1.
Mythology
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Mythology refers variously to the collected myths of a group of people or to the study of such myths. Myths are the people tell to explain nature, history. Myth is a feature of every culture, mythologizing continues, as shown in contemporary mythopoeia such as urban legends and the expansive fictional mythoi created by fantasy novels and comics. A cultures collective mythology helps convey belonging, shared and religious experiences, behavioral models, the study of myth began in ancient history. Rival classes of the Greek myths by Euhemerus, Plato and Sallustius were developed by the Neoplatonists, the nineteenth-century comparative mythology reinterpreted myth as a primitive and failed counterpart of science, a disease of language, or a misinterpretation of magical ritual. Recent approaches often view myths as manifestations of psychological, cultural, or societal truths, the term mythology predates the word myth by centuries. It first appeared in the fifteenth-century, borrowed from the Middle French term mythologie, the word mythology, comes from Middle French mythologie, from Late Latin mythologia, from Greek μυθολογία mythología from μῦθος mythos and -λογία -logia. The word mythología appears in Plato, but was used as a term for fiction or story-telling of any kind, combining mỹthos. From Lydgate until the seventeenth or eighteenth-century, mythology was similarly used to mean a moral, fable, from its earliest use in reference to a collection of traditional stories or beliefs, mythology implied the falsehood of the stories being described. It came to be applied by analogy with similar bodies of traditional stories among other cultures around the world. The Greek loanword mythos and Latinate mythus both appeared in English before the first example of myth in 1830, in present use, mythology usually refers to the collected myths of a group of people, but may also mean the study of such myths. For example, Greek mythology, Roman mythology and Hittite mythology all describe the body of myths retold among those cultures, dundes defined myth as a sacred narrative that explains how the world and humanity evolved into their present form. Lincoln defined myth as ideology in narrative form, scholars in other fields use the term myth in varied ways. In a broad sense, the word can refer to any traditional story, due to this pejorative sense, some scholars opted for the term mythos. Its use was similarly pejorative and now commonly refers to its Aristotelian sense as a plot point or to a collective mythology. The term is distinguished from didactic literature such as fables. Main characters in myths are usually gods, demigods or supernatural humans, however, many exceptions or combinations exist, as in the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid. Myths are often endorsed by rulers and priests and are linked to religion or spirituality
2.
Fairy
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A fairy is a type of mythical being or legendary creature in European folklore, a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural, or preternatural. According to Thomas Keightley, the word derives from the Latin fata. Other forms are the Italian fata, and the Provençal fada, in old French romance, fee was a woman skilled in magic, and who knew the power and virtue of words, of stones, and of herbs. Faierie became fairy, but with that now almost exclusively referring to one of the legendary people. The word fairy was used to represent an illusion, or enchantment, to the word faie was added the suffix -erie, used to express either a place where something is found or a trade or typical activity engaged in. In later usage it applied to any kind of quality or activity associated with a particular type of person. In the sense land where fairies dwell, the distinctive and archaic spellings Faery, the latinate fay is not to be confused with the unrelated fey, meaning fated to die. Various folkloristic traditions refer to them euphemistically, by such as wee folk, good folk, people of peace, fair folk. Sometimes the term fairy is used to any magical creature, including goblins or gnomes, at other times. Fairies have their origin in the conflation of Celtic traditions in the Middle French medieval romances. Fairie was in origin used adjectivally, meaning enchanted, but was used as a name for enchanted creatures from as early as the Late Middle English period. In English literature of the Elizabethan era, elves became conflated with the fairies of Romance culture, the Victorian and Edwardian eras saw an increase in interest in fairies. The Celtic Revival viewed them as part of Irelands cultural heritage, carole Silvers and others suggest that the fascination of English antiquarians arose from a reaction to greater industrialization, and loss of folkways. Fairies are generally described as human in appearance and having magical powers, even with these small fairies, however, their small size may be magically assumed rather than constant. Some fairies though normally quite small were able to dilate their figures to imitate humans, on Orkney they were described as short in stature, dressed in dark grey, and sometimes seen in armour. Wings, while common in Victorian and later artwork of fairies, are rare in the folklore, even very small fairies flew with magic. Nowadays, fairies are depicted with ordinary insect wings or butterfly wings. In some folklore, fairies have green eyes, some depictions of fairies either have them wearing some sort of footwear and other depictions of fairies are always barefoot
3.
