heraldry wrongitude

Spotted on a sign near Castle Combe, Wiltshire:

The shield above depicts the arms of Scrope; its blazon is Azure, a bend Or.

Every heraldry geek knows that the arms of Scrope are azure a bend or (not "argent a bend" - a bend what? besides you don't get metal on metal). You would have thought it would not be beyond the wit of sign-writers to obtain a decent proof-reader...

The reason that every heraldry geek knows this is that there was a dispute between Scrope and other families (Carminow and Grosvenor) over who had the right to use azure a bend or.

the old woman and the antlered man

Medieval literature contains copious reference to a custom on New Year's Day, in obedience to which men disguised in deerskins or as old women took part in riotous dances and processions. Though the performers were Christians, the rite was clearly borrowed from heathendom.... It was called cervulos facere, and incurred the bitterest hostility from official quarters in the Early Church. From the fourth to the eleventh century bishops and saints in Gaul, Germany, Spain, and Italy denounced it in monotonous unison from cathedral and pulpit ; it was even definitively banned by the Council of Auxerre at the end of the sixth century, though without effect. In England its observation was less general, or else ecclesiastical tutelage was more indulgent, for the fulminations are much scarcer. Yet it existed, and was proscribed anew under the Christian kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons by the Liber Poenitentialis of Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury from 669-670 and a celebrated disciplinarian. The book, which may be in part later than Theodore, yet exercised a great influence from the eighth to the twelfth centuries, prescribed three years' penance for the sin:-

" Si quis in Calendis Januariis in cervulo aut vetula vadit, id est, in ferarum habitus se tommutant et vestiuntur pellibus pecudum et assurnit capita bestiarum ; qui vero taliter in ferinas species se transformat, III annos poeniteat, quia hoc demoniacum est." Lib. Poen, Thorpe, xxvii, 25.

The original significance of the custom it is hardly the purpose of the present note to examine. De Gubernatis (Zoology and Mythology, p. 88) explains the old woman, the second form of disguise, as representing a sort of winter-witch. It is worth observing that St. Augustine also mentions a third disguise, viz., as a goat :-
"indui ferino habitu et capreac aut cervo similem fieri," (Op. Migne, vol. v, col. 2003, ad Cal. Jan.).

"The Running of the Deer"
Richard D. Barnett
Folklore, Vol. 40, No. 4. (Dec. 31, 1929), pp. 393-394.

Mumming 2008

On the last day of Saturnalia (aka Christmas Eve) we went mumming as usual in Lacock. N was Bold Slasher and I was Dick the Horse. N has been playing Bold Slasher for 2 years now (he used to be Beelzebub). The Ragged Heroes Mummers have been going for over 25 years to mum in Lacock on Christmas Eve, but some people in Lacock are still confusing us with the Marshfield Mummers (be sure to view the video from 1967), who appear on Boxing Day in Marshfield. Their style of performance is different to ours, their play is different, and their costumes are different.

Mumming is a wonderful folk custom, but for me the most magical bit is the torchlit procession across the bridge over the River Avon. There's something deeply primal about fire in the darkness.

I also enjoyed scaring lots of girly girls (who screamed not once but three times) with the horse's skull. Well, it is green (due to having been cleaned in acid that had been used for acid-etching copper).

Whether or not it is really about the death and rebirth of the sun at the solstice, mumming is powerful and dramatic. There is definitely something archetypal about it.

• Mumming 2008 photos
• Mumming 2007 photos
• Mumming 2006 photos
• Mumming 2005 photos

weird dream

This morning I dreamt that I was in a part of South America that was formerly colonised by Greeks (I knew this because there was Greek writing on the buildings) with a bunch of Pagans, and we were adding a small trilithon-like entrance to an ancient burial mound, which had also been augmented by the symbols of other religions on stones around the perimeter wall.

Probably my subconscious's reinterpretation of some difficulties with local interfaith events.

Obviously this all took place in some alternate reality where a part of South America had been colonised by Greeks in the 19th century and its pre-colonial inhabitants built burial mounds that look roughly like European ones.

artificial languages, artificial religions

A post over at Evn's place got commenters thinking about fictional religions. My favourite fictional SF religion is the earth-based one depicted in Always Coming Home by Ursula Le Guin. My second and third favourites also appear in her books (The Telling and short stories about the people of Ki'o). I also rather like the religion of Minbar in Babylon 5.

And then there was a post over at Bo's place about artificial languages, specifically Brithenig, which reminded me that there is even a Language Construction Kit.

It's probably fun to construct both fictional languages and fictional religions (and there is a similarity between language and religion) because it helps us to think about how they are structured, what makes a good or bad language or religion, and whether other species would have anything that we could recognise as religion, and how they would communicate (maybe using pheromones, like the aliens in Liz Williams' Empire of Bones).

leave them kids alone...

This child should be given a medal, not a detention:

Well done that child — good to see someone is still awake and thinking! 

I once told my English teacher that he had mis-spelled murmur (as "murmer"), and he accepted the correction (he was a bit embarrassed but he checked in the dictionary).

kinky SF

Chas Clifton: Kink on other planets reports on a blog-post of ten of the kinkiest SF/F novels ever.  According to the commenters, several are missing.  (Well, I suppose it's not claiming to be a definitive list.)  I noticed that the kinks were somewhat skewed towards BDSM (as opposed to plain old SM).  There's nothing wrong with a bit of that sort of thing as long as it stops at the front door (I usually say the bedroom door but that would preclude use of the stairs).

There was quite an interesting kinky scene (BDSM and drugs) in The Poison Master by Liz Williams, plus an entire planet given to restrictive clothing and poisoning each other, possibly because the planet represented the Sephiroth of Geburah on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.

I can't think of any other kinky bits in SF novels.

I had a dream once in which I was having it away with an alien, which was quite strange — it was two-tone purple and green.

installing software

Why, when software is being downloaded and installed, can't the installation program ask you all the necessary questions at the start of the process, so you can walk away and leave the computer while it's installing?

Result!

Just heard yesterday that I got a distinction for my MA in Contemporary Religions and Spiritualities from Bath Spa University.

72% for the dissertation and 70.7% overall. Yay!

I am the enemy you killed, my friend

This year I want to think of the many different types of people who contributed to stemming the tide of imperialism and Nazism. And also, let's not forget those who refused to take part in war, which is a very brave decision also.

Black veterans, Asian veterans, LGBT veterans, the poets and writers and artists, medical personnel, conscientious objectors, Bevan Boys, Land Girls, Lumber Jills, the Little Ships that went to Dunkirk, and other groups who get forgotten in the general remembrance. And what about those who fought on the other side, whose memorials just say they lost their lives, not that they laid down their lives for their country.

When so many have been slaughtered,
Let us mourn with tears of sorrow,
And treat victory like a funeral.
~ Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, 31

What about all the refugees and civilian casualties? What about all those who were shot for desertion, or died of disease, or from "friendly fire" or accidents? Did they lay down their lives for their country, or did their country lay down their lives without thought of the cost? Let us not treat victory as anything other than a funeral, because the fact that war ever came to seem like the only way to solve a conflict is a cause for mourning. Yes, we must resist oppression and persecution, but let us study peace-mongering ways to do it.

Strange Meeting ~ Wilfred Owen

It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.

Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,-
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

With a thousand pains that vision's face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
"Strange friend," I said, "here is no cause to mourn."
"None," said that other, "save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also, I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something had been left,
Which must die now I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled,
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress.
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery,
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels,
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.
I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now . . ."

word verification

Recently Google has been generating quasi-meaningful-sounding word verification - so far today I've had besserso (as in, "Ja, es ist besser so.") and vocurdst:

I vocurd
Thou vocurdst
He vocurdeth
We vocurden
You vocurden
They vocurden

(to vocurd: archaic English verb meaning to vocalise through emulsified substances associated with whey.)

And the latest gem is pologami - that's either "the art of folding small round mints with a hole in" or a love-in at a polo match...

Why ID cards suck

1. I carry a driving licence to prove that I am capable of driving; I carry a bank card to gain access to my bank account (which no-one else should have access to); I carry ID for my workplace because it is a secure building and I can't get in otherwise; I carry a passport to prove who I am at the border so I can get let back into my country of origin. These are all special resources or services to which limited access is required. I shouldn't have to carry an ID card to prove that I am allowed to live and move freely in my own country, where I was born. I don't want to live in a police state.
   
   
2. The underlying database is costly and time-consuming to build, and judging by other government IT projects and data-loss fiascos, will be easy to hack and easy to mislay data from. It's also the largest and most complicated government IT project yet.
   
   
3. ID cards won't help to catch terrorists or prevent terrorism. All the people involved in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade centre were carrying ID cards. There are other measures which would be far more effective.
   
   
4. ID cards will not prevent cases of mistaken identity; they are more likely to exacerbate the problem, because law enforcement officials will assume that the system is more robust, when it isn't.
   

Bill for ID cards rises by £50m

Hopefully this will now mean ID cards are dead in the water, but we must remain vigilant...

clipped from www.guardian.co.uk The costs of the national identity card project crept up by a further £50m yesterday as the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, announced that a small number of transport workers will be able to volunteer to get the cards next year before the official launch date. Despite this effort to reduce the costs of creating a national network of ID enrolment centres, the latest cost report for the scheme shows that the projected overall bill continues to creep up. The bill for issuing ID cards to all foreign nationals who are long-term resident in Britain, which began this month, has risen by £7m since March to £326m. The cost for British nationals has also crept up in the last six months by a further £45m to £4.7bn over the next 10 years. This figure does not include the costs to any other government department of using the ID cards to check identities.