries an objectionable connotation to the folk. However, if they are going to balk at that, it seems rather hilarious to me that they find nothing objectionable about cuckle.

A friend of mine who has a beauty parlor now, used to have a small store on the banks of the Guyan River. She told me about a little old lady who trotted into the store one day with a request for "some of the strumpet candy." My friend said she was very sorry, they didn't have any. But, she added gamely, what kind was it, and she would try to order some. The little lady glanced around to see if she could be overheard, lowered her voice and said, "well, it's horehound, but I don't like to use that word!"

The dialect today is a watered down thing compared to what it was a generation ago, but our people are still the best talkers in the world, and I think we should listen to them with more appreciation.

Notes1. Thomas Pyles, The Origins and Development of the English Language. (New York; Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1964), 36. "It is not surprising that those lowland Scotsmen who colonized the 'King's Plantation' in Ulster and whose descendents crossed the Atlantic and settled the Blue Ridge, the Appalachians, and the Ozarks should have been so little affected by the classical culture of the Renaissance."

2. Albert C. Baugh, A History of the English Language, 2nd ed., (New York, 1957), 409

.3. H. L. Mencken, The American Language, ed. Raven I. McDavid, Jr., the 4th ed. and the two supplements abridged, with annotations and new material. (New York, 1963), 455.4. Ibid., 459.

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helshades · 5 years

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Hello, I've been reading you on Mélenchon these days and would be interested in your opinion on his treatment of the bonnets rouges movement. I find some appeal in his political views but am detered by his unequal interpretation of social movements. I credit it to his somewhat jacobin/nationalist upbringing, and would like to have your thoughts on what his legitimate or not to him. Thank you, have a good day.

Hi! Quite a good question, as I don’t think too many journalists have taken the time to scrutinise the similarities and differences between the ‘Red Caps’ of yesteryear and the current ‘Yellow Vests’, even after Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, during a ‘Questions to the Government’ panel at the Assembly, drew that parallel to promise that his government would not be intimidated by the protests—at that time, the movement was only three days old:

‘Let us remember the Red Caps. Confronted with social difficulty that collided directly with their engagements [during the presidential campaign], the previous government [P.M. Jean-Marc Ayrault’s] chose to step back. Our goal is entirely different: we would keep the line that we proposed during the presidential and legislative elections.’

—20 November 2018.

Here, I have to make a long-ish pause to explain to whomever is reading this outside of us both and doesn’t know who the ‘Red Caps’ were, well, who the ‘Red Caps’ were, precisely.

So, back to 2013, in the north-west of France, in the Brittany region. On 18th June, a collective of thirty local company leaders call Bretons and the French for action against a special tax that is scheduled to be applied to all heavy goods vehicles circulating on some state-financed and locally financed roads in the country starting from 1st October, colloquially known as ‘HVG eco-tax’.

The thirty company leaders, who are gathered at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry at Pontivy, are asking for the eco-tax to be suppressed, for (employers’) taxes in general to diminish, and for ‘administrative constraints’ (for employers) to be reduced. Amongst them are notably: Jakez Bernard, president of certification label ‘Produced in Britanny’, Alain Glon, former food-processing industry honcho, now president of a regionalist think-tank, Olivier Bordais, who manages a local supermarket, Jean-Pierre Le Mat, president of a big employers union (C.G.P.M.E., aimed at small & smallish business owners), Jacques Jaouen, president of the Brittany Chamber of Agriculture.

Soon they are joined by two big union federations: the National Federation of Farmers Unions, Finistère (one of Britanny’s départements) branch (the F.D.S.E.A. is pretty right-oriented) and the Force Ouvrière (‘Workers Force’, a big Trotskyist union) union branches for the big slaughterhouses Doux (chicken) and Gad (pork). This changes everything, as it allows for a massive, noisy joint demonstration on 2nd August—during which the protesters infamously destroy a drive-through unit meant to detect eco-tax-ready lorries installed in Guiclan.

It doesn’t change much. Months pass. And then, in early October, the Rennes Commercial Court declares that the Gad Inc. slaughterhouse in Lampaul, in Finistère, which works pork meat, must be shut down, whereas others in the same group may remain active; Gad employs 900 people in Lampaul, but their branch has been hit hard by European concurrence. As a matter of fact, while production is being transferred from Lampaul to Josselin, a hundred of interim employees arrive from Romania, paid less than 600€ per month; fixed-term contracts at Josselin are no longer being renewed as a new European directive is about to pass on posted workers. On 21st October, 350 ex-employees from Lampaul invades the Josselin abattoir: according to police reports, 400 Josselin employees exit the factory to fight them.

This all happens during a three-week movement organised by agricultural syndicates on 14th, 21st and 28th October, the protesters aiming at another eco-tax drive-through unit in Pont-de-Buis. They are farmer unionists and the ‘Committee for Convergence of Breton Interests’ (C.C.I.B.), which was created in Pontivy on 18th June as an interprofessional organisation uniting business representatives and academics, aiming to make propositions concerning economy and employment in the region.

On Saturday 28th October, several hundreds of protesters destroy the unit at the Pont-de-Buis motorway toll. The rather heated crowd wear red caps inspired by the 1675 ‘révolte des bonnets rouges’, which under Louis XIV’s reign protested an increase in taxes, and which took place in the west of France but was fiercest in Lower Brittany. That same day the Pont-de-Buis unit is destroyed, F.D.S.E.A. Finistère president Thierry Merret calls the protesters to gather at a regional meet-up on 2nd November in Quimper, capital of the Finistère département.

There were two big demonstrations in November: the one in Quimper, and the one that took place on 30th November in Carhaix-Plouguer (former county town of Breton Cornwall). The latter was organised by left-wing collective ‘Live, Decide & Work in Brittany’, created by Carhaix mayor Christian Troadec, Thierry Merret, worker & union representative for Force Ouvrière at Gad, and Corinne Nicole, union representative for the General Confederation of Labour at big chicken abattoir Tilly-Sabco in Guerlesquin (a family business which provided lot of work in town but got hit hard by international concurrence). In Quimper, the demonstration gathered up to 15,000–30,000; in Carhaix, around 17,000–40,000 (numbers vary because unions and the police have had trouble agreeing on them, traditionally). The collective comes up with a ‘charter’ for the good bonnet rouge, in reaction to the worrisome, extreme-right additions to the Quimper crowd.

The eco-tax was imagined in 2007 during a ‘Grenelle’ for environment, and unanimously voted in 2009, which had already ired many business owners in Brittany, over a thousand of whom had manifested on motorways; united in a ‘Collective of Breton Actors of Economy’, representatives for the National Federation of Agricultural Holders’ Union(F.N.S.E.A.), the National Federation of Road Transport (F.N.T.R.), the Chamber of Commerce and Industry… as well as ‘le Médef’, the largest employer federation in France, to which adheres the richest business leaders in the country, very powerful, and not very friendly to labour rights in general. The collective obtained a 50% tax allowance on the eco-tax from the government.

By taxing 800,000 heavy goods vehicles that circulate on the free portion of French motorways, the government aims to collect public transport and railway freight, amongst other things—since they won’t tax the rich. Except since 2012, too many businesses have gone bankrupt in Brittany. Liquidations follow ‘restructuring plans’ and hundreds are getting fired. The eco-tax would mean a drastic rise in the prices of goods.

By spring 2013, all has been made ready for the system to start on the first day of 2014: 200 units equipped with cameras have been installed, a lucrative contract has been concluded with Ecomouv’, a private company charged with the task to collect the tax, which it is already doing on Italian and Austrian motorways. The French government hopes to collect one billion euros per year with the eco-tax.

On 16th October, after two days of heated protests, Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault launches meetings to ‘dialogue’ with the population for a ‘Pact on the Future of Brittany’, announces financial measures and a special aide for the food-processing business. All along November, the revolt is reaching the rest of the country, where dozens of road blocks are organised, speed cameras are destroyed, as well as a few other eco-tax drive-through frames. The Prime Minister arrives in Brittany on 13th December to sign his Pact for Brittany—two billion euros.

There still are 140 units left almost intact in French tolls, since, as the Minister for Transports remarked, once the electronic equipment removed, regular check-ups to make sure they won’t crumble cost much less than actually taking them to pieces. This is what is left of the ‘eco-tax’. As for the Red Caps, well, they evolved into a bunch of collectives, some of which still exist to this day to promote various operations, including demonstrations, that concern Brittany. They never forget the gwenn-ha-du, the ‘Black & White’, the flag of Brittany… Yes, Brittany has a flag. Brittany has a language. Brittany thinks it’s Wales, which is a little silly considering Breton is a Brittonic language like Cornish, not a Gaelic one, like Welsh. Anyhow, Breizh dreams of independence. One day, it will throw bombs at the government, when it has discovered how to make them from cow dung. (I actually, genuinely love Bretons. They’re utterly fruitcake, but they protest like nobody’s business.)

All of this to provide some cultural context to what I am about to translate. So, this is Jean-Luc Mélenchon fulminating back in 2013, before his current La France Insoumise movement was created, when he was co-president of its predecessor the Front de Gauche, a coalition of radical left parties: socialists, and communists who shared anti-capitalistic, anti-liberal, Euro-sceptic views. The FdG was created in 2009 as alliance between the French Communist Party and Parti de Gauche, which Jean-Luc Mélenchon co-founded with people who, like him, quit François Mitterrand’s Parti Socialiste which was veering more and more towards (neo-)liberalism. The alliance aimed to ‘constitute a left-wing front engaged for another Europe, social and democratic, against the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty and other current European treaties.’

Yes, it wasone tasteless farce, that bonnet rouge affair. For sure, the eco-tax reallywasn’t the panacea of any good ecological politics! It’s actually, mostly, alure, as it’s not really targeting the motives behind massive livestock transportationvia road transport. It will always be more profitable to transport 45,000 pigsa year on European roads in appalling conditions rather than kill them here,for as long as Europe will allow for dumping social to take place, which forinstance permits to take advantage of profit with German abattoirs. Thegovernment doesn’t give a damn about this. Anyhow, it doesn’t care for anythingthat can be planned ahead, because of ideology and of self-delusion both. See.The eco-tax was supposed to encourage road transport to convert to fluvialtransport and railway freight. Yes, except no plan for freight development wasset in motion to regulate the ever-increasing flow of lorries on the roads.Quite the opposite, I’d say. The government is at the disposal of the EuropeanCommission, very slavishly indeed, and the Commission was very demanding onthat point. In exchange for two years delay at best, so as to reach theobjectives of deficit reduction, the Commission demanded that the liberalisationof the network increase. The liberal reform, consequently, was presented duringthe Ministers’ Council on 16th October. As for fluvial transport,one of the very first measures of the Ayrault government was to abandon the Seine-Nordcanal project. In other words, it was half-assed, as always with thisgovernment.

This takesnothing from the fact that the government’s climb-down on this point is a giftto the bosses. Under the guise of defending employment, it is in fact the freedomto go on producing further and further away from wherever the goods are to beconsumed that is being protected. Bruno Gentil, president of federation FranceNature Environnement, said something very right about this: ‘This isdeplorable, there’s no political courage here. A measure that was voted by theleft as well as the right is called into question as soon as a bunch of peoplebreak some public equipment. Unfortunately, I don’t think this will solve breeders’problems… Environment has become the scapegoat for economic issues. We are gettingthe financing of the energy turnaround very wrong’.Indeed, afew hundreds of bosses and militants from the FNSEA farmers’ union manifestingsome violence were enough for the Ayrault government to back down. Those whoordinarily have no complacency for a worker’s teensiest egg throw weren’tremotely scandalised to see FNSEA and MEDEF throw stones at the CRS. We’restill awaiting the ground-shattering swagger of the immense Manuel Valls, kingof the braggarts! Sure, even when he’s from the right, a Breton boss is atougher customer than a Roma kid on a school bus! The anti-poor warfare isill-equipped to force those who are used to be obeyed to respect public order.

The wholeaffair was a farce through and through. All the while they’re firing workers indroves in Brittany, the bosses have found a dream opportunity to pose as defendersof employment. That might have impressed a couple answering machines inmainstream media. But over there, it’s a whole other story! Employees’ unions wereno dupes. CGT, Sud and FSU in Brittany released a joint statement to distance themselvesfrom the event. In it they denounce ‘the hijacking of the authentic discontentof a large part of the population to political ends, which questions theingenuousness and the independence of the employees who get enlisted in a fightthat isn’t theirs.’ For these unions, ‘the torturers are leading the manoeuvreand they are using their victims as shield and battering ram at once. They wouldemployees to forget that they have always supported the neoliberal politicsthat caused the current crisis, and that their ‘Breton agricultural model’today is an economic, social and environmental failure. The manipulations rundeep, as the old lords are now wearing the red cap against the people.’ It can’tbe said better.

The statementaims right. Particularly where the denunciation of productivism is concerned.It calls employees for refusing to participate in the demonstration organisedin Quimper on 2nd November around the bosses, productivist farmers and someBreton regionalists from the extreme right. The employees will demonstrate withtheir own demands!What arelief! That call to a separate protest sheds some light on a really confusesituation. The alliance of some farmers with the same large-scale foodretailing that chokes them continuously, for example, never ceases to surprise.Politically, it’s even worse. The right, which had proposed the eco-tax in thefirst place, is now demanding that it be suppressed. The PS, which also votedits implementation, now decides to suspend it… As for Le Pen, she’s calling todemonstrate with the red caps! Maybe she didn’t see the colour?

— 1st November 2013.

I don’t particularly want to be known on Tumblr as the Mélenchon defence committee but… well, he had a point. A couple, actually.

The chief particularity of the Yellow Vests movement is that even if it was started as a protest against a significant rise in gas prices and one could draw a parallel in theory between this and the anti-eco-tax movement, its basis was always popular, and focused not on production and profit, but standard living conditions for poor and impoverished people.

I don’t like the term ‘legitimate’ very much, me. Every protest is legitimate, inasmuch as demonstrating is (yet) a constitutional right. The legality of things is not what should concern us, and evidently, not what concerned Jean-Luc Mélenchon back in 2013. If there is one illegitimate element here, it would be the current government: elected with only 10% of the electorate, the most hated president in the history of the Fifth Republic is ending armed forces every week to mutilate tens of thousands who are still supported, according to the least favourable estimates, by over 60% of the population—and who still show up for the next protest, week after week.

Speaking of things I’m not too comfy with, there’s also the terms ‘jacobin’ and ‘nationalist’. I suspect you are Canadian, as you seem to conflate the two (?) and the nationalist-versus-federalist opposition is, I believe, uniquely Canadian. Over here, when talking about jacobin things, one is usually referring to a radical approach to politics, unless one would be referring to the historic opposition between the Jacobins, who ended up supporting deeper financial and political reforms, and the Girondins, mostly wealthy bourgeois, who were more moderate, and remained so throughout the revolutionary period—they won, in the end. The People didn’t—although both branches initially were a part of the Jacobin Club and in favour of constitutional monarchy.

Where nationalism goes… Well, Marine Le Pen is a nationalist. Us leftists are souverainistes, my dear. Quite frankly, I don’t get how you can support democracy without defending a nation’s right to govern itself. Only, if we can call this nationalism in the case of colonised countries aiming to free themselves from imperialism, and in the case of certain regions that promote autonomy within a given State, this is not what is at stake here. More often than not, ‘nationalism’ refers to an ideology, and it is synonymous to chauvinism, with considerably less amusing undertones. Again: it is not nationalist to favour, for instance, local employment, when displacing foreign populations leads to systematic exploitation of their work force. Environmentally, it is also much more responsible to prevent goods from being carried across great distances. And, last but not least… supranational institutions are designed to remove as much power as possible from the populations that could unite and reject locally what was decided globally. Getting democracy, literally, on a smaller scale is about gaining back control; it can’t be decided remotely. If we call this ‘nationalism’, not only do we lose our way to denounce actual xenophobia, but we lose sight of other types of opposition as well. Europe is not a country, and the way the European Union is designed, it is essentially a bank, and it aims to make entire countries its debtors… So, yes, yay for souverainism!

#pavé césar !#answers #nonnies #jean-luc mélenchon #bonnets rouges #gilets jaunes #france #french politics

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atlantic-riona · 6 years

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All of the asks for the Raven!!!!! Because I love him!!!

I’m so happy you love him, because I do too! and this was a lot of fun to write, especially because talking about Bran inevitably leads to me poking fun at him XD

Their age? Bran is 19

Their sexuality/sexual preference? straight

Any siblings/Only child? MANY SIBLINGS--there’s his twin sister, Cait, and then there’s Gwydion, Alasdair, Art, and finally Conor (going from oldest to youngest)

Their favorite season? he's never been able to decide, so it varies from season to season

Who were/are their parents/guardians? THIS IS SPOILERS TERRITORY but I can tell you that his mother was named Ailbhe and his father was named Ler; Ailbhe was a soldier in the Imperial army like Cait and Ler was a sailor

Their gender? male

Their date of birth? goodness, I don’t know...*consults timeline* gonna have to say probably sometime in early spring, and for specifics...let’s say March 11

What clothing style? clothes (jk he usually wears loose tunics and loose ankle-length breeches. sometimes he wears a vest with it but he always leaves it open because he hates feeling constricted. he honestly Does Not Care what he looks like; which his brothers hate because he usually ends up Looking Good anyway)

What is their favorite food after a break-up? apple pie

Their favorite thing to do after a break-up? brood in the corner and convince himself that it was his fault

What happens in the ‘honeymoon phase’ for this character? he would probably spend a lot of time teasing her and generally be overjoyed to be around her

How many serious relationships have they been in? one so far, with Marian

What is their nationality? Falian

What languages do they speak? he speaks Falian, Vala (the language of the Valavir), and a few others (that I haven’t figured out the names for yet)

What is their profession/Education? he is a former mercenary and wants to become a healer. he’s completely self-taught in everything, but is just as educated as anyone who’s gone to university

Their favorite comfort food? apple pie

What’s a food they hate? vegetables in general, but he can never admit it, because then all his younger siblings would have an excuse to not eat their vegetables

Their music taste? it would probably range between traditional Irish and Scottish music and the more modern Gaelic-inspired music (am I saying that Bran would listen to Celtic rock? ABSOLUTELY)

Is there a story behind their name/meaning? ehehe...yes. a long one. because I put a ton of time into finding the right names for any of my characters, and this involves a lot of research, so apologies for the info dump in advance! the name Bran has mythological connotations--there are characters in both Welsh and Irish mythology with the name (Bran the Blessed and Bran mac Febail). also I knew my Bran’s father was a seafarer so I wanted a first or last name that referenced the sea or sailing in some way. In Welsh mythology, Bran the Blessed is brother to Manawydan fab Llŷr, and in Irish mythology, Bran mac Febail goes on a long sea voyage and meets Manannán mac Lir, an Irish god of the sea. Both Manannán mac Lirand Manawydan fab Llŷrare thought to be connected (possibly descended from an earlier, shared god), and in fact, both their last names mean “son of the sea” or “son of Llŷr/Ler.” in Irish mythology, Ler is hypothesized to be an earlier god of the sea who Manannán eventually replaced (it’s not exactly the same for Manawydan fab Llŷr). so Bran’s (my character, not the mythological versions) father got named Ler to reference the sea, and also because I thought it was a cool name. in addition, the name Bran means “raven” (which isn’t why he got named “the Raven,” that came later) and the raven in Celtic tradition represented war, death, and prophetic knowledge/omens (usually of death). it could also be used for someone who had raven-dark hair. so basically, since my character was someone with dark hair like a raven, spent much of his time on a battlefield, and had connections to the sea in the form of his father, it fit perfectly. (later, when I was looking for a sort of folklore sounding title/epithet, “the Raven” seemed to fit because of the connotations mentioned previously, and it was only after I started using it that I remembered his real name already meant “raven.” so his name is either “raven” or Raven XD)

Something they do that seems childish to others? sometimes he sulks up in a tree or in another high place. which, in his mind, is considered “serious contemplation,” but the rest of his siblings just call it “pouting”

What is their all-time favorite TV show? he would probably enjoy shows that were about families and had a sense of humor, maybe like Republic of Doyle (alternatively, he’d enjoy cartoons like Batman: the Animated Series)

What is their all-time favorite movie? Bran would probably enjoy Lord of the Rings a lot, now that I think about it

How big is their family? just the six siblings (for now...)

Are they close to anyone specific in the family? he shares everything with Cait, because they’re the oldest siblings and he trusts her more than anyone, but he’s also very close to Alasdair, because they have shared interests and temperaments

Have they got any allergies? yes, to people who are named Ferhon or Lucan

Are they an emotional person? he tends to put everybody else’s needs before his, so he bottles up any emotions that are not helpful for the people around him (which doesn’t always work out well for him)

Do they get angry/lose their temper quickly? no, any anger usually builds up really slowly and then BOOM one day he loses his temper and that’s that

What are some of their guilty pleasures? reading, apple pie, lying/sitting down doing nothing

Do they have pets? Do they want pets? he has a pet! (sort of) Marian gave Alasdair a puppy, who has since become the family dog

Do they like kids? Do they want kids/have kids? he loves kids and wants to have lots of them someday

Who’s cuddle buddy are they? there is no specific cuddle buddy really--all the sibs sort of pile up on top of each other if they’re relaxing or something

Do they have any tattoos? no

Do they have any piercings? nope

What is their hair colour? Is it their natural colour? wavy black, and it is naturally so

Do they like musicals? would probably not really mind them, as long as he isn’t forced to sit through one

Do they like marmite? I’m not sure, because I’ve never had it myself :)

Do they like glitter? probably not

Do they believe in the supernatural? yes (he IS the supernatural, to be fair)

Have they ever seen a dead body? TOO MANY

Have they ever had a near-death experience? ALSO TOO MANY

Have they ever broken a bone? you know what, yes. going to make it canon now.

What are they like when they’re drunk/what kind of drunk are they? it’s a 50/50 chance if he’ll be mopey or ready to start a fight

Have they ever drunk underage? there is no drinking age, so no

What is the first thing they do when they wake up? make breakfast for everybody

Do they consider themselves popular? that would require having more than a few friends (also he’s CERTAINLY not popular with the Empire at the moment)

How do they like their tea/coffee? I have to confess something: most of my characters drink tea, but I Do Not like tea and so have no idea of the Nuances of it. so...I don’t know

What do they smell like? woodsmoke and pine, also various herbs if he’s been working

Are they a virgin? yes

Do they wear glasses/contacts? no; he has excellent eyesight anyway

Are they good at remembering significant dates? Anniversaries, birthdays etc? once in a blue moon (and by that I mean he totally asked Art to remind him if something really important comes up since Art’s the only one in the family who bothers to keep track of the dates)

thanks! :)

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180abroad · 6 years

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Day 111: Anfield

Today we visited Anfield, home turf of Liverpool Football Club and Jessica’s personal sports Mecca. We arrived early, with plenty of time to walk around the grounds and have some lunch before our scheduled tour of the stadium.

We entered through Paisley gate, named for legendary Liverpool player and manager Bob Paisley. Three trophies above the gate represent the three European Cups that LFC won under his management--a record only two other European managers have ever tied--and the crest on the left half of the gate is of Paisley's birth town, Hetton-le-Hole in northeast England.

Just inside the gate is a statue of Paisley's predecessor, the equally if not more legendary Bill Shankly. With Paisley as his assistant coach, Shankly ruthless rebuilt the team (and much of the stadium) from the ground up and dragged it from B-list ignominy into the spotlight as one of the greatest teams in all of Europe.

Shankly was famous for his relationship with the Liverpool fans. From the beginning, he insisted that the fans are the most important members of any team, and he saw their faith in him and the organization as sacred. He understood how much the team meant to the people of Liverpool, and always worked hard to show them how much they meant to him in return.

He’s also the one who picked You’ll Never Walk Alone to be the team’s anthem. It was a spur of the moment decision, but it proved momentous. It remains one of the most iconic and beloved anthems in all of sports, and it has since been adopted by numerous other teams around the world, including Celtic FC in Glasgow, Borrusia Dortmund in Germany, and FC Tokyo in Japan.

As the statue says, he made the people happy.

The Liverpool Football Club is rich in history and lore, and every corner of this place honors that heritage with pride, including a monument to one of the darkest chapters in the team’s--and the city’s--history.

ESPN has an excellent "30 for 30" special on the Hillsborough disaster--Jessica had me watch it when we were in York--but I'll do my best to summarize it here.

On April 15, 1989, Liverpool was playing a semi-final match against Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield. Shortly before kickoff, a surge of fans entered the already overcrowded pens at one end of the stadium. The pens were standing-room-only sections of the stands that were fenced off from the rest of the stands, with only a single gate for entering and leaving.

Panic ensued, and fans and police alike scrambled to tear down the fences and help people escape the crush. When the dust settled, a horrifying 94 people were found dead from crushing or asphyxiation--over a third of them children and teenagers. Over 700 others were injured, including two who would later die form their injuries.

Almost immediately, the police and the Sun newspaper released the story that the disaster had been caused by Liverpool fans who had broken down the gates and recklessly stormed the pens. The rest of the country already thought of Liverpool fans as a bunch of drunken hooligans, so the story was easy to believe.

But it was a lie. Having failed to sufficiently prepare the grounds and his officers to handle the massive crowds attending the game, Police Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield--the man who officially blamed Liverpool fans for breaking down the gate--ordered himself that the gates be opened to relieve the restless crowds, having apparently forgotten that doing so would lead the throngs directly into already full pens of Liverpool supporters. Even as the bodies were being laid out on the pitch, Duckenfield was calling reporters and debriefing his lieutenants to ensure that only the “correct” officer statements made it into the official record.

False reports were leaked to the press, including absurd claims that Liverpool fans robbed the bodies of the dead, urinated on police officers, and attacked medics trying to resuscitate the victims. For years, Hillsborough survivors and the victims’ families were not only unconsoled but actively villainized as scum.

The Sun is still firmly boycotted throughout the city, and anti-Sun posters are still proudly displayed on walls and taxis.

The Sun finally apologized and recanted the false stories in 2012, but for the people of Liverpool, it was far too little, far too late.

The government inquest that followed the disaster took three years to complete and ultimately ruled all the deaths to be accidental. The inquest declined to accept testimony from two practicing doctors who had been in attendance at the game and were critical of the emergency response provided. The only doctor whose testimony was admitted was that of the hosting stadium’s club doctor.

Meanwhile, an independent government investigation into the police handling of the incident thoroughly and definitively contradicted the official story, clearly exposing the cover-up and laying the blame squarely upon the police and the stadium’s design flaws. The report led to major safety improvements in stadiums across England, but no one was held accountable for the 96 dead Liverpool fans.

Years later, in 1997, the Labor party won control of parliament from the Conservatives. One of their campaign promises was to reopen the investigation into Hillsborough. The result was little more than a sham. The justice appointed to the investigation was openly hostile and derogatory of the people of Liverpool, and he declared that only new evidence would be admitted for consideration.

Since the facts of the police incompetence and cover-up were already available during previous investigations--albeit ignored--they were deemed inadmissible. Unsurprisingly, the investigation upheld that Hillsborough was an accident and no one was at fault.

Finally, after years of bitterness and failed civil suits--funded by the people of Liverpool themselves--a new independent panel was commissioned by the government in 2009 and in 2012 ruled that the Liverpool fans were in no way at fault for the disaster.

Nothing was done about it, but it was the closest thing to justice that Liverpool had gotten in over 20 years since the disaster happened.

Subsequent investigations uncovered the fact that police reports from the incident were not only curated by the brass but forged wholesale. Over a hundred officers’ statements were found to have been either edited without their consent or fabricated entirely, the originals lost to the void.

The story isn’t over. To date, not one person has yet been held accountable for in a court of law. Just this year, charges were brought against chief Duckenfield for gross negligence and manslaughter, and his trial is currently set to begin in January 2019.

Hillsborough is more than enough of a tragedy in its own right, but it’s also a case in point for the relationship between Liverpool and the rest of England. And it’s not hard to see why so many people here see themselves as Scousers first and English a distant second.

Speaking of Scousers, it was high time for something less somber: lunch.

I had my first taste of scouse, a local specialty consisting of spicy meat stew with beets and red cabbage mixed in. Scouse was a popular dish among British sailors, so naturally it became popular in the major industrial port city of Liverpool. Nowadays, the dish is so strongly affiliated with the city that the people of Liverpool are called Scousers and their unique dialect (a blend of English, Irish, and Welsh) is called Scouse.

Our hearts and bellies warmed, we headed into the club museum, which was filled with stories and artifacts from the team’s founding in 1892 up through the current year. One room was entirely filled with personal memorabilia from recent team superhero Steven Gerrard, and another was occupied by the team’s five European Champions League cups--two more than the next-best team in Britain, Manchester United.

One room in the museum was made up like a section of the stands, with screens and speakers recreating the experience of being at a game while fans around you sing the team anthem, “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” Even as an outsider to football fandom, it was an incredibly moving experience.

Finally, it was time to tour the stadium itself. Jessica had visited the stadium twice before, but this tour was different. Much of the stadium had been recently renovated, and because it was the off-season, the tours were all given on self-guided tablets that we could use to scan various signs and displays for more information. Stationary guides were posted at intervals to answer questions and make sure we didn't get lost.

The tour starts on the top floor with a rundown of the team’s best managers and the victories the team earned under their leadership.

Then we turned a few corners and came out into the sunlight and glorious green pitch.

Jessica couldn’t have been happier if she was in Disneyland.

The stands on the right-hand endzone are called the Kop and where the most diehard Liverpool fans sit (if they ever do sit) during home games. The name is used for similar sections in stadiums across England and dates back to the Second Boer War of 1900. Many fields, including Anfield, had hills nearby where people could sit and watch the game. Returning soldiers compared the hills to a South African hill named Spion Kop, where a major battle took place. The hill at Anfield became known as Spion Kopp, then just Kop. Eventually, the hill was leveled to make room for larger stands, and the stands that took its place took on the name as well.

After taking it all in for a good few minutes, we continued on inside the stadium for more displays covering the history of team and stadium.

One large window looks out toward the shockingly close Goodison Park, home turf of the rival Everton Football Club.

Our tablets filled us in on the history of the rivalry, but of course, Jessica already knew it all and had long since enlightened me.

Anfield was originally used by Everton, the city’s first professional football team. But as Everton became more and more successful, Anfield’s owner tried to get more and more money out of them. He also wanted to sell booze in the stadium, which the church-owned Everton FC opposed. Eventually, in 1892, Everton got fed up and built themselves their own stadium on the other side of Stanley Park, less than a mile away (and in the backyard of a church).

Left with an expensive new stadium and no team to occupy it, the owner decided to make his own team. And so Liverpool F.C. was born.

Along the way, we ended up talking with one of the stationary guides for a good while. It turned out that the first game Jessica went to at Anfield was also the first game that the guide took his grandson to. They reminisced over the great last-minute goal by Stevie G to win the game.

Somehow, though the conversation kept turning to sad things. When he asked us where we were from, we ended up talking about the terrible fires up in Napa and Sonoma the previous autumn.

Downstairs, we saw the newly renovated dressing rooms, where Jessica was able to get her picture taken with the jerseys of some of her favorite players, including Gerrard and Mané. Using the guide tablets, we were able to scan each jersey to bring up a short interview or highlight reel about the player.

Whereas the home dressing room is warm and cushy, the visiting teams’ dressing room is drab and spartan. A selection of jerseys in the niches showed an all-star team opposing players who've visited Anfield, picked out by former Liverpool defender and local Scouser Jamie Carragher.

We didn't go onto the field itself--stepping onto the grass of that holy of holies is literally a crime unless you are a player or a groundskeeper--but Jessica got to touch the famous “This is Anfield” sign that the Liverpool players tap every time they go out onto the pitch.

Sadly, we didn’t get to go into the dugout or the Kop since they were both closed for maintenance.

Leaving the stadium, we walked around for a bit and went into the massive new Club Shop. Jessica got some LFC stickers for her laptop, and we both got some refreshments--it had gotten surprisingly late in the day, and we’d done a lot of exploring.

While we were there, a giant-screen TV showed France knocking Argentina out of the World cup, ushering in the Round of 16.

Before heading home, we took a quick stroll through Stanley Park and caught another glips of Goodison.

On the bus back to our Airbnb, we saw another sign of city’s socioeconomic standing.

We ended up missing our stop and wound up back in central Liverpool. Getting home would take another good bit of walking--plus a major detour in search of a convenience store that actually sold decent food--but it all worked out in the end.

Back home, we watched Pirates of the Caribbean 3 and tried to ignore the obscenely loud birthday party next door that went absurdly late into the night for a kid’s party.

Next Post: The Magical Mystery Tour (and a Cathedral, too!)

Last Post: To Liverpool (With the Beatles)

#180abroad #liverpool #england #britain #football #anfield #lfc #you'll never walk alone

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qqueenofhades · 7 years

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i know how much you've richard the lionheart, so do have any thoughts about king john, particularly how he has been largely villainised in pop culture?

Ahaha. Poor John.

In one sense, I think it’s obviously been very easy to cast him as the villain: he was heartily disliked in his own time, was not much mourned when he died, and had the following centuries of the Magna Carta being held up as the forerunner of representative democracy, and him as the evil greedy king. Then of course the rediscovered popularity of the Robin Hood legends made him the villain again, and yeah. History, to say the least, has not been kind to John, and while other kings occasonally get “rehabilitated” or reworked or otherwise get a critical examination of the mass of popular perceptions surrounding them, I’m not sure that anyone has tried that extensively with him. You can’t ignore the fact that his contemporaries pretty much hated the guy, and the major political legacy of his reign (the Magna Carta) is one that does not lend itself, from the modern angle, to a ton of sympathy for him.

In my view, as ever, I say that John was fairly complicated. He certainly did not start off in the best position when he came to the throne. Richard left him no money and an ongoing territorial war with Philip II of France, and since Richard had been absent from England so often, the barons had built a fairly reliable system of government in which the king did not necessarily need to be around for the country to run. In one sense, John’s misfortune was to be born on the wrong side of the Anarchy; William I, William II, and Henry I were all strong personal rulers with an iron grip on their barons, and part of the causes for the Anarchy were because Stephen could not control his rapacious and misbehaving vassals. If John had lived in that era, he would have followed in that model, and it probably wouldn’t have been terribly different from the others.

But England’s political structures had changed enough with the rules of his father (Henry II) and brother (Richard I), that when John came to the throne and wanted to run everything himself again, stepping on the barons’ toes as a result, trouble was almost a foregone conclusion. He was probably the member of his immediate family who was most interested in being the actual king of England and having a day-to-day hand in the operation of its government, especially after 1204, when the loss of most of the crown’s French territories meant that he had to actually be in the kingdom. (As well, the loss of Normandy was a huge symbolic blow, as it was obviously William the Conqueror’s own possession and the other half of the Anglo-Norman kingdom; the nobility all had estates in both England and Normandy, and now had to divide them between sons, further weakening families. John tried for ten years to get it back, but Philip solidified his victory in 1214 at the battle of Bouvines.)

As well, John’s situation with his nephew Arthur also left him between a rock and a hard place. Arthur was the son of his late elder brother Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany, which meant that technically by law, Arthur had a better claim to the throne than John did. Richard had named John his heir before his death, and they had worked together somewhat more after Richard’s return from German captivity in 1194 (John and Philip had been up to all sorts of mischief while he was gone on crusade, but Richard ended up reconciling with him.) John was also an adult, while Arthur was a teenager, and Philip would always have maintained Arthur as a rival claimant to the throne. So, by political necessity, it was easier for Arthur to disappear… as indeed he did, but killing your own nephew in cold blood was pretty bad, even for the thirteenth century, and John was obviously, immediately blamed for it.

This continues a larger pattern of John’s, which fatally weakened his reign: he was vindictive. No, he didn’t come to the throne in the best circumstances, and he was on the back foot since he was not nearly the warrior and military strategian that Richard was, so he was going to end up at a disadvantage in any longer conflict. However, it was certainly nothing out of the ordinary, and plenty of kings made a success of their reigns even in less-than-ideal circumstances to start off. John, however, was too interested in personally punishing people who had wronged him; he dealt harshly with the de Braose family, with William Marshal (who was the backbone of the early Plantagenet dynasty and would serve as regent for John’s son, the young Henry III), with the lords captured after the 1202 siege of Mirabeau (including some of Richard’s most loyal barons, who had turned against John, and could have been turned back to friends), with the Welsh, with the French, with the church – the list goes on and on.

It’s hard to maintain a functional rule if you’re most concerned with punishing people, and John got all of England excommunicated in 1209, which, believe me, did no favors for his popularity. By the time his barons forced him to accept Magna Carta in 1215, the situation had deteriorated to pretty much the point of no return (John accepted it and then immediately appealed to Pope Innocent III to annul it, so… also not helping.) You know it’s bad when English barons are actively asking for another Frenchman (the future Louis VIII, eldest son of Philip II) to invade the country and become king. John also lost the Crown Jewels, soon before his death, so yeah. Didn’t exactly go out on a high note.

Basically, I think John was a complicated and certainly considerably intelligent man (not at all the drooling idiot portrayed in The Lion in Winter, much as I otherwise love that movie), and he had some successes (especially while Eleanor was still around to help, but she died in 1204, weeks before the loss of Normandy). But he took care of pretty much permanently trashing his own reputation before his death, and he seems to have been one of the men who could have been great if they could have gotten out of their own way, which he couldn’t. He also had the unfortunate luck of being associated with both the Magna Carta and Robin Hood, as those are two traditions that a) had historical sticking power, and b) easily cast him as the bad guy. Like all the Plantagenets, he was talented, intelligent, interesting, and ambitious, but fatally flawed, and that’s what has stuck, probably the most of his family, for him.

#history #medieval history #king john #anonymous #ask

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matthew-trs · 7 years

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Part 6: Various Names

These are all bullet-pointed, and the first part will be translated in Kaga’s own voice, since that’s how they’re written.

I also decided to include my own notes on the origin of various names. This post is also crazy long, and mostly just exists so I can keep all my ideas and facts straight.

Berwick Saga

The “Bren” (ブレン) of Brenthunder (ブレンサンダー) and the Bren Crossbow (ブレンクロスボウ) is from the famous English Bren Light Machine Gun. Military enthusiasts probably immediately recognized this.

Gorzevalus (ゴーゼワロス) was named by the designer who wrote that map’s scenario. I don’t know where he got the name, but he’s a very serious person, so I doubt he intended it to be funny.

A derrick (デリック) is a type of large crane. Since they can be used to lift heavy items as well as help survey undersea wrecks, I wanted Professor Almuth’s first name to give the impression of historical site exploration.

Things like Critical Knife and Wallenstein were simply abbreviated (クリティカルナイフ > クリテカルナイフ, and ヴァレンシュタイン > ワレンスタイン) due to a 7-character limit we had early in development. I must’ve simply missed them when I double-checked later. Similarly, we abbreviated Composite Bow (コンポジットボウ > コンジットボウ).

[Note: this won’t apply to the translation patch, since there’s no character limit.]

Sherpa (シェルパ) are a tribe of mountain guides at the base of Mt. Everest. I chose the name to parallel “Highlanders.” As for Highlanders (ハイランダー), they’re a historical ethnic group from Scotland who were renowned as brave warriors in history. I’ve been told that the Sherpa’s appearance closely resembles the hero of a certain manga, but I’ve never read it, so it’s just a coincidence.

I chose the name Kramer (クレイマー) because it’s close to “climber,” since he’s got a natural gift for climbing cliffs as a skill. I’m on the fence whether it should be to be a nickname or not... I guess it’s probably a nickname he picked himself.

Sapphire (サフィア) and Ruby (ルヴィ) are named after the precious stones, naturally.

Names like Roswick (ロズオーク), Vanmilion (バンミリオン), Shirrock (̪シロック), Quescria (クエスクリア), and the like I just made up. I didn’t take them from anywhere in particular.

[Note: in the patch, “Shirrock” will be Sherlock, which is a real name.]

Faramir (ファラミア) and Olwen (オルウェン) are from The Lord of the Rings.

[Note: I’m not sure which LotR character Olwen is supposed to be. The closest one it matches is Arwen (アルウェン), but that’s a woman...]

Faramir’s class name Wanderer (渡り戦士) is borrowed from a certain manga. Sorry, Ms. Hikawa!

Sylvis (シルウィス), Larentia (ラレンティア), Pfeizal (ファイサル), etc. are mythological/historical people; I also sometimes used the names of mythological weapons for people, too.

Most other proper names are original or just common names, like Lynette, Reese, Bernard, etc.

TearRing Saga

It’s hardly worth mentioning, but Katri (カトリ) is just a plain ranch girl’s name. Back in the day, a lot of people thought it had something to do with baseball pitching. It’s from an old anime based on a very old children’s story from Finland, so it’s natural people wouldn’t recognize where it came from.

[Note: I have no clue what Kaga means about the baseball thing.]

Ente (エンテ) is German for “duck,” while Möwe (メーヴェ) means “seagull.” In other words, it’s an play on words where if you add eyes (メ) to a duck (カモ), you get a seagull (カモメ), meant to parallel that when Ente awakens to her true self, she becomes Möwe. Naturally, there’s also the added meaning that she wants to fly in the skies freely like a seagull, not be a duck that hides itself underwater.

[Note: I had these names as “Enteh” and “Maeve” in the TRS patch. The official romanization of エンテ is definitely “Enteh,” too. Oh well...]

Neyfa (ネイファ) was the name of a character in a short story I wrote a long time ago.

Tia (ティーエ) is from Aul Toba Tieh (アウル・トバティーエ), a character from a certain fantasy novel.

Lionheart (レオンハート), of course, means “lion-hearted.” Historically, it was the epithet of the King Richard I of England. While being Lionheart’s name, this was also the source of Richard’s title the Lion Prince of Mahl (マールの獅子王子)... though I will admit now that this was pretty lazy naming on my part.

The mamluks (マムルーク) were medieval Arab slave warriors renowned for their elite archery, who later conquered Egypt and Syria. Therefore, by calling Lionheart’s class “mamluk,” I wanted to convey the imagery of a strong, elite horseman leading his own unique regiment.

[Note: this was “Nomadic Trooper” in the TRS patch.]

Translator’s Additions

Names of People:

Playable:

Aegina: Αἴγινα, a nymph in Greek myth, the great-grandmother of Achilles and Ajax the Great.

Paramythis: Paramythia (Παραμυθιά, “comforter”) is an epithet of the Virgin Mary.

Perceval: also spelled Percival; knight of the Round Table

Bosses/NPCs:

Cordova: Cordova/Córdoba, a city in Spain that was historically the capital of a large Islamic state, the Emirate (and later Caliphate) of Córdoba.

Arcturus: a star in the constellation Boötes; called the “bear-watcher” in Greek astronomy, and むぎぼし (“wheat star”) in Japanese astronomy. Kaga says these names are meant to represent Arcturus’s character as both strong and reliable.

Zephyrus: Ζέφυρος, god of the western wind in Greek myth. Kaga notes elsewhere that this pseudonym was chosen for Friedrich because of the character’s desire to eventually return home to the west, even though it was impossible for so long.

Rasputin: Grigorij Yefimovič Rasputin (Григорий Ефимович Распутин), Russian mystic and advisor to Emperor Nicholas II, later assassinated by nobles worried about his influence, especially over Empress Aleksandra Fjodorovna.

Red Baron (Richthofen in the translation): Manfred von Richthofen, German lord and fighter pilot from WWI, nicknamed “the Red Baron” due to his status as a Freiherr (”baron”) and his plane that he famously painted red.

Wallenstein: Albrecht von Wallenstein (Albrecht z Valdštejna), supreme commander of the Holy Roman Empire’s military during the Thirty Years’ War

Krishna: कृष्ण, god of love and compassion in Hinduism. Also the name of a character from TearRing Saga 1.

Sakhalin: an island just north of Hokkaido, currently owned by Russia.

Shagaal: Chagall (シャガール), king of Agustria in FE4.

Chebyshev: Pafnutij L’vovič Čjebyšjov (Пафну́тий Льво́вич Чебышёв), a Russian mathematician.

Fermat: Pierre de Fermat, a French mathematician and lawyer.

Lebesgue: Henri Léon Lebesgue, a French mathematician

Palitzsch: Johann Georg Palitzsch, a German astronomer

Weyl: Hermann Klaus Hugo Weyl, a German mathematician and physicist

Euclid: Εὐκλείδης, an ancient Greek mathematician

Jung: Carl Gustav Jung, a Swiss psychologist

Grimm: possibly from the Brothers Grimm, German linguists and authors of Grimm’s Fairy Tales

Gibbs: possibly from Josiah Willard Gibbs, American physicist and chemist

Rodin: François Auguste René Rodin, a French sculptor

Wagner: possibly Wilhelm Richard Wagner, German composer, writer, and director, most famous for Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Windsor: the currently reigning dynasty of British monarchs, ultimately descended from the Germanic House of Wettin

Pizarro: Francisco Pizarro-González, Spanish conquistador

Eisenhower: Dwight David Eisenhower, general and 34th president of the United States.

Cromwell: Oliver Cromwell, major leader of the Parliamentarian side of the English Civil War

Rockefeller: John David Rockefeller Sr., American business magnate and philanthropist, and inflation-adjusted richest person in modern history.

Goebbels: Paul Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda for the Third Reich.

Goering: Hermann Wilhelm Göring, Vice-Chancellor of Germany during the Third Reich.

Mahatma: Mahātmā (महात्मा, “venerable”), a title most associated with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Gomorrah: עֲמֹרָה‎‎, one of the legendary cities destroyed by God in the Biblical book of Genesis.

ha-Yadh (”God Hand” in Japanese): הַיָד, Hebrew for “the hand.”

Enoch: חֲנוֹךְ, ancestor of Noah in Genesis, said to have “walked with God” rather than died. Subject of several apocryphal books.

Gilgamesh: 𒄑𒂆𒈦, a semi-historical ancient king of Sumer and protagonist of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Nazgul: Nazgûl, the ringwraiths from The Lord of the Rings.

Manaclir: corruption of Manannán mac Lir, a sea god in Irish myth.

Urbanus IV: Urbanus (anglicized as Urban) has been the papal name of eight different popes.

Arless: Ares (Ἄρης), god of war in Greek myth

Alecto: Ἀληκτώ, goddess of unstoppable rage in Greek myth

Names of Places

Berwick Isle: Berwick-upon-Tweed, a historically long-disputed territory on the border between Scotland and England

Altesia (what the Lazberians call the continent of Lieberia): Artesia, the Latin name for the county of Artois, France.

Izmil: İzmir, the Turkish name of the city classical known as Smyrna

Leoglard: corruption of Beograd, the native name for Belgrade, the capital of Serbia

Diana: goddess of the moon and hunt in Roman myth, equivalent of Greek Artemis

Valemtine: corruption of Valentine, anglicized form of the name Valentinus

Mineva: possibly from Minerva, goddess of war and wisdom in Roman myth, equivalent of Greek Athena

Sinon: possibly from Sinon (Σίνων), a Greek spy from the Iliad who helped convince the Trojans to move the Trojan Horse into their city.

Danae: Danaë (Δανάη), mother of Perseus in Greek myth

Ausonia (one of the five marches): Αυσονία, the ancient Greek name for the southern Italian peninsula

Badonia: possibly from Badon Hill (Latin Mons Badonicus/Badonis, Welsh Mynydd Baddon), the legendary location of a battle of King Arthur against the invading Anglo-Saxons.

Lombard (one of the five marches): the Lombards, a Germanic tribe who conquered parts of Italy during the 6th century.

Anatolia (an unidentified location where certain wines are from): also called Asia Minor, an ancient region corresponding with modern central and western Turkey.

Wallachia (mentioned in the description of the Tiger Pelt item): one of the three major constituents of early Romania, alongside Transylvania and Moldavia.

Pyrene: the Pyrenees, a mountain range separating the Iberian Peninsula with the rest of continental Europe

Seydlitz: Frederich Wilhelm von Seydlitz, a general serving under Frederick II of Prussia; or the German WWI battle cruiser named after him, the SMS Seydlitz.

Fort Remagen: Remagen, a town in Germany famous for the Battle of Remagen in WWII, where Allied forces temporarily captured Ludendorff Bridge, one of the last bridges over the Rhine.

Myuhen: possibly from München, the German name of Munich.

Ruan: Rouen, capital of the Normandy region of France.

Ishs: possibly from Isis, goddess of motherhood and nature in Egyptian myth.

Item Names: Original (may or may not overlap with translation)

Knives:

Vespa: Latin for “wasp”

Crotalus: the scientific name for the rattlesnake genus, itself from Greek κρόταλον (”rattle”)

Swords:

Holy Sword Vritra (”Vritra” in the translation): serpent and adversary of Indra in Hinduism.

Sakushīdo/Succeed (”Nothung” in the translation): likely from the English word “succeed.”

Dangerous Blade Albatross (”Albatross” in the translation): from the legend about a sailor shooting an albatross, a bird thought to signify good luck, who was forced by his shipmates to wear the dead bird around his neck to ensure that only he received the bad luck from killing it.

Grimhildr: queen of Burgundy in Norse myth.

Lord Gram (”Gramr” in the translation): sword of the Germanic hero Sigurðr, used to kill the dragon Fáfnir.

Harperia: possibly from harpē (ἅρπη), a type of sickle-like sword in Greek myth, most famously used to castrate Cronus and kill Medusa.

Holy Sword Vajra (”Vajra” in the translation): means “diamond” or “thunderbolt”, the weapon of Indra in Hinduism

Adrasteia: Ἀδράστεια “inescapable”, the name of two different characters in Greek myth: a nymph who nursed Zeus, and a daughter of Ares and Aphrodite.

Balmung: the name for the sword Gramr (see above) given in the Nibelungenlied.

Spears

Brionac: a spear of the god Lugh in Irish myth

Phalanx (”Doru” in the translation): a type of ancient Greek heavy infantry famous for their battle formation, where shields would be arranged to make a wall lined with protruding spears.

Wotan Spear (”Angon” in the translation): Wotan, Old High German name of the god Odin (Óðinn) from Norse myth

Axes

Gigas Axe: γίγας, Greek for “giant.” Suitably, it’s only usable by Gigas Knights in the game.

Būji (”Bhuj” in the translation): possibly from bhuj (भुज), also called an axe-knife, a type of short- but wide-bladed weapon with a very long grip.

Thorhammer (”Mjollnir” in the translation): Thor, thunder god in Norse myth, who wielded the hammer Mjǫllnir.

Gullveig: a figure from Norse mythology who is killed three times, then reborn the third time as the powerful shamaness Heiðr.

Bows/Crossbows

Holy Bow Rossweisse (”Rossweisse” in the translation): Roßweiße, German for “white horse,” one of the eight valkyries in Richard Wagner’s opera Die Walküre.

Sylph Bow (”Killer Bow” in the translation): Sylph, wind elementals from classical alchemy, invented by Paracelsus.

Magic Bow Apeiron (”Apeiron” in the translation): ἄπειρον (”limitless”), a concept in certain ancient Greek cosmologies and philosophies.

Apollo Bow (”Argyrotoxus” in the translation): Apollo, god of light in Greek myth, twin brother of Artemis, goddess of the hunt

Otinus Crossbow (”Ollerus” in the translation): possibly a faux-latinization of Óðinn

Magic

Pallas Leia/Serenia/Riana: Pallas (Παλλὰς), an epithet of the Greek goddess Athena

Starlight: from Starlight in FE1/FE3

Janura (”Nosferatu” in the translation): from the Japanese words ja (蛇, “snake”) and nurunuru (ヌルヌル, “smooth, slippery”)

Scylla: Σκύλλα, a monster in Greek myth

Bau Crash (”Kishar’s Wrath” in the translation): possibly (but not likely) from Bau (𒀭𒁀𒌑, also called “Gula” by the Babylonians, among other names), goddess of healing from Akkado-Babylonian myth.

Shields

Ajax’s Shield (”Sakos Aiantos” in the translation): the shield of the Greek hero Ajax the Great in the Iliad, made of seven layers of oxhide and one of bronze. Most famously, it could even block the javelin of the Trojan hero Hector, which pierced only the first six layers.

Aspis: ἀσπίς, a heavy wooden shield used by ancient Greek infantry

Flame Shield Hestia (”Hestia” in the translation): Hestia, goddess of the hearth and architecture in Greek myth

Materials

Celica Steel (”Zerika Steel” in the translation): possibly from Celica, a protagonist in FE2/FE15

Toneriko Wood (”Ash Wood” in the translation): とねりこ, Japanese for the Manchurian ash tree, Fraxinus mandschurica.

Jugud Wood (”Yggdra Wood” in the translation): a reference to Jugdral, itself a reference to Yggdrasil, the world-tree in Norse myth

Tilia Wood (”Linden Wood” in the translation): Tilia, the genus name for linden/basswood trees.

Ichii Wood (”Yew Wood” in the translation): いちい, Japanese for the Japanese yew tree, Taxis cuspidata.

Antilope Skin (”Antelope Pelt” in the translation): Antilope, German for “antelope”

Schwein Skin (”Boar Pelt” in the translation): Schwein, German for “swine”

Stier Skin (”Bull Pelt” in the translation): Stier, German for “steer”

Löwe Skin (”Lion Pelt” in the translation): Löwe, German for “lion”

Tigris Skin (”Tiger Pelt” in the translation): tigris, Latin for “tiger”

Lúkos Skin (”Wolf Pelt” in the translation): λύκος, Greek for “wolf”

Simurgh Feather: sīmurğ (سیمرغ), a bird from Iranian myth

Ariadne Thread: Ἀριάδνη, a woman from Greek myth who helped Theseus traverse the Labyrinth using a spool of thread

Eye of Balor: Balor, king of the Fomorians in Irish myth, who had a third eye on his forehead that wrought destruction on any it looked at.

Item Names: Translation

Swords

Succeed → Nothung: the name of Gramr (see above) given in Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. “Succeed” is a crappy name for a sword, and it’s Reese’s final weapon, so I wanted a theme naming with his earlier personal sword, Gramr.

Spears

Phalanx → Doru: δόρυ, the type of spear that Greek hoplites utilized in phalanx formation. Changed, naturally, because “phalanx” is a military formation/unit rather than a weapon.

Wotan Spear → Angon: Angon, a type of javelin used by Germanic peoples. I would’ve used “Gungnir,” since that’s the spear of Wotan/ Óðinn, but the Wotan Spear isn’t a high-tier weapon, or even the strongest thrown spear.

Bows/Crossbows

Sylph Bow → Killer Bow: I didn’t want to use “Sylph,” since there are wind-element weapons in Berwick Saga, but this isn’t one of them.

Magic Bow Aperion → Abaddon: Assuming “Aperion” is indeed a corruption of “Apollyon” (see above), I prefer the sound of the Hebrew name, Abaddon.

Apollo Bow → Argyrotoxus: Ἀργυρότοξος, an epithet of Apollo meaning “of the silver bow.”

Otinus Crossbow → Ollerus: Assuming “Otinus” is indeed a faux-latinization of “Óðinn,“ I didn’t think that Óðinn was a very fitting god to associate with a bow. Instead, I chose Ollerus, which is the latinization of the name of Ullr, Norse god of archery. As a bonus, Ullr/Ollerus is closely associated with Óðinn: during the episode where Óðinn is exiled for ten years for not being manly enough, Ullr is the one who rules the gods temporarily in his stead (during which time Ullr even uses the name Óðinn).

Gatling Bow → Chu-ko-nu: Following the tradition of the TRS1 translation, since guns aren’t in TRS, and Richard Gatling isn’t a TRS character.

Bren Crossbow → Rapid Crossbow: Similarly, guns aren’t in TRS, so “Bren” is out.

Dora → Espringal: While “ballista” and “scorpio” are both names of siege weapons, I have no idea what a “dora” is supposed to be... so I chose an actual one.

Dark Magic (I wanted the names of these spells to all be mythological references like they are in FE)

Black Meteo → Wormwood: a falling star that ruins the waters of the Earth in the Biblical book Revelation.

Berserk → Lyssa: Λύσσα, goddess of mad frenzy and rabies in Greek myth.

Sleep → Oneiroi: Ὄνειροι, the gods of dreams in Greek myth

Bau Crash → Kishar’s Wrath: Kišar (𒀭𒆠𒊹), the personified Earth in Babylonian myth. Since Bau (see above) is a goddess of motherhood rather than the earth, Kishar is more appropriate. I chose Kishar rather than the more ancient and well-established goddess Ki (also an earth goddess), since the name Ki is too short for players to reasonably identify. Even though I’m probably misunderstanding バウ as the goddess Bau, I stuck with it.

Janura → Nosferatu: to fit in line with FE’s Nosferatu; from adaptations of Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Tumahann → Saehrimnir: Sæhrímnir, the beast killed and eaten--then resurrected--by the Æsir and einherjar every evening in Norse myth. I wanted to use something bestial or related to eating, since this spell drains the EXP of its victim.

Hellworm → Jormungandr: to fit in line with FE’s Jormungandr; from Jǫrmungandr, the serpent surrounding Miðgarðr in Norse myth

Shields

Perushīda → Perseid: I’m not really sure what Perushīda is supposed to be, so I picked something that sounded close. The Perseids are a meteor shower occurring in late summer; named after the Perseid dynasty said to descend from the mythological hero Perseus

Ajax’s Shield → Sakos Aiantos: σᾰ́κος Αἴᾰντος, Epic Greek for “Ajax’s shield.” Fun Fact: Ajax’s shield in particular is called a sakos (”leather shield”) rather than an aspis (the general word for “shield”) in the Iliad. I didn’t want to use the English words, since I didn’t want to assert that Ajax was a person in the TRS universe. I’m even considering making it just Sakos, actually.

Fire-God Shield → Kojin Shield: Sanbō-Kōjin (三宝荒神, “wild god of the three treasures”), or just Kōjin, a Shinto god of fire, cooking, and the hearth. I used “Kōjin” rather than “Kagu-Tsuchi” (the god of fire in general) in order to nicely parallel the names of the related Fūjin Shield and Raijin Shield.

Accessories, etc.

Sun Charm → Dawn Charm: While the original name is a reference to the skill FE Sol, that name doesn’t fit with what the charm really does. It gives +10 Hit, so it makes it easier to see, hence “dawn.”

Meteor Charm → Dusk Charm: While the original name is a reference to the FE skill Astra, that name doesn’t fit with what the charm really does. It gives +10 Avoid, so it makes it harder be seen, hence “dusk.”

Moonlight Charm → Vanish Charm: While the original name is a reference to the FE skill Luna, that name doesn’t fit with what the charm really does. It activates the skill Hide, hence “vanish.”

Purgatory Bracelet → Gambler’s Brace: This brace lowers Hit and Avoid by 10 but increases Strength and Defense by 2, so it’s risky. I assume “purgatory” was meant to refer to the in-between-good-and-bad-for-you stat bonus given. The thing is, nobody who’s non-Catholic seems to understand that purgatory is a good place; hence, the old name is just plain dumb.

Ligan/Ishian Racehorse: These horses increase your Movement, hence “racehorse.”

Ligan Warhorse: This horse increases your Damage, hence “warhorse.”

Ishian/Sinonan Stallion: This horse increases your Speed, and the word “stallion” evokes an imagery of a wild, quick horse.

#yes i know this is disorganized and crazy you don't have to remind me

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pussymagicuniverse · 4 years

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A Journey in Winter – Walking with Ceridwen and The Cailleach

Crone energy lead me along my magical path before I knew I was walking the path in the first place.

For me, on the surface, this turning to crones seems to be in line with the idea we try to bring what we lack – but need – into our lives from outside sources. Recently I’ve realised how as a child I stayed childlike well into my teens, and even now people mistake me for someone much younger than I am. But all I ever wanted was to grow older and know things. It’s the opposite of Peter Pan and his Lost Boys, and more difficult to achieve (I am nowhere near the all-seeing hag energy I’d love to embody, but I could quite easily be a lost boy if that was my thing). But after a recent trip to Scotland, where I felt one powerful goddess join another from the minute I walked out my front door, I’m starting to believe it’s not impossible.

There are other reasons other than some spiritual anaemia to explain why the universe expressed as older, colder, and darker appeals to me. I know it’s also because my role model as a little witch was my great-grandmother, who died long before I was born, but lived on in the things her son, my nature-respecting grandfather, taught me. It’s because I spent much of my childhood in the company of another set of great-grandparents; they were not witches, but funny and sharp, they both carried the lessons of a life spent working – and at times drinking – hard and shared them with me. And I know deep down I just wanted a mentor – a bit like the endless and immortal Mrs Which, Mrs Whatsit, and Mrs Who from A Wrinkle in Time – who is all-knowing and would guide me in the way I wasn’t being guided in my everyday life. Maybe it’s even because of how much I watched The Golden Girls when I was a child – those retired ladies really knew how to live, right?

Aging, darkness, night, death, and winter have been considered negatives in many places over many historical eras. Some of those things still unsettle people, I know. But for me, the dark is what it is – the complement of light, which itself balances dark. Dark and light are neutral settings – badness can come into our lives with the sun just as easily as it can with the moon. And the dark has a different and equally useful purpose – if light is active and lends itself to movement, the dark is calm, it’s where incubation takes place (of life, or of ideas and contemplations). Aging frightens people because it takes us closer to the inevitable end of our lives. Death frightens us because it’s difficult to know, to understand; it is unpredictable. Winter encompasses and represents all of the above. But all I can see is how much knowledge and experience the years give us, how much time for contemplation and learning there has been once we reach that end.

Even so, sometimes the old-old gods also make mistakes, but the best part about that is how they tell us that’s ok, too. They have the wisdom to see sometimes it doesn’t really matter. My longest working spiritual relationship with a crone goddess is with Ceridwen, forged when I was seventeen, and still going strong. She is the Welsh sorceress famous for her Cauldron of Inspiration; accidental mother of the great bard Taliesin – because she created the potion for her own son, but the plan wasn’t as fool-proof as she’d have liked it to be. The three drops it took to give someone endless insight landed on the thumb of her serving boy, Gwion Bach, instead of being lovingly administered to her ugly son Morfran (or Afagddu). After a chase where Ceridwen and Gwion Bach shapeshifted as a series of animals, the boy ends up in the enchantress’s tummy, to transform into Taliesin. This worked out fine, of course, because the result was the Welsh bardic tradition. And Ceridwen is recognised as a goddess these days – she’s a witch’s witch, the dark moon guardian of poets, creators, and seekers, giving us space for our ideas to grow in the absence of bright overpowering light. She’s given me flashes of insight, strength to stay on the path, never letting me down when I’ve needed her most.

Very recently, after several months of another energy edging in, Ceridwen was joined in these efforts to help a little human writer find their way. I knew it was coming, and at last it fell into place. As I walked down the hill from my house to Sheffield station on a cold pre-dawn in early January, here was another crone. Depicted most often as a blue-skinned old woman, or a giantess, this goddess is rooted more firmly in the earth and the practical by way of her ties to wildlife and winter, and her rock-formation myths, dropping stones from her apron across these islands, from Scotland to Wales to England to Ireland and back to Scotland again. And if there was ever a right time to feel the Cailleach’s presence, it’s in the freezing short days and long nights of winter, when you’re about to hop on a train headed four hours north.

Another truth buried in this contemplation of sagacity (occurring, no doubt, because I’ll be 40 soon) was excavated by the Cailleach: I’ve always valued a no-nonsense approach to most problems, while knowing I’m an intuitive, emotional, airy fairy creature most of the time – the growth for me has been in combining them. The hero in my story when I’m overly stressed is someone who will tell me, hey, it’s alright, you’re upset, but come on now – get back up. Being realistic and sensible can come across as gruff, yes, but it is not the same as being unkind – in fact, it’s a great kindness. There are times when I must be this person for myself, rarer still when I’ve been that person for others (I’m more likely to be the woe-catching ear and the tear-stained shoulder), and there have been times when friends and strangers have been the ones to help me. And there are these occasions when the stern hand reaching down to me is from a more unseen place.

Edinburgh is a city of history and hills, populated by a grand mix of locals and transplants and tourists, and people like me: ‘visitors’ as my friend (an Edinburgh native) described me – someone who lives in the UK, but wandered further north to do research for one of my poetry collections. Many of the Cailleach’s Scottish myths are based in wild, far northern landscapes, but through the steep inclines and the nip in the air she made her presence known in this more lowland, metropolitan place. I had to walk everywhere I needed to go – not a problem if you don’t have a condition that affects all the joints in your legs, more of a problem if you do (spoilers: I do). My anxiety was high because I was traveling alone. There were moments when it would have been easier to give up and stay in my hotel room with a pile of books, but something wouldn’t let me even consider it.

Pure stubbornness and dedication to my work, I suppose – work I continue to pursue under Ceridwen’s watchful eye, Ceridwen who allows me to curl up in her cauldron when things get overwhelming, waiting things out and re-emerging energised. But in Edinburgh there was another force of nature saying: ‘no, she will not stop yet – she will do what she came to do’. Her blue hands at my back, a lift up – the hard-faced but well-meant instruction. I was in the Cailleach’s territory during her season, she’d called me in before I arrived and once I was there, things would be done her way – I managed to push through the anxiety; I swallowed medicine for the pain, rested well when the journey was finished. And when I left, she made sure I carried something of her with me.

Born in Southern Ohio, but settled in the UK since 1999, Kate is a writer, witch, editor and mother of five. She is the author of several poetry pamphlets, and the founding editor of four web journals and a micropress.

Her witchcraft is a blend of her great-grandmother's Appalachian ways and the Anglo-Celtic craft of the country she now calls home – though she incorporates tarot, astrology, and her ancestors, plus music, film, books, and many other things into her practice. Her spiritual life is best described as queer Christopagan with emphasis on the feminine and the natural world. She believes magic is everywhere.

Find Kate on twitter and IG - @mskateybelle - and at her website.