Goblin
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A goblin is a monstrous creature from European folklore, first attested in stories from the Middle Ages. They are ascribed various and conflicting abilities, temperaments and appearances depending on the story and country of origin and they are almost always small and grotesque, mischievous or outright evil, and greedy, especially for gold and jewelry. They often have magical abilities similar to a fairy or demon, similar creatures include brownies, dwarves, gnomes, imps, and kobolds. Alternative spellings include gobblin, gobeline, gobling, goblyn, and it may be related both to German kobold and to Medieval Latin cabalus, or *gobalus, itself from Greek κόβαλος, rogue, knave, imp, goblin. Moreover, these names are not from Normandy, where the word gobelin. German Kobold contains the Germanic root kov- which means originally a hollow in the earth, the word is probably related to Dial. Norman gobe hollow in a cliff, with simple suffix -lin or double suffixation -el-in The Welsh coblyn, a Pukwudgie is a type of Goblin from Wamponoag folklore as well as Cryptozoology A Redcap is a type of Goblin who dyes its hat in Human Blood in Anglo-Scottish border folklore. Kallikantzaros are Goblins from Southeastern European and Anatolian folklore, hobgoblins are Friendly Trickster Goblins from English, Scottish, and Pilgrim folklore and literature. The Benevolent Goblin, from Gesta Romanorum The Erlking is a malevolent goblin from German legend, the Goblin Pony, from The Grey Fairy Book The Goblins at the Bath House, from A Book of Ghosts and Goblins The Goblins Turned to Stone. King Gobb Mill Goblins appear in Norwegian folklore, Goblins are featured in the Hans Christian Andersen Fairy tales, The Elf Mound, The Goblin and the Grocer, and The Goblin and the Woman. Many Asian lagyt creatures have been likened to, or translated as and they are especially important mythical creatures in Korean folklore. They usually appear in childrens books, in Bangladesh, Santal people belief in Gudrobonga which is very similar to goblins. The Gap of Goeblin, a hole and underground tunnel in Mortain, cow is an old Scots word for Goblin, while cad means nasty. Dens and lairs refers to goblin homes, the Goblins, a comedy play by Sir John Suckling The Goblins Who Stole A Sexton is a short story by Charles Dickens where goblins torment a gravedigger for being cruel on Christmas. Goblin Market, a poem by Christina Rossetti The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald depicts the Goblins as grotesque humanoids, vulnerable to sunlight, song, and pressure on their feet. Davy and the Goblin by Charles E. Carryl J. R. R. Tolkien generally used the terms goblin and orc synonymously in The Hobbit and these works, featuring goblins of almost-human stature, generally informed the depiction of goblins in later fiction and games. Thompson adds that, in The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien has abandoned all pretence at depicting goblins in a comic light, Goblins are also present as the first tier creature in the Orc faction in Heroes of Might and Magic V, Tribes of the East. Goblins are recurring enemies in the Final Fantasy franchise, where they usually appear near the beginning of each game
4.
Folklore
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Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. These include oral traditions such as tales, proverbs and jokes and they include material culture, ranging from traditional building styles to handmade toys common to the group. Folklore also includes customary lore, the forms and rituals of celebrations like Christmas and weddings, folk dances, each one of these, either singly or in combination, is considered a folklore artifact. Just as essential as the form, folklore also encompasses the transmission of these artifacts from one region to another or from one generation to the next, for folklore is not taught in a formal school curriculum or studied in the fine arts. Instead these traditions are passed along informally from one individual to another either through verbal instruction or demonstration, the academic study of folklore is called folkloristics. To fully understand folklore, it is helpful to clarify its component parts and it is well-documented that the term was coined in 1846 by the Englishman William Thoms. He fabricated it to replace the contemporary terminology of popular antiquities or popular literature, the second half of the compound word, lore, proves easier to define as its meaning has stayed relatively stable over the last two centuries. Coming from Old English lār instruction, and with German and Dutch cognates, it is the knowledge and traditions of a particular group, the concept of folk proves somewhat more elusive. When Thoms first created this term, folk applied only to rural, frequently poor, a more modern definition of folk is a social group which includes two or more persons with common traits, who express their shared identity through distinctive traditions. Folk is a concept which can refer to a nation as in American folklore or to a single family. This expanded social definition of folk supports a view of the material, i. e. the lore. These now include all things people make with words, things they make with their hands, Folklore is no longer circumscribed as being chronologically old or obsolete. The folklorist studies the traditional artifacts of a group and how they are transmitted. Transmission is a part of the folklore process. Without communicating these beliefs and customs within the group over space and time, for folklore is also a verb. These folk artifacts continue to be passed along informally, as a rule anonymously, the folk group is not individualistic, it is community-based and nurtures its lore in community. As new groups emerge, new folklore is created… surfers, motorcyclists, in direct contrast to high culture, where any single work of a named artist is protected by copyright law, folklore is a function of shared identity within the social group. Having identified folk artifacts, the professional folklorist strives to understand the significance of these beliefs, customs, for these cultural units would not be passed along unless they had some continued relevance within the group
5.
Superstition
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The word superstition is generally used to refer to the religion not practiced by the majority of a given society regardless of whether the prevailing religion contains superstitions. In the classical era, the existence of gods was actively debated both among philosophers and theologians, and opposition to superstition arose consequently, the poem De rerum natura, written by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius further developed the opposition to superstition. Cicero’s work De natura deorum also had a influence on the development of the modern concept of superstition as well as the word itself. Where Cicero distinguished superstitio and religio, Lucretius used only the term religio, Cicero, for whom superstitio meant “excessive fear of the gods” wrote that “superstitio, non religio, tollenda est ”, which means that only superstition, and not religion, should be abolished. The Roman Empire also made laws condemning those who excited excessive religious fear in others, during the Middle Ages, the idea of God’s influence on the world’s events went mostly undisputed. Trials by ordeal were quite frequent, even though Frederick II was the first king who explicitly outlawed trials by ordeal as they were considered “irrational”, the rediscovery of lost classical works and scientific advancement led to a steadily increasing disbelief in religions. This led to studies of biblical exegesis, pioneered by Spinoza, opposition to superstition was central to the Age of Enlightenment. The word superstition is first used in English in the 15th century, the earliest known use as an English noun occurs in Friar Daws Reply, where the foure general synnes are enumerated as Cediciouns, supersticions, þe glotouns, & þe proude. The French word, together with its Romance cognates continues Latin superstitio, while the formation of the Latin word is clear, from the verb super-stare, to stand over, stand upon, survive, its original intended sense is less clear. The earliest known use as a Latin noun occurs in Plautus, Ennius and later by Pliny, Cicero derived the term from superstitiosi, lit. Those who are left over, i. e. survivors, descendants, while Cicero distinguishes between religio and superstitio, Lucretius uses only the term religio. Throughout all of his work, he distinguished between ratio and religio. The use of the noun by Cicero and Horace thus predates the first attestation of the verb and it doesnt exclude that the verb might have been created and used after the name. The term superstitio, or superstitio vana vain superstition, was applied in the 1st century to those religious cults in the Roman Empire which were officially outlawed. This concerned the religion of the druids in particular, which was described as a superstitio vana by Tacitus, such fear of the gods was what the Romans meant by superstition. Diderots Encyclopédie defines superstition as any excess of religion in general, the Catechism is a defense against the accusation that Catholic doctrine is superstitious, Superstition is a deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, to attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand is to fall into superstition. Cf. Matthew 23, 16–22 As discussed above, there is distinction between superstition and religion
6.
Old English
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Old English or Anglo-Saxon is the earliest historical form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers probably in the mid 5th century, Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic dialects originally spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. As the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in England, their language replaced the languages of Roman Britain, Common Brittonic, a Celtic language, Old English had four main dialects, associated with particular Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish and West Saxon. It was West Saxon that formed the basis for the standard of the later Old English period, although the dominant forms of Middle. The speech of eastern and northern parts of England was subject to strong Old Norse influence due to Scandinavian rule, Old English is one of the West Germanic languages, and its closest relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon. Like other old Germanic languages, it is different from Modern English. Old English grammar is similar to that of modern German, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs have many inflectional endings and forms. The oldest Old English inscriptions were using a runic system. Old English was not static, and its usage covered a period of 700 years, from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century to the late 11th century, some time after the Norman invasion. While indicating that the establishment of dates is a process, Albert Baugh dates Old English from 450 to 1150, a period of full inflections. Perhaps around 85 per cent of Old English words are no longer in use, Old English is a West Germanic language, developing out of Ingvaeonic dialects from the 5th century. It came to be spoken over most of the territory of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which became the Kingdom of England and this included most of present-day England, as well as part of what is now southeastern Scotland, which for several centuries belonged to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. Other parts of the island – Wales and most of Scotland – continued to use Celtic languages, Norse was also widely spoken in the parts of England which fell under Danish law. Anglo-Saxon literacy developed after Christianisation in the late 7th century, the oldest surviving text of Old English literature is Cædmons Hymn, composed between 658 and 680. There is a corpus of runic inscriptions from the 5th to 7th centuries. The Old English Latin alphabet was introduced around the 9th century, with the unification of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms by Alfred the Great in the later 9th century, the language of government and literature became standardised around the West Saxon dialect. In Old English, typical of the development of literature, poetry arose before prose, a later literary standard, dating from the later 10th century, arose under the influence of Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester, and was followed by such writers as the prolific Ælfric of Eynsham. This form of the language is known as the Winchester standard and it is considered to represent the classical form of Old English
7.
Grafting
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Grafting or graftage is a horticultural technique whereby tissues of plants are joined so as to continue their growth together. The upper part of the plant is called the scion while the lower part is called the rootstock. The success of this requires that the vascular tissue grow together. The technique is most commonly used in propagation of commercially grown plants for the horticultural and agricultural trades. In most cases, one plant is selected for its roots, the other plant is selected for its stems, leaves, flowers, or fruits and is called the scion or cion. The scion contains the genes to be duplicated in future production by the stock/scion plant. In stem grafting, a common grafting method, a shoot of a selected, desired plant cultivar is grafted onto the stock of another type. For successful grafting to take place, the vascular tissues of the stock. Both tissues must be alive until the graft has taken. Successful grafting only requires that a vascular connection take place between the grafted tissues, joints formed by grafting are not as strong as naturally formed joints, so a physical weak point often still occurs at the graft because only the newly formed tissues inosculate with each other. The existing structural tissue of the plant does not fuse. Precocity, The ability to induce fruitfulness without the need for completing the juvenile phase, juvenility is the natural state through which a seedling plant must pass before it can become reproductive. In most fruiting trees, juvenility may last between 5 and 9 years, but in tropical fruits e. g. Mangosteen. Grafting of mature scions onto rootstocks can result in fruiting in as little as two years, dwarfing, To induce dwarfing or cold tolerance or other characteristics to the scion. Most apple trees in modern orchards are grafted on to dwarf or semi-dwarf trees planted at high density and they provide more fruit per unit of land, higher quality fruit, and reduce the danger of accidents by harvest crews working on ladders. Care must be taken when planting dwarf or semi-dwarf trees, if such a tree is planted with the graft below the soil, then the scion portion can also grow roots and the tree will still grow to its standard size. Ease of propagation, Because the scion is difficult to propagate vegetatively by other means, in this case, cuttings of an easily rooted plant are used to provide a rootstock. In some cases, the scion may be easily propagated, hybrid breeding, To speed maturity of hybrids in fruit tree breeding programs
8.
Familiar spirit
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When they served witches, they were often thought to be malevolent, while when working for cunning folk they were often thought of as benevolent. The former were often categorised as demons, while the latter were more commonly thought of, the main purpose of familiars is to serve the witch or young witch, providing protection for them as they come into their new powers. These contemporary practitioners utilize pets, wildlife or believe that invisible spirit versions of familiars act as magical aids, pierre A. Riffard proposed this definition and quotations A familiar spirit is the double, the alter-ego, of an individual. It does not look like the individual concerned, even though it may have an independent life of its own, it remains closely linked to the individual. The familiar spirit can be an animal, the French poet Charles Baudelaire, a cat fancier, believed in familiar spirits. It is the spirit of the place, It judges, presides, inspires Everything in its empire. While this is occurring, the man himself is in a state of receptivity, in modern phraseology, his familiar spirit would be the control. According to Sternberg the Goldi explain the relations between the shaman and his ayami by a complex sexual emotion, here is the report of a Goldi shaman. Once I was asleep on my sick-bed, when a spirit approached me and it was a very beautiful woman. Her figure was slight, she was no more than half an arshin tall. Her face and attire were quite as those of one of our Gold women… She said, I am the ayami of your ancestors, the Shamans. Now I am going to teach you… I love you, I have no husband now, you will be my husband, I shall give you assistant spirits. You are to heal with their aid, and I shall teach and help you myself… Sometimes she comes under the aspect of an old woman, Sometimes she comes as a winged tiger… She has given me three assistants-the jarga, the doonto and the amba. They come to me in my dreams, and appear whenever I summon them while shamaning, if one of them refuses to come, the ayami makes them obey, but, they say, there are some who do not obey even the ayami. When I am shamaning, the ayami and the assistant spirits are possessing me, whether big or small, they penetrate me, when the ayami is within me, it is she who speaks through my mouth, and she does everything herself. Among those accused witches and cunning-folk who described their familiar spirits, the historian Emma Wilby noted how the accounts of such familiars were striking for their ordinariness and naturalism, despite the fact that they were dealing with supernatural entities. Familiar spirits were most commonly small animals, such as cats, rats, dogs, ferrets, birds, frogs, toads, there were also cases of wasps and butterflies, as well as pigs, sheep, and horses. Familiar spirits were usually kept in pots or baskets lined with wool and fed a variety of things including, milk, bread, meat
The dictionary definition of imp at Wiktionary
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Imp". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "
