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
9.
Witchcraft
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Witchcraft broadly means the practice of, and belief in, magical skills and abilities that are able to be exercised by individuals and certain social groups. Witchcraft often occupies a religious, divinatory or medicinal role, and is present within societies. The concept of witchcraft and the belief in its existence have existed throughout recorded history and it posits a theosophical conflict between good and evil, where witchcraft was generally evil and often associated with the Devil and Devil worship. Christian views in the day are diverse and cover the gamut of views from intense belief and opposition to non-belief. From the mid-20th century, witchcraft – sometimes called contemporary witchcraft to clearly distinguish it from older beliefs – became the name of a branch of modern paganism and it is most notably practiced in the Wiccan and modern witchcraft traditions, and no longer practices in secrecy. The Western mainstream Christian view is far from the only societal perspective about witchcraft, Beliefs related to witchcraft and magic in these cultures were at times influenced by the prevailing Western concepts. Suspicion of modern medicine due to beliefs about illness being due to witchcraft also continues in countries to this day. HIV/AIDS and Ebola virus disease are two examples of infectious disease epidemics whose medical care and containment has been severely hampered by regional beliefs in witchcraft. Other severe medical conditions whose treatment is hampered in this way include tuberculosis, leprosy, epilepsy, the word witchcraft derives from the Old English wiccecræft, a compound of wicce and cræft. This definition was pioneered in a study of central African magical beliefs by E. E. Evans-Pritchard, European witchcraft is seen by historians and anthropologists as an ideology for explaining misfortune, however, this ideology has manifested in diverse ways, as described below. Some modern commentators believe the malefic nature of witchcraft is a Christian projection, many examples appear in early texts, such as those from ancient Egypt and Babylonia. Malicious magic users can become a cause for disease, sickness in animals, bad luck, sudden death, impotence. Witchcraft of a benign and socially acceptable sort may then be employed to turn the malevolence aside. The folk magic used to identify or protect against malicious magic users is often indistinguishable from that used by the witches themselves, there has also existed in popular belief the concept of white witches and white witchcraft, which is strictly benevolent. Many neopagan witches strongly identify with this concept, and profess ethical codes that prevent them from performing magic on a person without their request. Probably the most obvious characteristic of a witch was the ability to cast a spell, spell being the word used to signify the means employed to carry out a magical action. A spell could consist of a set of words, a formula or verse, or a ritual action, or any combination of these. Strictly speaking, necromancy is the practice of conjuring the spirits of the dead for divination or prophecy – although the term has also applied to raising the dead for other purposes
10.
Late Latin
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Late Latin is the scholarly name for the written Latin of Late Antiquity. The English dictionary definition of Late Latin dates this period from the 3rd to the 6th centuries AD and this somewhat ambiguously defined period fits between Classical Latin and Medieval Latin. Although there is no consensus about exactly when Classical Latin should end, nor exactly when Medieval Latin should begin. Being a written language, Late Latin is not identical with Vulgar Latin, the latter during those centuries served as proto-Romance, a reconstructed ancestor of the Romance languages. Although Late Latin reflects an upsurge of the use of Vulgar Latin vocabulary and constructs, it remains to a large extent classical in overall features, some are more literary and classical, some more inclined to the vernacular. Nor is Late Latin identical to Christian or patristic Latin, the writings of the early Christian fathers. While Christian writings are considered a subset of Late Latin, pagans wrote much Late Latin, serving as some sort of lingua franca to a large empire, Latin tended to become simpler, to keep above all what it had of the ordinary. Neither Late Latin nor Late Antiquity are modern terms or concepts, instances of English vernacular use of the term may also be found from the 18th century. The term Late Antiquity meaning post-classical and pre-medieval had currency in English well before then, Imperial Latin went on into English literature, Fowlers History of Roman Literature mentions it in 1903. There are, however, insoluble problems with the beginning and end of Imperial Latin, politically the excluded Augustan Period is the paradigm of imperiality, and yet the style cannot be bundled with either the Silver Age or with Late Latin. Moreover, in 6th century Italy, the Roman Empire no longer existed, subsequently the term Imperial Latin was dropped by historians of Latin literature, although it may be seen in marginal works. The Silver Age was extended a century and the four centuries represent Late Latin. Low Latin is a vague and often pejorative term that might refer to any post-classical Latin from Late Latin through Renaissance Latin depending on the author. Its origins are obscure but the Latin expression media et infima Latinitas sprang into public notice in 1678 in the title of a Glossary by Charles du Fresne, the multi-volume set had many editions and expansions by other authors subsequently. The title varies somewhat, most commonly used was Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis and it has been translated by expressions of widely different meanings. The uncertainty is understanding what media, middle, and infima, low, the media is securely connected to Medieval Latin by Canges own terminology expounded in the Praefatio, such as scriptores mediae aetatis, writers of the middle age. Canges Glossary takes words from authors ranging from the Christian period to the Renaissance, in the former case the infimae appears extraneous, it recognizes the corruptio of the corrupta Latinitas Cange said his Glossary covered. The two-period case postulates a second unity of style, infima Latinitas, Cange in the glossarial part of his Glossary identifies some words as being used by purioris Latinitatis scriptores, such as Cicero
11.
Salic law
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Salic law, or Salian Law, was the ancient Salian Frankish civil law code compiled around AD500 by the first Frankish King, Clovis. The best known tenet of the old law is the principle of exclusion of women from inheritance of thrones, fiefs, the Salic laws were arbitrated by a committee appointed and empowered by the King of the Franks. Dozens of manuscripts dating from the 6th to 8th centuries and three emendations as late as the 9th century have survived, Salic law provided written codification of both civil law, such as the statutes governing inheritance, and criminal law, such as the punishment for murder. The original edition of the code was commissioned by the first king of all the Franks, Clovis I, Salic Law therefore reflects ancient usages and practices. In order to more effectively, it was desirable that monarchs. The name of the code comes from the circumstance that Clovis was a Merovingian king ruling only the Salian Franks before his unification of Francia. The law must have applied to the Ripuarian Franks as well, however, containing only 65 titles, it may not have included any special Ripuarian laws. For the next 300 years the code was copied by hand and was amended as required to add newly enacted laws, revise laws that had been amended, and delete laws that had been repealed. More so than printing, hand copying is an act by an individual copyist with ideas. Each of the several dozen surviving manuscripts features a set of errors, corrections, content. The laws are called titles as each one has its own name, generally preceded by de, of, different sections of titles acquired individual names revealing something about their provenances. Some of these dozens of names have adopted for specific reference, often given the same designation as the overall work. The recension of Hendrik Kern organizes all of the manuscripts into five families according to similarity and relative chronological sequence, judged by content and dateable material in the text. Family I is the oldest, containing four manuscripts dated to the 8th and 9th centuries, in addition they feature the Malbergse Glossen, Malberg Glosses, marginal glosses stating the native court word for some Latin words. These are named from native malbergo, language of the court, kerns Family II, represented by two manuscripts, is the same as Family I, except it contains interpolations or numerous additions which point to a later period. Family III is split into two divisions, the first, comprising three manuscripts, dated to the 8th–9th centuries, presents an expanded text of 99 or 100 titles. The second, four manuscripts, not only drops the glosses, a statement gives the provenance, in the 13th year of the reign of our most glorious king of the Franks, Pipin. Some of the documents were composed after the reign of Pepin the Short, but it is considered to be an emendation initiated by Pepin
12.
Ancient Greek
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Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often divided into the Archaic period, Classical period. It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Hellenistic phase is known as Koine. Koine is regarded as a historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it closely resembled Attic Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects, Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical phases of the language, Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms, homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic, the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period and they have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The invasion would not be Dorian unless the invaders had some relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Often non-west is called East Greek, Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, and Northern Peloponnesus Doric. The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek and this dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek, by about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek
13.