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newsfundastuff · 4 years

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(Bloomberg) -- Boris Johnson issued a strong message that his government will remain focused on Brexit by banning his ministers from attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next month. The prime minister, who will also not attend, said he wants to “get on with delivering the priorities of the British people.”Key Developments:U.K. official says no ministers will go to World Economic Forum in DavosJohnson says Parliament should resist SNP calls for Scottish independencePrime minister plans to change the law to prevent extension of the Brexit transition period; pound fell as much as 1.5%EU warns ruling out an extension risks a new Brexit cliff-edgeMembers of Parliament being sworn in from todayParliamentary Labour Party meets this evening for the first time since its comprehensive election defeat, with candidates to replace leader Jeremy Corbyn already jostling for positionCity Warns Over Rush to Deal (3:45 p.m.)The City of London warned against a hasty Brexit agreement that could damage services -- which make up about 80% of the U.K. economy.“The December 2020 deadline is ambitious and it is critical the services sector is not sacrificed in the rush to get a deal” said Catherine McGuinness, policy chief at the City of London Corporation, which administers the financial district. “This is just the beginning of the Brexit process.”The future framework deal with the EU must focus on “securing maximum market access and developing a structure for the U.K. economy to prosper in the years ahead,” she said.Johnson Calls for Divisions to be Healed (3:15 p.m.)Boris Johnson said he wants a “new and generous” spirit of cross-party cooperation as he pledged to get Brexit out of the way and concentrate on the U.K.’s domestic priorities.“We are going to be able to get on with delivering the priorities of the British people,” the premier told the House of Commons. “After three-and-a-half years of wrangling and division, we in this government will do whatever we can to reach out across this House to find common ground, to heal the divisions of our country and to find a new and generous spirit in which we conduct all our political dealings.”Johnson also said Parliament “should resist the calls of those who would break up the United Kingdom,” a reference to calls (see 2:45 p.m.) from the Scottish National Party for a second referendum on Scottish independence.Sturgeon Calls for Scottish Referendum (2:45 p.m.)Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon reiterated her plan to demand the right to hold another independence referendum.“This is a watershed moment for Scotland,” Sturgeon told lawmakers in Edinburgh on Tuesday. “So this week I will take the next steps to secure Scotland’s right to choose.”Sturgeon told the Scottish Parliament she will submit a so-called Section 30 request for the transfer of power with the aim of holding a referendum in 2020. After her Scottish National Party won 48 of the 59 seats in Scotland in last week’s election, Sturgeon has said she has the mandate for another vote on breaking away from the rest of the U.K. in the wake of Brexit.Business Lobby Supports Ban on Brexit Extension (2 p.m.)There’s support from business for Boris Johnson’s decision to explicitly rule out in legislation any chance of an extension to the Brexit transition phase beyond the end of 2020.“Business has had enough of uncertainty and shares the prime minister’s ambition for a fast EU trade deal,” Carolyn Fairbairn, Director-General of the country’s biggest business lobby, the Confederation of British Industry, said in a statement. “Speed and ambition can go hand in hand if the right approach is taken. There’s no time to lose, with a top priority being to build a best-in-class trade architecture, with business round the table, enabling EU trade talks to begin early in the new year.”Gardiner: Next Labour Leader Should Be Woman (1:25 p.m.)Barry Gardiner, Labour’s trade spokesman, told Bloomberg Radio he thinks the party’s next leader should be a woman and suggested she should be from the Midlands or Northern England -- a verdict that would rule out two potential candidates, the party’s Brexit spokesman Keir Starmer, who’s one of the favorites, and its foreign affairs spokeswoman Emily Thornberry, whose constituency is in London.“I think it is natural that it should be a woman,” Gardiner said, before adding it’s important that it should be someone from “those northern towns, the midlands, the industrial heartlands” that have traditionally voted Labour. “There are many, many women in our party from those areas where we can see leadership potential,” he said.Gardiner, who was born in Scotland though represents a London constituency in Parliament, said he’s “not made any decision whatsoever” as to whether he will stand for leader or deputy leader.EU Warns of Brexit Cliff-Edge (1 p.m.)While U.K. officials have expressed their intention to wrap up the future partnership with the European Union by the end of the Brexit transition period on Dec. 31, 2020, the bloc’s officials are sounding less convinced.Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said the EU will find Johnson’s move “strange,” adding that it will limit the U.K.’s options in negotiations.Earlier Sabine Weyand, director general for trade in the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, cautioned that Johnson’s intention to prevent any prolongation would require the bloc to plan accordingly. “That means that, in the negotiations, we have to look at those issues where failing to reach an agreement by the end of 2020 would lead to another cliff-edge situation,” she told a European Policy Centre conference in Brussels.Johnson, Von der Leyen Agree to Get to Work (12:45 p.m.)Boris Johnson spoke with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen by phone on Tuesday and they will start Brexit talks as soon as possible, the prime minister’s spokesman James Slack told reporters in London.“They agreed to work together with great energy to agree a future partnership by the end of 2020,” Slack said. The “greater clarity” of passing a law to stop an extension to the transition period means “the U.K. and EU will be able to get on with it and have a great future relationship wrapped up” by the end of the year, he said.Businesses will need to prepare for the U.K. to be outside the bloc’s single market and customs union, Slack said. “In all circumstances we will be leaving the single market and customs union and the EU regime associated with that,” he said.Tory Voters Get Younger (11:25 a.m.)Conservative voters got younger on average in Thursday’s election compared with 2017, according to pollster YouGov. Two years ago, the age at which a voter was more likely to vote Tory than Labour was 47. This time around it was 39, according to YouGov’s survey of 42,000 people.The survey also found that class is no longer a key indicator of how people vote, with the Tories beating Labour in every social grade group.Tuesday’s Ceremonial Proceedings (11 a.m.)Tuesday’s proceedings in the House of Commons are largely ceremonial and start at 2:30 p.m. Initially, they’ll be presided over by the longest-standing Member of Parliament, Father of the House Peter Bottomley. Then, through a process that involves Sarah Clarke, a senior Commons official known as “Black Rod” and MPs processing to the House of Lords and back, Speaker of the House Lindsay Hoyle is set to be re-elected.Shortly afterward, MPs will be sworn in one-by-one, taking an oath of allegiance to the crown -- or making a solemn affirmation that doesn’t make reference to God. They must do so in English and can follow it with an oath or affirmation in Welsh, Scottish Gaelic or Cornish.Johnson: Voters Have High Expectations (10:45 a.m.)Boris Johnson hosted the first meeting of his cabinet since the election and invited the TV cameras in as he addressed his top team, repeating lines from his stump speech during the campaign.“People have a high level of expectation and we have to deliver for them,” he said. “There’s a huge, huge agenda of delivering social justice and addressing every problem from social care to homelessness.”The prime minister also emphasized the importance of swift action to seal the support of people in traditionally Labour voting areas who backed him in last week’s vote. “We must recognize that people lent us their votes at this election, It was quite a seismic election but we need to repay their trust and work 24 hours a day, work flat out, to deliver on this.”Gove: U.K. Can Get EU Trade Deal in Time (Earlier)Cabinet minister Michael Gove said the next phase of Brexit negotiations on a free-trade deal will be concluded by the end of the transition period which expires on Dec. 31, 2020, meaning the U.K. will avoid a no-deal divorce from the European Union.“We’re going to make sure we get this deal done in time,” Gove told the BBC on Tuesday, adding that the bloc has promised to conclude negotiations by the end of 2020. “We’ve seen before how deadlines can concentrate minds.”But EU leaders have warned it’s highly unlikely negotiators can complete the kind of deal Johnson wants in time, pointing out that Canada’s agreement with the EU -- the model he refers to -- took seven years to finalize. Sabine Weyand, director general for trade at the European Commission, said Johnson’s move meant the bloc should prepare for a potential “cliff-edge situation.”Rayner, Long-Bailey in Leadership Pact: Guardian (Earlier)Angela Rayner is ready to stand aside in favor of her friend and shadow cabinet colleague Rebecca Long-Bailey in the race to succeed Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party, the Guardian reported.Rayner will instead concentrating on running for the deputy leadership of the party, which was comprehensively beaten in last week’s general election, the Guardian said, citing unidentified allies of the two women.Read more: Life After Corbyn? The Politicians Vying to Become Labour LeaderEarlier:Boris Johnson Revives No-Deal Brexit Threat With Change to LawPound Election Rally Erased by Johnson’s 2020 Brexit PledgeLife After Corbyn? The Politicians Vying to Become Labour Leader\--With assistance from Greg Ritchie, Thomas Penny, Roger Hearing, Caroline Hepker, Alastair Reed and Silla Brush.To contact the reporters on this story: Alex Morales in London at [email protected];Kitty Donaldson in London at [email protected] contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at [email protected], Stuart Biggs, Thomas PennyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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gadgetsrevv · 5 years

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Gary Lineker ‘frightened himself’ with thought that he had AIDS during 1988 Euros

Gary Lineker reveals he ‘frightened himself’ into thinking he might have AIDS when an undiagnosed case of hepatitis made him feel sluggish throughout England’s disastrous Euro 88 campaign in Germany

Lineker was playing for England at 1988 European Championship in Germany

He was playing sluggishly as England crashed out of the tournament early

Striker admits he ‘frightened himself’ with the thought he’d contracted AIDS

But he had actually been struck down with hepatitis while playing for Barcelona

Revelation comes in his new book with Danny Baker: ‘Behind Closed Doors’

By Adam Shergold for MailOnline

Published: 11:10 EDT, 24 September 2019 | Updated: 13:59 EDT, 24 September 2019

Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker has admitted he ‘frightened himself with the thought’ that he had AIDS.

The ex-footballer was struck down with hepatitis when he starred for Barcelona and feared he might have had the life-threatening disease.

The former England forward, 58, fell ill in 1988 as he was representing England at the European Championship and then about to start a new season under Dutch legend Johan Cruyff at the Catalan club.

Gary Lineker cuts a frustrated figure as England lose to Ireland at the 1988 Euros in Stuttgart

The striker had been playing sluggishly and later discovered that he’d contracted hepatitis

Lineker celebrates with Bryan Robson after scoring in England’s group match with Holland

But the tournament ended in failure for Lineker and England as they lost all three matches

Lineker makes the frank admission in his new book with Danny Baker, ‘Behind Closed Doors: Life, Laughs and Football‘ and says he feared for his health.

He said: ‘Johan Cruyff arrived and I got hepatitis – facts which were in no way linked to one another, although the experience of life under Cruyff and the experience of having hepatitis would turn out to have more in common than you might think, certainly in terms of the frustration both caused.

‘Let’s start with the hepatitis. I started to notice something was wrong during the European Championships in the summer of 1988.

‘They took place in West Germany, as it was then, and England did not distinguish ourselves. Our opening group game was against Ireland, we lost 1–0 and I felt mostly terrible throughout – really sluggish and incapable.

Lineker in the colours of Barcelona – he spent three years with the club between 1986 and 1989

Johan Cruyff pictured in the dug-out in 1989 during his time as manager of Barcelona

‘Was it the consequence of a long, tiring season? It seemed a bit extreme if so. In our second game we played, if anything, even worse and lost 3–1 to Holland, which meant we were out of the tournament, and I felt considerably more ill – heavy-limbed and aching.

Lineker’s new book with Danny Baker

‘There didn’t seem to be any explanation for it. I was also losing weight – about a stone and a half, it would eventually emerge. I quietly wondered if I had AIDS.

‘This was a period when that disease was in the forefront of people’s minds, with all sorts of ridiculous and uninformed rumours about ways in which you could contract it.

‘Maybe I had done so. I managed to frighten myself with the thought.’

Lineker’s revelation comes a week after Welsh rugby legend Gareth Thomas went public to say he is HIV positive and has since said that speaking out about it has lifted a ‘massive weight off’ him and his husband Stephen.

When Thomas broke the news via an emotional Twitter video, Lineker tweeted him a message of support saying ‘Good luck to you’.

A TOURNAMENT TO FORGET

England’s Euro 88 was a disaster from start to finish as they lost all three of their group matches in the tournament staged in West Germany.

Ray Houghton’s early goal was enough to give the Republic of Ireland a 1-0 victory in the opening game in Stuttgart.

Bobby Robson’s team were then undone by Marco van Basten, who scored a hat-trick in a 3-1 win for Holland in Dusseldorf that confirmed England’s elimination.

And to round things off, England went down 3-1 to the Soviet Union in their third and final group match in Frankfurt to finish bottom of the group.

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i-ghd · 7 years

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How the Proms celebrated dazzling Welsh musical talent Morfydd Owen

A hundred years ago this week (September 18, 1917) the work of a Welsh composer almost forgotten today was performed at the Proms, under the baton of the illustrious Henry Wood. She was just 26.

Morfydd Llwyn Owen was in distinguished company. All the other composers performed that night were Russians of considerable reputation, Glazunov, Mussorgsky, Scriabin, Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky.

“I know of no other young British composer who showed such promise,” said one of her university teachers. Yet it was to be the only time any of her works was performed at the Proms, and within a year of that performance, she was dead, following an unsuccessful operation.

A potentially brilliant, blossoming career was tragically curtailed, and Wales lost a heroine it was hardly aware it had, and who is little-known by regular concert goers even today, let alone by the general public. In her homeland Morfydd has received no more public recognition than a mural in an underpass in Pontypridd.

Although other performers and the musical establishment never lost sight of her, it was another 50 years before her works were given wider performance, and only relatively recently that her works have been brought before a national audience through Radio 3 and the release of a CD.

We are familiar with the prodigious talent of Welsh singers such as Katherine Jenkins, but in a country with such a great tradition of song and performance, Morfydd’s creativity as a woman composer seem to be in a class of its own. It is all the more remarkable tha t, as a woman, and from a relatively lowly beginnings in the Welsh Valleys, she moved so successfully in an upper-class, male dominated world.

Morfydd is best known for her works for voice and piano, though her output was much broader. In an article for Wales Online, Ben Gwalchmai notes: “Ranging far and wide, she wrote for chamber ensemble, piano, mixed choir and tone poems for orchestra. She made a range of complex, technically brilliant and yet melodically haunting compositions.” She was also an accomplished singer, who gave several recitals in London.

Morfydd was born in Treforest in Wales in October 1891, the daughter of amateur musicians who run a local business. With her parents she was a keen member of, and performer at, the local chapel. (Not unusual in a deeply spiritual society, steeped in music.) She displayed her musical aptitude early, studied the piano and performed as a soloist in her teens, playing the Grieg Piano Concerto.

She began to study piano composition at the age of 16, attended Cardiff University then moved to London to study at the Royal Academy of Music. She gathered awards for her composition, and developed her talent as a singer.

She produced 180 compositions, pieces for chamber ensemble, piano, mixed choir and tone poems for orchestra in just over 10 years. Her compositions for voice, in English and Welsh, and piano are regarded as her most important and mature contributions. As a singer, she made her professional debut in January 1917 at the Aeolian Hall in London.

With her vitality and gregarious personality, Morfydd formed friendships with many leading lights in the lively and influential London Welsh community, meeting future Prime Minister David Lloyd George and writers DH Lawrence and Ezra Pound. Her creativity was inspired in London, writes Gwalchmai. She composed “new, brilliant music” there. She was involved with in the Welsh folk music scene, and took an interest in Russian music.

He says she had many suitors in London before, early in 1917, she married psychoanalyst Ernest Jones, a leading supporter of Sigmund Freud, and, later, his official biographer. It seems to have been an unfortunate liaison, with the suggestion that Morfydd might of been something of a trophy wife. Jones, 12 years her senior, wrote in his autobiography: “A home needs a mistress and I was in the mood to find one.”

Jones, although also from South Wales, was an atheist and apparently unwelcome to Morfydd’s family. There are also suggestions that he did not support his wife’s musical career. He is said to have wanted her to finish giving public recitals. And she is said to have only written a dozen songs after the wedding.

Gwalchmai, in his Wales Online article, is in no doubt that the marriage was a disaster for her: ””Ernest was, in short, a terrible husband. One that was likely abusive.”

Henry Wood, who founded and ran the Proms, clearly held the young composer in high regard, and included her work For Jeannie’s Sake in that summer’s season – then held in the Queens Hall, which was destroyed in the Blitz in 1941. (In those days the Proms Season continued for several weeks longer than today, which explains the September 18 date.)

Wood’s programming for that night’s Prom, placing her alongside so many eminent Russians, is intriguing. Morfydd was clearly a kindred spirit. She had met Russian émigrés in London and, inspired by the country’s music, had applied for a grant to study and research in Russia, before her wedding. She was successful, but had been unable to travel because of the First World War.

(In an odd coincidence, Lyadov, the least well known of the Russians whose works were performed in that concert, had also only ever been represented once. Until this year. In the Prom of September 3rd (2017) The Mariinsky Orchestra played as their encore his Baba Yaga, “music to frighten the children with… a portrait of a witch.”

Less than a year after that single Prom performance, visiting the Swansea area in South Wales with her new husband, Morfydd developed acute appendicitis. Her husband, a qualified medical doctor, is believed to have carried out an emergency operation on her, but she died on the table, apparently from chloroform poisoning. She is buried in Oystermouth cemetery.

The beautiful young composer has never been forgotten in Welsh musical circles, and by the wider musical establishment, and the recent increase in interest in Welsh women composers over the past few years will have helped in reestablishing her name, but I suspect not too many people, stopped and questioned in the middle of Cardiff, would know who she is.

Gwalchmai calls her “beyond talented, a national treasure cut down by tragedy at too young an age.” He believes Wales must do more to celebrate her life.

Her university professor David Evans wrote: “an incalculable loss to Welsh music. Indeed I know of no young British composer who showed such promise.”

There is a mural dedicated to her in an underpass in Pontypridd. Statues have been erected to celebrate far smaller talents.

This article is meant only to draw attention to an unusual Proms anniversary. Ben Gwalchmai has done justice to Morfydd in his online piece, as has David Edward Pike in a much longer online blog, http://daibach-welldigger.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/morfydd-owen.html, adds much more detail to her life in Wales and London. Dr Rhian Glesni Davies wrote a PhD thesis on her life.

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nbjackson · 7 years

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Clips: Racing to the Bottom: Exploring the Deepest Point on Earth (The Atlantic, 2011.07.26)

Teams led by Richard Branson, James Cameron, and some unknown guy from Florida are all hoping to make it to the Mariana Trench.

At the southern end of the Mariana Trench, a deep scar that cuts into the bottom of the ocean floor, there is a point known as Challenger Deep. Here, just outside of the Marianas or Ladrones, a series of 15 islands made up of volcanic mountains that peak just above the water line, a small slot-shaped valley plunges nearly seven miles down. At 35,797 feet, Challenger Deep is the deepest known point in the oceans. It is so deep that, if you were able to place Mount Everest inside of the valley, there would still be 6,811 feet of water separating it from the surface.

At just 7,000 feet down, about where the tallest mountain in the world would peak, the pressure becomes so great that whales rely on unique evolutionary traits when hunting for giant squid. Whales have lungs that can collapse safely under pressure and ribs bound by soft cartilage that allows the cage to shift and settle in extreme environments rather than snap. Without similar anatomical gifts, we don't know much about what happens below that level. Imagine what creatures might live at depths five times greater than where whales and giant squid battle in the pitch-black ocean.

We've been there once before, to the bottom of Challenger Deep. But we didn't see or learn much. On January 23, 1960, Jacques Piccard suited up, plopped down inside of Trieste, and sank to the ocean floor. The Swiss-designed, Italian-built, U.S. Navy-owned Trieste is an inelegant machine. The observation gondola, a sphere welded to the bottom of the ship's main flotation system, has walls that measure five inches thick and a tiny, cone-shaped Plexiglas window.

After spending nearly five hours sinking to the bottom of the ocean, Piccard and Don Walsh, a Navy Lieutenant that accompanied him, were only able to peer through the Plexiglas while shivering in the 45-degree capsule and munching on chocolate bars for sustenance. Surrounded by a cloud of sediment that Trieste had kicked up when it smacked into the ocean floor, Piccard and Walsh couldn't see a whole lot from their window, which had cracked on the way down. What they did see, though -- a variety of sole and flounder, two types of flatfish -- proves that at least some vertebrate life can handle the extreme pressure in one of the Earth's most extreme places. Twenty minutes later, Trieste dumped tons of magnetic iron pellets and spent three hours rising back to the surface.

Now, more than 50 years later, humans are nearly ready to return to Challenger Deep. This time, though, they're planning to stay a while, collecting samples, videotaping whatever might be down there, sending out small remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) and then bringing home $10 million. Earlier this year, the X Prize Foundation made that prize money available to the first privately funded submersible to make two visits to Challenger Deep. This money, though, is little more than proof that humans are fascinated with the extreme: climbing Mount Everest, walking on the Moon, searching the floor of the ocean. Ten million dollars will only cover a fraction of the race to the bottom. And it is indeed a race; one with at least three competitors, each close to claiming the prize.

Richard Branson’s Virgin Oceanic

Billionaire Richard Branson is known for the hundreds of companies that fall under the Virgin Group umbrella, including Virgin Megastores, Virgin Atlantic Airways, Virgin Records and Virgin Galactic, his space tourism company that aims to bring passengers into sub-orbital space for $200,000 a head. As part of his team perfects SpaceShipTwo, the plane that will fly more than 60 miles above the Earth as those inside gleefully float about the cabin for six minutes of weightlessness, another crew is busy preparing a kind of ship meant to take humans in the opposite direction.

Branson's team, led by legendary submersible designer Graham Hawkes and chief pilot Chris Welsh, has been planning to take the Virgin Oceanic out for water tests as early as this summer, but, due to setbacks, no date has been confirmed. In early rounds of laboratory testing, the borosilicate viewing bubble through which the Oceanic's crew would peer out at the ocean floor cracked under just 2,200 pounds per square inch of pressure, about one-eighth of the 16,000 psi expected at Challenger Deep.

The 8,000-pound, 18-foot-long submersible that Hawkes has designed "represents a transformational technological advance in submarine economics and performance," according to Virgin Oceanic's official website. "The submarine provides the currently unequalled capability to take humans to any depth in the oceans and to truly explore." Taking some of the most elegant creatures of the sea as inspiration -- whales, dolphins and rays -- the Virgin Oceanic uses two sets of wings to fly through the water.

The Virgin Oceanic will be carried out to sea and launched by an enormous 125-foot racing catamaran that was once owned by adventurer, aviator and sailor Steve Fossett. Welsh, the pilot for the submersible who made his money in real estate and then decided to take to the seas, purchased the catamaran after Fossett disappeared in a single-engine airplane over the Nevada desert in 2007. He traveled to Fossett's estate to close the deal on the Cheyenne and was sold on the Challenger, the original name for what would become the Virgin Oceanic, as well.

James Cameron’s Deep Challenge Team

The Avatar and Terminator director is an explorer first and a filmmaker second. The box office-breaking Titanic wasn't on Cameron's radar as a Hollywood project because he knew it could earn huge dividends, rather, he has long been obsessed with the famous sinking of the ship. He has made several trips to the wreckage, shooting footage using 3-D cameras he designed himself to capture the 100-year-old ship as it has never been seen before. He plans on using some similar technology at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

Admittedly, Cameron doesn't care if he's the first (well, the first of this group) to reach the bottom ... he just wants to be the best. Cameron's team is working on building what appears to be the most high-tech (and least reliant on a tourism-based model to fund future exploration) submersible. The as-yet-unnamed project will include a giant lighting array, several 3-D high-definition cameras, an arm that can grab samples from the ocean floor and a small ROV similar to that used to swim in and around the Titanic wreckage, according to an email that Cameron sent to Outside's Anna McCarthy.

Unlike Branson's Virgin Oceanic, Cameron's Challenger Deep project has passed pressure tests; at a Penn State University lab, the team turned the dials to 16,000 psi and waited. Nothing. But at what cost? Nobody knows how much time or money Cameron has put into this submersible, about which he has been pretty tight-lipped since kicking off the design stage with a couple of sketches in 2003. Now, more two dozen people are working around the clock to prepare the sub for sea trials next April.

Bruce Jones’ Triton Submarines

Bruce Jones is the odd man out in this triumvirate. And that's because you have no idea who Bruce Jones is -- and you're not alone. Building a vessel that can safely sink to the bottom of the ocean is no easy feat; it's one that requires big backers with deep pockets, something that Jones doesn't have. While the 55-year-old entrepreneur has drawn up plans and marketing materials -- they call this project the "race to inner space!" -- he has not yet secured the funds to construct a prototype. He's currently shopping around the idea. "We're talking to a number of first clients because, quite frankly, we don't have the money to build one of these on spec," Jones told Outside.

Jones' Florida-based company is hoping to build a number of Triton 36,000s -- named for its maximum depth, obviously -- and sell them for about $15 million each to individuals who can shuttle people down to the bottom of the ocean for even more than Branson plans to charge for a space ride: $250,000 each.

#Sample Work #The Atlantic

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