#which according to the site I used means 'servant to kings'

[the-starless-reader]

Death by a Thousand... Stars?

I've been going through my notes on Siege and Storm, and one particular detail stood out. It's an excerpt from the prologue:

[...] they stood together on deck, picking out constellations from the vast spill of stars: the Hunter, the Scholar, the Three Foolish Sons, the bright spokes of the Spinning Wheel, the Southern Palace with its six crooked spires.

The note says: Double-check the constellations! Alina's bedchamber has a star-speckled dressing screen! The Darkling's bedchamber has constellations on the ceiling!

And then I remembered my notes on Ruin and Rising. And guess what? The monastery of Sankt Demyan, otherwise known as the Spinning Wheel, was turned into an observatory 'a few hundred years ago'. Double-check the constellations!

[...] the bronze columns were constellations—the Hunter with his drawn bow, the Scholar bent in study, the Three Foolish Sons, huddled together, trying to share a single coat. The Bursar, the Bear, the Beggar. The Shorn Maiden wielding her bone needle. Twelve in all: the spokes of the Spinning Wheel.

It's been abandoned 'for over a century'. This version of the Darkling is approximately 120 years old. Coincidence? I think not. Sugar had been rationed in Ravka for the last hundred years, which can only mean that the current war had started around the same time he'd made himself known again.

But what about the monastery? I think that the Darkling was the one who'd turned it into an observatory. My only proof is a tale found in The Language of Thorns. It's a story about his half-sister Ulla, titled When Water Sang Fire. Our Youngling was the seer's apprentice in the lost city of Söndermane, a scholar cloistered in the Prophetic’s Tower. A stargazer!

At each level the apprentice named another subject: history, augury, geography, mathematics, alchemy. Ulla hoped they’d wind all the way to the top of the tower, where she knew they’d find the famous observatory.

However, stargazing wasn't his only preoccupation there. But we'll come back to that later. Double-check the constellations! Let's get back to the twelve spokes of the Spinning Wheel.

The Hunter with his drawn bow? That's Sankt Petyr, with his still-burning arrows. The Scholar bent in study must be Sankt Dimitri. The Bear is obviously Sankt Grigori. The Shorn Maiden wielding her bone needle is probably Sankta Vasilka, the first firebird.

What about the others? Thirteen Saints were shown on the massive triptych behind the altar in the original Lantsov chapel, where the first Ravkan kings were crowned. Thirteen Saints were featured in the original version of the Istorii Sankt’ya. But there are only twelve spokes, twelve constellations. Who's the odd one out?

Sankt Demyan is most certainly not, and here's why.

According to The Lives of Saints, the site of Sankt Demyan's death is the tallest mountain in the Elbjen. He was the nobleman who owned the land upon which a cemetery stood; and when the birches started to obscure the path, he had his servants cut a new one. When the rains came to disturb the cemetery, Demyan designed the aqueduct around the graveyard, diverting the water to irrigate the fields. But the people still complained.

He was desperate to please them. He asked the Saints to raise the cemetery up to the sun itself, so it would no longer be obscured by the shade of his previous creations.

He laid his hands upon the soil, and the earth began to shake. The ground rose higher and higher, until the highest mountain was made. The cemetery was intact, but his own family crypt was broken. The people accused Demyan of disrespecting his family name by using dark magic, and the angry mob stoned him to death. He became known as the patron saint of the newly dead.

Sankt Demyan's miracle was the creation of the highest mountain in the northern Sikurzoi.

But why is this important? Because the Sikurzoi mountains cover most of Ravka's eastern and southern border with Shu Han. And the Spinning Wheel is located in the Elbjen, which is the Fjerdan name for the northern range of Sikurzoi. More so, it's the place the first firebird came from. And that firebird is Ravka.

But what if I tell you that the first Taban queens also come from the highest mountains of the Sikurzoi range? The palace of the Taban dynasty has the Court of the Golden Wing. You know who else has golden wings? Sankta Vasilka, the first firebird.

It's said that the borders of Ravka were sketched by the firebird's flight. Its rivers run with the firebird's tears. And when one of her feathers fell to earth, the young warrior picked it up and carried it into battle. No one could defeat him, and so he became the first king of Ravka.

But where are the stars? The old Taban queen resides in the place called the Palace of Thousand Stars. Even before the first Taban queens have come to their rule, Sankta Neyar was already one of the Six Soldiers, the sacred protectors of the Shu Han.

Remember the constellations? The Southern Palace and its six crooked spires? The Spinning Wheel? It's all there, written in the stars.

And the Starless Saint knows that.

His bedchamber is built on a hexagonal plan, like the temples of Ahmrat Jen. His dark wood walls are carved into the illusion of a forest crowded with slender trees. The birch trees, like the ones growing around the cemetery. He almost died there, once.

Demon in the wood. Demyan in the wood.

The domed ceiling above his bed is spangled with chips of mother-of-pearl laid in constellations, to create the illusion of the Spinning Wheel. The ebony screen in Alina's bedchamber is speckled with mother-of-pearl stars, too. It was probably brought from his rooms, as only his chambers are furnished in ebony.

It's death by a thousand stars...

[aboutanancientenquiry]

Zahi Hawass on the Osiris Shaft of Giza and Herodotus’ account  of Cheops’ burial

The Osiris Shaft at Giza

Zahi Hawass, Tuesday 3 Mar 2020

Zahi Hawass describes the challenges of excavating the water-filled Osiris Shaft on the Giza Plateau, the burial place of the ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Cheops

Osiris

According to the popular ancient Egyptian belief, the god of the underworld in ancient Egypt was Osiris, who had been saved by his wife Isis from his evil brother Seth, who took on a “devil” role everywhere, even when the world was created. In the ancient Egyptian story, Seth held a banquet and made a beautiful coffin that the ancient Egyptians appreciated. He announced that anyone who fitted inside the coffin could claim it as his own. Osiris tried, and Seth closed the coffin in on him and tossed it into the sea. The coffin floated to Lebanon on the sea and became a pillar in the palace of the king of Byblos. Isis then searched for her brother and husband, and she even worked as a servant in the palace of the king to do so. As a result, she was able to bring the pillar back to Egypt, where she hid Osiris’ body. Seth was still keen on making trouble, and after finding the body, he cut Osiris into 14 pieces, which he threw all over Egypt. Isis searched all over the country for these pieces and was able to collect the pieces of her husband in order to bring him back to life. The only missing piece was Osiris’s phallus. There is a beautiful scene on the wall of the Temple of Seti I at Abydos, the place that was said to contain Osiris’s head and the birthplace of his son by Isis Horus. In this scene, Isis is shown flying in a shape of a kite above the body of Osiris and restoring his phallus, and it was in this way that she and Osiris were able to conceive Horus, whom she raised. Horus later took revenge on his uncle and eventually became king of Egypt. The 14 locations of Osiris’ body were called pr-wsir in ancient Egyptian, meaning the “palace of Osiris”. The Greeks used the word Busiris, and in Arabic it came to be known as Abousir. One of my own great discoveries at Giza was the “Osiris Shaft” that has become a fascinating site for many people who obtain special permission to visit it on the payment of a fee. In ancient times, people used the water-filled shaft for swimming, and even to the present day many people, including archaeologists, have entered the shaft. For centuries, however, the importance of the Osiris Shaft escaped even the most learned scholars. This water shaft has become the stuff of legend and Internet rumour. It opens in the causeway linking the Sphinx to the Second Pyramid and descends in several places to a depth of nearly 100 feet below the plateau. It received its name from the crystal-clear water that fills its bottom chamber. This unfinished water-filled cavern is entered from a higher chamber that contains niches filled with granite stone coffins (sarcophagi). One of the empty niches contains a shaft in its floor that leads to the flooded corridor. Wading into the darkness, one can hear the echoes of ground water dripping from the rock walls. I decided to investigate this shaft. Excavation of the second level revealed six rooms cut into the rock, with these containing two granite sarcophagi, pottery, and bones. Analysis of these dated this level to the Late Period or about 500 BCE. The last level was about 82 feet underground and was completely filled with water. We stayed for two months draining the water from the shaft and working inside it, and I felt I might end up blind and deaf from all the dust, mud, and noise of the water. This was the most difficult excavation I have ever been involved with. After the excavation had been completed, I looked down into the water and saw the remains of four pillars surrounded by a wall. Inside them was part of a large, granite sarcophagus with the lid off. This discovery reflected the words of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus when he said that king Cheops, the builder of the Great Pyramid, was buried inside a granite sarcophagus and there was water near his Pyramid. People have always wondered about this, but no one had ever discovered the exact location. Even Herodotus admitted that he had never seen the burial with his own eyes because he had not been able to go down the shaft. He must have based his writing on the words of guides. I made my second discovery from this excavation after moving the lid of the sarcophagus. I found that the configuration of the architectural features of this chamber resembled the hieroglyphic word pr, meaning house. It is known that the Giza Plateau was called nb wsir nb restaw, or the “the house of Osiris, Lord of Rastaw”. The latter refers to the underground tunnels, and most likely the name of the plateau reflects the tunnels inside the Osiris Shaft. The final chamber we found was most likely a symbolic tomb for the god Osiris, who was believed to control the underground tunnels, the tombs of the kings, and all those buried under the ground. In the Late Period, the ancient Egyptians cut a tunnel about six metres long on the west wall of the Shaft. We sent a boy through the tunnel to explore, only to find that it was closed off and did not lead to any more chambers. To derive the date of the shaft, a boy was also lowered into the water-filled tomb on a rope to collect artifacts. From the objects retrieved, we dated the shaft to the New Kingdom or about 1550 BCE.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 5 March, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

Zahi Hawass is Egyptian leading Egyptologist and administrator

Source: https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/50/1207/364640/AlAhram-Weekly/Heritage/The-Osiris-Shaft--at-Giza.aspx

The second level of the Osirion at Giza showing a granite sarcophagus inside a niche (left)

The third level of the “Osirion”.

Source of the pictures: https://www.guardians.net/hawass/osiris1.htm

Many in the Egyptological community criticize Hawass for self-promotion and authoritarian practices. I have criticized him recently in my blog for his rather outlandish claims that the Pyramids were bult by “free workers” or even by... volunteers. However, no one can refuse that he is a very important Egyptologist, with important contributions to his discipline. And this article of his is very interesting (moreover, it shows that Herodotus’ information on Egypt is, despite all the objective and subjective obstacles he met there, often accurate and useful).

[theprayerfulword]

August 16

2 Timothy 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

Matthew 9:13 But go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice. For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.

Numbers 14:18 The Lord is slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgressions;

Luke 18:17 Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.

Matthew 23:10-11 And do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ. 11 But the greatest among you shall be your servant.

2 Thessalonians 3:3 But the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you, and keep you from evil.

May you greet with joy the opportunity to dwell, and work, where the greatest need is found, for that is where you will find the heart, and favor, of God. Nehemiah 11

May your heart rise up in praise and thanksgiving in response to the worship of God's people as they exalt the King of kings and magnify the Lord of lords. Nehemiah 12

May you set your heart to be united with Christ through fellowship with His followers as you partake with them of the elements of life, turning from intimate relationship with unbelievers and the sources of the strength they walk in. 1 Corinthians 10

May you seek the good of others before your own, for though everything is permissible in Christ, not everything is beneficial or constructive, so do all for the glory of God, seeking the good of many that they may be saved. 1 Corinthians 10

May you remember to honor those through whom God chooses to teach you and grow you into maturity, as they share the wisdom God has taken them through, by following their example even as they follow Christ's. 1 Corinthians 11

Do not let the sound of workmen at work cause you concern, My child. When you come to Me in your prayer time, and when you spend time in your prayer closet, closed off with Me, My dear one, at times it can seem as though the pressures of all that you are dealing with is overwhelming. In those times when words fail, tears suffice and groans communicate the burdens of your heart and the heaviness of your spirit. Know that I am at work in your life, shaping you according to My plan, making preparation in your life for that which I know is to come. Yield, My lovely one, to the touch of My Spirit, and let My Word have its way in your heart. The stones used in the temple built by Solomon were cut, sized, shaped, and dressed with iron tools in the quarry from which they were cut. The ground was littered with shards of stone and everything was covered by the dust from the grinding and smoothing process. This allowed the completed stones to be brought to the building site and quietly put in place, fitting perfectly where they belonged, giving honor to the one whose plans were taking shape. Just so, My precious one, tears last for the night, when you can only see through a glass obscurely, enduring through faith, persisting in confidence, accepting with trust all that I am doing in your life, when the sound of workmen toiling with iron tools surround you, beset on all sides with changes and trials and alterations. Seek Me in My Word, ask Me for My spirit of revelation, hear the voice of My Spirit in your heart when you pray, that you may cooperate with Me in the dressing and smoothing and beautifying of your spirit, preparing you for the place I have reserved for you in My holy dwelling place, to show forth the glory and splendor of God.

May you turn from evil and do good, pursuing peace as you seek it, for if you love life and desire to see many good days, you will keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies because of the fear of the Lord. Psalm 34

May you cry out to the Lord in your trouble, for the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit, hearing them, and delivering them from those who do evil. Psalm 34

May you take refuge in the Lord Who redeems His servants without condemning them, for though you may have many troubles, the Lord delivers you from them all. Psalm 34

May you be confident that if strong wrath and great fury can be quenched by a gift and pacified by money, then certainly the fear of God and the truth of the Word can bridle strong passions. Proverbs 21:14

May your heart find the joy of the righteous in the execution of God's judgments when the humble are lifted up and the needy are satisfied, and not the terror of the evildoers when their works are uncovered and their intentions are revealed. Proverbs 21:15

[victorluvsalice]

AU Thursday: Londerland Bloodlines -- Tower Assault

Hey, I said this AU was on my mind -- and with the release of the newest (pre-alpha, admittedly) gameplay trailer for Bloodlines 2, that's unlikely to change anytime soon. So -- let's have some fic! :D Today's offering was inspired by a previous “updating the verse” post I made, where I talked about a change I thought of regarding Alice's final assault on LaCroix's tower -- rather than going in the front door and fighting her way through all those guards, she manages to get herself some climbing equipment and scales the damn building while Obfuscated. As you might imagine, this is the last thing LaCroix is expecting when he tells his elite guards (and Chunk, here called Officer Norris because that’s his voice actor’s name) to watch out for her. . .

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Officer Norris? Has there been any sign of our – miscreant?"

"Uh, no, Mr. LaCroix!" Norris chirped over the intercom. "Haven't seen hide nor hair of her! Promise I'll let you know the moment she comes by."

"Very good, Officer Norris. Thank you."

"Uh, Mr. LaCroix?" Norris got out before he could release the button. "Not to, you know, pry into stuff that ain't my business, but – why is it you want me to keep her out all of a sudden? You weren't really clear on that before. And us in the security business – well, it's important we get our facts straight, ya know?"

"She betrayed me, Officer Norris," LaCroix replied, letting the words roll off his tongue with silver smoothness. Not that he needed to waste such talents on Norris, but – practice. "She betrayed quite a lot of people, actually. She's been selling secrets to other parties, making deals with unsavory sorts. . .and I have reason to believe she's recently caused the death of a potential business partner of mine."

"Oh wow! That is – never would have thought it of her! She's always seemed like a bit of a tough cookie, but the kind with a creamy center, you know? All molten chocolate and–"

"Focus, Officer Norris," LaCroix said, rolling his eyes. Mortals and their obsession with food. His eyes flicked over to the sarcophagus. Then again – I know what it's like to anticipate a meal.

"Yeah, sorry, Mr. LaCroix. Er – so, if Alice is this dangerous, shouldn't we, you know, call proper 9-1-1 and all that? I got some buddies in the call center–"

"I assure you that all the appropriate measures have already been taken," LaCroix cut in before Norris could go on another ramble about his "cop friends." "There is no way Miss Liddell is leaving this city without facing justice for her crimes. If she does come here, you have my full authorization to use lethal force."

"Right you are, Mr. LaCroix." Norris sighed. "Hope it doesn't come to that, though. Man, and here's me, thinking she's a pretty sweet girl once you get to know her. . ."

"The cruelest wolf can mimic the friendliest dog, Officer Norris. Remember that."

"Sure will, Mr. LaCroix. And you can call me Chunk, you know!"

LaCroix winced. "Given our relationship, Officer Norris, I don't think that's appropriate."

"Oh, yeah, yeah. . .well, anyway. I'll give you a call moment I see her."

"Thank you, Officer Norris." LaCroix released the intercom button, leaning back with a sigh. "To think I employ someone like that," he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Now that Bach's little group has been – disbanded, I should give him his walking papers." He smirked, one fang peeping through his lips. "Though I suppose it doesn't really matter, does it? Not with what's in our future."

Melech nodded shortly, then glanced at him, eyes questioning. "Oh, she'll come," LaCroix said, steepling his fingers in front of him. "She will most definitely come. That rabblerouser Jack will have told her by now I'm responsible for all her woes. And has she not made it very clear, during our last few meetings, that she wished our – alliance, shall we say, to be at an end? The girl is a Brujah trapped in a Malkavian skin. She must be itching for a chance to take out her temper on me, and damn the consequences."

Melech tilted his head, lips slightly pursed. "Yes, I called the Blood Hunt, but would you trust the average Brujah or Gangrel on the street to take her out?" LaCroix responded, looking up into that stony face. "After the miracles she's committed? May I remind you that she has destroyed both the local chapter of the Society of Leopold – including one of my personal enemies – and the heart of the Los Angeles Sabbat? Tasks that were beyond your capabilities? And there was that news report the other evening, of the massive wolf found crushed to death in the Griffith Observatory. Somehow, I doubt that was the work of Nines Rodriguez – though it still worries me that we can't confirm his Final Death." He sighed, then waved a hand. "Well, I suppose if he does turn up alive – so to speak – it will make the Anarchs happy. And so far they seem willing to believe that Alice has thrown her lot in with Ming Xiao and her nest of snakes. So long as they remain enraged enough to drive those ridiculous excuses for foreign vampires out of my city, I shall be content. And then. . ." He looked again at the sarcophagus, anticipation clinging to its every chip and crack. "Then we will make plans accordingly."

He pushed back his chair and stood up, walking with lazy grace to his favorite spot in front of the window. Los Angeles stretched out before him, twinkling in the dark. He reached out, longing to scoop it up and capture it in his fist. "A shame, really – she could have had it all," he mumbled, flexing his fingers. "I was just beginning to realize her worth as an agent. To survive everything she did, to accomplish so many difficult tasks as a mere fledgling. . .I will give Fish this – he picked someone worthy of being an eighth-generation vampire. If she'd only been a bit more deferential, a bit less – well, her. . .we could have done amazing things together."

Melech rumbled an agreement. LaCroix sighed. "But, of course, she refused to cooperate. To let her full potential grow under my guidance. To accept the wisdom of her elders and betters. No, she had to go it on her own – to forge down the path of the fool and the malcontent." He chuckled briefly. "At least I have the pleasure of knowing that the Anarchs don't trust her either. From what I've heard, she had an early falling-out with Nines, and the rest of them find her as irritating as I do." His brow furrowed briefly. "Perhaps we really did drive her to the Kue-jin. . .no, she's too smart for that. She'd know they'd never actually accept her." He laughed again, a little louder. "What a silly girl, to reject any and all that could help her! She must feel quite alone on those streets." He leaned toward the window, drinking in his city with his eyes, running his tongue over his fangs. "An apt punishment for the hubris of the newborn."

"God, you love the sound of your own voice, don't you?"

LaCroix recoiled backwards, the scream of a little girl ripping itself from his throat. On the other side of the glass, Alice rolled her eyes, adjusting the harness she wore. "As if getting up this bloody tower wasn't grueling enough," she continued, bracing her legs on either side of the window frame. "What exactly are you compensating for? You're not that short, and I have it on decent authority that your interest in your manly bits should have waned with the Embrace." She shrugged, bending her knees and adjusting her grip on her rope. "I'll leave the question for the primogen to debate. Right now – for putting up with all your posturing and other various pieces of bullshit, I believe you owe me your life. In the most direct sense possible."

With that, she pushed off, sailing into the air – then came rushing back, thickly-booted feet held out in front of her. LaCroix scrambled to safety under his desk as the window shattered, sending shards of glass flying. Melech raised his massive sword to shield himself as Alice rolled to a stop. "Ah – gah – GET HER!" LaCroix managed to shriek, waving one arm wildly in her direction.

His sheriff, fortunately, was quick to comply. He flung aside his sword and coat, spreading his arms wide as he called up on his dark Disciplines. Moments later, his human form morphed and twisted, stretching itself into the terrible gigantic bat LaCroix had only seen twice before. Alice gaped, eyes wide, one hand on her harness's release. "What–"

Melech shrieked at her and flung himself into the air. His talons locked around her arms, dragging her back out the window and snapping the harness like it wasn't even there. "Yes – NO!" LaCroix cried after him, suddenly conscious of the incredible violation of the Masquerade. Too visible, much too visible – but she couldn't be allowed to survive this night – "The roof!" he screamed. "Take her to the roof!"

Melech squealed and wheeled around, dragging his dumbfounded passenger up to the highest point of Venture Tower. LaCroix huddled under his desk, arms around his knees, trying to control his trembling body. It's all right, he told himself firmly. It's all right. Melech will take care of her on the roof, and we'll let the morning sun dispose of the corpse. And – and we'll come up with an appropriate story for the masses later. An – an advertising gimmick gone wrong. A Batman cosplayer gone mad. Some sort of – of mass hallucination from swamp gas carried on the wind. We'll make it right. We'll find the key. And I will never have to worry about any of this ever again.

. . .God, I hope he wins that fight.

[scotianostra]

On October 15th 1586 the trial began of Mary Queen of Scots at Fotheringhay Castle.

Settle down, this is a wee bit longer than my normal posts,  some state it started on 14th, but it concluded on the 15th, so here we are.

You might remember my post a month ago when Mary arrived at her last "prison", the place where she would ultimately spend her last days and meet her end.

If the history books are to be believed. Mary Stuart first sighted the ancient castle towers from a path called since the "days of the Domesday Book", Perryho Lane, on hearing the name Perryho,  she is said to have made a melancholy little play on the name exclaiming aloud, ‘Perio! I perish.’ and indeed she did.

Mary was always a threat to the English Queen Elizabeth’s rule. Seen by Catholics as the true catholic ruler of England, there was many a plot to bump off Elizabeth and put Mary on the throne.

For almost 20 years Mary was dragged around England and locked up in its various castles. Having said that she was allowed certain freedoms including rides in the countryside and hunting trips, Fotheringhay was different.

Despite the size of the castle  Mary found herself incarcerated in comparatively mean apartments: this brought back all her phobia of a secret killing, the sort of barbarous death that stained the history of English medieval castles. The most notorious being one Edward II son of Longshanks, "Hammer of the Scots" who some say was murdered at Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire by being held down and having a red-hot poker inserted inside his anus, and his screams could be heard miles away. although most historians do question whether it is true or not, the fact is he was murdered.

When Mary's servants reported that many of the state rooms had been left empty, Mary drew the correct conclusion that she was about to be tried, and the rooms were awaiting the arrival of dignitaries from London. Just after two weeks later on, October 1st she was informed by her keeper, Sir Amias Paulet that her misdeeds were now to be punished by the interrogation of certain lords, and advised her in her own interests to beg pardon and confess her faults.

Mary's reply was that Paulet  was behaving like a grownup with a small child, asking her to own up to what she had done. Then she went on more seriously: ‘As a sinner, I am truly conscious of having often offended my Creator, and I beg Him to forgive me, but as Queen and Sovereign, I am aware of no fault or offence for which I have to render account to anyone here below. …’ And she concluded loftily: ‘As therefore I could not offend, I do not wish for pardon; I do not seek, nor would I accept it from anyone living.’ For those who know anything about the Stewart monarchs this relates again to the Divine Right to rule, and they would only answer to God.

The charges against Mary were to do with a conspiracy to kill Elizabeth and replace her with Mary, her fellow conspirators included among others, John Ballard, a Jesuit priest, Weshman Thomas Morgan, a close confident of Mary's, and Anthony Babington, a Catholic noble who is said was the ring leader, the plot has gone down in history bearing his name The Babington Plot.

Whilst locked away, Mary advised the plotters, both in terms of strategy and how to ensure she’d win the English throne. And naturally as the ‘rightful’ ruler of England Mary would be the one to sign off on the plot starting. he plot took shape during the summer in 1586.

Babington informed Mary that he represented a group who planned to kill Elizabeth and install Mary as the new Queen of England. Babington asked for her support of their plan. Mary responded, asking for more details.

Unfortunately for Mary, the plot had been infiltrated and Elizabeth I’s own spy master, Sir Francis Walsingham had been using the letters to entrap Mary and get her to call for Elizabeth’s murder. 

Mary agreed with the plans, but did not authorized the assassination. That did not matter however, because Walsingham's spies intercepted the letter. The letter was deciphered and copied but this time a postscript was added. According to the new letter, Mary authorized the assassination. Walsingham had his proof, and so with this false evidence Mary was indicted.

Before the trial even started Ballard, the Catholic priest, was arrested and tortured. It is said that by the time he arrived at his execution site, John Ballards limbs were barely in their sockets, as a result of the torture he’d undergone, of course during his torture he gave up the names of others involved, the main man being Babington, in September the men were executed one after the other and forced to watch as they, in turn were hung drawn and quartered, the same age old punishment for treason. 

After the gruesome bloodbath attention turned to Mary.

Now I'm not saying Elizabeth was faultless in all this but she wasn't keen on trying her Mary, not just because they were cousins, it would set a precedent trying and ultimately executing someone still seen as most of Europe as the rightful Queen of Scotland. Her hand was being forced by her advisors like Walsingham, indeed they had their eye on disposing of the troublesome Mary for some time forcing through an act of Parliament the year before called The Act of Association: this provided means whereby a commission of twenty-four peers and privy councillors might be appointed to investigate any conspiracy or attempt to hurt Elizabeth ‘by any person or with the privity of any person that shall or may pretend to the title to the Crown of this realm’. 

The punishments for anyone found guilty under this act were to be two-fold: firstly they were to be deprived of their title to the English crown forever, and secondly they could be lawfully put to death under the provisions of the Act. It had been quite clear at the time that this Act had been especially framed in order get rid of our Queen, it was tailor made for her. 

The records of Mary's trial were compiled by the notes of those present, who included two persons designated as writers. It would have been nearly impossible to write by hand every word uttered in the courtroom. Some say Mary spoke very broken English due to her time spent in France., I myself find this hard to believe, yes she had been educated in France, but the Four Mary's would have made sure the young Queen could speak the Scot's tongue, at very least.

Mary's defence was set out mainly that, she wasn’t an English subject and therefore couldn’t be held as an English traitor. She’d been denied legal counsel or the right to view evidence being bought against her. Oh and the age old she was a Queen. Anointed by God. It would literally be a sin to kill her.

Therefore, how accurately were the writers able to record her statements? Whose spoken words were left undocumented? Which statements in particular? Did the two journalists favour Mary or Elizabeth, and if so, did they allow this to influence their notes of the trial? A completely accurate record of the trial is unattainable due to the faultiness of its records, some historians just filled in the blanks to suit themselves, depending on their own leanings.

When the trial concluded, Parliament gave speeches and had open discussion about Mary's sentencing. They also held audiences with Elizabeth. During the audiences held between Parliament and Elizabeth, Elizabeth gave two speeches. In her first speech, she declared that if it were not for "the safe and welfare of my whole people, I would (I protest unfeignedly) most willingly pardon her."   Elizabeth asserted that Mary was bound to the English laws but reaffirmed that the late act "was no ways prejudice to her." Rather, Elizabeth explained that the law was in place to warn her, but since Mary still acted against the Queen and the law "was in force," there was no reason not to "proceed against her according to the same.' But, if the laws almost explicitly name Mary, then why did Elizabeth feel the need to restate that they were not prejudiced against her? Now I know I deflected some of the blame away from Elizabeth earlier but It seems that this was just another way for Elizabeth to maintain her image of innocence. 

Furthermore, Elizabeth explained that because of "this last Act of Parliament" she must "order for her [Mary's] death" The Councillors' plan to somehow remove Mary as a threat had worked. Elizabeth felt her hands were tied in the matter due to the Acts of Parliament, which the Councillors had drafted with specific language aimed toward Mary. 

Eventually, Mary's sentence was issued and proclaimed in the English countryside and towns. Immediately following the proclamation, Walsingham drafted the warrant for Mary's execution. The speed at which these documents were drafted  show that Elizabeth's Councillors were adamant about having Mary executed.

In late December of 1586, Elizabeth had the papers for the execution drawn up. On February 1st, 1587, she signed Mary's death warrant. 

I wont go into the execution as I normally post all the details on the anniversary of her death, February 8th 1587, I will however add a few more lines regarding King James VI and letters between Elizabeth and him.

Around the same time Elizabeth signed the warrant, she sent a letter to James, who had earlier requested that his mother be sent into the neutral custody of a foreign prince. 

In her response, Elizabeth asked if James thought her "so mad to trust my own life in another's hand and send it out of my own?

She also refers to the "absurdity of such an offer. In this letter, Elizabeth placed the focus on James's offer rather than on the circumstances surrounding Mary at the present time, basically awaiting her fate. She did not say she was unwilling to give Mary to a neutral prince because she was either considering signing the execution warrant or had already done so. 

Elizabeth withheld from James any more of a response than was necessary. It seemed that she intentional1y focused this letter's content on James's request to divert attention from her intention to sign Mary's death warrant. 

After Mary's execution, Elizabeth wrote another letter to James. Elizabeth referred to Mary's execution as a "miserable accident which (far contrary to my meaning) hath befallen"  

Elizabeth claimed innocence in calling for Mary's execution, but what she wrote next left a sense of doubt as to her innocence in the matter. She told James that she had "now sent this kinsman of mine ... to instruct you truly of that which is too irksome for my pen to tell you.'d While one may infer that Elizabeth sent a kinsman to explain the actual happenings of Mary's execution you  have to wonder if that was truly the case. Could Elizabeth have sent this "kinsman" to explain what she would not want left documented on paper? Elizabeth would have known to not leave a self-incriminating paper trail regarding her true role in Mary's execution. Thus, she sent a "kinsman" to explain the actual circumstances relating to Mary's execution. 

The truth behind what this kinsman actually told to James will forever stay a mystery because these words were just spoken in a private audience and not documented in a letter, just like Elizabeth wanted. The final question remains: was it the work of the Councillors that called for the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, or did Elizabeth I play  more active role than she wished to admit? 

I myself believe the Councillors did not need to have their arms twisted to call for Mary's execution. They perceived Mary as a threat and made it their top priority to remove her Queen Elizabeth's full part in the murky affair will always be up for debate. 

As ever I have used a lot of different sources when compiling this, if you want more on the trial check the article below out, remember though every source is different so not all that is written here will relate entirely to my post, it is however a more in depth analysis of the trial. 

https://erenow.net/biographies/maryqueenofscotsantoniafraser/27.php Pics are a depiction of the trial and part of the Babington letters held by the English National Archives, more on that here https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/spies/ciphers/mary/ma2.htm

[theredhairedmonkey]

Viren and Callum—Defining Heroism

Callum is a foil for each of the three antagonists, and each season focuses on a different pairing.

During Season 2, Callum’s arc was a foil to Claudia’s. I break down some of the similarities between them here. Callum and Claudia both exhibit a curiosity to learn more about magic (particularly at the Moon Nexus), and both are fiercely protective of those closest to them. To the extent they will use Dark Magic to protect them.

But whereas Callum tries it once and decides to reject it for good, Claudia continues to succumb to this temptation, time and time again.

During Season 3, Callum’s development is contrasted with Aaravos. At this point, Callum is, like Aaravos, a magical prodigy; each had mastered at least one Primal Source they weren’t born connected to.

Additionally, both demonstrate great influence over the lives of those around them. But they are diametrically opposed in terms of their goals. Whereas Aaravos cares primarily about advancing his own interests, Callum wants to genuinely help people, and empower them to make their own choices (as opposed to manipulating them like Aaravos).

This foil can be summed up simply—Callum is motivated by the Narrative of Love. Aaravos is motivated by the Narrative of Fear.

Harrow: “I ask you and your brother to reject history as a narrative of strength and instead have faith that it can be a narrative of love.”

Aaravos: “You tried to win over the other humans with loyalty and friendship, but they ignored you. Those who fail tests of love are simple animals. They deserve to be motivated by fear.”

But the focus here is on Viren and Callum, and starting in Season 1 and throughout the first three seasons, Viren and Callum have very deep, narratively important parallels with one another.

Both are the mages who advise their respective Kings.

Callum: “When you grow up, sometimes you have to face things you’re not ready for.”

Viren: “He insisted I stand next to him in the painting, because he knew I would stand by him through anything.”

Both are curious and want to explore the depths of magic to the greatest extent possible.

Viren and Callum are also both insecure in their place in the world, relying (at least initially) on magic to help give them a sense of belonging

But their differences not only define their dynamic, they also define many elements and themes to the Saga, in particular as to what it means to be a hero.

To begin, Viren is great, though not necessarily good. That is to say, even though he may be capable of great deeds that save countless lives (such as in saving the people of Duren with the heart of a Titan), these deeds don’t actually make him a heroic person.

This is because every great deed he did stemmed not from altruism or compassion (no matter how well he convinced himself that it did), but from his tragic flaws: his arrogance, his vanity, and importantly, his hubris—his belief that he can subvert the natural order in his favor without consequence.

From what we can gather, Viren is a force to be reckoned with. His skills with magic have made him so powerful, he can cast a spell that would save two kingdoms from starvation.

They are also such that he’s considered by Amaya, a talented warrior herself, perhaps “the most dangerous human in the world.”

His martial prowess is quite exceptional as well, as he’s able to go toe to toe with two Dragonguards for a time. Even though they’re elite fighters and they’re flanking him, he’s able to hold his own for a while before having to resort to magic.

However, Viren is a tragic character. I don’t mean this in the sense that we should feel sorry for the power-hungry man who attempted to murder two boys and steal the throne. Rather, his “greatness” is undermined by his personal flaws, which he can’t quite shake and prevent him from being good.

Part of Viren sincerely wants to improve life for his people. When talking to Aaravos, to whom he has no motivation to lie, he states his aim is to help mankind flourish “without a knife to its throat”

He’s even willing to consider sacrificing himself, either for King Harrow or, in Lux Aurea, for his army.

Aaravos: “We’ll risk as few lives as possible. One.”

Viren: “Ah. Mine.”

But as per his hubris, he exhibits great pride in how his abilities can help mankind flourish or save his people. While he wants mankind to prosper, he wants this to be his achievement and wants people to know that he is the one who saved them.

In his story to Queen Aanya, he places a bit of undue emphasis on the fact that he was the one who up with a solution that saved Katolis and Duren. Whether or not this is what happened, it’s clear that he wants Aanya to know that he personally saved her kingdom.

A little less unclear is how necessary he ultimately was. Sarai goes back to save Viren because “without him to perform the spell, the heart is worthless, and this was all for nothing.”

I’m...skeptical as to whether this is what Sarai says, or if it’s Viren intentionally or unintentionally reading in what he wants her to say. Truth be told, Viren has no idea if this is what Sarai said because he wasn’t there when she said it. And why is the heart worthless? Viren wasn’t the only Dark Mage in the world, and probably not the only one between Duren and Katolis. There’s no reason why another mage couldn’t perform the spell.

But for Viren, the heart of the Titan might as well have been worthless because, in his mind, he’s the only capable of accomplishing these great feats.

Even when he was potentially willing to sacrifice his life for Harrow, he botched it with his  speech to Harrow.

Viren: “Right now I do not come to you as my King. I think of you as my brother.”

Truth is, none of this throat-clearing is necessary. But, Viren’s not quite so humble, even when he’s attempting to do the right thing. He still wants to be seen as someone special, even when laying his life down for another.

Turns out, this was entirely the wrong thing to say to Harrow, who is put off by Viren’s self-righteousness.

Harrow: “I see the problem now. It’s that you believe you are special. Better than everyone else, above the laws of this kingdom.”

When he’s forced to kneel and Harrow calls him a servant, this infuriates Viren and he sets aside any plans he had to sacrifice himself for his King.

Harrow: “You are a servant of Katolis. You are a servant.”

Because if Viren is going to sacrifice himself, he needs people to know what a great thing it is that he’s doing. He’s not a mere servant, he’s their savior.

It’s interesting that Viren’s pride is so hurt of being called a servant of Katolis, since that’s exactly how Harrow sees himself, according to Viren.

Viren: “King Harrow worked tirelessly. He told me he thought of himself as a servant of all the people of Katolis. A servant King.”

But Viren doesn’t see himself in this way. When his potential sacrifice is treated with the same level of significance as though he were anybody else, it offends him that he has to share that importance with others.

And thus, his pride leads to his downfall, casting aside his desire to protect his King, and replaces it with a desire to be the King himself.

Viren: “Today, we must mourn sevenfold. For tonight, there will be a coronation.”

Callum, on the other hand, begins his journey on the opposite side of the spectrum from Viren. Whereas Viren can accomplish great feats without being good, Callum is a good person, though not great.

At least, not yet.

According to the main site, “Callum has a big heart, and always tries to do the right thing.”

He can be super proud of himself and his accomplishments, but he usually has enough perspective to avoid letting this get in the way of what he knows is important. For instance, he connects to the Sky Primal, something thought of as impossible for humans, he immediately shifts his attention to Ezran, never once bragging or reminding people of his accomplishments.

Corvus: That’s incredible, Prince Callum.

Callum: Thanks…uh, who are you?

And, when it comes time to laying his life on the line for others, he never hesitates. Notably, around the same time as Viren was thinking about sacrificing his life for Harrow, Callum was preparing to sacrifice himself for his actual brother, but with none of the bravado or self-righteous congratulating of himself.

Just a solemn, quiet attempt to save his brother, even at the cost of his own life, and even without anyone finding out about his sacrifice.

For Rayla, he performs Dark Magic, knowing how much she could possibly hate him for it, but deciding that her life is worth more than how she sees him.

Callum may start out with a big heart, but when it comes to his skills, well…

But if Viren begins as both powerful and amoral, it makes perfect sense to have Callum’s arc to begin as his opposite--someone without any special abilities but with a strong moral compass.

Because of this, we get to see him go from good to great. And his story walks this fine line, where he develops these magical abilities to perform heroic feats walking hand in hand with the realization that he doesn’t need magic to be heroic.

Callum: “It’s up to us now. We have to return this egg. We have to keep it safe and carry it to Xadia.”

Callum has the same temptation as Viren—this need to be someone important, which is a big part of his arc in S1 and S2.

In S1, he initially places a high premium on his sense of self-worth, willing to put their mission in jeopardy just so he can obtain an object that might help him become a better mage.

He assigns great importance to objects (such as the Primal Stone and the Key of Aaravos) rather than focusing on people or lives. Much in line with the way a Dark Mage would attach significance to magical components that are needed for spells.

Callum: “The truth is, its not me. It’s this. All the magic, all the power, all the confidence. It's just because of this amazing thing. A Primal Stone.”

Ellis: “That Primal Stone needs you to do all that amazing stuff. Without you, it's just a neat, glowy ball.”

Callum: “I guess so. But without this, I'm nothing. Just a guy who can draw and make wry comments from time to time. And they're not even that wry.”

Much like how Viren assigns great value to the mirror or the Dragon Egg, even above his own children’s lives.

Viren: “The egg. If you have to choose [between Soren and the egg], choose the egg.”

But by the end of S1, he realizes just how much more important the lives of his friends and the Dragon Prince are over his own sense of pride or self-worth. Unlike Viren, who places a great degree of importance to his sacrifice (honestly, Harrow should be honored that Viren would consider throwing himself on the sword for a mere king), Callum simply makes the realization of what he needs to do…and then does it.

S2 follows the aftermath of his decision, and Callum has to deal with no longer having his mage abilities. Again, he latches his entire sense of self-worth to be able to do magic.

As @raayllum​ points out here, he also aligns his ability to do magic to agency. Without magic, he’s paralyzed by indecision and an inability to do the right thing. He believes himself imprisoned by his inadequacy.

Callum: “If we're really going to change things, we can't just watch while humans and Xadia keep hurting each other. But how do I take a stand? Believe me, I want to go down there with you, and be the heroes who stop all the fighting and save the day, but I can't do that. I can't do anything!”

And he follows this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion:

Dark Magic

Dark Magic gives him all the power he needs. If Callum wants to be special (like Viren), if he wants to have agency and freedom for himself, this is the path he can take.

Dark!Callum: “You can have unlimited power, and you can choose what to do with that power.

And in that moment, he’s tempted. Truly, he’s tempted, to commit to this path, set himself free from his past limitations and feelings of worthlessness.

He can become like Viren, and make himself great…but in a moment of clarity, he sees Dark Magic for what it truly is.

This isn’t freedom. It’s not the power he wants.

It’s just another prison.

And unlike Viren, who succumbs to this temptation, Callum sees through it.

What’s noteworthy is that Callum doesn’t press on the point that it’s possible for him to learn an Arcanum and do magic some other. He doesn’t insist he can make this choice easy on himself; he chooses that, Arcanum or no Arcanum, this is not the kind of magic he will choose to do.

Callum: “Destiny is a book you write yourself!”

Instead of attaching his sense of self-worth and agency to magic, he breaks free of this toxic cycle and seizes the ability to direct his own fate.

This is a lesson that he then passes on to others.

Rayla: “What does this mean? What should I do?

Callum:  “I don’t know. But it’s your choice. No one else’s.”

He finds his agency and self-worth independent of his ability to do magic, and realizes that his potential is actually in his complete control. Fittingly, it’s this realization that completes his journey to finally understand the Sky Arcanum.

In the end, Viren and Callum are quite similar, but the former lets his flaws get the better of him, his pride sinking him until he becomes malicious, grasping, and power-hungry. Eyes set on stealing the power to make him important.

The latter ascends past his prior limitations, refusing to yield to his own worst impulses.

Moreover, Callum holds on to his ideals in the face of adversity, even at his own expense, while Viren constantly tries to find “pragmatic” and expedient solutions to problems that always happen to end up with him on top of everyone else. Viren continues his dramatic decline, eagerly crossing one moral horizon after another, until by the end, he admits to Aaravos what he is really after is conquest; he’s willing to steal Zym’s life force just to become more powerful, sacrificing the entirety of his army to do it.

Callum, on the other hand, begins to truly understand what can make a good-natured person into a hero.

He expresses it in a speech about Rayla…

Callum: “It's because Rayla is a hero…Rayla saves people. She's brave. She does what's right, even if it puts her own life in danger, and even when the odds seem impossible. Even when it means her own people might misunderstand and turn against her. Rayla is selfless, strong and caring. That's what makes her a hero. That's what makes her Rayla.”

…and then proceeds to do each and every one of those things on the pinnacle. He bravely leaps after Rayla--even though it put his own life in danger--because it’s the right thing to do. Even though the odds of quickly mastering a complex spell on the way down seemed impossible.

Viren thinks his great feats are a substitute for a good character. Callum’s journey, on the other hand, is learning those character traits that make one heroic. He realizes, not only that Rayla is “selfless, strong, and caring,” but also why and more importantly, why he can be those things too.

And this dynamic between Viren and Callum culminates in the finale, where one falls…

…and the other rises.

[shalebridge-cradle]

Historical References in What Are You Going to Do With Your Life - Chapters 10-12

Chapter 10

Boleyn mumbles something about a priest. W. S. Pakenham-Walsh (1868 - 1960), Vicar of Sulgrave, Northhamptonshire, had a strong interest in Anne Boleyn. He claimed to have a series of spiritual experiences after praying at Boleyn’s burial site, and contacted clairvoyants to channel her spirit in the hopes she might become his guardian angel. He also claimed in his diary that he had contact with Henry VIII and other notable members of the Tudor court.

While witchcraft was often punished via the death penalty, Henry VIII made the law explicit in 1542 (though it was later repealed no later than 1547, under Edward VI). Several witchcraft laws were made in the UK over the years, in 1563, 1604, 1649 and 1735. These were all repealed and replaced with more general consumer protection laws, and the last person to be indicted for witchcraft (under the 1735 act) was imprisoned in 1944.

Tarot was a regular set of cards for most of its history, used in various, but similar, trick-taking card card games. It became associated with ancient wisdom in 1781, when Antoine Court de Gébelin wrote an essay claiming (with no evidence) that ancient Egyptian priests had distilled the mystical Book of Thoth into the cards.

“Psychic is Greek, and clairvoyant is French. One is about thinking, and the other is about seeing.” Psychic comes from the Greek word psychikos (‘of the mind’) and clairvoyance is a combination of two French words (‘clear’ and ‘vision’). Catherine of Aragon was known to speak both French and Greek, as well as Latin, her native Spanish, and English.

Cunning man (or woman) was another word for folk healers.

In 1532, Catherine Parr’s brother-in-law from her second marriage, William Neville, was accused of treason for allegedly predicting the king’s death and his own ascension as Earl of Warwick (a title made extinct during the Wars of the Roses, but would be recreated in 1547 and twice after that). He went to at least three magicians to confirm this prediction, all of which agreed that it was meant to be true (it wasn’t). One of these magicians was Richard Jones of Oxford, who was imprisoned and questioned on the matter. He did his best to exonerate himself of responsibility. I have found five references confirming his existence – but many of them claim he had a sceptre he used to ‘summon the four king devils’, which he used for divination purposes.

Chapter 11

Jones of Oxford was taken in for questioning as part of the Neville affair, and he did his best in his confession to exonerate himself. Neville’s claims of a prophetic dream showing himself as Earl of Warwick were now a “fair castle” which Neville assumed must be the castle of Warwick, and a shield with “sundry arms I could not rehearse”. He did admit to writing “a foolish letter or two according to [Neville’s] foolish desire, to make pastime to laugh at”. No treason, just jokes, please don’t execute me Thomas Cromwell. Jones claimed to take his alchemy seriously, however, and wrote that “To make the philosopher’s stone I will jeopard my life, so to do it,” if the king so wished. He would require twelve months “upon silver” and twelve and a half “upon gold”, and was willing to be imprisoned while he worked. Jones made a similar offer to Cromwell, but there is no evidence either man accepted. Jones was released in exchange for revealing incriminating evidence against another figure of interest. The other magicians caught up in this incident, William Wade and a man known only as ‘Nashe’, had perfected their disappearing act and were not sent to the Tower.

There is a story that Elizabeth I attributed the destruction of the Spanish armada in 1588 to John Dee’s wizardry. Given that, as mentioned, Dee was out of favour with Elizabeth at the time, this is likely untrue.

Elizabeth I’s death was in March of 1603, after she became sick and remained in a “settled and unmovable melancholy”, sitting on a cushion and staring at nothing. The death of a close friend in February of that year came as a particular blow – that of her second cousin and First Lady of the Bedchamber, Catherine Howard.

James I (or James VI, depending on where you’re from)… James I of England was also James VI of Scotland. His mother was Mary Queen of Scots, who was executed by Elizabeth I, and his great-grandmother was Margaret Tudor, Henry VIII’s sister.

“Anna, born Duchess of Jülich, Cleves and Berg.” This was how Anna signed hers’ and Henry’s marriage treaty, known as the ‘Beer Pot Documents’, because someone drew a stein at the bottom.

Bowling, as a game, can trace its origins back to ancient Egypt, and has been quite popular the world over throughout history. Henry VIII was an avid bowler himself (when Hampton Court was remodelled, bowling alleys were included with tennis courts and tiltyards), but banned the sport for the lower classes. The law against workers bowling (unless it was Christmas and in their master’s presence) was repealed in 1845.

We return to the ground, because from it we were taken. Paraphrasing of Genesis 3:19.

The (possible) first appearance of the word ‘alligator’ in the English language is from Romeo and Juliet. The description of The Apothecary’s shop mentions “a tortoise hung, an alligator stuff’d, and other skins of ill-shaped fishes”. Traditionally, medieval apothecaries and astrologers kept skeletons, fossils, and/or taxidermied pieces on display to demonstrate their worldliness.

The anger over calling the alligator ‘William’ could come from Parr, or from Anna. Her brother’s name, Wilhelm, is often anglicised as William.

Midsomer county does not exist and never has. It’s the setting for the long-running mystery TV show Midsomer Murders. Incidentally, Catherine Parr’s native county of Westmorland existed at one point, but no longer does (the area is now in the county of Cumbria). She is not the only English-born queen who this applies to; Jane Seymour’s Wiltshire and Anne Boleyn’s Norfolk still exist (and have since antiquity), but Katherine Howard was most likely born in Lambeth, which would have been in the county of Middlesex at the time. The area is now under the ceremonial county of Greater London.

“Honestly? Margaret Pole’s was worse.” Margaret Pole, Countess of Sailsbury and the last of the House of York, was kept in the Tower of London for two and a half years for her supposed support of Catholicism’s attempts to overthrow the king, before being informed of her death ‘within the hour’ on the 27th of May, 1541. She answered that she did not know the crime of which she was accused (and had carved a poem into the wall of her cell to that effect), but went to the block anyway. It allegedly took eleven blows from the inexperienced axeman to separate her head from her body. There is another story that she tried to run from the executioner and was killed in the attempt, but this is likely a fabrication. Regardless, pretty much everyone thought this was not only a bad idea on Henry’s part (killing Margaret removed any leverage the king had on her rebellious son, Cardinal Reginald Pole), it was also pointlessly cruel and a painfully undignified end.

(She was also Catherine of Aragon’s lady-in-waiting, and governess to Mary at several points.)

That everyone around her, bar a few visitors, would actively benefit from her death… Yet another quote of Elizabeth Tyrwhitt’s testimony: Parr, on her deathbed, claimed she was “not well-handled” by those around her; “for those that be about me careth not for me, but standeth laughing at my grief, and the more good I will to them, the less good they will to me”.

Chapter 12

According to a lady-in-waiting, Anne Boleyn claimed she would rather see Catherine of Aragon hanged “than have to confess that she was her queen and mistress”. This incident is probably the origin of the lyric “somebody hang you!” from Don’t Lose Ur Head.

Catalina uses a few Spanish phrases in this chapter, which don’t get directly translated. The first, No se hizo la miel para la boca del asno, directly translates to ‘Honey is not made for the donkey’s mouth’, and essentially means ‘Good things shouldn’t be wasted on those who won’t appreciate them’. Lavar cerdos con jabón es perder tiempo y jabón is ‘Washing pigs with soap is a waste of time and soap’, and is meant to indicate some things aren’t worth the energy.

…like that dream she has where she is cut up by a servant… An autopsy was done on Catherine of Aragon as part of the embalming process, which revealed the growth on her heart. This was done by the castle chandler (a dealer or trader) as part of his official duties.

Jane Seymour got rid of most of the hallmarks of Anne Boleyn’s tenure during her own queenship. The extravagance and lavish entertainments were banned, along with the French fashions Boleyn had introduced – including French hoods, which Boleyn is wearing in the portrait we have of her. Jane, as mentioned, wore a gable hood in her portraits.

“I don’t know why I’m so surprised that people care about what I say.” In the words of nineteenth century proto-feminist Agnes Strickland, Jane “passed eighteen months of regal life without uttering a sentence significant enough to warrant preservation”, which is kind of a mean thing to say. Seymour certainly said things during this time, we know this from reports, but there aren’t any direct quotes from her during her time as queen.

Here’s the painting mentioned, from 1545, during Catherine Parr’s tenure. Jane is on Henry’s left.

It was only after her death that Henry ‘loved’ her, but she is certain that he mourned for only for his own loss. There are reports that, during Jane’s labour, doctors advised Henry he might lose either Jane or Edward. Henry is claimed to have replied, “If you cannot save both, at least let the child live, for other wives are easily found.”

Countdown is a British television game show that revolves around word and number puzzles. It has been going for almost forty years, and is one of the longest-running game shows in the world, with over 7000 episodes.

“I saw a ghost bear kill someone, once.” Anne isn’t making this up. Supposedly, the incident occurred in 1816, when a Yeoman Warder saw a ghostly bear somewhere in the Tower of London. Terrified, he tried to stab it with his bayonet, only for the weapon to go through the image and strike the door behind it. The guard died of shock later on. A similar event happened in 1864, where two guards witnessed “a whitish, female figure” gliding towards one of the soldiers. The soldier in question charged this figure, only to go straight through it, upon which he fainted.

Elizabeth was imprisoned in the Tower of London for a little over two months in 1554, as a result of Wyatt’s Rebellion against Queen Mary. The rebellion was also the likely reason for the execution of Lady Jane Grey – both she and Elizabeth were Protestants in line for the throne, and therefore ‘more suitable’ as ruler. Both Elizabeth and Jane Grey denied any involvement, but the latter’s father and brother (also executed) were direct contributors.

“… you did die, Elizabeth was really upset about it…” Elizabeth took the news of Parr’s death badly. She refused to leave her bed, and was unable to go a mile from her residence, for five months following Parr’s passing.

Not because she liked that bearded potato man, God no… I found this deeply cursed engraving (first produced in 1544) in one of my books on the six wives, and now I want you all to suffer with me.

Anne of Cleves reacted poorly to being told her marriage would be annulled – some accounts say she fainted, others says she cried and screamed. Both could be true. The reasons given were threefold – One, the marriage was unconsummated (From testimony given by two servants, Anne thought a kiss goodnight counted as consummation – likely untrue, but this is the only reason that actually has merit). Two, Anne was precontracted to Francis of Lorraine (Untrue – the betrothal would only take effect if Anne’s father paid the dowry, and he didn’t). Three, Anne was not a virgin as claimed, based on the description of her ‘breasts and belly’, a Tudor way of saying Anne had previously given birth (untrue, and conflicts with the testimony for reason one). The annulment went through without Anne’s involvement, but (probably looking at the examples of her three predecessors) she accepted the ruling and kept herself from being banished, beheaded or otherwise.

(Other fact that has no bearing on reality – while researching Anne of Cleves, one of the pages that came up was The Simpsons Wiki. Apparently she’s the only wife who can claim the honour of having been in two episodes. :/)

Dogs don’t need to answer for their sins, they don’t have any. Katherine Howard was reportedly fond of animals in general, but had a particular soft spot for dogs.

She did the right thing. She told the truth. She died for it. Katherine Howard insisted, to the end, that she had no pre-contract of marriage to Francis Dereham. Would she have survived if she said she did?

[kellyvela]

THE WOLF THAT SLEW THE DRAGON

The other day I made this little post:

Here is Jon Snow killing his aunt to protect Sansa… Oh I’m sorry, this is Saint George killing the dragon to protect a redhead princess. In some versions of the tale Saint George marries the princess… [x]

I did it as a little funny post really, after reading some very bad takes about Targaryen dragons... But after just a small research the last couple of days the things I found are really amazing. Let’s see:  

I already knew about the Legend of Saint George - the Dragon Slayer, and even asked @sansaastark​ to photoshop GRRM’s head on Saint George’s body:

But who was this man, Saint George - the Dragon Slayer? Does he really influenced GRRM?

Saint George was a Roman soldier that was martyred and beheaded following the Emperor orders, after refusing to participate in the persecution of christians because he was a christian himself. 

This part of Saint George’s life reminds me of the Faith of the Seven versus the Old Gods in ASOIAF.  It also makes me think about Jon Snow refusing to abandon the Wildlings and allowing them to cross the Wall, against the ancient law of the Night’s Watch.

Saint George ascended quickly in the Roman Army and became a member of the Praetorian Guard, whose members served as personal bodyguards and intelligence for the Roman emperors, something like the Kingsguard.  

This reminds me of a very young Jon Snow becoming the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, you know: “the shield that guards the realms of men”. Also according Fire & Blood: “Visenya modeled their vows (Kingsguard’s vows) on those of the Night’s Watch; like the black-cloaked crows of the Wall, the White Swords served for life, surrendering all their lands, titles, and worldly goods to live a life of chastity and obedience, with no reward but honor.”

But the most famous part of Saint George’s story is the legend that says he slew a dragon:

In the well-known version from Jacobus da Varagine's Legenda aurea (The Golden Legend, 1260s), the narrative episode of Saint George and the Dragon took place somewhere he called "Silene", in Libya.

Silene in Libya was plagued by a venom-spewing dragon dwelling in a nearby pond, poisoning the countryside. To prevent it from affecting the city itself, the people offered it two sheep daily, then a man and a sheep, and finally their children and youths, chosen by lottery. One time the lot fell on the king's daughter. The king offered all his gold and silver to have his daughter spared; the people refused. The daughter was sent out to the lake, dressed as a bride, to be fed to the dragon.

Saint George by chance arrived at the spot. The princess tried to send him away, but he vowed to remain. The dragon emerged from the pond while they were conversing. Saint George made the Sign of the Cross and charged it on horseback, seriously wounding it with his lance. He then called to the princess to throw him her girdle (zona), and he put it around the dragon's neck. When she did so, the dragon followed the girl like a "meek beast" on a leash.

The princess and Saint George led the dragon back to the city of Silene, where it terrified the populace. Saint George offered to kill the dragon if they consented to become Christians and be baptized. Fifteen thousand men including the king of Silene converted to Christianity. George then killed the dragon, beheading it with his sword, and the body was carted out of the city on four ox-carts. The king built a church to the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint George on the site where the dragon died and a spring flowed from its altar with water that cured all disease. Only the Latin version involves the saint striking the dragon with the spear, before killing it with the sword.

The Golden Legend narrative is the main source of the story of Saint George and the Dragon as received in Western Europe, and is therefore relevant for Saint George as patron saint of England. The princess remains unnamed in the Golden Legend version, and the name "Sabra" is supplied by Elizabethan era writer Richard Johnson in his Seven Champions of Christendom (1596). In the work, she is recast as a princess of Egypt. This work takes great liberties with the material, and makes St. George marry Sabra, and have English children, one of whom becomes Guy of Warwick. Alternative names given to the princess in Italian sources still of the 13th century are Cleolinda and Aia.

Source

You can read various versions of the Legend of Saint George and the Dragon here. 

It’s very interesting that between the names given to the princess of the legend are Sabra and Aia, names that sound pretty much like the names of the Stark sisters: Sansa and Arya.  

It’s also pretty interesting that the princess was ‘sent out to the lake, dressed as a bride, to be fed to the dragon’. This bit remains me very much of Sansa who is strongly linked with marriage in ASOIAF.   

Researching about the princess of the story, I found a very cute version of the legend in a web specialized in children’s audio-books. Here is the part about the princess: 

Then one day, the name of the princess was shaken out of the urn. According to the King’s own law, his daughter must be sacrificed. He called the people together and offered them gold and treasure if only they would agree to spare her from the dragon. The judges who oversaw the lottery said that it must be completely fair, or else the people would no longer accept it. And so, much saddened, the king said to the princess, “My dear, I shall never see your wedding day.”

A week went past, and the day arrived when she must meet her fate. The palace servants dressed her in her wedding gown and placed a crown of flowers on her head. They led her out of the city in a procession, and headed for the lake where the dragon lived.

Source

The King’s lament and the princess dressed her in her wedding gown with a crown of flowers on her head sounds as if the princess was about to marry the dragon. This bit sounds very much like Jenny of Oldstones, Lyanna and Sansa Stark... And take note that the first two actually had a romance with a Targaryen man, you know, a dragon...    

This description of the princess, wearing her wedding gown with a crown of flowers in her head, has been depicted by Edward Burne-Jones in the paintings of his Series “The Legend of St George and the Dragon”:

Princess Sabra Drawing the Lot:

The Princess Sabra Led to the Dragon: 

The Princess Tied to the Tree: 

Where do I see those long sleeves before? Oh yeah in Sansa’s costumes on the Show and also in the description of his wedding dress in the books: “The points of the long dagged sleeves almost touched the ground when she lowered her arms.” - A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

This addition to my little funny post tell us more about the relationship between Saint George and the princess: 

Source: The Union Jack: The Story of the British Flag by Nick Groom.

via @butterflies-dragons [x]

This bit: “Saint George is often described as ‘Our Lady’s Knight’ and was strongly associated with the Cult of the Virgin, which contributed to his role as a model of chivalry and courtly love”, reminds me more and more of Sansa, the character most associated with chivalry and courtly love in ASOIAF.  We also have a link to the Faith of the Seven and The Maiden, that reminds me of this ASOIAF passage: “The Maiden lay athwart the Warrior, her arms widespread as if to embrace him.” - A Clash of Kings - Davos I. Sansa would be the Maiden and Jon would be the Warrior.  

The secular version of the legend, the one where George marries Sabra, was also depicted in paintings, here’s an example:   

 The Wedding of St. George by Dante Gabriel Rossetti:

I love that Sabra is wearing a rose in her hair, I will come back to this detail later.

As if all of these findings weren’t enough, yesterday @tell-me-this-isnt-jonsa​ made this very interesting contribution:

Want to hear a fun fact?

While St. George is now most often associated with England and English iconography, his legend actually spans across Europe and parts of Asia. Relevant to our interests, in Slavic and Germanic folklore, St. George is also the patron saint of wolves, otherwise known as the “Master of Wolves” or a wolf herdsman, able to tame and/or command these wild beasts, as well as protect people and livestock from them.

@tell-me-this-isnt-jonsa [x]

You can read more about Saint George as the Master of Wolves here.

Saint George as the “Master of Wolves” or “Wolf Herdsman” reminds me of Jon Snow being crowned King in the North (I know this only happened in the Show, but there is a possibility that this happens in the Books as well).  Either way, Jon Snow is a character strongly linked to leadership, and that’s what being a master or a herdsman ultimately means.  And talking about masters, leaders and Kings, is worth to say that Saint George is also known as the “Prince of Martyrs”.  

After this very important addition, I talked with my friend @flibbertigiblet about all the symbology and similarities between the Legend of Saint George and ASOIAF.

First she told me this:

The country of Georgia, where devotions to the saint date back to the fourth century, is not technically named after the saint, but is a well-attested back-formation of the English name. However, a large number of towns and cities around the world are. Saint George is one of the patron saints of Georgia; the name Georgia (Sakartvelo in Georgian) is an anglicisation of Gurj, ultimately derived from the Persian word gurj/gurjān ("wolf").

Source

So yeah, ladies and gentlemen: GEORGE = WOLF

So Saint George is literally: THE WOLF THAT SLEW THE DRAGON

And my little funny post was right after all: Jon Snow killing his aunt to protect Sansa could be the televisual representation of Saint George killing the dragon to protect Princess Sabra... 

The story of Saint George and the Dragon symbolizes the good winning over the evil. The Christianity winning over paganism, where the dragon represents the evil, the paganism; the princess represents the Catholic Church/Virgin Mary; and Saint George is the Champion of the Catholic Faith.  

Jon Snow is not a Champion of the Faith of the Seven tho, he worships the Old Gods. A very classical GRRM twist, making the Old Gods the pagans and shaping the Faith of the Seven as the Catholic Church. Don’t worry tho, Sansa Stark professes both religions, but I would dare to say that, at this point of the story, she prefers the Old Gods.  

After finding all these gems, so many things make sense. Like the way GRRM talks about dragons, calling them nuclear weapons; and the way he expresses his love of wolves.   

About dragons:

Dragons are the nuclear deterrent, and only Dany has them, which in some ways makes her the most powerful person in the world. But is that sufficient? These are the kind of issues I’m trying to explore. The United States right now has the ability to destroy the world with our nuclear arsenal, but that doesn’t mean we can achieve specific geopolitical goals.

Power is more subtle than that. You can have the power to destroy, but it doesn’t give you the power to reform, or improve, or build.

—Vulture 2014

THEM: And the dragons?

GRRM: “Oh sure, dragons are cool too,” he chuckles. “But maybe not on our doorstep”

—The Guardian - 2018

What drives Dany? With Dany I’m particularly looking at the… what effect great power has upon a person. She’s the mother of dragons, and she controls what is in effect the only three nuclear weapons in the entire world that I’ve created. What does it do to you when you control the only three nuclear weapons in the world and you can destroy entire cities or cultures if you choose to? Should you choose to, should you not choose to?

—“Interview exclusive de George R R Martin, l'auteur de Game Of Thrones” de -Le Mouv’-

About wolves:  

Chris Long: What your favorite things about wolves are? What drew you to wolves? Because it seems like you have a passion for them.

GRRM: I like their ferocity. I like the fact that they’re social animals, that they have, they’re packs, they’re not lonely hunters. They have their own society, their own packs. They work together. You know I’ve tried to make that point in “Game of Thrones” and that will come back to it in later books, you know. When winter comes, the cold wins blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. And human beings need to keep that in mind too. We all need each other. We all need packs. That’s true on a football team as well. The individual star can’t succeed without great teammates around him.

—George RR Martin in The Fish Bowl with Chris Long

It’s not a surprise then, that GRRM has called the Starks “The Heroes of the Story”, and the Starks are wolves, and one of them could be destined to slay a dragon to protect a member of their pack, and become a legend: THE WOLF THAT SLEW THE DRAGON...  Just like happened in the Show...    

To be honest, as thorough as GRRM is, I’m very sure he knows a lot about his namesake Saint George “The Dragon Slayer”, and he seems proud to bear the name:

John Hodgman: That’s how I can’t sue you, If you steal from history and add a dragon. I can’t sue you.

GRRM: I’m working off my own, you know, karma here, because I’m George, and what’s he known for? He killed the dragon, you know, come on. Come on, I was almost abolished at one point when the Catholic Church was reviewing all the saints, I was terrified that George would be abolished, because they abolish a lot of fiction, I said George is only known for killing a dragon, how can they keep him in, but they did so, that was, that was good.

John Hodgman: I’m glad you stayed anointed.

GRRM: That’s right.

—In conversation: George R. R. Martin with John Hodgman

As far as I know, GRRM is an atheist, but he went to a catholic high school: 

Chris Long: You also grew up in Bayonne, right?

GRRM: Right, Bayonne, New Jersey, yeah.  

Chris Long: So you have, somebody that works on my crew said they’re from Bayonne. They said to ask you about the Bayonne Bees. Did you go to there, were you at the high school, the Bayonne Bees?    

GRRM: No, that was our archrival. I went to the Catholic high school, Marist, and the Royal Knights.  

—George RR Martin in The Fish Bowl with Chris Long

Marist is a catholic congregation named after Blessed Virgin Mary. And their Football Team is called the Royal Knights. Royal Knights huh... I wonder why?

Interestingly enough, Saint George is often described as ‘Our Lady’s Knight’ and was strongly associated with the Cult of the Virgin, which contributed to his role as a model of chivalry and courtly love.

And remember that according to the most known version of the legend, “The king built a church to the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint George on the site where the dragon died”.

I really hope Sansa Stark finds her true knight someday, someone as brave and gentle and strong as Saint George - The Dragon Slayer... Someone we could call “Our Lady of Winterfell’s Knight” or maybe “The Queen in the North’s Knight”...

Anyway, continuing with the recount of my research, after that I told my friend about my favorite version of the Legend of Saint George and the Dragon, this one from Catalonia, Spain:

The Legend of Saint George

The legend explains that long ago, in Montblanc (Tarragona) a ferocious dragon, capable of poisoning the air and killing with his breath, had frightened the inhabitants of the city. The inhabitants, scared and tired of the dragon´s ravages and misdeeds, decided to calm him by feeding him one person a day that would be chosen randomly in a draw. After several days, the princess was the unlucky one.

When the princess left her home and headed towards the dragon, a gentleman named Saint George, dressed in shining armor, riding a white horse, suddenly appeared to rescue her. Saint George raised his sword and stabbed the dragon, at last releasing the princess and the citizens from this turmoil.

From the dragon's blood a rose-bush grew with the reddest roses that had ever been seen. Saint George, now a hero picked a rose and offered it to the princess.

Source

Montblanc, the town of this story, literally means “White Mountain”, very Winterfell-ish... 

So, remember that Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s painting where Sabra is wearing a rose in her hair during her wedding? That painting reminds me of this version of the legend.

A knight giving a rose to a princess is a trope GRRM used a lot in ASOIAF: Lyanna’s crown of winter roses, The Rose of Winterfell, Loras giving Sansa a red rose, Sansa wearing the rose Loras gave to her in her hair, Marillion’s song for Alayne: 'The Roadside Rose', etc.  Also, a rose is a very important element of certain story GRRM loves: Beauty and the Beast. 

Saint George’s day (April 23th) is a very important festivity in Catalonia, Spain. Saint George is their Patron Saint and this day is also known as the Catalan Valentine’s Day:

Saint George´s Roses

Sending roses is the most significant thing about this festival. Anyone can make this offering, although as tradition dictates it is the man who must give a rose to his beloved. According to the legend, Saint George saved his princess by killing the dragon from whose blood grew a rose. That is why some consider it the Catalan Valentine´s Day, because Saint George is said to be, par excellence, the patron saint of lovers in Catalonia.

Source

That’s why Saint George's Day is also known as The Day of the Rose in Catalonia.

Since we got romantic at this point, my friend told me about some potential Jonsa AUs based in the Legend of Saint George and the Dragon, and she also mentioned Saint George’s Cross, the one on the England flag.

To that detail, I mentioned the Saint Andrew’s Cross, the one on the Scotland flag, and how GRRM has made the Starks very Scot coded. I also mentioned how the Union Jack, the United Kingdom’s Flag was created by merging Saint George’s (Englad), Saint Andrew’s (Scotland) & Saint Patrick’s (Ireland) crosses.

And after that, my friend said to me this: 

“Following that logic - Jon's non-Stark half (I don't want to say Targ), as represented by St George's cross, which theoretically gives him the birthright to rule England/The southern kingdoms, plus his Stark side/Sansa, as represented by St Andrew/Scotland = The 7K/Westeros with Jonsa as King and Queen”. 

At that point I was screaming: ¡¡¡THIS IS THE HENRY TUDOR & ELIZABETH OF YORK -WAR OF THE ROSES- JONSA THEORY!!!

And then, after all this information, I decided to write this post.  My friend took the same decision, so expect more on the subject!

It was a long ride. I could be right about all of this or maybe just a little, or more probably, I’m all wrong, but it was a blast! 

As my friend, @shieldofrohan​​ likes to say: “GRRM’s own name is a fucking spoiler for the books”  

***The end***

[the-witchy]

THE BLESSED PRATIBIMB: Chapter-2

As the Royal Family entered the temple after getting lots of love from the whole over the kingdom, the high priest and their family were ready to greet them. As they entered the gate, Raaj Mata was shocked by the decoration as she asked, "Who did the decoration?"

One of the girls from the family said, "Who else can be as talented as our Isha."

'So her name is Isha.' Arihant thought to himself as he smiled on his own. Raaj Mata said, "You must have got a talented girl."

Bowing the high priest said, "Raaj Mata I am really blessed with the goddess herself."

She nodded agreement as they moved forward to do the Pooja. But before starting one of the disciples said, "Isha is not in her room."

The color of high priest's face became pale as he asked in a complete sense of fear, "Where is she?"

Before anyone could say or do anything a voice said, "I am here father."

There stood Isha in full of her glory like before but with a basket. She said, "I thought Royal Family would like to use white lotus in the Pooja as they are Devi's favorite ones."

The priest asked in complete worry, "Where did you get them?"

She smiled and said, "I went to the lake and handpicked them myself. Since I got dirty I went to change myself and that's why I am late."

She came closer and bowing she said, "Pranam Raaj Mata, Prince Adhrit and our dear king Arihant, pardon me for being late as I was trying to offer you my best."

All three of them nodded and Arihant said, "We are well aware of your hospitality Miss. You don't need to be sorry for anything."

Frowning a little she admitted, "I quite didn't understand what you're trying to say."

He smirked and said, "Well, you served us such a good meal and also offered us Chandra kheer." He emphasized on Chandra Kheer to make her realize that they were the Rishis in disguise. She made and Oh face and bowed saying, "I am really sorry that I couldn't recognize you."

Adhrit was the one to spoke this time as he said, "No! No! No! You served us more than enough. Your thoughts and thinking is something to be rewarded."

Arihant nodded saying, "That is why you still have the boon miss, feel free to ask anything anytime."

She nodded smilingly and said, "Let's start the pooja because time is running out."

Everyone nodded and they all did the pooja. After the pooja, Raaj Mata was fed and the royal family moved to the palace, not before stealing as many looks as he can.

Meanwhile, Isha was not happy at all, she was really angry with the king's behavior but she has no one to complain. So taking her father's permission she went to bring water along with other girls. As they were heading towards the lake, girls being girls were chatting among themselves. One of them asked, "Isha, you're so lucky! You got to serve the king. He is soooooo handsome. You even got to talk to him. Now I am getting jealous of you."

But Isha kept walking leaving the two girls behind.

The other one said, "Hey we're talking to you."

But Isha just kept walking, then both of them went to her pace and lightly pushed her shoulder saying, "Can you not hear us?"

Isha was taken by a shock as she jumped a bit and looked at them, frowning she asked, "What?"

One of them said, "You okay? Didn't you hear us?"

She shook her head and they looked at each other. One said, "We were talking about king."

Hearing his name she just looked down and said, "Mina, Hina, I really am not interested in that guy."

Both of them were shocked by her reaction. She continued, "That man is not a good one."

Both of them exchanged looks before Hina literally shook her by her forearm asking, "You okay? You were interested in him this morning and now you're saying this?"

Isha replied, "I never was interested in him. I asked about him just to do the decoration according to him. He is Kshatriya and I am a Brahmin. We are not a match for each other, the destination you don't can't reach why we look at its pathway."

With that, she started walking again. But Mina being talkative one said, "If don't care about him then why care about his kind of decoration. Also, if you want something really bad, it will eventually come to you."

Isha frowned and replied, "First he is the king of ours, my liking or not won't change it. I have some duties towards him that I need to follow. One's duties are far more important than one's liking. And also who said I want him?"

They started to giggle and Mina said, "Well time will tell. We believe in our king for sure our king will make you like him."

She flared and said, "Isha doesn't like she only love."

With that both, the girls kept laughing and they kept walking to their destination

-----------------------

After such long day, Arihant was exhausted and was resting on his bed as Adhrit came in and said, "Today sure was an exhausting day, wasn't it."

Arihant hummed in reply and Adhrit joined him on the other side of the bed. Adhrit asked, "Finally no one's here. So tell me now, what's up with the girl?"

Arihant was shocked and looked away saying, "What do you mean?"

Adhrit smirked and said, "Don't lie to me. I can see it in your eyes."

Arihant just chuckled, "Fine, fine, fine. I like her."

Adhrit said, "What was her name again?" He acted as thinking and Arihant fell for it saying, "Isha... was her name."

Adhrit smirked and said, "You even remember her name."

He looked at Adhrit and said, "Don't you get yourself too much high. Think about what will happen when you will love someone."

Adhrit smirked and said, "First, that time is yet to come and till then at least I can enjoy myself. Second, if I would love someone I wouldn't hide it from her like you're doing."

Arihant got shocked and said, "I just met her today and didn't even get any free time with her, how can I admit to her like that."

Adhrit nodded and said, "Fine, I'll give you free time with her."

Before Arihant could ask anything he stood up and got out of the room. Arihant just sighed and smiled a bit at his brother's devotion to him. He suddenly felt a cold breeze on his ear and he went to the balcony to inquire more about the weather. From his balcony he could see all overview of his kingdom and direct to opposite to his room was the temple where she lived. He smiled in himself at her thought and said to himself, "I will make you mine, soon... very soon."

-------------------------------

As sun invaded his eyes, he rubbed them sitting up. He looked at his surroundings they were not familiar but he took his time letting it settle that he has finally come back to his palace. He always dreamt of this thing to come back and look at how it feels like living in his own kingdom along with his own people. So he decided he would go and train in nature today.

He stood up and went to the bath which was already warm for his arrival. He felt a little shy as he never had maids bath him, only male servants were present on the battlefield, but nevertheless, he didn't complain and let them do their work. After the bath, he came back to his room to get ready and there a familiar voice invited him, "What's the plan for today?"

He looked at his direction and said, "I don't know Adhrit. You say what should we do?"

Adhrit smirked and said, "Why don't we go for a hunt?"

Arihant thought for a second and replied, "But we just reached yesterday. Everyone would be busy in maintaining the palace again. In such a rush I don't think so its a good idea."

Adhrit asked, "But what if we disguise again? Then no one would recognize us and we can also visit the temple."

At the name of the temple, his eyes started to shine and he replied, "You are right!"

Seeing his excitement Adhrit just laughed and Arihant sighed, "Okay you win. But can we go now?"

He started to laugh harder as he said, "At least get ready first."

Arihant nodded and they both got ready for their hunt. They were wearing turbans on their head and some different colored raged Dhoti and some copper ornaments. They looked themselves in the mirror and took some mufflers around their neck. Adhrit said, "Now no one can recognize us."

Arihant nodded and they went to Megh and Bali again. Travelling some distance they reached the forest. They were busy finding some prey for them as Arihant heard some movement around the bushes. He elbowed Adhrit and he nodded in return. Arihant stretched his arrow on his bow and as he realized his breadth he released his arrow too. As the movement was no more they went to see what happened. But as they reached there the site was out of imagination. The arrow was cut into two and a small guy was caressing a deer. Both of them hide their faces behind the mufflers and said, "Who are you? How dare you protect our prey?"

The guy stood up as the deer ran away. He was wearing all white and was hiding his face behind the mask of his turban. He stretched his sword towards them and said, "How dare you try to harm my people?"

The voice seemed familiar but Arihant couldn't understand where he has heard it. Although he was sure he met no guy with such a voice. Adhrit asked, "If you're blind Lemme tell you that, that was no human but an animal."

He humped and said, "What else can I expect from you people? Illiterate hunters."

This gets on Adhrit's nerve as he said, "What did you say illiterate? Who do you think you are? If you are so proud of yourself I challenge you to fight my sword."

He pulled his sword out and said, "I am ready when you are."

Arihant noticed something weird about the sword. He didn't know why but the sword seemed no normal. It was radiating a familiar kind of aura which it had seen somewhere else too, but he just couldn't remember. But Adhrit on the other hand pulled his sword out which was given to him by his Guru which he sure was really proud of. Adhrit attacked him without thinking twice.

The sword of theirs clashed each other. But the guy was able to push Adhrit back and then attacked again. Adhrit was able to block it but was having difficulty to hold him back. Adhrit slide to one side and dodged the attack as he stood up he forwarded the sword and the guy attacked him twice in a second. And he fell on the floor. The guy attacked him last time and before his sword could reach Adhrit it was blocked by Arihant's sword. He pushed the guy back. And said, "Now fight me."

The guy nodded and their swords started to clash each other like waves of water. The fight was going on and the guy was standing in front of Arihant really strong. 'He sure is a powerful one. But who is he?' Asked Arihant to himself. Soon with one blow he weakened the guy and he fell on the tree but before he could balance himself, Arihant caught his hands. 'Too lean' he though.

And he said, "Let us see who is the brave behind the mask."

As he started to grab his turban, the guy started to fight back but in vain because Arihant already had an upper hand. 'He is not strong enough but his sword skills are sure to be praised.' He thought to himself but as he removed the turban the picture that came in front of them was out of imagination. Two shocks in a day, destiny sure was cruel to them.

As he removed the turban long hair fell down and the eyes that were holding anger just a second ago gazed down and the heat flushed to her cheeks.

He was completely shocked finding his love in his arm in such a vulnerable condition.

He released her and started to note her. Her eyes were holding fear and she, from a fierce warrior become a shy girl who was trying to hide.

Arihant couldn't stop himself as he said, "Isha..."

As the word left his mouth, she looked up and asked, "Who are you?"

Instead of replying he removed his mask. As she recognized him, her eyes started to fill with tears and she felt her stomach twisting. Her body felt so week that even her sword fell from her hands. She has never imagined it could be him and she felt ashamed and afraid at an instant. She looked at him helplessly with tearful eyes and in a crack voice she said, "I-I am s-sorry king."

With that, she ran to a direction not looking back. As for Arihant, this was the best yet worst surprise...

--------------------------------

Chandra Kheer: Kheer (Indian sweet made with milk and rice) charged with the moonlight.

Raaj Mata: Mother of the king.

[kpopisamood]

Queen’s Clan { 15 }

Summary: y/n is plagued by nightmares. She realizes that the more she runs away, the less frequently they haunt her. However, in running away, she’s also running straight into her ultimate demise. Will she be saved in time by those who would lay down their lives for her, even if they don’t know of each other’s existence?

Monsta X/Reader, Human/Vampire(s), Reverse Harem

Warnings: light smut?, violence, language

Word count: 2.03k

Tag list: @noonaduck @lovinggalaxies @elenaramos1 @girlwith-thecinder-blockgarden @snowythellama @stargazersara @luvthatleader-nim @sugasheart @vincent-stargogh @perrshian

It’s been a...minute? since I posted, heh. I’m not really “good” with grieving and I didn’t know if I should post so soon given what has happened so I kinda held off on posting just to give everyone some space. It still feels a bit awkward coming back so soon but I hope you all will forgive me. This is just kinda how I move on? I don’t know, I’m weird I guess.

Also, how do y’all feel about period sex? Because the next couple of parts depend on y’all with this. I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable on my first fic on here so I’m asking now just to see where your mind is at.

***

According to Miss Kudrow, the Gathering had gone off “without a hitch”. Your little confrontation with Silvia didn’t hinder your position and, if anything, aided to your status as an up and coming leader. You’d made a good impression on a few Queens other than Astor and Sonaelina and the former two had invited you over to their homes if you ever wanted to get away.

There was just one problem.

You’d unknowingly let Shownu feed from you. You weren’t sure what the rule set was for this sort of role reversal, but it caused quite a ruckus amongst your Mates.

Being the first to be taken into your Clan, Minhyuk was a bit envious; wanting your attention constantly, even when you were preoccupied.

“I’m just asking why he gets to feed from you and I don’t.” Minhyuk pouted from behind the locked door.

“I swear on all things that are holy, if you don’t let me piss in peace, you won’t be able to complain!” You threatened from your porcelain throne.

For a beat, it was quiet and that led you to believe he was gone until, “Does this mean I’ll get a taste?”

“MINHYUK!” You yelled, hearing footsteps scurrying away.

You truly didn’t know what you were doing with Shownu at the time. When Silvia had touched him in front of you, your mind had gone blank and you wanted to show him he was yours, damnit. Call it whatever you may, but you’d let him take a few licks and now the whole house dynamic was all sorts of messed up.

The only solace you had was from one of the younger ones; Jooheon. He’d stay by your side and wouldn’t ask or pout at you. He’d just simply follow you around. You would think it would get annoying, but with him around constantly glaring at the boys who tried to approach you and ask for a taste kind of comforted you. You didn’t know if he was simply trying to get on your good side, but his behavior didn’t go unnoticed by you.

***

“As you see, you have a long list of potential nesting sites. None of them have actually been built yet but these are rough sketches for you to choose from, should you want to leave this house.” Kudrow had blueprints upon blueprints laid out for you. Houses that you would have never dreamed of were within your grasp all because of your supposed lineage.

You were slowly starting to come into your role as a Queen and the bank accounts that had almost made you pass out, were something you were starting to take in stride. It was...nice to not have to worry about bills and such, but it still made you a bit uncomfortable to spend so much of your family’s money.

You’d narrowed your search down to a few homes and Miss Kudrow had asked you all the questions under the sun. Including, how big do you want your bed, bathtub, etc. and what you wanted in certain rooms that made you blush.

Apparently, Royals had nests where they settled down and made their families. This is also where all the Clan Mates stayed as well as servants who were sworn to protect your name. It was a bit daunting to think about, but you were taking things one day at a time.

“So we’ve established the people currently living and their arrangements. What do you want for the kids’ rooms?”

You nearly choked hearing Miss Kudrow’s words. They were harmless, but you weren’t thinking of kids. Not now when you’ve just been thrown into an entirely new world.

“Kids?!” You shrieked, standing up to pace the room.

“Well, of course. How else would you continue your lineage? Have you decided which of your Mates will father the children? Or if you’ll have more than one father for several?” She kept going, not really paying attention to your panicked state. “Oh, just think of a nice house with several little ones running around! It would be so wonderful to see your reign continuing on and—are you alright?” She cut herself off, finally seeing you.

The moment you thought of running away and living in the woods the rest of your life, Jooheon came running in. He approached you slowly while giving Miss Kudrow a glare that could kill and then focused entirely on you. He gently grabbed you and pulled you into his chest, holding one hand behind your head and the other around your waist to try and somehow protect you.

“You’re alright.” He cooed, kissing the side of your head and just holding you.

“I’m not ready for kids, Jooheon.” You mumbled against his chest.

“That’s okay. We don’t have to even think about kids right now. We can just enjoy each other’s company. We’re here for you and we’re not going to make you do anything you’re uncomfortable with.” He reassured, pulling away to look you in the eyes.

You nodded nimbly, somewhat comforted.

A throat clearing brought your attention to a weary Changkyun, trying his best not to look you in the eye.

“You have a visitor, My Lady.” He nervously shook his hair with his hand and not a few seconds later, there was a gentle knocking on the front door.

All at once, your Clan Mates joined you. Jooheon had already had a place at your side and was holding your hand, Minhyuk took your other side but let you have some space, Shownu stood in front with Wonho and Changkyun remained at the doorway.

Miss Kudrow had gone to see who it was before returning with a hesitant look.

“It’s Yoo Kihyun. Chae Hyungwon’s Clan Mate.” She announced.

Chaos erupted amongst your Mates.

“He’s not coming in.”

“Don’t trust him.”

“We can take him on.”

They were all on high alert and it worries you a bit to see them so wound up over one person.

“Who is he?” You asked, taking a glance towards the hallway where the front door was.

“He’s Hyungwon’s Queen killer.” Jooheon explained, gritting his teeth.

“Kihyun is with King, Hyungwon. He just so happens to be his Alpha, or right hand man. Anything Hyungwon won’t or can’t do himself, falls on Kihyun. This usually means killing Royals or using them for his benefit.” Changkyun rephrased.

You had read all the documents Miss Kudrow had given you, but this was nowhere in any of them. Had you have known about this, Hyungwon would not be on the top of your potential ally list.

“They’re baseless rumors, but it’s troublesome nonetheless. Royals gossip, but they never spread word of murder; their ranks are too underpopulated to even joke about killing one another. Do you want me to send him away, Your Grace?” Miss Kudrow softly asked, fully prepared to tell Kihyun where he could go.

You didn’t want someone so dangerous around your Clan, but you didn’t want to send him away and not hear what he has to say either. Were you prepared to face on someone as Kihyun? He had made quite a ripple effect on your Clan and you’d be a fool to go against him so blindly but you wanted to know more about this; more about them.

“Let him in.” You told her bravely. Miss Kudrow nodded and left the room. You could hear the front door open and closing and heard another heavier set of footsteps following behind Miss Kudrow’s dainty ones.

You made your way to the living room and sat on an oversized couch, your men taking their respective places. Shownu sat in between your legs in front of you on the floor, Jooheon to your right while Minhyuk on your left, and Wonho leaned against the wall nearest the couch as Changkyun took the opposite end of the room.

Though they didn’t show it, you could tell your decision had put your Clan on edge. They’d kill for you and die for you, but that would mean leaving you alone to face whatever Hyungwon had in mind for you.

When Kihyun had finally approached your group, you wanted to gasp. His hair was a short, dark brown with lighter brown highlights that framed his sharp features perfectly. He sported a kind smile but you could tell he had a darker being inside him. He wore a black long sleeve, dark dress pants, and dark brown boots and he strode in with a careful confidence that made you want to hide and fight all at once.

“Your Highness,” he nodded at you. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

You gave him a slight nod and waited for his next words, opting not to speak to him just yet since he was the one who sought you out in your home.

His smile slightly widened and he looked around at your Clan Mates, meeting each of their eyes. “You’ve already grown quite a Clan, I see.” He said in an impressed tone.

“What do you want, Kihyun?” You demanded, not wanting him to beat around the bush.

He nodded to himself before continuing on. “My King would like to request your presence in a private dinner with him two nights from now.”

You could feel Shownu and Minhyuk tense up around you while Jooheon gripped your hand a bit tighter.

“And why would I do that? Your King had his chance to meet me at the Gathering like all the other Royals, why does he want a private meeting now?” You challenged, and almost wished you didn’t.

His gentle smile turned into a sinister smirk and back so fast you almost got whiplash. “You were a bit...occupied when he was finally about to meet you.”

You could feel he was trying to embarrass you. He knew you were new to this and sharing your affections with your Clan so openly should have made you ashamed but you honestly didn’t care. You wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“So what you’re saying is, he had the opportunity to meet me, but he backed down. That sounds more like a problem for him rather than me. Don’t you think?” You smirked back, causing his smile to loosen a smidge. But that was all your confidence needed.

“It seems so, Your Grace.” He replied.

“Since you came looking for me, I’ll meet with your King. But on my terms. That’s only fair, right?”

“I will give him the excellent news, Your Grace.” He bowed slightly and made his way for the door. Miss Kudrow followed behind him and softly closed the door behind him, letting out a deep sigh of relief that everyone else also let out.

“Are you alright, My Queen?” Minhyuk asked, taking your other free hand and pecking the back of it in comfort.

“Tell me everything about Kihyun and Hyungwon. If Hyungwon is anything like Kihyun, I want to be prepared to face him as well.” You stated, tightening your grip on Jooheon and Minhyuk ever so slightly before dropping their hands and getting yourself mentally ready for another Royals lesson.

***

“She’ll meet with you.” His Alpha greeted from his cell. “But on her terms.”

Hyungwon chuckled and shook his head, as if he had heard an old joke. “Of course, as expected of an intellectual Queen. I’ll let our Guardians set it up.” He waved off.

“Her numbers have grown tremendously.” Kihyun told him, waltzing straight for the blacked out car awaiting him in front of your home.

“And they’re about to get more significant.” He chuckled before hanging up.

Kihyun took one last look at your home and smiled softly before entering the car and driving away.

Please do NOT repost! All rights reserved!

*PLEASE TAKE A LOOK AT THE NOTE ABOVE THIS CHAPTER!*

[dgtully]

Palm Sunday Worship Guide

Opening Prayer:

(If you have a candle available, light it as a sign of this time being set apart as sacred and as a confession that God, who is our light, is present with us.)

Pray aloud Psalm 67:1-5: 

1 May God be gracious to us and bless us

    and make his face to shine upon us,

2 that your way may be known upon earth,

    your saving power among all nations.

3 Let the peoples praise you, O God;

    let all the peoples praise you.

4 Let the nations be glad and sing for joy,

    for you judge the peoples with equity

    and guide the nations upon earth.

5 Let the peoples praise you, O God;

    let all the peoples praise you.

Pray aloud:

God is Here! As we your people meet to offer praise and prayer, may we find in fuller measure what it is in Christ we share. Here, as in the world around us, all our varied skills and arts wait the coming of the Spirit into open minds and hearts.

Lord of all, of church and kingdom, in an age of change and doubt keep us faithful to the gospel; help us work your purpose out. Here, in this day’s dedication, all we have to give, receive; we, who cannot live without you, we adore you! We believe!

(“God is Here” UMH, 660, vv. 1, 4)

Take time (individually, or together as a group) to offer praise to God by naming the ways God SUSTAINS US and/or GIVES US HIS PEACE (offer circumstances or examples as they come to you).

Prayer of Confession

Offer the following prayer to God (individually or together as a group):

Lord God, your love has called us here, as we, by love, for love were made; your living likeness still we bear, though marred, dishonored, disobeyed; we come, with all our heart and mind; your call to hear, your love to find. Lord God, in Christ you set us free, your life to live, your joy to share; give us your Spirit’s liberty to turn from guilt and dull despair, and offer all that faith can do, while love is making all things new. Amen.

(“Lord God, Your Love Has Called Us Here” UMH, 579. vv. 1, 5)

In silence, confess those ways in which you’ve turned away from God and his ways—trusting that he loves and forgives you (for he does!—see 1 John 1:9)

Rehearsing Our Faith:

Recite aloud our proclamation of faith today, The Nicene Creed:

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father; through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation 

he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human.

For our sakes he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried.

On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.

We believe in the one holy catholic* and apostolic church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

                  *meaning the universal Christian church—all believers in Jesus Christ

Prayers of Thanksgiving & Gratitude

As a way to direct our prayers of thanksgiving, read aloud Romans 8:32

He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?

Alone or in your group, offer prayers thanking God (After each sharing, offer the phrase (all together), “. . . his mercies never come to an end.”):

. . . for how the Lord has provided what you need this week.

. . . for how the Lord has provided the needs of someone else.  

. . . for being with you & holding you up in disruption / isolation / anxiety you might feel at this time.

The Devotion of Giving

Consider making this time your opportunity to give a financial offering to God through his church. There are two ways you can do this through financially supporting the ongoing ministry of Fall Branch UMC:

Mail a check to:

Fall Branch United Methodist Church

P. O. Box 86

Fall Branch, TN 37656

Online Giving: 

Go to holston.org/churchoffering and fill in your contact information.

Select Appalachian District in the first pull-down menu. Select Fall Branch United Methodist Church—Fall Branch, TN in the second pull-down menu.

Click the blue bar at the bottom to be taken to a secure site to put in your credit / debit card information and the amount of your offering and submit. That’s it!—100% of your offering will go to the ministry of Fall Branch UMC.

Feasting on God’s Word:

Read aloud Luke 19:29-40

29 When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, 30 saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’” 32 So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. 33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” 34 They said, “The Lord needs it.” 35 Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. 36 As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. 37 As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, 38 saying,

“Blessed is the king

    who comes in the name of the Lord!

Peace in heaven,

    and glory in the highest heaven!”

39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

{If you are making use of today’s video reflection, watch it now at the link below.}

https://youtu.be/x7fd3I3x0Es

Consider and/or discuss the following questions based on the above passage:

What was the crowd expecting once they arrived with Jesus at Jerusalem (see Luke 19:11; Zechariah 9:9, 11-14)? How are their expectations different from Jesus’?

Why do you think Jesus arranged this “triumphal entry?”

What does Jesus’ reply to the Pharisee (vv. 39-40) imply about him?

If Jesus rode into your community to announce God’s reign and his claim on it, what kind of reception, in reality, do you think he’d receive?

Of all the images this story brings to mind, which best describes how you see Jesus “entering” into your life:

humble servant?

warrior king?

teacher dispensing wisdom?

master to be followed/obeyed?

social influencer/crowd leader?

Response to God’s Word:

Pray now for:

the people of Fall Branch UMC . . . those who suffer and those facing trouble . . . the concerns of your local community . . . the world, its peoples, and its leaders . . . the church around the world—its leaders, its members, and its mission . . . that God’s word would spread and people would become followers of Jesus . . .

Consider becoming a part of a Care & Share Team. Contact David Tully for more information at david.tully@me.com, submit a question at dgtully.tumblr.com,  or call (770) 356-2543.

Consider sharing what you do have with someone who could use assistance: (for example—offering to get groceries for someone as you go yourself; offer a “home-cooked take out” delivery for someone—taking health precautions as you do so!; mow a yard for a neighbor, etc.)

Finish this part of our worship by praying aloud (together as a family or alone) The Lord’s Prayer:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory; Both now and forever. Amen.

Concluding Prayer of Worship/Devotion:

Pray yourself, or have one member of your family/group offer the following prayer aloud:

Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

(Jude 24-25)

[dailyofficereadings]

Daily Office Readings October 10, 2019

Psalm 131-135

Psalm 131

Song of Quiet Trust

A Song of Ascents. Of David.

1 O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. 2 But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.[a]

3 O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time on and forevermore.

Psalm 132

The Eternal Dwelling of God in Zion

A Song of Ascents.

1 O Lord, remember in David’s favor all the hardships he endured; 2 how he swore to the Lord and vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob, 3 “I will not enter my house or get into my bed; 4 I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, 5 until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob.”

6 We heard of it in Ephrathah; we found it in the fields of Jaar. 7 “Let us go to his dwelling place; let us worship at his footstool.”

8 Rise up, O Lord, and go to your resting place, you and the ark of your might. 9 Let your priests be clothed with righteousness, and let your faithful shout for joy. 10 For your servant David’s sake do not turn away the face of your anointed one.

11 The Lord swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back: “One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne. 12 If your sons keep my covenant and my decrees that I shall teach them, their sons also, forevermore, shall sit on your throne.”

13 For the Lord has chosen Zion; he has desired it for his habitation: 14 “This is my resting place forever; here I will reside, for I have desired it. 15 I will abundantly bless its provisions; I will satisfy its poor with bread. 16 Its priests I will clothe with salvation, and its faithful will shout for joy. 17 There I will cause a horn to sprout up for David; I have prepared a lamp for my anointed one. 18 His enemies I will clothe with disgrace, but on him, his crown will gleam.”

Psalm 133

The Blessedness of Unity

A Song of Ascents.

1 How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity! 2 It is like the precious oil on the head, running down upon the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down over the collar of his robes. 3 It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord ordained his blessing, life forevermore.

Psalm 134

Praise in the Night

A Song of Ascents.

1 Come, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who stand by night in the house of the Lord! 2 Lift up your hands to the holy place, and bless the Lord.

3 May the Lord, maker of heaven and earth, bless you from Zion.

Psalm 135

Praise for God’s Goodness and Might

1 Praise the Lord! Praise the name of the Lord; give praise, O servants of the Lord, 2 you that stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God. 3 Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good; sing to his name, for he is gracious. 4 For the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself, Israel as his own possession.

5 For I know that the Lord is great; our Lord is above all gods. 6 Whatever the Lord pleases he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps. 7 He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth; he makes lightnings for the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses.

8 He it was who struck down the firstborn of Egypt, both human beings and animals; 9 he sent signs and wonders into your midst, O Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his servants. 10 He struck down many nations and killed mighty kings— 11 Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan, and all the kingdoms of Canaan— 12 and gave their land as a heritage, a heritage to his people Israel.

13 Your name, O Lord, endures forever, your renown, O Lord, throughout all ages. 14 For the Lord will vindicate his people, and have compassion on his servants.

15 The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. 16 They have mouths, but they do not speak; they have eyes, but they do not see; 17 they have ears, but they do not hear, and there is no breath in their mouths. 18 Those who make them and all who trust them shall become like them.

19 O house of Israel, bless the Lord! O house of Aaron, bless the Lord! 20 O house of Levi, bless the Lord! You that fear the Lord, bless the Lord! 21 Blessed be the Lord from Zion, he who resides in Jerusalem. Praise the Lord!

Footnotes:

Psalm 131:2 Or my soul within me is like a weaned child

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)

New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

2 Kings 23:4-25

4 The king commanded the high priest Hilkiah, the priests of the second order, and the guardians of the threshold, to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven; he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel. 5 He deposed the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to make offerings in the high places at the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem; those also who made offerings to Baal, to the sun, the moon, the constellations, and all the host of the heavens. 6 He brought out the image of[a] Asherah from the house of the Lord, outside Jerusalem, to the Wadi Kidron, burned it at the Wadi Kidron, beat it to dust and threw the dust of it upon the graves of the common people. 7 He broke down the houses of the male temple prostitutes that were in the house of the Lord, where the women did weaving for Asherah. 8 He brought all the priests out of the towns of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had made offerings, from Geba to Beer-sheba; he broke down the high places of the gates that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on the left at the gate of the city. 9 The priests of the high places, however, did not come up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but ate unleavened bread among their kindred. 10 He defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of Ben-hinnom, so that no one would make a son or a daughter pass through fire as an offering to Molech. 11 He removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun, at the entrance to the house of the Lord, by the chamber of the eunuch Nathan-melech, which was in the precincts;[b] then he burned the chariots of the sun with fire. 12 The altars on the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord, he pulled down from there and broke in pieces, and threw the rubble into the Wadi Kidron. 13 The king defiled the high places that were east of Jerusalem, to the south of the Mount of Destruction, which King Solomon of Israel had built for Astarte the abomination of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. 14 He broke the pillars in pieces, cut down the sacred poles,[c] and covered the sites with human bones.

15 Moreover, the altar at Bethel, the high place erected by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin—he pulled down that altar along with the high place. He burned the high place, crushing it to dust; he also burned the sacred pole.[d] 16 As Josiah turned, he saw the tombs there on the mount; and he sent and took the bones out of the tombs, and burned them on the altar, and defiled it, according to the word of the Lord that the man of God proclaimed,[e] when Jeroboam stood by the altar at the festival; he turned and looked up at the tomb of the man of God who had predicted these things. 17 Then he said, “What is that monument that I see?” The people of the city told him, “It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and predicted these things that you have done against the altar at Bethel.” 18 He said, “Let him rest; let no one move his bones.” So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came out of Samaria. 19 Moreover, Josiah removed all the shrines of the high places that were in the towns of Samaria, which kings of Israel had made, provoking the Lord to anger; he did to them just as he had done at Bethel. 20 He slaughtered on the altars all the priests of the high places who were there, and burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

The Passover Celebrated

21 The king commanded all the people, “Keep the passover to the Lord your God as prescribed in this book of the covenant.” 22 No such passover had been kept since the days of the judges who judged Israel, even during all the days of the kings of Israel and of the kings of Judah; 23 but in the eighteenth year of King Josiah this passover was kept to the Lord in Jerusalem.

24 Moreover Josiah put away the mediums, wizards, teraphim,[f] idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, so that he established the words of the law that were written in the book that the priest Hilkiah had found in the house of the Lord. 25 Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him.

Footnotes:

2 Kings 23:6 Heb lacks image of

2 Kings 23:11 Meaning of Heb uncertain

2 Kings 23:14 Heb Asherim

2 Kings 23:15 Heb Asherah

2 Kings 23:16 Gk: Heb proclaimed, who had predicted these things

2 Kings 23:24 Or household gods

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)

New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

Spiritual Gifts

12 Now concerning spiritual gifts,[a] brothers and sisters,[b] I do not want you to be uninformed. 2 You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak. 3 Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says “Let Jesus be cursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.

4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

Footnotes:

1 Corinthians 12:1 Or spiritual persons

1 Corinthians 12:1 Gk brothers

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)

New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Matthew 9:18-26

A Girl Restored to Life and a Woman Healed

18 While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader of the synagogue[a] came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” 19 And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples. 20 Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, 21 for she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” 22 Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well. 23 When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, 24 he said, “Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. 25 But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. 26 And the report of this spread throughout that district.

Footnotes:

Matthew 9:18 Gk lacks of the synagogue

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)

New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

[tarithenurse]

I see you - Chapter 13

Pairing: Heimdal x fem!readerContents: some swearing, angst, piningA/N: It’s funny how a story takes on a life of its own, unfolding with more details and surprises than expecting when first planning it. Also!! Huge grats to @malaptive-ninja-returns for guessing the theme of the chapter titles! YAY!!

Ch. 13 – You’re not there

A light rain is tapping on the windows, far too gentle to fit your mood and with the setting sun’s rays fragmenting into mini-Bifrosts in each drop. Not even the magnificence of Asgard can distract you from the storm raging within you, a storm that has gained strength as one day has taken the other while you wait for Heimdal to visit again. It’s been a week. A week since the excursion to the mountain followed by facing the one responsible for the attack on your home world. A week since the kiss. Did I misinterpret? Not for the first time, your thoughts spiral into a theme of apprehension and doubt. Perhaps the connection I thought was there hadn’t been more than simple friendliness…maybe not even that.

Pacing the room, there’s no way you can outrun the negativity. Both because you’re well aware it’s all in your head, a result of years spent with a guy who’d put you down at any given chance, and also because the regenerative treatment you’ve received that very same day has left you sore and tired. It adds to the dreadful feeling of inadequacy. In fact, why should you even bother worrying about Heimdal or anything? In the end, an end that draws nearer each day your health improves, you’ll have to go back to earth and your old life. I’ll need a new job. Even if the publicist you’d worked at still existed, there’s no way you’d still be employed there after such a long time away. Most likely it’s been destroyed during the fighting like so many other companies in that area of Manhattan. And then what? Without a work lined up, you’d lose your place to live in the city (which had been hell to find). Your rent was automated, sure, but money doesn’t last forever, and your bank account must be getting close to the red digits.

Sighing, you pour a glass of water from the carafe. There’s nothing you can do about anything. You’re perfectly safe where you are…still the world is crumbling around you.

…

Staring into the endlessness beyond the golden, globular observatory, Heimdal stands immobile, his thoughts much closer than the many worlds he’s watching. A week has passed, yet for someone who has lived more than a millennium, this week has been an eternity.

On the way from [Y/N]’s chambers, the Watcher had been approached by a servant of the king and told to follow to the throne room. The conversation with Odin had been brief and rather one-sided. No one refuses the All-Father lightly, and so Heimdal had been reinstated as the Keeper of Bifrost and Guardian of Asgard effective immediately. Furthermore, he’s tasked with supervising the training of an elite squad of Einherjar. Their responsibility will be to scout for very specific types of threats in the chaotic aftermath of Loki’s betrayal and they will in time be imbued with seiðr, granting them abilities similar (although not as potent) as his.

By the time Heimdal’s daily tasks end and he’d make it to the [Y/N]’s quarters…he’d find her fast a sleep. A few times, he’d lingered in the doorway, a smile finding its way to his lips as the moonlight illuminated graceful features, her chest rose and fell steadily, and the eyelids would tremble lightly at whichever dream-visions she saw. Each time, he’d leave quietly.

Momentarily, his gaze slips and amber eyes glow with a golden light.

…

The walls of the room fall away, revealing the splendor of stars and galaxies, you only have seen during the night where the pain medication hasn’t been enough to grant you rest. Iridescent clouds of space dust shimmer in the light reflected off a comet as it sweeps through, creating purple and peach ripples against the never-ending darkness of the backdrop. With a fluid motion, the scene changes and comes to rest with a planet in focus, its red and green surface riddled with mountains and valleys, although there’s nothing to compare it to you have a distinct feeling that this is a small globe, and only one city (because it must be just that) is visible on the horizon. But before you know for sure, your view is shifted again. This time you see through a haze of clouds and smoke erupting from tall chimney belonging to a city that cover every inch of the surface, blanketing the alien planet in gold, black and grimy white. It could have been impressive, the individual buildings maybe even beautiful, if it wasn’t because industrialism and pollution was smothering every sign of life.

“How can they –?” You stop yourself, knowing that no one’s there to answer your question.

“Lady [Y/N]?” A warm voice emanates from all around you. Or within me? “Don’t be alarmed, you’re safe.”

The sight fades, leaving you blinking against the fading sunlight. The half-full glass is still in your hand. In fact, nothing has changed…except everything is different.

You know which voice you just heard. “Heim-Heimdal?” Carefully replacing the glass onto the table, you sit down not knowing what to expect.

“It is I, Heimdal.” This time the voice’s in your mind. “My apologies, I didn’t intent to show you what I see…”

“Wait, you see that?” Maybe he can read your mind (the thought immediately makes you blush), but oddly enough you still speak out loud.

“I am blessed with sight and hearing beyond that of any mortal.” There’s an edge to his words that makes you think he’s trying to be modest. “In a simple vernacular, it would not be amiss to say that…I can see across time and space. This is not to mean that I see the future, though.”

Science in high school had been alright, but the teacher had favoured the boys, thinking that girls shouldn’t bother with things like that, and so it’s hard to remember the details about space and light. “What you see is actually happening the moment you see it instead? No delays like the rest of us would have when observing something lightyears away…”

“Well said.”

An awkward silence descend. Is he still there? There’s no way of knowing for you and after a week without his visits…Oh, just try!

“Heimdal…” A hum of approval reverberates in your skull, like a meditative chant that brings peace. “Can you show me Ear-Midgard?”

Blue, green and white on one half at first, the familiar planet rotates into view with its moon in a slow waltz around it. Even sitting down (which is odd when you can’t see yourself or where you’re sitting), you’re breathless at the glorious sight suspended in a universe infinitely more complicated than you once suspected. Continents and coastal countries are discernible between meteorological patterns and you recognize North America easily before the view zooms closer, bringing you to New York where construction sites have spawned since last you were there. Life goes on, of course. And as reassuring as it is, the trepidation infuses your limbs with lead. How can I? The answer will have to wait, and until you find it, you’ll simply take each day at a time. By guiding Heimdal, the offices of the publicist come into view…or what’s left of them. Half the building is gone! And what’s left is being torn down by humongous, canary-coloured machines.

“At least I don’t have to worry about missing out on work, I guess…” The dry laughter you manage to produce doesn’t spook the encroaching dread away.

Buildings sweep past, making it seem like you’re flying (although it’s nothing like the pigeons and seagulls of the metropolis) and bringing you north before crossing Central Park along a familiar route. It calms you to recognize the Japanese Zelkova tree and all the other plants in the rectangular oasis still are intact. Yes, it’s different flowers blooming, and the colours of the park has changed with that…but there’s no damage to be seen here. There. You have to remind yourself that you are, in fact, sitting in Asgard far across the universe.

A slim border around the park is intact, but as the flight brings you between buildings you can see the destruction and havoc. It’s more scattered. Maybe from stray missiles or whatever aliens use? Already the crews of labourers with their towering machines have found their way to each site, clearing away rubble and debris and tearing down what’s left of the buildings that had gotten hit. Including your home.

“I’m sorry.”

Heimdal’s words reach you, warm and soothing…except you’re certain the shock isn’t related to the loss of your home and belongings in themselves, as he might think, rather the fact that you’ve got one place to go: your hometown. Fuck. It wasn’t for nothing that you’d moved across the country to get away from that hell-hole. Returning would be humiliating. And according to the last messages from your sister before New York was attacked, your ex had been far from over the sudden abandonment.

Breathing in deeply and taming your voice just enough to breathe out: “Thank you. That’s enough.”

Once more, you find yourself in the beautiful room flooded with the warm glow from the setting sun which adds a pink tint to the white walls and light up the wooden details with the radiance of fire and gold. A slim vase sits on the table, housing a single flower that only opens at nightfall to allow the delicate anthers and stigma to shine like tiny stars. It had been there when you woke up the morning after the…picnic. At first, you’d thought it was from Heimdal. Now you weren’t so sure.

Something lands on your hand, startling you from the somber train of thoughts. A wet drop glistens in the light and you realize your cheeks are damp too. Angrily, you wipe them away.

I knew, I had to go back to earth.

Still, it’s not the planet itself that worries you.

I’ve made it out of there once before…I can do it again.

People start over all the time, finding new homes in countries they’ve never been to before and often starting out with nothing but their own will to succeed. Determined, you decide that you’ll do the same.

[3wisellamas]

Because there still aren't enough Deltarune theories: Fun Facts About Cards

So, I was thinking a lot about @pirenja's older post on Jevil and Seam as The Fool and The Magician, the first (or first and last, depending on who you ask) cards of the Tarot major arcana and which usually map to the Jokers in a standard playing card deck.  

There's also the MINOR arcana, though -- the plain numbers and suits that make up the rest of a Tarot deck, and look a LOT like a typical 52-card deck.  I knew about those, but didn't know those, so I got curious and spent a couple days looking into it, just for funsies.

So, uh...holy shit.  The card-based Darkners aren't just playing cards, they're TAROT cards.  The characters we know fit almost ridiculously well to their cards, and there were a couple parallels I found particularly interesting.  Allow me to infodump, and add in a few extra fun little things that also came up in some card research, and which might have some...interesting implications on the rest of Deltarune.  A lot of this is gonna come from Wikipedia, as well as this site.

Just a heads-up, this post is gonna include a lot of theories (some of which may or may not be pure crack) and will be LONG, and much of it will look like this:

...But in a fun way, I promise.  ~^

First, let's go over some REALLY brief info about some of the cards we've seen so far in Deltarune.  The ties between these guys and Tarot are pretty damn obvious, especially when you look at the four suits:

Diamonds:  In Tarot, their equivalent is Pentacles or Coins.  These are associated with wealth, business, and physical possessions.

Sounds a lot like the Rudinns and the King of Diamonds, right?  I mean, they're so obsessed with their treasure that they sold their beds to have more of it!

Hearts:  The Tarot equivalent is the Cups.  Associated with emotions and bettering oneself.  

Hathys are pretty big on emotion -- they're the ones you keep flirting with in encounters, after all, and the proceeds for Hathy's bake sale go towards their health.

Clubs:  The Tarot equivalent is the Wands.  This one I had to work a bit to figure out, but it seems to be more associated with social things, passion, and desire/drive.

Clover is definitely a social one, seeing as how they're throwing their birthday party in the castle when you arrive.  And they're also VERY passionate about three specific topics, which actually plays into pacifying them!

Spades:  Now for some fun.  In Tarot, these are Swords, and are most associated with...take a wild guess.  Ambition, power, violence, and the military.

Yep.  Shall we look a bit closer at the actual cards in the Spades suit, then?  

First off, the King of Spades/Swords.  The card is LITERALLY called The Warlord, and is associated with force and discipline, ruthlessness, intelligence, and sometimes coldness and abuse in a negative reading.  Pretty damn accurate to the King, I gotta say.  Not a lot of room for interpretation here.

The other Spade we know of, though?  A...little less clear-cut, but still works.  Lancer is the Jack of Spades, meaning his Tarot equivalent is the Page/Knave of Swords -- same card, just an older name -- which is indeed all about youth and energy, as well as learning and observing, and keeping cool in danger.  However, the card is also called The Spy, and also has a meaning of concealing oneself and keeping secrets.

Hm.  Some of that really sounds like Lancer, some...doesn't?  Perhaps our boy has an arc and some more character development ahead of him.  Or...I'll get back to this.  Because there is some interesting theory fuel here once I bring in another point.

Now, for a Spade we DON'T know yet, but that we know very well is coming:  The Queen.  The Queen of Swords is associated with intelligence, strategy, independence, and...repressed sadness and divorce?  Hm.

HM.  If the King of Spades is meant to be a Dark World mirror of Asgore, could the Queen end up being a dark mirror of Toriel, out in self-exile?  Time will tell.  And when we do finally meet the Queen in future chapters, she will very likely be one hell of a big deal, if the Tarot theme holds, so keep the card description in mind for that!

But, we can't stop at the Queen; we're missing a big, major detail.  In Tarot decks, and in fact in historical playing card decks in general, there are FOUR face cards of each suit, not just the three we see in a typical deck.  At the top are the King and Queen, obviously.  At the bottom is the Page or the Knave, as I said up there the equivalent of the modern Jack.  And the last one, between the Page and the Queen?  The Knight.

No, really.  The Knight is a CARD.  But, I'm gonna go further than that:  We already know someone, specifically a card person, in the Dark World who fits the description of the Knight of Swords/Spades, quite well in fact:

Associated with major, drastic changes -- pretty appropriate for the person who's been jailing kings and opening up dark fountains, huh?

Impulsive, and constantly takes actions without much planning beforehand.

Fanatical and single-minded, obsessively loyal to one thing and one thing only at a time.

Confident, to the point of arrogance.  Basically, obsessed with themselves.

Articulate, good with words, and a sweet-talker, able to get what they want through speech and charm alone.  Ironically, not often associated with direct action, and can mean cowardice.

Also, a bald-faced liar -- their whole thing is trickery and deceit.  They also keep a LOT of secrets, like the Page.

Worth noting, the Knight often replaces the Queen entirely in older decks, and is considered the card right under the King of Spades, as his main servant or advisor.

Notably, according to that Tarot site up there, they are heavily associated with major career changes and promotions.

You figured it out yet?

.

.

.

Oh yeah.  Worm knight.  

Let's go through some points with both Rouxls Kaard and that card description in mind, if you don't believe me.  

Uh, hello?  Confident, impulsive, acts without thinking, fanatical, self-centered?  The card description may as well be the guy's Wikia bio.

Articulate...well, he tries.  Can't fault him for that.  (yes you can)

Honestly, aside from that "God.  Damn it." moment, can you give me one instance in which his manner of speaking WASN'T overly flowery and fancy, to the point of ridiculousness?  That's, like, his most defining trait.

He's a coward, never actually facing you himself until you reach the castle, and instead preferring to vandalize puzzle solutions and throw minions at you.

He seriously butters you up during the entire second shop conversation, and in fact almost constantly from the moment K.Round is defeated for the final time -- he says he's always on the winning side, which at the time is you, and does his best to claim he never truly opposed you at all, that everything was a test, he just wants to help you, etc.  The guy even tries to BRIBE you at the very end if you went pacifist, offering Susie a plate of worms for letting him lie about his involvement in your adventure, to boost his own ego.  

Did I forget to mention he's pretty much got a lot of the Rudinns and Clover (and a lot of fandom it seems) charmed with his looks and manner of speaking, and wrapped around his finger as well?  Because that.

Throughout the game, Rouxls really is nothing more than a big talker and a big liar.  Most obviously, the first time you talk to him in his shop he says quite a bit, but does a COMPLETE 180 on ALL OF IT after he's defeated for the final time, suddenly going from praising the King to hating his guts and claiming to be undermining him, from mocking the Fun/$!? Squad to praising them and offering assistance, and from complaining about Lancer to admitting he cares about the kid quite a bit.  

Also, consider:  His "ultimate puzzle", which he suspiciously refused to show us...

Even if it's not explicitly pointed out as such, Rouxls is King Spade's second in command, the guy serving directly under him in the castle in the absence of the Queen (or any other castle staff besides the guards, for that matter).  In very old decks before the Queen was a thing, Knights are in between the Page/Jack and the King and are considered the King's advisor/right hand guy.

Knights also have a lot of very close connections to Pages, both in card games as well as history.  A page is literally a knight's very young (age 7-14) apprentice and servant, and stick close to them and learn from them -- similar to Rouxls' lesser dad/son relationship with Lancer!  (Also, a thought:  medieval knights would often carry lances, supplied by said page!)

During battle, the King calls the Knight "My Knight".  This might confirm that the Knight is indeed a member of his own court, the Knight of Spades, and not of another suit.  However, from the tone and some of the other things he says throughout the battle, it’s clear that King Spade actually owes allegiance to the Knight, rather than the other way around.  Possibly even some fondness for him, from that particular tone.  And...I'm not gonna beat around the bush on this.  King Spade is totally Rouxls' sugar daddy.  The King just up and fires everyone in his castle, and gives this random unqualified prettyboy the next-highest position after himself out of absolutely nowhere?  Yeah.  No.  Even incompetent kings don't just do that.  There's something really weird going on there, something about their relationship that screams there’s some shady business going on behind the scenes.  Though, potentially, one could also flip the script, seeing the new job as repayment for putting King Spade in power...

One final point, getting a bit away from the card again.  In the game, The Knight is supposed to have a close connection with the Dark Fountains, able to “pull them from the Earth” and manipulate their power to bring darkness or whatever, right?  When using the Card Castle fountain to go home, Kris and Susie teleport in a massive column of white light, that looks like this:

(Sorry, screenshotting that particular moment is tough...)

Look a little familiar?

Yep, I'm gonna go there.  The same goddamn teleport animation.  Nowhere else in the game is that particular animation used, even when it kinda should -- for instance, Jevil’s scythes also teleport in vertical columns of light, but those look entirely different!

There's some other things about Rouxls that actually make me super suspicious of the guy, but one that does so even more now, that I really should bring up if I'm claiming him to be The Knight:  Remember that last battle against K.Round?  When Rouxls brings out his "Control Crowne"?  That lets him control anything “disc-shaped”, and (if we take Ralsei's word for it) looks incredibly painful?  

...What the actual living FUCK??!  Seriously, is no one else IMMENSELY ALARMED by the fact that not only is this crown a thing that exists, but for some goddamn reason it just happens to be in the puzzle guy's possession??

I'm bringing that point up for a pretty big reason, though:  Another name for the Diamonds/Pentacles suit is DISKS.  If Rouxls wasn't just bluffing (like he does on everything else, admittedly), there's a good chance he might be able to use that crown on Diamond cards as well.

And Rouxls DEFINITELY has a lot of interesting connections to Diamonds himself, beyond that.  Rudinns generally seem to be pretty enamored with the guy, and the whole suit is all about money and even represent the Merchant, or if you will, the shopkeeper class.  (And if you ask him why he’s selling things to you, he will admit he's raising money, for...some reason.)  In a four-color deck, Diamonds are usually represented by the color blue instead of red.  Also, Diamonds/Pentacles represent the Earth element, which is where one would find worms and insects.  So, he may very well have a close connection to Diamonds, as well as being the Knight of Spades...

I'll get back to that one as well, though, because there's another point I wanna bring into this whole card mess that might complicate things.  Because while researching, I found a very, very interesting little bit of trivia about the Joker card...

Second half of this post and a LOT more fun cracktheories under the cut.  Yep, you heard me, I'm still only halfway done here!

So.  The Jokers, Fool and Magician, former members of the card court, before...something went wrong.  You know how Jevil (and presumably Seam, as his only equal) can apparently do anything?  Well, while researching Tarot, I also randomly looked into the Jokers and their functions in a couple of other card games, the biggest being Spades, because why not.

In Spades, the Joker card can attach itself to any non-Spade card in the deck to make it count as the equivalent Spade, though still inferior to the real Spade card.  In other words, Jokers can turn other cards into Spades.

No, I'm serious.  Look for yourself.

This idea I’m mostly just having some fun with here, but if this little bit of trivia happens to come into play in the next few Deltarune chapters, it might have some SERIOUS implications on what we know about the Spades court.  In particular, it means we might not be able to take...really, any of the Spades characters we meet at face value (pun not intended, but appropriate).

But you know what?  I think we should take a closer look at the Spades we already know, and see if that might already be the case.  

The King fits his card description very well, and we actually see the other three kings locked up in a cage, so none of them could have been converted into the King of Spades.  So, we can pretty much confirm he's who we think.

But, then there's Lancer.  So far, he's the only Jack we've seen -- I know the card characters were originally based on a set of playing card designs by @kanotynes, and that the Jacks in that deck included not only Lancer but also the various minor enemies we see:  Rudinn, Hathy, and Clover.  But, in the game, those three don't seem to have any royal ties at all, definitely not as princes!  So, I think we can confirm that they're not actually the Jacks of other suits in Deltarune.

So, I'm gonna go back to my first Tarot loose end -- the Page of Spades/Swords, Lancer.  Remember how I pointed out some pieces of the card's description didn't fully match the kid?  The secrets, the concealing of one's true nature?

What if Lancer's not the Jack of Spades at all, but rather another Jack that was converted into a Spade by one of the Jokers for whatever reason?  Let's take a quick look at the other Pages, and see if one fits Lancer a bit more, shall we?

The Page of Hearts/Cups:  A "sweet-natured child", immature, creative, naive, a bad childhood, and self-centeredness.  Not a bad fit for Lancer, gotta admit!

The Page of Diamonds/Pentacles:  Planning for and seizing future success and opportunities, loyalty, sometimes associated with fruit trees and harvests (”Delicious little apple” / "Sweet little peach"?), and most importantly, a student, constantly learning just like the Page of Swords.  Also not a bad fit, though maybe a little less than the Page of Cups.

Now for the really fun one.  The Page of Clubs/Wands:  Inspiration, optimism, also creativity and making plans, rushing into things without thinking (appropriate for the Knight's charge...), "a bit of a cheeky charmer or lovable rogue", impatience, laziness, and a big emphasis on "losing yourself".  Also, did I mention that Wands represent the fire element?

So, really all three other Pages have elements that fit this kid in different ways, but some of the things about that Page of Clubs are...striking, to say the least.  This possibility might be worth keeping in mind when chapter 2 ever gets released!

Now, then, there's also another Spade we know, even if unconfirmed, with no known equivalents in other suits to rule out.  Could Rouxls also have been another suit, and got converted into the Knight of Spades?  

Remember all those weird connections to the Diamonds suit I pointed out?  Well, let's talk about the Knight of Diamonds -- A Red Knight, if you will!

"A young man who is dark of complexion and features."  This is an actual quote from Wikipedia. 

Defensive -- focus on protecting home and family.

Hard worker, determined, stubborn, finishing what you start.

All about questioning one's work or home life, or where they stand on an issue.

An animal lover.

The "wish card", about making your wishes and dreams come true, via perseverance and ambition.

Also, a negative interpretation is a loser or laziness, expecting results but not putting in the effort.  

Not a PERFECT fit, but still an interesting comparison, no?  Especially those things about fulfilling your wish, but failing by not putting in the effort required, kinda like how Rouxls is quite proud of becoming the high-ranking and privileged "Duke of Puzzles", but doesn’t actually put together anything other than simple block-pushing puzzles.  Another thought that comes up:  The control crown(e).  If Rouxls was originally a high-ranking Diamond/Disk suit, that fucking thing suddenly makes WAY more sense.  (Also, it would make all the Blue Diamond comparisons really funny in hindsight.  Just saying.)

Yeah, I know, claiming that Rouxls is the Knight is a big enough deal, and this extra cracktheory about him being a Knight who switched suits  is one even I'm admitting it’s crazy, and over-analyzing is just what I do.  Who knows if all or any of this will still be plausible by chapter 2.  However, worth noting:  If Rouxls was originally another suit, and got converted into the "Lesser” Knight of Spades/Swords by one of the Jokers, then there is very likely ANOTHER Knight of Spades/Swords out there, a much more powerful one.  Hm...

...Naaaah.  Too obvious. And on the same note, if my cracktheory about Lancer being the “lesser” Jack of Spades up there ends up actually being somewhat accurate, then there's also an original one out there somewhere...

...Maybe?  If you look at that description up there again, it actually seems to fit Ralsei even better than it fits Lancer -- the things about concealing one's true nature, keeping secrets, intelligence, and analysis suddenly become quite fitting.  And didn't Ralsei's original concept art include a reversed spade instead of a heart on the front of his robe?

So, if these are the case, what card is Susie?  I'm...admittedly not sure.  ^^;  I bet someone else can find a card that fits her though, so I'll leave that one open.

Okay, okay, I'm done with the wild theories now.  Lastly, I just wanna mention a couple of other interesting, weird card things I found out while researching.  Won't go as in-depth with these, but including them because why not:

A lot of people have been theorizing about the idea of Darkners bleeding like humans, and unlike monsters.  What if I told you that "bleeding" is an actual card term?  When you bleed your cards, you're accidentally exposing your hand to other players out of turn.

Remember when Rouxls called the party "mine amigose"?  Kind of an odd line, especially coming from him, but it was actually another card game reference!  Also from Spades is the term "Three amigos":  A nickname for the Ace, Queen, and King of Spades.  Interestingly, the Ace of Swords is all about cutting through lies and exposing the truth.  (Maybe that could be a card for Susie in future chapters?)

Hell, there’s just a LOT of card references thrown all over the place.  A cute one is when Jevil says “piip piip” during his fight -- like the dots on dice, the individual symbols on number cards are called pips.

Want another fun Tarot card meaning?  Take a good look at the Nine of Swords.  It's generally considered the worst card you could get, even in a mostly positive reading -- It's literally called The Nightmare, and represents fear, stress, being overwhelmed, grief, doubts, cruelty, etc.  Basically, if it's bad, it's in this card, up to and including a complete breakdown.  Now, recall another line that seems totally benign at first, courtesy of Jevil:  "From now, a nightmare will awaken in your hearts.  In the shadow of the Knight's hand..."  If I were y'all, I'd make damn sure to WATCH THIS CARD.

Also, "The Knight's hand"...of cards, perhaps?  :P  Okay, bad joke.  

There's sometimes three Jokers in a deck -- a white one in addition to black and red.  Just sayin'.  Might wanna also keep your eyes open for a third Joker in chapter 2, maybe chilling out with the Queen wherever she is? 

[dfroza]

At the closing of the New Testament

we see beautiful earth restored.

(A sacred hope)

rebirth.

[Eden Restored]

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, flowing with water clear as crystal, continuously pouring out from the throne of God and of the Lamb. The river was flowing in the middle of the street of the city, and on either side of the river was the Tree of Life, with its twelve kinds of ripe fruit according to each month of the year. The leaves of the Tree of Life are for the healing of the nations.

And every curse will be broken and no longer exist, for the throne of God and of the Lamb will be there in the city.

His loving servants will serve him; they will see constantly his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.

Night will be no more. They will never need the light of the sun or a lamp, because the Lord God will shine on them.

And they will reign as kings forever and ever!

[The Testimony of the Angel]

Then the angel said to me, “These words are entirely trustworthy and true, for the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his loving servants what must occur swiftly.”

[The Testimony of Jesus]

“Behold, I come quickly!

Wonderfully blessed is the one

who carefully guards the words

of the prophecy of this book!”

[The Testimony of John]

I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things, and when I heard and saw it all, I fell facedown to worship the messenger who showed me these things. But he said to me, “Don’t do it! I am but a fellow servant with you and your brothers, the prophets, and with those who cling to the words of this book. Worship God!”

And he said to me, “Don’t keep secret the prophetic words of this book, for the time is near. Let the evildoers be at their worst and the morally filthy continue in their depravity—yet the righteous will still do what is right, and the holy will still be holy.”

[Jesus’ Final Words and John’s Final Testimony]

“Behold, I am coming quickly!

I bring my reward with me

to repay everyone according to their works.

I am the Aleph and the Tav,

the First and the Last,

the Beginning and the Completion.”

Wonderfully blessed are those who wash their robes white so they can access the Tree of Life and enter the city of bliss by its open gates. Those not permitted to enter are outside: the malicious hypocrites, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, murderers, idolaters, and every lover of lies.

“I, Jesus, sent my angel to you to give you this testimony to share with the congregations. I am the bright Morning Star, both David’s spiritual root and his descendant.”

“Come,” says the Holy Spirit and the Bride in divine duet. Let everyone who hears this duet join them in saying, “Come.” Let everyone gripped with spiritual thirst say, “Come.” And let everyone who craves the gift of living water come and drink it freely. “It is my gift to you! Come.”

I testify to everyone who hears the prophetic words of this book: If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone subtracts from the prophetic words of this book, God will remove his portion from the Tree of Life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

The one who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming quickly.” Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!

May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the holy believers. Amen!

The Book of Revelation, Chapter 22 (The Passion Translation)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is the 33rd chapter of 2nd Chronicles that documents the life & times of King Manasseh and King Amon:

[King Manasseh]

Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king. He ruled for fifty-five years in Jerusalem. In God’s opinion he was a bad king—an evil king. He reintroduced all the moral rot and spiritual corruption that had been scoured from the country when God dispossessed the pagan nations in favor of the children of Israel. He rebuilt the sex-and-religion shrines that his father Hezekiah had torn down, he built altars and phallic images for the sex god Baal and the sex goddess Asherah and worshiped the cosmic powers, taking orders from the constellations. He built shrines to the cosmic powers and placed them in both courtyards of The Temple of God, the very Jerusalem Temple dedicated exclusively by God’s decree to God’s Name (“in Jerusalem I place my Name”). He burned his own sons in a sacrificial rite in the Valley of Ben Hinnom. He practiced witchcraft and fortunetelling. He held séances and consulted spirits from the underworld. Much evil—in God’s view a career in evil. And God was angry.

As a last straw he placed a carved image of the sex goddess Asherah that he had commissioned in The Temple of God, a flagrant and provocative violation of God’s well-known command to both David and Solomon, “In this Temple and in this city Jerusalem, my choice out of all the tribes of Israel, I place my Name—exclusively and forever.” He had promised, “Never again will I let my people Israel wander off from this land I’ve given to their ancestors. But on this condition, that they keep everything I’ve commanded in the instructions my servant Moses passed on to them.”

But Manasseh led Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem off the beaten path into practices of evil exceeding even the evil of the pagan nations that God had earlier destroyed. When God spoke to Manasseh and his people about this, they ignored him.

Then God directed the leaders of the troops of the king of Assyria to come after Manasseh. They put a hook in his nose, shackles on his feet, and took him off to Babylon. Now that he was in trouble, he dropped to his knees in prayer asking for help—total repentance before the God of his ancestors. As he prayed, God was touched; God listened and brought him back to Jerusalem as king. That convinced Manasseh that God was in control.

After that Manasseh rebuilt the outside defensive wall of the City of David to the west of the Gihon spring in the valley. It went from the Fish Gate and around the hill of Ophel. He also increased its height. He tightened up the defense system by posting army captains in all the fortress cities of Judah. He also did a good spring cleaning on The Temple, carting out the pagan idols and the goddess statue. He took all the altars he had set up on The Temple hill and throughout Jerusalem and dumped them outside the city. He put the Altar of God back in working order and restored worship, sacrificing Peace-Offerings and Thank-Offerings. He issued orders to the people: “You shall serve and worship God, the God of Israel.” But the people didn’t take him seriously—they used the name “God” but kept on going to the old pagan neighborhood shrines and doing the same old things.

The rest of the history of Manasseh—his prayer to his God, and the sermons the prophets personally delivered by authority of God, the God of Israel—this is all written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. His prayer and how God was touched by his prayer, a list of all his sins and the things he did wrong, the actual places where he built the pagan shrines, the installation of the sex-goddess Asherah sites, and the idolatrous images that he worshiped previous to his conversion—this is all described in the records of the prophets.

When Manasseh died, they buried him in the palace garden. His son Amon was the next king.

[King Amon]

Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king. He was king for two years in Jerusalem. In God’s opinion he lived an evil life, just like his father Manasseh, but he never did repent to God as Manasseh repented. He just kept at it, going from one thing to another.

In the end Amon’s servants revolted and assassinated him—killed the king right in his own palace. The citizens in their turn then killed the king’s assassins. The citizens then crowned Josiah, Amon’s son, as king.

The Book of 2nd Chronicles, Chapter 33 (The Message)

my personal reading of the Scriptures for Tuesday, march 2 of 2021 with a paired chapter from each Testament of the Bible, along with Today’s Psalms and Proverbs

A set of posts by John Parsons that looks at the hope of our faith in Love:

“Faith is the foundation (i.e., ὑπόστασις: the "substance," reality, underlying essence, etc.) of our hope, the conviction of the unseen... Without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would draw near must believe that God exists and rewards (μισθαποδότης) those who seek him” (Heb. 11:1,6). Note that God is pleased when we seek his presence, that is, when we when we look past the ephemera and ambiguity of the phenomenal world for the truth about spiritual reality (2 Cor. 4:18). For our part, faith resolves to confession (ὁμολογέω), that is, aligning our perspective and focus to agree with the revelation and message of divine truth and verbally declaring our conviction. We must say that we believe and affirm it with all our heart (Rom. 10:9). As it says, "I will make Your faithfulness known with my mouth" (Psalm 89:2). When you encounter tribulation, or experience some crisis of faith, boldly reaffirm your hope: "I believe in God’s promise..." Physically expressing your faith is itself an act of faith, and this encourages your soul to trust in God’s healing reward even in the present struggle or darkness... [Hebrew for Christians]

3.1.21 • Facebook

It is written in our Scriptures: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God" (Phil. 4:6). Note that the verb translated "be anxious" here (i.e.,μεριμνάω) comes from a root word (μερίζω) that means to be fragmented or divided into parts and pieces. Being anxious is therefore the uneasy state of being distracted, unfocused and divided within yourself. When we worry we heed voices of fear and begin to feel 'double-minded,' (i.e., δίψυχος), unstable, and unable to think clearly; we get restless and find it difficult to deeply breathe. We start to feel out of control, fearful that something bad will happen despite all our efforts or wishes to the contrary; we sense doom; we lose heart; we go dark... The Scripture here admonishes us to pray when we are tempted us to be anxious by focusing on something for which we are grateful. Doing so will instill the "peace of God" (שלום יהוה) that rises above all worldly thinking to keep watch over your heart and your thoughts through Yeshua the Messiah (Phil. 4:7). We gain the "light of life," that is, inner illumination from God, so that we can remain steadfast and unmovable in our faith, despite the temptation to look for relief from our struggles apart from God. [Hebrew for Christians]

3.1.21 • Facebook

Today’s message from the Institute for Creation Research

March 2, 2021

The Unperfect Substance

“Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.” (Psalm 139:16)

This is an amazing verse, testifying as it does to the omniscient fore-planning of our Creator for each human being. Each person has been separately planned by God before he or she was ever conceived; His eyes oversaw our “unperfect [not imperfect, but unfinished] substance”—that is, literally, our embryo—throughout its entire development. Not only all its “members” but also all its “days” (the literal implication of “in continuance”) had been “written” in God’s book long ago.

While modern evolutionists argue that a “fetus” is not yet a real person and so may be casually aborted if the mother so chooses, both the Bible and science show that a growing child in the womb is a true human being. Instruments called fetoscopes have been able to trace every stage of embryonic development, showing that each is distinctively human, never passing through any non-human evolutionary stages such as the evolutionists’ theory of “recapitulation” would imply.

Not much is known about how a baby receives its soul, but the baby is surely an eternal human being from the moment of conception, with all its future days already well known in the mind of God, “when as yet there was none of them,” as our text points out.

But that is not all. All those who are saved (or, like the innocents who die before birth, “safe” in Christ) and whose names, therefore, are “written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8) are also predestined “to be conformed to the image of his Son” in the ages to come (Romans 8:29). HMM

[earlyandoftenpodcast]

(John Winthrop, an early governor of Massachusetts)

In this episode we look at the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, as well as its early struggles over the proper role of popular participation in government.

>>>Direct audio link<<<

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Transcript and Sources:

Hello, and welcome to Early and Often: The History of Elections in America. Episode 10: The Pig Who Invented Bicameralism.

Last time, we followed the Pilgrims as they established a small colony at Plymouth Bay in what is now Massachusetts in 1620. The Pilgrims proved quite disruptive to the fragile balance of power in the region, but even after 10 years Plymouth’s population was only about 300. But although Plymouth wasn’t too successful, its presence paved the way for bigger things.

In 1629, just a few years before the founding of Maryland, Puritans began streaming into Massachusetts, totally swamping everything and everyone that had been there before. Within a decade over 20,000 settlers would arrive. This was the real founding of New England, much as the real foundations for Virginia were only laid a decade after the settlement of Jamestown.

Back when the Separatists had left England for the Netherlands in the early 1600s, their rejection of the Anglican Church was very much a minority position. The Church of England hadn’t adopted too many Puritan ideas, but it was close enough to their beliefs, and it had taken a live-and-let-live attitude for the most part. There were plenty of Puritan ministers and Puritan sympathizers within the Church. But James I had proven less sympathetic to the Puritans than his predecessor Elizabeth had. And his son Charles I was even less sympathetic than his father. Charles, remember, was married to a French Catholic.

So throughout the 1620s and ‘30s the Church clamped down on dissent and more rigorously enforced Anglican orthodoxy. Puritan-sympathizing ministers were removed from their posts and Catholic-style practices were reintroduced. All of which goes a long way towards explaining why, during the English Civil War in the next decade, Puritans so resolutely sided with Parliament, and why when Parliament won, it was in large part a Puritan victory.

In the face of this official pressure, it was only natural that true believers might start considering immigration. The fringe beliefs of the Pilgrims started to seem more sensible to mainstream Puritans. And tens of thousands of Puritans did in fact pour out of England. Some went to the Netherlands, some went to the Caribbean or to Central America. Those migrations would be largely forgotten in time. But a large minority followed the Pilgrims to New England, where they managed to create for themselves an entire culture of their own that would last for centuries.

In the late 1620s a group of men, mostly prominent and wealthy Puritans or at least Puritan-sympathizers, began meeting to plan out a new colonization effort in New England. Things came together quickly, and in 1629 they secured approval from King Charles for the creation of the Massachusetts Bay Company, a joint stock company like in Virginia. Indeed, the document was modeled on one of the Virginia Company’s charters. This new company absorbed all the preexisting land claims in the region, with the exception of Plymouth Colony.

The Company’s charter gave them the right to create a government for their colony and to administer it as they saw fit. The inhabitants were to retain all the rights of Englishmen. The same sorts of things I mentioned for Virginia back in Episode 2. In principle, legally this was very similar to other past colonization efforts. But while the Company’s official goal was to turn a profit, for the most part religious concerns were the actual motivation. Although I’m sure they didn’t make that clear to the King, nor did they talk about just how independent they wanted to be from his control.

While the legal wrangling was going on, in 1628 they had sent John Endecott to New England to prepare the way for a larger colonization effort. Endecott would go on to become governor of Massachusetts for 16 years, but very little is known of his life before this period. Personality-wise, Endecott was typical of the Puritan leadership, zealous and uncompromising. He was certainly willing to persecute Indians and religious dissenters when called on to do so.

Endecott arrived at what was soon named Salem, Massachusetts, of later Salem witch trial fame. This was the site of a previous failed colony, but there were still a few settlers eking out a living. Endecott and the other new arrivals took over and began constructing buildings to prepare for the coming migration.

After Endecott had been there a few months, in April 1629 the main fleet set off for Massachusetts. There were five ships carrying maybe 300 passengers. This expedition was far better equipped and better prepared than any previous one to date. No doubt learning from past failures helped. At least they sent an advance party instead of just showing up and hoping for the best.

The Puritans who were traveling to Massachusetts resembled the Pilgrims in many ways. A very large majority were coming in family groups rather than as individuals. Even the servants who came, came as part of a household rather than being unattached. Forty percent were female, and according to David Hackett Fischer, “nearly half were children under sixteen.”

They were somewhat better off economically than the Pilgrims had been, and much better off than the average indentured servant in Virginia. The Puritan immigrants were generally what we’d call middle class. And basically no aristocrats went, so the top of the social hierarchy was missing as well. They were artisans and merchants, as well as farmers who owned their own land. But farmers were a minority. Instead, the migration was very disproportionately urban. They were unusually well-educated too. Two thirds of men were at least literate enough to sign their own names. And there was a large group of highly educated ministers as well.

So the Puritans were educated, egalitarian, middle-class, and hyper religious. And that was what New England would be, for a long time to come.

After an easy voyage, the Puritans arrived at Salem that summer and were met by Endecott. There were no moments of big drama like in Jamestown or Plymouth. They just got to work. Thanks to the healthy climate and adequate preparations, there was no big die off that first year. Everything went well, for once.

The success was encouraging. The next year an even larger fleet of eleven ships carrying a thousand passengers set sail. This fleet was led by John Winthrop, aged about 42, who would go on to be governor of Massachusetts for 12 years. He’s important, so let me give you some background.

John Winthrop was born in 1587, the son of a prosperous lawyer/landowner. As a young man, Winthrop followed his father to Cambridge University. By the time he was in his early 20s, he was becoming extremely devout and concerned for the state of his soul. He soon became a staunch Calvinist. He held various minor offices and basically behaved as someone with his status was expected to. He was by disposition inegalitarian. Social inequality was part of God’s will, after all. In his words, “in all times some must be rich some poore, some highe and eminent in power and dignitie; others meane and in [subjection].” Great men were to show mercy to their inferiors, and lesser men were to show obedience to their betters.

The laws of the state should be based on those found in the Bible, though with additions as needed. The common people were incapable of self-government. He didn’t believe in natural rights or liberty or anything like that. Rather, he instead believed that men submitted themselves to a divinely ordained central authority, and then that central authority could grant its subjects rights on a case by case basis. The authorities themselves shouldn’t have too many constraints on their power, other than their individual consciences and their devotion to God. This was a rather Hobbesian view, although he was writing decades before Thomas Hobbes penned Leviathan.

But Winthrop had more immediate concerns than political philosophy. He was facing financial problems, and Charles had just stopped calling Parliaments and was trying to rule on his own. The Puritan cause seemed weak. So Winthrop, disheartened both personally and politically, contacted the Massachusetts Bay Company and helped organize a fleet. Thanks to his status and his drive, he immediately became an important figure in the project, and was soon elected as the next governor of Massachusetts.

He also helped come up with a clever idea to secure greater Puritan control over the colony. It was proposed that, basically, the Puritans in Massachusetts buy out the investors in the Company who were in England and transfer the entire Company from London to America. That would transfer almost total control to the Puritans. This was questionable legally, and certainly against the intention of the colony’s charter. But they did it anyway. Now, with the Company nothing more than a legal formality, Massachusetts would have almost total independence, and almost no duties or obligations toward England. The Company was fast becoming just a government.

Winthrop’s fleet of eleven ships set sail in the summer of 1630. While at sea Winthrop gave the famous “City Upon A Hill Speech”, where he said that “The eies of all people are uppon us. Soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our God in this worke wee haue undertaken, and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. Wee shall open the mouthes of enemies to speake evill of the wayes of God, and all professors for God's sake.” In other words, Massachusetts was to be a model for right Christian living, and its failure would damage true Christianity the world over.

Winthrop arrived at Salem, but the Puritans found the town to be too small for their needs, so settlers spread out quickly along the coast, founding a number of new towns including Boston, which soon became the capital, thanks to its advantageous harbor. Two hundred colonists died that winter, though that was about the worst of it. Conditions improved rapidly and the Puritans set out building their new society.

As far as the economy goes, from an early date, the New England colonies were engaged in trades such as fishing and shipping. Shipyards were opened in the 1640s, and a small commercial culture began to grow as soon as the initial settlement phase was over. Boston in particular became relatively cosmopolitan.

But of course most New Englanders were still just farmers living in small towns scattered throughout the region. In the more northerly climate of New England, it was much harder to profitably grow cash crops like in the Chesapeake, so big plantations never emerged. Family farms were the norm, and these tended to be similar enough in size. In a typical town the largest farm might be no more than a few times bigger than the average one. There were no landowners who had orders of magnitude more than their neighbors. In fact, in some towns, plots of land were given out at random, with each family drawing lots.

Some families were wealthier than others, of course, but there were few poor and few rich. Indeed, the poor and to a lesser extent the aristocracy were actively discouraged from migrating. There were still ranks, but the top and bottom were closer than usual. Cities and ports were less egalitarian, but they were just a small part of New England’s social fabric.

Another important difference with the Chesapeake is that there was less fertile soil, and there were fewer navigable rivers. These factors encouraged the settlers to live in towns, rather than spread out across far-flung plantations. These small towns became the religious and political centers of New England life.

By far the most important building in any town was the church. Puritan churches, or “meetinghouses”, were tremendously ascetic, made of unpainted wood and entirely undecorated inside, other than a single, staring eye painted on the pulpit to remind them of God’s omnipresence. Each Sunday parishioners sat through two separate hours-long sermons, each analyzing some fragment of the Bible. They were a very, very grim people, paranoid about their spiritual health and about unnaturalness. According to Fischer, “90 percent of executions for witchcraft in British America occurred in the Puritan colonies.”

From the very first church in Salem onwards, the Puritans followed a Congregational model, where each community had an independent compact with God and was largely in charge of its own affairs. They hired their own ministers, and admitted new members themselves. (Just to clarify, people who weren’t members of their local church would have still attended church, they just weren’t official members, that’s all.) There was some overarching authority, of course, but nothing like you’d find in the Church of England. The government could call for synods to be held, meetings that would keep the various churches on the same track, but they were still all ultimately independent. They weren’t totally breaking away from Anglican authority, at least not officially, but they were coming pretty close.

Of course, not everyone in Massachusetts was a Puritan. But two thirds or more of the colonists were, and half of the remainder were servants of the Puritans anyway, so that was still the dominant way of thinking. And this overwhelming religiosity permeated the government as much as it did everything else.

There were distinctions between civil and religious authority. In fact, the separation between religious and civil officials was much greater than in England, where the positions often overlapped. In England, a minister might also have a role in town government, but not in New England. Puritans of course saw this as a return to the original church, before it had been corrupted by involvement in politics. But still, government officials saw it as their duty to enforce Puritan beliefs with the full force of the law. Religious dissenters were sometimes executed. Quakers, who were heretics in Puritan eyes, had their faces branded or their ears cut off.

And there were plenty of laws that may not have been religious per se, but were certainly grounded in a desire to enforce the community’s sense of upright behavior. The Puritans strictly regulated how people lived. Nobody was allowed to live on their own. Single men in their own houses were forced to move in with families. The profits of businessmen were curtailed and idleness was strictly punished. These weren’t all unusual. Other societies were opposed to excessive profits and idleness, but the Puritans were far more rigorous in their control. Punishments went all the way up to being burned alive, though hanging was more usual. Not for idleness, of course. For lesser crimes, public humiliation was common. But although these laws were strict, they didn’t need to be enforced all that frequently since lawbreaking was relatively uncommon. Life in Massachusetts wasn’t actually an endless parade of punishment or anything.

Interestingly, because of their strict reading of the Bible, marriage was seen as a civil matter rather than a religious one, and divorce was relatively easier than elsewhere at the time. So as you can see, the fact that the Puritans were so religious didn’t always mean that everything was subordinated to the church. There were separate sources of authority, even if those separate sources were still ultimately secondary to the will of God.

Despite the presence of elections, the goal of a Puritan government was not to follow the will of the people, or to ensure individual liberty. What “liberty” there was, was the liberty to be a proper Puritan. Popular participation in government was a means to an end, the establishment of a Godly regime. They didn’t consider themselves democratic, although they did believe that power in society came from the bottom up rather than the top down. But that bottom up power meant different things to different people. To Governor Winthrop, it meant that the people surrendered themselves to a rather absolute authority. To others, it meant genuine popular control. The fight between those two views was played out in the fight over the colony’s charter.

Massachusetts’s charter was a de facto constitution which detailed how the government was supposed to operate. Overall, it was somewhat similar to that in Virginia, at least structurally. There was to be a governor, a deputy governor, and 18 Assistants or magistrates, who had a somewhat similar role to the Councilors in Virginia, forming a sort of executive council. Unlike in the Chesapeake, all of these positions were to be filled by annual elections, with the freemen of the colony voting each spring, unlike the irregularly scheduled elections for just the Burgesses in Virginia.

Additionally, there was to be a General Court, which was the equivalent of the General Assembly. This was a unicameral body consisting of the Governor, Deputy Governor, Magistrates, and the freemen of the colony, or at least their representatives, although the exact nature of that representation was kept vague in the charter. The General Court was to meet four times a year and it had the power to pass laws and appoint men to various offices.

So like I said, this was similar enough to Virginia at the time. But of course the fact that all of these offices were all to be elected was a quite significant departure. However, the colony’s leaders weren’t always willing to adhere to the charter’s generous provisions.

In the colony’s first few years, things were simply too unsettled for the charter to be followed. Endecott, since he was the leader on site, served as governor, but there was no real formal structure beyond that. And the arrival of Winthrop upended things yet again.

Winthrop became governor, but his first term was irregular. He was appointed in England, rather than elected, and his term both began before it was supposed to begin, and ended after it was supposed to end. In other words, they were winging it. In fact, when Winthrop got to Massachusetts, the earliest meetings of the government were simply held under a tree.

But although things in the colony soon settled down and moved indoors, that didn’t mean that the charter was now going to be followed. None of these earliest officials were elected, and frankly Governor Winthrop would have been happy to keep it that way. Democracy was, in the words of Winthrop, “the meanest and worst of all formes of Government”, and more importantly democracy lacked Biblical sanction, unlike monarchy. He sure didn’t believe in representative government and so he tried to limit the representative nature of government as much as possible. In his mind, and in the minds of many leaders of the colony, at most elections were there for the leaders merely to affirm their positions. Representation existed to justify a de facto oligarchy. Elections weren’t supposed to be a real outlet for popular opinion or anything like that. At least, that was the idea according to some.

Now, the charter called for a General Court to be held four times a year to represent the freemen. But “freemen” was, as always, a vague term, especially in a colony with so few servants. So the very earliest General Courts that first year in 1630 were, I think, just meetings of whichever colonists showed up. Obviously this would not do.

So in 1631 Governor Winthrop decided that “noe man shalbe admitted to the freedom of this body polliticke, but such as are members of some of the churches within the limitts of the same." Political participation was being limited to men who were members of their local church. In other words, to just the Puritans of the colony, since they were the ones setting up the churches. This religious test was in quite flagrant violation of the rights that had been given to all freemen, but who was going to stop it?

Also contrary to the charter was the decision to cut meetings of the General Court from four times a year down to one. Many of the eighteen Magistrate positions were left vacant. They also ended the direct elections of the governor and deputy governor. Instead, the Magistrates were to pick governors from among themselves. And the ability to create laws was taken away from the General Court and given to just the governor and his Magistrates. Winthrop raised taxes without popular consent, which of course raised fears of Stuart despotism. The Governor and his allies were moving hard and fast against elections, and breaking the law to do so. If he’d had his way, elections would have had no real connection to any actual power.

However, all of these arbitrary and illegal limits on popular government got pushback from the colonists and even from the deputy governor, and so many of Winthrop’s changes had to be rolled back within a few years. The direct elections of governor and deputy governor were restored in 1632, though not completely. Voters were still limited to choosing men who had also been elected as Magistrates. And lawmaking was returned to the General Court, which was additionally given the exclusive power to raise taxes, as with any good English legislature. Two years later the General Assembly was again called to meet four times a year.

In this modified system, the freemen of each town were to send two or three men to meet in three General Courts a year, while the freemen themselves would all meet together for the fourth General Court, to vote for the Governor and Magistrates.

So some, but not all, of the changes were successfully reversed. Most importantly, the restriction of voting rights to church members was kept in place. Although most colonists were Puritans, that didn’t mean that they were all formally members of their local church, since gaining membership was an arduous process involving lengthy interviews where you had to prove your religious sincerity. And of those who were church members, not all bothered to formally become freemen, either, since that could mean more work with little benefit. But maybe half of all adult men were freemen in those first few decades, though estimates vary. Very high by the standards of the day at least. Plus towns often had looser requirements for voting than the Court did, which I’ll talk about in a few episodes.

Women could and did send petitions to the Court, but that was the extent of their formal participation.

Moving on to the elections themselves. Officials in the first few years of Massachusetts history weren’t elected the way officials are today, with voters showing up to the precinct nearest them to cast their ballots, which are then all counted up. Instead, voters had to actually be in Boston on election day to cast their votes. This was called the Court of Election. Of course this system meant that the well-to-do and those who lived in Boston had an advantage over everyone else, thanks to their simple ability to show up. So this system was modified quickly, in 1634. Now, the men of a town could write their votes on paper ballots and send a deputy to Boston to deliver their votes to be counted. If no candidate received a majority, the election was decided by the General Court. This was a practice distinctive to the region. England and the other American colonies all still voted by voice or by show of hands.

Although voting was now done with ballots, this system was still, at best, semi-anonymous. Certainly anonymity wasn’t a goal anyone had in mind at the time. You didn’t have to sign your name on your ballot generally, but you still would have had to hand it in, visible for all to see. There were no special precautions for privacy yet.

Actually, for a few decades people voted for the magistrates not with a paper ballot but with kernels of corn. If you wished to approve of someone’s nomination as a magistrate, you would drop a white kernel of corn in a hat. If you disapproved, you would drop in a black kernel. The deputy from your town would then take the corn to Boston to be counted, avoiding as many birds as possible I assume.

But as Massachusetts grew, so did the number of deputies, until even this system proved unwieldy. There were multiple attempts to cut back on the number of deputies, but the towns would have none of it. It seems to me like it would have been simpler to just tabulate the votes in each town and send those totals to Boston instead of this more elaborate procedure, but perhaps there were concerns about fraud. Or perhaps it was just traditional and no one thought to change it. But in any case, similar systems of paper ballots (and corn) would be adopted by several other of the New England Colonies.

Elections in Massachusetts began at 8 AM with a no-doubt rousing election day sermon. Soon election day in the towns became a festive holiday, with the serving of “election cakes” and “election beer”, a tradition sadly forgotten today. I actually found a recipe for election cake, though it’s from over a century later and may have been different from what was served in these first few decades. The recipe, for one extremely large fruitcake, reads as follows:

“Thirty quarts flour, ten pounds butter, fourteen pounds sugar, twelve pounds raisins, three dozen eggs, one pint wine, one quart brandy, four ounces cinnamon, four ounces fine colander seed, three ounces ground alspice; wet the flour with the milk to the consistency of bread over night, adding one quart yeast, the next morning work the butter and sugar together for half an hour, which will render the cake much lighter and whiter; when it has risen light, work in every other ingredient except the plumbs, which [you] work in when going into the oven.”

Sounds like quite a production! You can find modernized recipes for smaller election cakes online if you just Google “election cake”. Let me know if you make one.

Given all the effort that went into them, it's clear that New Englanders cared a great deal about elections. Remember, they did all that each and every year. It wasn’t just for show. There were in fact some contested elections and changes in power. For instance, after Governor Winthrop’s attempts to limit popular participation were rebuffed he lost the next election to one of his rivals and was out of power for a few years, though he’d be back.

But elections were still much less partisan than today, and the turnover of officials wasn’t that rapid either, apart from the first decade. Officials were more likely to step down of their own accord than to lose reelection. I mean, the governorship was held by a rotating group of just four men for 41 of the next 43 years. So stability was pretty high.

There’s one other early political development to discuss: the division of the General Court into an upper and lower house. In Virginia and Maryland, the split was due to the division between the unelected Councilors and the elected representatives. In Massachusetts both the Deputies and the Magistrates were elected, but there was still a split. The Delegates were more in tune with popular opinion while the Magistrates were a bit more elite.

It didn’t take long for the two groups to become irrevocably at odds, and it was all thanks to a completely minor disagreement over a single pig. More specifically, a lawsuit over a sow. In 1636 there was a stray pig wandering around Boston. No one else claimed it, so it was taken by

Robert Keayne, a wealthy moneylender. When a year went by and still no one had claimed the sow, Keayne had it slaughtered. But after the pig was dead, a lawsuit was brought against Keayne by Goodwife Sherman on behalf of her husband, who was in England at the time. Sherman claimed that they had lost a pig of their own and that it was the same one which Keayne had unjustly taken and killed.

The evidence was apparently against her, and she lost her suit. However, popular sympathy was with Sherman, since she was from a poorer, but well known and well liked family, while Keayne was rich and unpopular. Keayne brought a countersuit for defamation which went before the General Court, which at this time also sometimes acted like a real court, not just a legislature.

The case split the Court in two. Most Magistrates found for Keayne, but most Deputies found for Sherman. There were more Deputies than Magistrates so Sherman got the most support, but unfortunately for her, just getting a majority was insufficient. You also had to get the approval of the Magistrates specifically, since they could on their own block any action from the Delegates, just like how in Virginia the Council could veto laws passed by the Burgesses. This Negative Vote, as it was called, was a way for the Magistrates to keep the Deputies in check. It gave the elite a way to negate popular power. This led to a quite acrimonious dispute between the Deputies and the Magistrates, over whether this Negative Vote should be kept. This was basically a continuation of the disagreement between Winthrop and the Deputies over the powers of the legislature, with the Deputies still pushing to increase their own power.

Relations between the two factions got pretty acrimonious and in 1644 the dispute was finally resolved by dividing the General Court into an upper and lower house, both of which had to approve all legislation. Now, both the Magistrates and the Deputies could block laws. This was right about at the same time as when Governor Berkeley probably split the General Assembly, and just six years before Maryland’s Assembly became bicameral.

But the running dispute between the Deputies and the Magistrates continued, over various constitutional issues like who should be in charge when the General Court was out of session.

And there were further attempts to place some officials beyond the reach of elections altogether. For instance, some of the Magistrates tried to form a new body where a few of them could just serve for life, but that attempt was blocked. Winthrop even tried to block the Court from writing a law code, since he thought that would impinge upon the freedom of the magistrates to do as they wished. He argued that there was no need for a law code, since the magistrates’ oath of office pledging to protect the well-being of the state was sufficient to keep them from behaving tyrannically, even without any formal limits on their power. That argument was rejected, but the disputes were such that it took some 15 years for a satisfactory law code to be passed.

But eventually things settled down after both sides had reached a compromise position. In essence, elections remained the ultimate source of authority, but the governor and magistrates remained powerful in their own right. And voting was still limited to church members. The colony’s charter wasn’t being precisely followed, but neither had it been thrown out completely.

As its form of government was being worked out, Massachusetts was developing in other ways. During the 1630s some 200 ships carrying some 20,000 colonists came to New England. By 1647 there were 33 different towns in Massachusetts.

Laws were passed in the New England colonies mandating that all children be taught to read. According to Fischer, another law “compelled every town of fifty families to hire a schoolmaster, and every town of one hundred families to keep a grammar school which offered instruction in Latin and Greek”. And children in Massachusetts got twice as much schooling as those in Virginia. This was mostly to teach kids the Bible, but of course literacy has many other benefits.

Harvard University was established in 1636, while the first college in Virginia, William and Mary, would only be founded in 1693. Now, Harvard at the time wasn’t a prestigious and world renowned university like it is today. It was mainly just a school for the training of ministers, but the difference is still striking. And the first printing press in New England was set up in 1638, a full 90 years before the first one in Virginia.

Perhaps partly because of this focus on education, the Puritans proved to be financially successful. The colonies wasn’t profitable in the way that the plantations of the Caribbean were, but the colonists themselves were able to live quite well by the standards of the day. The Puritan migrants had been middle class in England and they remained middle class in New England.

They were allowed to do all this, to build their own quite distinct society, without any real interference from the Crown. Which may seem surprising, given Charles’s obvious hostility to the Puritans. Why did he let this happen? After all, it’s not like Massachusetts was totally cut off. People went back and forth and word certainly got out about what kind of society the Puritans were building, and how hostile it was to the English establishment. I mean, they acknowledged the King’s authority only grudgingly and their churches had completely broken away from the Anglican bishops. Well, there were concerns raised, but there was only so much that could be done. Remember, this is the decade when King Charles was ruling without Parliament, so he was busy just keeping everything together in England, and by the end of the decade he was sucked into a war in Scotland. And of course after that, the English Civil War hit, and no one at all in England cared about the colonies. And in any case, the Puritans were less of a threat over there than at home. So despite various worries, New England was mostly left to do its own thing, at least for the time being.

Next episode, we’ll talk about the other colonies of New England, Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, and how they built upon the Massachusetts way of doing things while making significant innovations of their own. So join me next time on Early and Often: The History of Elections in America.

If you like the podcast, please rate it on iTunes. You can also keep track of Early and Often on Twitter, at earlyoftenpod, or read transcripts of every episode at the blog, at earlyandoftenpodcast.wordpress.com. Thanks for listening.

Sources:

The Colonial Period of American History Volume I by Charles M. Andrews

History of Elections in the American Colonies by Cortlandt F. Bishop

Puritanism: A Very Short Introduction by Francis J. Bremer

The Charter of Massachusetts Bay

Saints and Strangers: New England in British North America by Joseph A. Conforti

Albion’s Seed by David Hackett Fischer

The Political Thought of John Winthrop by Stanley Gray

A Reforming People: Puritanism and the Transformation of Public Life in New England by David D. Hall

A History Of Election Cake And Why Bakers Want To #MakeAmericaCakeAgain

The Reformation by Diarmaid MacCulloch

'Election Cake' Makes a Modern Day Resurgence by Keia Mastrianni

Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick

A Model of Christian Charity by John Winthrop