Lincoln Imp
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The Lincoln Imp is a grotesque on a wall inside Lincoln Cathedral, England, and it has become the symbol of the city of Lincoln. A legend tells of it being a creature sent to the cathedral by Satan, according to a 14th-century legend, two mischievous creatures called imps were sent by Satan to do evil work on Earth. After causing mayhem in Northern England, the two headed to Lincoln Cathedral, where they smashed tables and chairs and tripped up the Bishop. When an angel came out of a book of hymns and told them to stop, one of the imps was brave and started throwing rocks at the angel, the angel turned the first imp to stone, giving the second imp a chance to escape. It is said even on still days it is always windy around the cathedral. There are many variations on Lincoln Imp legends, according to one popular legend, the imp which escaped fled north to Grimsby, where it soon began making trouble. It entered St. James Church and began repeating its behaviour from Lincoln Cathedral, the angel reappeared and gave the imps backside a good thrashing before turning it to stone as it had the first imp at Lincoln. The Grimsby Imp can still be seen in St James Church, another legend has the escaped imp turned to stone just outside the cathedral, and sharp-eyed visitors can spot it on a South outside wall. The Lincoln Imp is also the mascot of the boat club. The use of the figure is extremely widespread across both England and Scotland and it is hard to imagine that each image was aware of the Lincoln example. It must therefore be speculated that the form is a widespread image predating its use at Lincoln, in the 18th century it was a fairly popular door-knocker design. The critical features of the form are, cloven feet, one leg raised so the foot rests on the other knee, the Lincoln example is by far the best-known example, hence the normal term Lincoln Imp. Whilst most examples predate 1800 the term itself only seems to have become widespread at the end of the 19th century, Lincoln City Football Club are nicknamed The Imps. An image of the Lincoln Imp appears on their crest, the Lincoln Imp also lends its name to the Gibraltar club Lincoln Red Imps F. C. and Lincoln Hockey Club share the nickname and crest design of their footballing counterparts. The Lincoln Imp is the badge of No
14.
Lincoln, England
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Lincoln is a cathedral city and the county town of Lincolnshire, within the East Midlands of England. The non-metropolitan district of Lincoln has a 2012 population of 94,600, the 2011 census gave the entire urban area of Lincoln a population of 130,200. Lincoln developed from the Roman town of Lindum Colonia, which developed from an Iron Age settlement, Lincolns major landmarks are Lincoln Cathedral, a famous example of English Gothic architecture, and Lincoln Castle, an 11th-century Norman castle. The city is home to the University of Lincoln and Bishop Grosseteste University. See Lincoln City F. C. for Lincoln City Football Club, the earliest origins of Lincoln can be traced to the remains of an Iron Age settlement of round wooden dwellings that have been dated to the 1st century BC. This settlement was built by a pool in the River Witham at the foot of a large hill. The extent of original settlement is unknown as its remains are now buried deep beneath the later Roman and medieval ruins. The Celtic name Lindon was subsequently Latinised to Lindum and given the title Colonia when it was converted into a settlement for army veterans, the conversion to a colonia was made when the legion moved on to York in AD71. It became a flourishing settlement, accessible from the sea both through the River Trent and through the River Witham. Subsequently, however, the town and its waterways fell into decline, by the close of the 5th century the city was largely deserted, although some occupation continued under a Praefectus Civitatis, for Saint Paulinus visited a man of this office in Lincoln in AD629. During this period the Latin name Lindum Colonia was shortened in Old English to become first Lindocolina, after the first destructive Viking raids, the city once again rose to some importance, with overseas trading connections. After the establishment of the Danelaw in 886, Lincoln became one of the Five Boroughs in the East Midlands, excavations at Flaxengate reveal that this area, deserted since Roman times, received new timber-framed buildings fronting a new street system in about 900. Lincoln experienced an explosion in its economy with the settlement of the Danes. By 950, however, the banks of the Witham were newly developed with the Lower City being resettled and the suburb of Wigford quickly emerging as a major trading centre. In 1068, two years after the Norman conquest, William I ordered Lincoln Castle to be built on the site of the former Roman settlement, for the strategic reasons. The rebuilt Lincoln Minster, enlarged to the east at each rebuilding, was on a magnificent scale, its crossing tower crowned by a spire reputed to have been 525 ft high, the highest in Europe. When completed the central of the three spires is widely accepted to have succeeded the Great Pyramids of Egypt as the tallest man-made structure in the world, when Magna Carta was drawn up in 1215, one of the witnesses was Hugh of Wells, Bishop of Lincoln. One of only four surviving originals of the document is preserved in Lincoln Castle, theologian William de Montibus was the head of the cathedral school and chancellor until his death in 1213
15.
Immortality
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Immortality is eternal life, the ability to live forever. At least one species has potential biological immortality, Turritopsis dohrnii, other advocates believe that life extension is a more achievable goal in the short term, with immortality awaiting further research breakthroughs. The absence of aging would provide humans with biological immortality, but not invulnerability to death by physical trauma, whether the process of internal endoimmortality is delivered within the upcoming years depends chiefly on research in the former view and perhaps is an awaited goal in the latter case. In religious contexts, immortality is often stated to be one of the promises of God to human beings who show goodness or else follow divine law, Life extension technologies promise a path to complete rejuvenation. Cryonics holds out the hope that the dead can be revived in the future, while, as shown with creatures such as hydra and planarian worms, it is indeed possible for a creature to be biologically immortal, it is not known if it is possible for humans. Mind uploading is the transference of brain states from a brain to an alternative medium providing similar functionality. Assuming the process to be possible and repeatable, this would provide immortality to the computation of the original brain, the soul itself has different meanings and is not used in the same way in different religions and different denominations of a religion. For example, various branches of Christianity have disagreeing views on the souls immortality, physical immortality is a state of life that allows a person to avoid death and maintain conscious thought. It can mean the unending existence of a person from a source other than organic life. There are three causes of death, aging, disease and physical trauma. Such issues can be resolved with the provided in research to any end providing such alternate theories at present that require unification. Eliminating aging would require finding a solution to each of these causes, there is also a huge body of knowledge indicating that change is characterized by the loss of molecular fidelity. Disease is theoretically surmountable via technology, in short, it is an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism, something the body shouldnt typically have to deal with its natural make up. Human understanding of genetics is leading to cures and treatments for previously incurable diseases. The mechanisms by which other diseases do their damage are becoming better understood, sophisticated methods of detecting diseases early are being developed. Preventative medicine is becoming better understood, neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinsons and Alzheimers may soon be curable with the use of stem cells. Breakthroughs in cell biology and telomere research are leading to treatments for cancer, vaccines are being researched for AIDS and tuberculosis. Genes associated with type 1 diabetes and certain types of cancer have been discovered, artificial devices attached directly to the nervous system may restore sight to the blind
16.
Witch-hunt
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A witch-hunt is a search for people labelled witches or evidence of witchcraft, often involving moral panic or mass hysteria. Including illegal and summary executions estimate 200,000 or more witches were tortured, the last executions of people convicted as witches in Europe took place in the 18th century. The wide distribution of the practice of witch-hunts in geographically and culturally separated societies since the 1960s has triggered interest in the background of this behaviour. The belief in magic and divination, and attempts to use magic to influence personal well-being are human cultural universals, Belief in witchcraft has been shown to have similarities in societies throughout the world. It presents a framework to explain the occurrence of otherwise random misfortunes such as sickness or death, One study finds that witchcraft beliefs are associated with antisocial attitudes, lower levels of trust, charitable giving and group participation. Another study finds that income shocks lead to a increase in the murder of witches in Tanzania. Punishment for malevolent sorcery is addressed in the earliest law codes preserved, if the holy river overcome him and he is drowned, the man who put the spell upon him shall take possession of his house. If the holy river declares him innocent and he remains unharmed the man who laid the spell shall be put to death and he that plunged into the river shall take possession of the house of him who laid the spell upon him. In 451 BC, the Twelve Tables of Roman law had provisions against evil incantations, in 331 BC,170 women were executed as witches in the context of an epidemic illness. Livy emphasizes that this was a scale of persecution without precedent in Rome, in 186 BC, the Roman senate issued a decree severely restricting the Bacchanals, ecstatic rites celebrated in honor of Dionysus. Persecution of witches continued in the Roman Empire until the late 4th century AD, the Lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficiis promulgated by Lucius Cornelius Sulla in 81 B. C. became an important source of late medieval and early modern European law on witchcraft. This law banned the trading and possession of drugs and poisons, possession of magical books. In A. D.354, whilst Tiberius Claudius was emperor,45 men and 85 women, later the womens relatives took revenge by bringing false witnesses against Simeons son and causing him to be executed in turn. The 6th century AD Getica of Jordanes records a persecution and expulsion of witches among the Goths in an account of the origin of the Huns. The ancient fabled King Filimer is said to have found among his people certain witches, suspecting these women, he expelled them from the midst of his race and compelled them to wander in solitary exile afar from his army. The Councils of Elvira, Ancyra, and Trullo imposed certain ecclesiastical penances for devil-worship and this mild approach represented the view of the Church for many centuries. The Lombard code of 643 states, Let nobody presume to kill a foreign serving maid or female servant as a witch, for it is not possible, Other examples include an Irish synod in 800, and a sermon by Agobard of Lyons. King Kálmán of Hungary, in Decree 57 of his First Legislative Book, banned witch hunting because he said, the Decretum of Burchard, Bishop of Worms, and especially its 19th book, often known separately as the Corrector, is another work of great importance
17.
Jinn
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Jinn, also romanized as djinn or anglicized as genies, are supernatural creatures in early Arabian and later Islamic mythology and theology. An individual member of the jinn is known as a jinni, djinni and they are mentioned frequently in the Quran and other Islamic texts. The jinn, humans, and angels make up the three known sapient creations of God, like human beings, the jinn can be good, evil, or neutrally benevolent and hence have free will like humans. Jaini were among various creatures believe among pre-Zoroastrian peoples of Persia, Jinn is an Arabic collective noun deriving from the Semitic root JNN, whose primary meaning is to hide. Some authors interpret the word to mean, literally, beings that are concealed from the senses, cognates include the Arabic majnūn, jannah, and janīn. Jinn is properly treated as a plural, with the singular being jinni, the anglicized form genie is a borrowing of the French génie, from the Latin genius, a guardian spirit of people and places in Roman religion. It first appeared in 18th-century translations of the Thousand and One Nights from the French, numerous mentions of jinn in the Quran and testimony of both pre-Islamic and Islamic literature indicate that the belief in spirits was prominent in pre-Islamic Bedouin religion. Julius Wellhausen has observed that such spirits were thought to inhabit desolate, dingy, and dark places, One had to protect oneself from them, but they were not the objects of a true cult. In Islamic theology jinn are said to be creatures with free will, made from fire by God as humans were made of clay. When jinns are called fire spirits it´s does not refer to their current nature, Jinn are mentioned 29 times in the Quran, Surah 72 is named after the jinn, and has a passage about them. Another surah mentions jinn in the last verse, the Quran also mentions that Muhammad was sent as a prophet to both humanity and the jinn, and that prophets and messengers were sent to both communities. Like humans, jinn will also be judged on the Day of Judgment, the social organization of the jinn community resembles that of humans, e. g. they have kings, courts of law, weddings, mourning rituals and practise religion. One common belief in Muslim belief lists five distinct orders of jinn — the Marid, the Ifrit, the Shaitan, the Ghul, and the Jann. A few traditions, divide jinn into three classes, those who have wings and fly in the air, those who resemble snakes and dogs, described them as creatures of different forms, some resembling vultures and snakes, others tall men in white garb. They may even appear as dragons, onagers, or any number of other animals, in addition to their animal forms, the jinn occasionally assume human form to mislead and destroy their human victims. Ibn Taymiyyah, a late medieval theologian whose writings would later become the source of Wahhabism, believed the jinn to be generally ignorant, untruthful, oppressive. In Sūrat Al-Jinn, verses 8–10, Allah narrates concerning the jinn how they touched or sought the limits of the sky and found it full of guards and shooting stars. Seven kings of the Jinn are traditionally associated with days of the week, the notion of a qarin is not universally accepted among all Muslims, but it is generally accepted that Shayṭān whispers in human minds, and he is assigned to each human being
18.
Robert Louis Stevenson
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Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer. His most famous works are Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, a literary celebrity during his lifetime, Stevenson now ranks as the 26th most translated author in the world. M. Barrie, and G. K. Chesterton, who said of him that he seemed to pick the word up on the point of his pen. Stevenson was born at 8 Howard Place, Edinburgh, Scotland, on 13 November 1850, to Thomas Stevenson, a lighthouse engineer. He was christened Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson, at about age 18, Stevenson was to change the spelling of Lewis to Louis, and in 1873, he dropped Balfour. Lighthouse design was the profession, Thomass father was the famous Robert Stevenson. Indeed, even Thomass maternal grandfather, Thomas Smith, had been in the same profession, however, Roberts mothers family were not of the same profession. Margarets natal family, the Balfours, were gentry, tracing their lineage back to a certain Alexander Balfour who had held the lands of Inchyra in Fife in the fifteenth century. Margarets father, Lewis Balfour, was a minister of the Church of Scotland at nearby Colinton, and her siblings included the physician George William Balfour, Stevenson spent the greater part of his boyhood holidays in his maternal grandfathers house. Now I often wonder, wrote Stevenson, what I inherited from this old minister, I must suppose, indeed, that he was fond of preaching sermons, and so am I, though I never heard it maintained that either of us loved to hear them. Lewis Balfour and his daughter both had weak chests, so they often needed to stay in warmer climates for their health, Stevenson inherited a tendency to coughs and fevers, exacerbated when the family moved to a damp, chilly house at 1 Inverleith Terrace in 1851. The family moved again to the sunnier 17 Heriot Row when Stevenson was six years old, illness would be a recurrent feature of his adult life and left him extraordinarily thin. Contemporary views were that he had tuberculosis, but more recent views are that it was bronchiectasis or even sarcoidosis, Stevensons parents were both devout and serious Presbyterians, but the household was not strict in its adherence to Calvinist principles. His nurse, Alison Cunningham, was fervently religious. Her Calvinism and folk beliefs were a source of nightmares for the child. But she also cared for him tenderly in illness, reading to him from Bunyan, Stevenson recalled this time of sickness in The Land of Counterpane in A Childs Garden of Verses, dedicating the book to his nurse. In any case, his frequent illnesses often kept him away from his first school and he was a late reader, first learning at age seven or eight, but even before this he dictated stories to his mother and nurse. He compulsively wrote stories throughout his childhood and his father was proud of this interest, he had also written stories in his spare time until his own father found them and told him to give up such nonsense and mind your business
19.
Hell
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Hell, in many mythological, folklore and religious traditions, is a place of torment and punishment in an afterlife. Religions with a divine history often depict hells as eternal destinations while Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations. Typically these traditions locate hell in another dimension or under the Earths surface, other afterlife destinations include Heaven, Purgatory, Paradise, and Limbo. Hell is sometimes portrayed as populated with demons who torment those dwelling there, many are ruled by a death god such as Nergal, Hades, Hel, Enma or Satan. Subsequently, the word was used to transfer a pagan concept to Christian theology, Some have theorized that English word hell is derived from Old Norse hel. However, this is unlikely as hel appears in Old English before the Viking invasions. Furthermore, the word has cognates in all the other Germanic languages and has a Proto-Germanic origin, Hell appears in several mythologies and religions. It is commonly inhabited by demons and the souls of dead people, a fable about hell which recurs in folklore across several cultures is the allegory of the long spoons. Hell is often depicted in art and literature, perhaps most famously in Dantes Divine Comedy, punishment in Hell typically corresponds to sins committed during life. In many religious cultures, including Christianity and Islam, Hell is often depicted as fiery, painful and harsh, despite these common depictions of Hell as a place of fire, some other traditions portray Hell as cold. Buddhist - and particularly Tibetan Buddhist - descriptions of hell feature a number of hot. Among Christian descriptions Dantes Inferno portrays the innermost circle of Hell as a lake of blood. At death a person faced judgment by a tribunal of forty-two divine judges, if they had led a life in conformance with the precepts of the Goddess Maat, who represented truth and right living, the person was welcomed into the Two Fields. If found guilty the person was thrown to a devourer and would be condemned to the lake of fire, the person taken by the devourer is subject first to terrifying punishment and then annihilated. These depictions of punishment may have influenced medieval perceptions of the inferno in hell via early Christian, purification for those considered justified appears in the descriptions of Flame Island, where humans experience the triumph over evil and rebirth. For the damned complete destruction into a state of non-being awaits but there is no suggestion of eternal torture, the weighing of the heart in Egyptian mythology can lead to annihilation. The Tale of Khaemwese describes the torment of a man, who lacked charity. Divine pardon at judgement always remained a concern for the Ancient Egyptians
20.
Boggart
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Boggart is one of numerous related terms used in English folklore for either a household spirit or a malevolent genius loci inhabiting fields, marshes or other topographical features. Other names of this group include bug, bugbear, bogey, bogeyman, bogle, etc. presumably all derived from Old English pūcel, Irish púca, the household form causes mischief and things to disappear, milk to sour, and dogs to go lame. The boggarts inhabiting marshes or holes in the ground are often attributed more serious evil doing, always malevolent, the household boggart will follow its family wherever they flee. It is said that the boggart crawls into peoples beds at night, sometimes he strips the bedsheets off them. Sometimes a boggart will also pull on a persons ears, hanging a horseshoe on the door of a house and leaving a pile of salt outside your bedroom are said to keep a boggart away. In some areas, Northumberland for example, it was believed that helpful household sprites, silkies or brownies, could turn into malevolent boggarts if offended or ill-treated. Within the folklore of North-West England, boggarts can cause mischief in homes but tend to live outdoors, in marshland, holes in the ground, under bridges, the book Lancashire Folklore of 1867, makes a distinction between House boggarts and other types. In Lancashire a skittish or runaway horse was said to have took boggarts - that is, been frightened by a, usually invisible, boggart. When a person got lost in a marsh and was never seen again, the name of at least one Lancashire boggart was recorded, Nut-Nan, who flitted with a shrill scream among hazel bushes in Moston near Manchester. In Yorkshire boggarts also inhabit outdoor locations, one is said to haunt Cave Ha, the Scots variant is the bogle. The recorded folklore of Boggarts is remarkably varied as to their appearance, many are described as relatively human-like in form, though usually uncouth, very ugly and often with bestial attributes. One such boggart was a hairy man, strong as a six year old horse. Other accounts give a more completely beast-like form, the Boggart of Longar Hede from Yorkshire was said to be a fearsome creature the size of a calf, with long shaggy hair and eyes like saucers. It trailed a long chain after itself, which made a noise like the baying of hounds, the Boggart of Hackensall Hall in Lancashire had the appearance of a huge horse. At least one Lancashire boggart could take the form of various animals, the boggarts of Lancashire were said to have a leader, or master, called Owd Hob, who had the form of a satyr or archetypical devil, horns, cloven hooves and a tail. A piece of folklore concerning a Lancashire boggart was published in 1861 and they maintained that the boggart was buried at a nearby bend in the road under an ash tree, along with a cockerel with a stake driven through it. Despite being buried, the boggart was still able to create trouble, the following morning many marks of cloven hooves were seen outside the house. The couple claimed that the boggart had unhitched their own horse, never name it the old man repeated, and stated that he would never dig near its grave
21.
Brownie (folklore)
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A brownie/brounie or urisk or brùnaidh, ùruisg, or gruagach is a mythical household spirit from English and Scottish folklore. Brownies are especially popular in the North, in this region, brownies are commonly conflated with hobs. A brownie is the Scottish and Northern English counterpart of the Scandinavian tomte, the Slavic domovoi, in folklore, a brownie resembles the hob, similar to a hobgoblin. Thomas Keightley describes the brownie as a personage of small stature, wrinkled visage, covered with short brown hair. Brownies are said to inhabit houses and aid in tasks around the house, however, they do not like to be seen and will only work at night, traditionally in exchange for small gifts of food. Among food, they especially enjoy porridge and honey and they usually abandon the house if their gifts are called payments, or if the owners of the house misuse them. Brownies make their homes in a part of the house, often in attics. Every manor house had its ùruisg, and in the kitchen, close by the fire was a seat, Brownies seldom spoke with humans, but they held frequent and affectionate conversations with one another. They had general assemblies as well, usually held on a remote, in a certain district of the Scottish Highlands, Peallaidh an Spùit, Stochdail a’ Chùirt, and Brùnaidh an Easain were names of note at those congresses. According to Scottish toponymist William J. Watson, every stream in Breadalbane had an ùruisg once and it may be the case, that ùruisg was conflated with some water sprite, or that ùruisg were originally water sprites conflated with brownies. Another name by which the spirit was known in some parts of Scotland was Shellycoat. The ùruisg enjoyed solitude at certain seasons of the year, around the end of the harvest, he became more sociable, and hovered around farmyards, stables and cattle-houses. He particularly enjoyed dairy products, and tended to intrude on milkmaids and he was usually seen only by those who possessed second sight, though there were instances when he made himself visible to ordinary people as well. He is said to have been jolly and personable, with flowing hair, wearing a broad blue bonnet. Anglo-Scottish Border folklore also included a figure, Billy Blind or Billy Blin, much like the brownie, a hob came from the Scottish Borders and north of England, while the lubber fiend, lob or lob lie-by-the-fire was a variant from England. The Killmoulis is a creature that is often said to inhabit mills. The fenodyree is a household spirit featured in folklore from the Isle of Man with similar attributes to the brownie, the fenodyree, however, is somewhat different from the brownie because it is usually described as being covered from head-to-toe in thick, woolly hair. Jack o the bowl is a spirit from Swiss folklore that is very similar to the brownie
22.
Gremlin
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A gremlin is a creature commonly depicted as mischievous and mechanically oriented, with a specific interest in aircraft. Gremlins mischievous natures are similar to those of English folkloric imps, while Carol Rose, in her book Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and Goblins, An Encyclopedia attributes the name to a combination of the name of Grimms Fairy Tales, and Fremlin Beer. Since World War II, different fantastical creatures have been referred to as gremlins, later sources have sometimes claimed that the concept goes back to World War I, but there is no print evidence of this. The flight crews blamed gremlins for otherwise inexplicable accidents which occurred during their flights. Gremlins were also thought at one point to have enemy sympathies, as such, gremlins were portrayed as being equal opportunity tricksters, taking no sides in the conflict, and acting out their mischief from their own self-interest. In reality, the gremlins were a form of passing or deflecting blame. This led folklorist John Hazen to note that the gremlin has been looked on as new phenomenon, some experts believe this form of passing the buck was important to the morale of pilots. Author and historian Marlin Bressi stated, Gremlins, while imaginary, Gremlin tales helped build morale among pilots, which, in turn, helped them repel the Luftwaffe invasion during the Battle of Britain during the summer of 1940. The war may have had a different outcome if the R. A. F. pilots had lost their morale. In a way, it could be argued that gremlins, troublesome as they were, Bressi also noted, Morale among the R. A. F. pilots would have suffered if they pointed the finger of blame at each other. It was far better to make the scapegoat a fantastic and comical creature than another member of your own squadron, author Roald Dahl is credited with getting the gremlins known outside the Royal Air Force. He would have been familiar with the myth, having carried out his service in 80 Squadron of the Royal Air Force in the Middle East. Dahl had his own experience in an accidental crash-landing in the Western Desert, in January of 1942, he was transferred to Washington, D. C. as Assistant Air attaché at the British Embassy. It was there that he wrote his first childrens novel, The Gremlins, in the same novel, Dahl called the wives of gremlins Fifinellas, their male children Widgets, and their female children Flibbertigibbets. Dahl showed the manuscript to Sidney Bernstein, the head of the British Information Service. The manuscript arrived in Disneys hands in July of 1942, and he considered using it as material for a live action/animated full-length feature film, the film project was changed to an animated feature and entered pre-production, with characters roughed out and storyboards created. Disney managed to have the story published in the December 1942 issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine, at Dahls urging, in early 1943, a revised version of the story, again titled The Gremlins, was published as a picture book by Random House. The book was considered a success with 30,000 more sold in Australia
23.
Homunculus
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A homunculus is a representation of a small human being. Popularized in sixteenth-century alchemy and nineteenth-century fiction, it has referred to the creation of a miniature. The concept has roots in preformationism as well as earlier folklore, references to the homunculus do not appear prior to sixteenth-century alchemical writings, however, alchemists may have been influenced by earlier folk traditions. The mandragora, known in German as Alreona, Alraun or Alraune is one example, in Liber de imaginibus, Paracelsus however denies that roots shaped like men grow naturally. He attacks dishonest people who carve roots to look like men and he clarifies that the homunculus’ origins are in sperm, and that it is falsely confused with these ideas from necromancy and natural philosophy. The homunculus has also compared to the golem of Jewish folklore. Though the specifics outlining the creation of the golem and homunculus are very different, preformationism, a theory of heredity, claimed that either the egg or the sperm contained complete preformed individuals called animalcules. Development was therefore a matter of enlarging this into a fully formed being, the term homunculus was later used in the discussion of conception and birth. Nicolas Hartsoeker postulated the existence of animalcules in the semen of humans and this was the beginning of spermists theory, who held the belief that the sperm was in fact a little man that was placed inside a woman for growth into a child. This seemed to them to explain many of the mysteries of conception. It was later pointed out if the sperm was a homunculus, identical in all but size to an adult. This led to a reductio ad absurdum with a chain of all the way down. This was not necessarily considered by spermists a fatal objection however, as it explained how it was that in Adam all had sinned. The homunculus first appears by name in writings attributed to Paracelsus. After this time, it look somewhat like a man. Comparisons have been made several similar concepts in the writings of earlier alchemists. Although the actual word homunculus was never used, Carl Jung believed that the concept first appeared in the Visions of Zosimos, in the visions, Zosimos encounters a priest who changes into the opposite of himself, into a mutilated anthroparion. The Greek word anthroparion is similar to homunculus – a diminutive form of man, Zosimos subsequently encounters other anthroparion in his dream but there is no mention of the creation of artificial life
24.
Kallikantzaros
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The kallikantzaros is a malevolent goblin in Southeastern European and Anatolian folklore. Stories about the kallikantzaros or its equivalents can be found in Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia, kallikantzaroi are believed to dwell underground but come to the surface during the twelve days of Christmas, from 25 December to 6 January. Amongst other proposed etymologies, the term kallikantzaros is speculated to be derived from the Greek kalos-kentauros and it is believed that kallikantzaroi stay underground, sawing the world tree so that it will collapse, along with the Earth. However, according to folklore, when they are about to saw the part, Christmas dawns. They forget the tree and come to bring trouble to mortals, finally, on the Epiphany, the sun starts moving again, and they must return underground to continue their sawing. They see that during their absence the world tree has healed itself and this is believed to occur annually. There is no description of the appearance of kallikantzaroi, there are regional variations as to how their appearance is described. Some Greeks have imagined them with animal parts, such as hairy bodies, horse legs. Sometimes they are enormous, at other times diminutive, others see them as humans of small size that smell horrible. They are predominantly male, often with protruding sexual characteristics, many Greeks have imagined them as tall, black and hairy, with burning red eyes, goats or donkeys ears, monkeys arms, tongues that hang out and heads that are huge. Nonetheless, the most common belief is that they are small, black creatures, humanoid apart from their black tails. They are also blind, speak with a lisp and love to eat frogs, worms. Kallikantzaroi are believed to be creatures of the night, according to folklore, there were many ways people could protect themselves during the days when the kallikantzaroi were loose. One such method was to leave a colander on their doorstep to trick the visiting kallikantzaros, another supposed method of protection from kallikantzaroi was to leave the fire burning in the fireplace, all night, so that they could not enter through it. In some areas, people would burn the Yule log for the duration of the twelve days, in other areas, people would throw foul-smelling shoes into the fire, as the stench was believed to repel the kallikantzaroi and thus force them to stay away. Additional ways to keep them away included marking ones door with a cross on Christmas Eve. According to legend, any child born during the days of Christmas was in danger of transforming to a kallikantzaros during each Christmas season. It was believed that the antidote to prevent this transformation was to bind the baby in tresses of garlic or straw, according to another legend, anyone born on a Saturday could see and talk with the kallikantzaroi
25.
Kappa (folklore)
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A kappa, also known as kawatarō, komahiki, or kawatora, is a yōkai demon or imp found in traditional Japanese folklore. The name is a combination of the words kawa and wappa, in Shintō they are considered to be one of many suijin, their yorishiro, or one of their temporary appearances. A hairy kappa is called a hyōsube, in Japanese Buddhism they are considered to be a kind of hungry ogres. Therefore, Sha Wujing, who is a character from the Chinese story Journey to the West is described like a kappa in Japan, Kappa are distinguished for having a small pool of water suspended on top of their head, signifying their life force and habitat. There are more than eighty other names associated with the kappa in different regions, including kawappa, gawappa, kōgo, mizushi, mizuchi, enkō, kawaso, suitengu, along with the oni and the tengu, the kappa is among the best-known yōkai in Japan. These various names of the creature vary by region and local folklore, Kappa have been used to warn children of the dangers lurking in rivers and lakes, as kappa have been often said to try to lure people into water and pull them. Kappa legends are said to be based on the Japanese giant salamander or hanzaki, the best known place where it has been claimed Kappa supposedly reside is in the Kappabuchi waters of Tōno in the Iwate Prefecture. The nearby Jōkenji Buddhist temple has dedicated a komainu dog statue to honor the kappa, the Kappa is also venerated at the Sogenji Buddhist temple in the Asakusa district of Tokyo where according to tradition, a mummified arm of a Kappa is enshrined within the chapel hall. The kappa is typically depicted as humanoid in form and about the size of a child. Its scaly reptilian skin ranges in color from green to yellow or blue, Kappa supposedly inhabit the ponds and rivers of Japan, and have various features to aid them in this environment, such as webbed hands and feet. They are sometimes said to smell like fish and they can swim like them, the expression kappa no kawa nagare conveys the idea that even experts make mistakes. This cavity must be full whenever a kappa is away from the water, if it dries out. Another notable feature in some stories is that the arms are said to be connected to each other through the torso, while they are primarily water creatures, they do on occasion venture on to land. When they do, the plate can be covered with a cap for protection. In fact, in versions of the legends, kappa spend spring and summer in the water. Although they are reported to live throughout Japan, they are said to be particular to Saga Prefecture. Kappa are usually seen as mischievous troublemakers or trickster figures, folk beliefs claim the cucumber as their traditional favorite meal. As water monsters, kappa have been blamed for drownings, and are said to try to lure people into water
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Leprechaun
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A leprechaun is a type of fairy in Irish folklore. They are usually depicted as bearded men, wearing a coat and hat. They are solitary creatures who spend their time making and mending shoes and have a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If captured by a human, they often grant three wishes in exchange for their freedom, like other Irish fairies, leprechauns may be derived from the Tuatha Dé Danann. Leprechaun-like creatures rarely appear in Irish mythology and only became prominent in later folklore, modern depictions of leprechauns are largely based on derogatory 19th-century caricatures and stereotypes of the Irish. The name leprechaun is derived from the Irish word leipreachán, defined by Patrick Dinneen as a pigmy, a sprite, or leprechaun. The further derivation is less certain, according to most sources, the word is thought to be a corruption of Middle Irish luchrupán, from the Old Irish luchorpán, a compound of the roots lú and corp. The root corp, which was borrowed from the Latin corpus, the alternative spelling leithbrágan stems from a folk etymology deriving the word from leith and bróg, because of the frequent portrayal of the leprechaun as working on a single shoe. Alternative spellings in English have included lubrican, leprehaun, and lepreehawn, Some modern Irish books use the spelling lioprachán. The earliest known reference to the leprechaun appears in the tale known as the Echtra Fergus mac Léti. The text contains an episode in which Fergus mac Léti, King of Ulster, falls asleep on the beach and he captures his abductors, who grant him three wishes in exchange for release. The leprechaun is said to be a creature, whose principal occupation is making and mending shoes. According to William Butler Yeats, the wealth of these fairies comes from the treasure-crocks, buried of old in war-time. According to David Russell McAnally the leprechaun is the son of an evil spirit, the leprechaun originally had a different appearance depending on where in Ireland he was found. Prior to the 20th century, it was held that the leprechaun wore red. Samuel Lover, writing in 1831, describes the leprechaun as, quite a beau in his dress, notwithstanding, for he wears a red square-cut coat, richly laced with gold, and inexpressible of the same, cocked hat, shoes and buckles. According to Yeats, the fairies, like the leprechaun, wear red jackets. The leprechauns jacket has seven rows of buttons with seven buttons to each row, round his neck is an Elizabethan ruff, and frills of lace are at his wrists
27.
Nymph
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A nymph in Greek mythology and in Latin mythology is a minor female nature deity typically associated with a particular location or landform. They are beloved by many and dwell in mountainous regions and forests by lakes, charybdis and Scylla were once nymphs. Other nymphs, always in the shape of young maidens, were part of the retinue of a god, such as Dionysus, Hermes, or Pan, or a goddess, nymphs were the frequent target of satyrs. The Greek word νύμφη has bride and veiled among its meanings, other readers refer the word to a root expressing the idea of swelling. The mythologies of classicizing Roman poets were unlikely to have affected the rites and cult of individual nymphs venerated by people in the springs. Among the Roman literate class, their sphere of influence was restricted, the ancient Greek belief in nymphs survived in many parts of the country into the early years of the twentieth century, when they were usually known as nereids. At that time, John Cuthbert Lawson wrote and they might appear in a whirlwind. Such encounters could be dangerous, bringing dumbness, besotted infatuation, when parents believed their child to be nereid-struck, they would pray to Saint Artemidos. Due to widespread use of the term among lay persons and stereotypes attached, professionals nowadays prefer the term hypersexuality, the word nymphet is used to identify a sexually precocious girl. The term was made famous in the novel Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, the main character, Humbert Humbert, uses the term many times, usually in reference to the title character. Thus the classes of nymphs tend to overlap, which complicates the task of precise classification, rose mentions dryads and hamadryads as nymphs of trees generally, meliai as nymphs of ash trees, and naiads as nymphs of water, but no others specifically. She is the consort of Acheron, and the mother of Ascalaphus, leuce, lover of Hades Minthe, lover of Hades, rival of Persephone Melinoe Orphic nymph, daughter of Persephone and Zeus disguised as Pluto. Her name is an epithet of Hecate. Nymphs in such groupings could belong to any of the mentioned above. For lists of Naiads, Oceanids, Dryades etc and this motif supposedly came from an Italian report of a Roman sculpture of a nymph at a fountain above the River Danube
28.
Oni
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Oni are a kind of yōkai from Japanese folklore, variously translated as demons, devils, ogres, or trolls. They are popular characters in Japanese art, literature, and theatre, depictions of oni vary widely but usually portray them as hideous, gigantic ogre-like creatures with sharp claws, wild hair, and two long horns growing from their heads. They are humanoid for the most part, but occasionally, they are shown with unnatural features such as odd numbers of eyes or extra fingers and their skin may be any number of colors, but red and blue are particularly common. They are often depicted wearing tiger-skin loincloths and carrying iron clubs called kanabō and this image leads to the expression oni with an iron club, that is, to be invincible or undefeatable. It can also be used in the sense of strong beyond strong, in addition to this, it can mean to go overboard, or be unnecessarily strong or powerful. These nebulous beings could also take on a variety of forms to deceive humans, thus the Chinese character 鬼 meaning ghost came to be used for these formless creatures. They share many similarities with the Arabian Jinn. Another source for the image is a concept from China. The north direction was once termed the kimon, and was considered an unlucky direction through which evil spirits passed, temples are often built facing that direction, and Japanese buildings sometimes have L-shaped indentions at the northeast to ward oni away. Enryakuji, on Mount Hiei northeast of the center of Kyoto, the Japanese capital itself moved northeast from Nagaoka to Kyoto in the 8th century. Some villages hold yearly ceremonies to drive away oni, particularly at the beginning of Spring, during the Setsubun festival, people throw soybeans outside their homes and shout Oni wa soto. Monkey statues are thought to guard against oni, since the Japanese word for monkey. Folklore has it that holly can be used to guard against Oni, in Japanese versions of the game tag, the player who is it is instead called the oni. In more recent times, oni have lost some of their original wickedness, men in oni costumes often lead Japanese parades to ward off any bad luck, for example. Japanese buildings sometimes include oni-faced roof tiles called onigawara, which are thought to ward away bad luck, Oni are prominently featured in the Japanese childrens story Momotaro, and the book The Funny Little Woman. Many Japanese idioms and proverbs also make reference to oni, variants of this expression include oya ni ninu ko wa onigo and oya ni ninu ko wa onikko. There is also a well known game in Japan called kakure oni, which means hidden oni, or more commonly kakurenbo, hiroshi Aramatas award-winning, bestselling historical fantasy novel Teito Monogatari revolves around the exploits of an oni who is a lieutenant in the Japanese Imperial Army. Dr. Noriko Tsunoda Reider, professor of Japanese Language and Literature at Ohio State University, credits the novel with raising the onis status and popularity greatly in modern times
29.
Puck (mythology)
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In English folklore, Puck, sometimes known as Robin Goodfellow, is a domestic and nature sprite, demon, or fairy. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the etymology of the name Puck is unsettled, Celtic origins have also been proposed, but as the Old English and Old Norse attestations are considerably older than the Celtic ones, loan from Germanic to Celtic seems more probable. The Old English púcel is a kind of half-tamed woodland spirit, leading folk astray with echoes and lights in nighttime woodlands, or coming into the farmstead, the etymology of Puck is examined by Katharine Mary Briggs, in Anatomy of Puck 1977. The term pixie is in origin a diminutive of puck, Puck may also be called Robin Goodfellow or Hobgoblin, in which Hob may substitute for Rob or may simply refer to the goblin of the hearth or hob. The name Robin is Middle English in origin, deriving from Old French Robin, the earliest reference to Robin Goodfellow cited by the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1531. Anthony Munday mentions Robin Goodfellow in his play The Two Italian Gentlemen,1584, after Meyerbeers successful opera Robert le Diable, neo-medievalists and occultists began to apply the name Robin Goodfellow to the Devil, with appropriately extravagant imagery. Pucks are also known to be inherently lonely creatures, and often share the goal of acquiring friends and those that Hob-goblin call you, and sweet Puck, / You do their work, and they shall have good luck said one of William Shakespeares fairies. Shakespeares characterization of shrewd and knavish Puck in A Midsummer Nights Dream may have revived flagging interest in Puck, according to Brewers Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, drudging fiend, and merry domestic fairy, famous for mischievous pranks and practical jokes. At night-time he will sometimes do little services for the family over which he presides, the Scots call this domestic spirit a brownie, the Germans, Kobold or Knecht Ruprecht. Puck, the jester of Fairy-court, is the same, as Robin Goodfellow, Puck appears in a roughly contemporaneous Elizabethan play, Grim the Collier of Croydon. It is unknown how Shakespeares Puck appeared on the stage, but the figure in Grim was costumed in a suit of leather close to his body, his face and hands coloured russet-coloured, Robin Goodfellow is the main speaker in Jonsons 1612 masque Love Restored. John Milton, in LAllegro tells how the drudging Goblin swet / To earn his cream-bowle by threshing a weeks worth of grain in a night, miltons Puck is not small and sprightly, but nearer to a Green Man or a hairy woodwose. An illustration of Robin Goodfellow from 1639 reflects the influence of Pan imagery giving Puck the hindquarters, cloven hooves and horns of a goat
30.
Rumpelstiltskin
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Rumpelstiltskin is a fairy tale popularly associated with Germany. The tale was one collected by the Brothers Grimm in the 1812 edition of Childrens, according to researchers at Durham University and the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, the story originated around 4,000 years ago. In order to make himself appear superior, a miller lies to the king, telling him that his daughter can spin straw into gold. The king calls for the girl, shuts her in a room filled with straw and a spinning wheel. When she has given up all hope, an imp-like creature appears in the room, when next morning the king takes the girl to a larger room filled with straw to repeat the feat, the imp spins in return for the girls ring. He extracts from her a promise that she give him her firstborn child. The king keeps his promise to marry the millers daughter, but when their first child is born, the imp returns to claim his payment, Now give me what you promised. She offers him all the wealth she has to keep the child and he finally consents to give up his claim to the child if she can guess his name within three days. Her many guesses fail, but before the night, she wanders into the woods searching for him and comes across his remote mountain cottage and watches, unseen, as he hops about his fire. In his songs lyrics, tonight tonight, my plans I make, tomorrow tomorrow, the queen will never win the game, for Rumpelstiltskin is my name, he reveals his name. Some versions have the imp limiting the number of daily guesses to three and hence the number of guesses allowed to a maximum of nine. When the imp comes to the queen on the day, after first feigning ignorance, she reveals his name, Rumpelstiltskin. In the 1812 edition of the Brothers Grimm tales, Rumpelstiltskin then ran away angrily, Other versions have Rumpelstiltskin driving his right foot so far into the ground that he creates a chasm and falls into it, never to be seen again. In the oral version originally collected by the Brothers Grimm, Rumpelstiltskin flies out of the window on a cooking ladle, all these tales are Aarne–Thompson type 500, The Name of the Helper. Another of the Grimms tales revolves about a girl trapped by false claims about her spinning abilities, however, the three women who assist that girl do not demand her firstborn, but instead ask that she invite them to her wedding and say that they are relatives of hers. She complies, and when the three appear at the wedding, amazing the king with their ugliness, they tell the king that their various deformities are the result of their years of spinning, the horrified king decrees that the bride will spin no more. In contrast to Rumpelstiltskins self-seeking, therefore, these helpers ask only the payment of extending their benevolence to the heroine, and ensure that she will not need their help again. In one Italian variant, the girl must discover their names, as with Rumpelstiltskin, but not for the reason, she must use their names to invite them
31.
Satyr
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In Greek mythology, a satyr is one of a troop of ithyphallic male companions of Dionysus with goat-like features and often permanent erection. Early artistic representations sometimes include horse-like legs, but in 6th-century BC black-figure pottery human legs are the most common, in Roman Mythology there is a concept similar to satyrs, with goat-like features, the faun, being half-man, half-goat, who roamed the woods and mountains. In myths they are associated with pipe-playing. Greek-speaking Romans often used the Greek term saturos when referring to the Latin faunus, the satyrs chief was Silenus, a minor deity associated with fertility. These characters can be found in the complete remaining satyr play, Cyclops, by Euripides. The satyr play was a short, lighthearted tailpiece performed after each trilogy of tragedies in Athenian festivals honoring Dionysus, there is not enough evidence to determine whether the satyr play regularly drew on the same myths as those dramatized in the tragedies that preceded. The groundbreaking tragic playwright Aeschylus is said to have especially loved for his satyr plays. Mature satyrs are depicted in Roman art with goats horns. As Dionysiac creatures they are lovers of wine and women, because of their love of wine, they are often represented holding wine cups, and they appear often in the decorations on wine cups. Attic painted vases depict mature satyrs as being built with flat noses, large pointed ears, long curly hair. Satyrs often carry the thyrsus, the rod of Dionysus tipped with a pine cone, in earlier Greek art, Silenos appear as old and ugly, but in later art, especially in Hellenistic art, he is softened into a more youthful and graceful aspect. This transformation or humanization of the Satyr appears throughout late Greek art, another example of this shift occurs in the portrayal of Medusa and in that of the Amazon, characters who are traditionally depicted as barbaric and uncivilized. A humanized Satyr is depicted in a work of Praxiteles known as the Resting Satyr, Praxiteles gives a new direction to the satyr in art. Although not mentioned by Homer, in a fragment of Hesiods works satyrs are called brothers of the nymphs and Kuretes. In the Dionysus cult, male followers are known as satyrs, in Attica there was a species of drama dealing with the legends of gods and heroes, and the chorus was composed of satyrs and sileni. In the Athenian satyr plays of the 5th century BC, the chorus commented on the action and this satyric drama burlesqued the serious events of the mythic past with lewd pantomime and subversive mockery. One complete satyr play from the 5th century survives, the Cyclops of Euripides, the Satyr and the Traveller, one of Aesops Fables, features the satyr as the benevolent host for a traveler in the forest in winter. The satyr is bewildered by the claim to be able to blow hot and cold with the same breath, first to warm his hands, then to cool his porridge
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Sprite (entity)
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A sprite is a supernatural entity. They are often depicted as creatures or as an ethereal entity. The word sprite is derived from the Latin spiritus, via the French espirit Variations on the term include spright, the term is chiefly used in regard to elves and fairies in European folklore, and in modern English is rarely used in reference to spirits. Has been common in parts of the world, and might to some extent still be found within neo-spiritual and religious movements such as neo-druidism. In some elemental magics, the sprite is often believed to be the elemental of air, a water sprite is a general term for an elemental spirit associated with water, according to alchemist Paracelsus. Water sprites are said to be able to water or air. They are mostly harmless unless threatened and these creatures exist in mythology of various groups. Ancient Greeks knew water nymphs in several such as naiads. Slavic mythology knows them as vilas, water sprites differ from corporeal beings, such as selkies and mermaids, as they are not purely physical and are more akin to local deities than animals
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Troll
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A troll is a class of being in Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore. In Old Norse sources, beings described as trolls dwell in isolated rocks, mountains, or caves, live together in family units. Later, in Scandinavian folklore, trolls became beings in their own right, where they far from human habitation, are not Christianized. Depending on the source, their appearance varies greatly, trolls may be ugly and slow-witted, or look and behave exactly like human beings, trolls are sometimes associated with particular landmarks, which at times may be explained as formed from a troll exposed to sunlight. Trolls are depicted in a variety of media in popular culture. The Old Norse nouns troll and tröll and Middle High German troll, the origin of the Proto-Germanic word is unknown. In Norse mythology, troll, like thurs, is a term applied to jötnar and is mentioned throughout the Old Norse corpus. In Old Norse sources, trolls are said to dwell in isolated mountains, rocks, and caves, sometimes live together, the Prose Edda book Skáldskaparmál describes an encounter between an unnamed troll woman and the 9th century skald Bragi Boddason. There is much confusion and overlap in the use of Old Norse terms jötunn, troll, þurs, and risi, on the other hand, Ármann Jakobson is critical of Motzs interpretation and calls this theory unsupported by any convincing evidence. Later in Scandinavian folklore, trolls become defined as a type of being. According to John Lindow, what sets them apart is that they are not Christian, therefore, trolls were in the end dangerous, regardless of how well they might get along with Christian society, and trolls display a habit of bergtagning and overrunning a farm or estate. They therefore appear in various legends where collective nature-beings are called for. Lindow notes that trolls are sometimes swapped out for cats and little people in the folklore record, a Scandinavian folk belief that lightning frightens away trolls and jötnar appears in numerous Scandinavian folktales, and may be a late reflection of the god Thors role in fighting such beings. In connection, the lack of trolls and jötnar in modern Scandinavia is sometimes explained as a result of the accuracy and efficiency of the lightning strokes. Additionally, the absence of trolls in regions of Scandinavia are described in folklore as being a consequence of the constant din of the church-bells, large local stones are sometimes described as the product of a trolls toss. Smaller trolls are attested as living in burial mounds and in mountains in Scandinavian folk tradition, in Denmark, these creatures are recorded as troldfolk, bjergtrolde, or bjergfolk and in Norway also as troldfolk and tusser. Trolls may be described as small, human-like beings or as tall as men depending on the region of origin of the story, in Norwegian tradition, similar tales may be told about the larger trolls and the Huldrefolk yet a distinction is made between the two. The use of the trow in Orkney and Shetland, to mean beings which are very like the Huldrefolk in Norway may suggest a common origin for the terms
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Oxford English Dictionary
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The Oxford English Dictionary is a descriptive dictionary of the English language, published by the Oxford University Press. The second edition came to 21,728 pages in 20 volumes, in 1895, the title The Oxford English Dictionary was first used unofficially on the covers of the series, and in 1928 the full dictionary was republished in ten bound volumes. In 1933, the title The Oxford English Dictionary fully replaced the name in all occurrences in its reprinting as twelve volumes with a one-volume supplement. More supplements came over the years until 1989, when the edition was published. Since 2000, an edition of the dictionary has been underway. The first electronic version of the dictionary was available in 1988. The online version has been available since 2000, and as of April 2014 was receiving two million hits per month. The third edition of the dictionary will probably appear in electronic form, Nigel Portwood, chief executive of Oxford University Press. As a historical dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary explains words by showing their development rather than merely their present-day usages, therefore, it shows definitions in the order that the sense of the word began being used, including word meanings which are no longer used. The format of the OEDs entries has influenced numerous other historical lexicography projects and this influenced later volumes of this and other lexicographical works. As of 30 November 2005, the Oxford English Dictionary contained approximately 301,100 main entries, the dictionarys latest, complete print edition was printed in 20 volumes, comprising 291,500 entries in 21,730 pages. The longest entry in the OED2 was for the verb set, as entries began to be revised for the OED3 in sequence starting from M, the longest entry became make in 2000, then put in 2007, then run in 2011. Despite its impressive size, the OED is neither the worlds largest nor the earliest exhaustive dictionary of a language, the Dutch dictionary Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal is the worlds largest dictionary, has similar aims to the OED and took twice as long to complete. Another earlier large dictionary is the Grimm brothers dictionary of the German language, begun in 1838, the official dictionary of Spanish is the Diccionario de la lengua española, and its first edition was published in 1780. The Kangxi dictionary of Chinese was published in 1716, trench suggested that a new, truly comprehensive dictionary was needed. On 7 January 1858, the Society formally adopted the idea of a new dictionary. Volunteer readers would be assigned particular books, copying passages illustrating word usage onto quotation slips, later the same year, the Society agreed to the project in principle, with the title A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles. He withdrew and Herbert Coleridge became the first editor, on 12 May 1860, Coleridges dictionary plan was published and research was started
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International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
36.
Changeling
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A changeling is a creature found in folklore and folk religion. A changeling child was believed to be a child that had been left in place of a human child stolen by the fairies. The theme of the child is common in medieval literature and reflects concern over infants thought to be afflicted with unexplained diseases, disorders. It is typically described as being the offspring of a fairy, Sometimes the term is also used to refer to the child who was taken. The apparent changeling could also be a stock or fetch, a piece of wood that would soon appear to grow sick. The theme of the child is common among medieval literature and reflects concern over infants thought to be afflicted with unexplained diseases, disorders. A human child might be due to many factors, to act as a servant. Most often it was thought that fairies exchanged the children, in rare cases, the very elderly of the Fairy people would be exchanged in the place of a human baby, and then the old fairy could live in comfort, being coddled by its human parents. Simple charms, such as a coat or open iron scissors left where the child sleeps, were thought to ward them off. D. L. Ashliman points out that changeling tales illustrate an aspect of survival in pre-industrial Europe. A peasant familys subsistence frequently depended upon the labor of each member. Changeling tales support other historical evidence in suggesting that infanticide was not infrequently the solution selected, one belief is that trolls thought that it was more respectable to be raised by humans and that they wanted to give their own children a human upbringing. Some people believed that trolls would take unbaptized children, once children had been baptized and therefore become part of the Church, the trolls could not take them. Beauty in human children and young women, particularly blond hair, was said to attract the fairies, in Scottish folklore, the children might be replacements for fairy children in the tithe to Hell, this is best known from the ballad of Tam Lin. According to common Scottish myths, a child born with a caul across his or her face is a changeling, other folklore say that human milk is necessary for fairy children to survive. It is also thought that human midwives were necessary to bring babies into the world. Some stories tell of changelings who forget they are not human, Changelings which do not forget, however, in some stories return to their fairy family, possibly leaving the human family without warning. The human child that was taken may often stay with the family forever
37.
Fairy fort
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Fairy forts are the remains of lios, hillforts or other circular dwellings in Ireland. From late Iron Age to early Christian times, the occupants built circular structures with earth banks or ditches. These were sometimes topped with wooden palisades, and wooden framed buildings, as the dwellings were not durable, in many cases only vague circular marks remain in the landscape. Raths and lios are found in all parts of Ireland, tradition claimed that ringforts were fairy forts imbued with Druids magic and believers in the fairies did not alter them. The early pre-Celtic inhabitants of Ireland came to be seen as mythical and were associated with stories of fairies, Fairy forts and prehistoric Tumuli were seen as entrances to their world. Even cutting brush, especially the sceach or whitethorn, on fairy forts was reputed to be the death of those who performed the act, there are many folk tales about supernatural events happening at fairy forts. Real accidents which happened at ringforts could be given supernatural explanations, for example, a man who tried to blast a dolmen suffered a septic hand. The wrecked dolmen was left untouched. Other traditions hold that a leprechaun may allegedly know of hidden gold in a fairy fort, in literature, British author Rudyard Kipling made allusions to the process by which such legends grow in his 1906 novel, Puck of Pooks Hill. Workmen were working to level earthworks in a fort at Dooneeva. The originator of this fell apparently dead and his wife, a wise woman brought him back to life magically. A farmers best cow kept grazing in a fairy fort and it was unlucky for the cow to graze there but the cow pined when it was prevented from going to the fairy fort. One day the farmer found the cow there with broken legs and he killed the cow and his family ate the meat, some fresh and some salted. A year later the cow was seen in the fairy fort, the fairies told the farmer they had taken the cow because they needed the milk for their children. They had substituted an old horse and made the horse to be like the cow. The farmer took his cow home and he became very prosperous because the fairies supported him. A rich farmers son investigated why none of the cows would enter a field with a fairy fort, the old fairy asked the young man to help him get a young girl for his wife. The farmers son would not give the girl to the old fairy
38.
Fairy godmother
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In fairy tales, a fairy godmother is a fairy with magical powers who acts as a mentor or parent to someone, in the role that an actual godparent was expected to play in many societies. In Perraults Cinderella, he concludes the tale with the moral that no personal advantages will suffice without proper connections. The fairy godmother is a case of the donor. Actual fairy godmothers are rare in fairy tales, but became familiar figures because of the popularity of the fairy tales of Madame dAulnoy and other précieuses. Many other supernatural patrons feature in fairy tales, these various kinds of animals. The fairy godmother has her roots in the figures of the Fates, this is clear in Sleeping Beauty, where they decree her fate. Typically, the fairy godmothers protégé is a prince or princess and the hero of the story, the most well-known example is probably the fairy godmother in Charles Perraults Cinderella. Eight fairy godmothers appear in The Sleeping Beauty, of Charles Perraults, the popularity of these versions of these tales led to this being widely regarded as a common fairy-tale motif, although they are less common in other tales. Indeed, the fairy godmothers were added to The Sleeping Beauty by Perrault, no such figures appeared in his source, Sole, Luna, in the Grimm Brothers variant of Cinderella, Aschenputtel is aided not by her fairy godmother but by her dead mother. A great variety of figures may also take this place. She is portrayed as kind, gentle and sweet, likewise, in her The White Doe, the fairy godmother helps the evil princess get revenge on the heroine. In Henriette-Julie de Murats Bearskin, the heroine has a fairy godmother, but she is offended that the marriage was arranged without consulting her. Fairy godmothers appear frequently in fantasy, especially comic versions and retellings of Cinderella. Whenever events are right for a tale to recur, the relevant Fairy Godmother steps in to make sure that the tale in question runs its course with as few fatalities as possible. In the television animated Halloween special Witchs Night Out, the witch is mistaken for a fairy godmother by the two children, Small and Tender and their sitter, Bazooey corrects them by addressing the fairy godmother as a wicked witch. The Fairly OddParents is a humorous animated TV Series where the fairies Cosmo, in Shrek 2, the fairy godmother who appears is an evil twin sister of Cinderellas fairy godmother. She is a conniving, crooked businesswoman, who is willing to resort to blackmail and/or murder to further her own interests. The Discworld novel Witches Abroad also features a fairy godmother, Lady Lilith de Tempscire
The dictionary definition of imp at Wiktionary
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Imp". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "
