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Cloak-not-Dagger (NEW CONCEPTS)
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Hatty
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In: Berkshire
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Just having witnessed Number One Son's graduation ceremony and cooed over his mortar-board and gown made me appreciate how much uniforms lend gravitas to rites of passage occasions.

The gown/cloak is a status symbol. There must be a reason why the cloak of St Martin of Tours (the one he cut in two and gave half, not the whole mind you, to a beggar, i.e. Christ in disguise) one of Europe's most prized relics.

And Sir Walter Raleigh famously laid his cloak over a puddle for Gloriana. There seems to be a link with the celebration of the old god/goddess being replaced; what's being 'sacrificed' is the season, the half-cloak or half-year.
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Grant



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And doesn't the new speaker of the House of Commons look an irritating little dick now he's dispensed with gown and wig?
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Hatty
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The significance of rending a cloak in two is now clear. It's a theme familiar to Gnostics, both pagan and Christian, to symbolise rending the veil of ignorance and the initiation into knowledge, cf. Mark's account of the tearing of the Temple veil at the death/Resurrection of Jesus (in orthodox Judaism clothes are still torn at a funeral).

The marriage ceremony retains the custom of lifting a veil so the bridegroom can know the bride, yet another instance of the Church imitating aspects of pre-Christian practice.

The caduceus, the staff borne by the god of knowledge, separates two entwined serpents. Or maybe it unites them. They are in effect mirror images of each other. Know thyself?
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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the cloak of St Martin of Tours (the one he cut in two and gave half, not the whole mind you, to a beggar, i.e. Christ in disguise)

Did he recognise Christ once the cloak was rent, by any chance?

And Sir Walter Raleigh famously laid his cloak over a puddle for Gloriana. There seems to be a link with the celebration of the old god/goddess being replaced; what's being 'sacrificed' is the season, the half-cloak or half-year.

Had a quick look to see when in the year this happened. One site says it never happened at all:
    http://www.trivia-library.com/b/sir-walter-raleigh-never-laid-his-cloak-before-queen-elizabeth.htm
    The story of the cloak and the mud puddle probably originated with historian Thomas Fuller, known for his imaginative elaborations on historical fact. Later, Sir Walter Scott kept the myth alive in his 1821 Elizabethan romance, Kenilworth. "Hark ye, Master Raleigh, see thou fail not to wear thy muddy cloak," the queen exhorts Sir Walter, "in token of penitence, till our pleasure be further known." Sir Walter vows never to clean the cloak, and later the queen, delighted with his gallantry, invites him to visit the royal wardrobe keeper that he may be fitted for "a suit, and that of the newest cut."
but another one says:Raleigh's cloak sure sounds like a fairy tale and might be a red herring, but the mythology kept alive either in Raleigh's mind or Fuller's probably does have ancient roots.
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Hatty
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Did he recognise Christ once the cloak was rent, by any chance?

Good point. Christ made himself known to Martin the following night, in a dream I think. A sort of eleventh hour salvation perhaps. Martinmas is on 11th November, a feast of 'great debauchery' or wine-fest, nowadays Armistice Day.

Elizabeth I was surrounded by mythical-sounding episodes, presumably a deliberate policy. She is supposed to have declared that the Armada victory would be commemorated by eating geese which is almost certainly apocryphal. A goose is traditionally eaten on Martinmas, same as at Michaelmas, though St. Martin's bird is the raven.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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Unless of course she herself is a myth.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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DPCrisp wrote:
This is not confirmed however a cloak was included in his coat of arms


Perhaps an indication that the coat of arms was invented after Walter Scott wrote his novel.
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Hatty
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In: Berkshire
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The feast of St. Martin is traditionally celebrated with lanterns, representing "fairy lights" or the light of (inner) knowledge, and also with 'begging' as at Halloween/All Souls, with which Martinmas has obvious affinities. It's tempting to see a mirror image of the fires/beacons lit on May Day, the reverse hinge of the year as it were.

The celebrations began at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Armistice Day seems to be a modern version of a much older cease-fire tradition (even raiding, rustling, etc. on the Scottish borders reportedly ended on 11th November) which is what Ishmael pointed out on the 5th November thread.
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Hatty
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In: Berkshire
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The Scottish version of the Cinderella story, Rashin-Coatie, in which the heroine wears a rush-coat rather than a cloak, revolves around a sacrificial calf which suggests autumn, the season of culling.

The French version has a more obvious symbolism, going from darkness (cinders) to light (glass slipper etc.) and is interesting because of the connection between pumpkins and Hallowe'en lanterns. The pumpkin coach is the setting of Cinder's transformation, i.e. enlightenment. One of the step-sisters, acting as an imposter, cuts off her heel in order to fit the slipper, presumably an allusion to the motif of the hero wounded in the heel in Classical mythology.
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nemesis8


In: byrhfunt
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Hatty wrote:
The Scottish version of the Cinderella story, Rashin-Coatie, in which the heroine wears a rush-coat rather a cloak, revolves around a sacrificial calf which suggests autumn, the season of culling. .
=hunting

Hatty wrote:
The French version has a more obvious symbolism, ..... One of the step-sisters, acting as an imposter, cuts off her heel in order to fit the slipper, .
=hunting... she wounds herself to become his prey.

We rob the animal of its coat.

We put on a robe.

Hunting.....
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Hatty
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The Cinderella story is a retelling of the myth of the moon goddess who is also the goddess of hunting (Diana, Artemis). It's interesting how strands of folklore pile up, for instance the emphasis on the slipper fitting the foot. People used to conceal shoes inside walls, over entrances and exits especially chimneys and hearth-places.

Wearing animal disguises is the oldest trick not in the book. Fooling around with feet was one of Hermes' tricks when he stole Apollo's cattle and walked backwards to avoid being followed.

Why was Baby Bunting going to be wrapped in a rabbit skin (and at what time of year?)?
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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I'd like to hear. Meanwhile here's a typical piece of 'orthodoxy'

The lyrics of the poem "Cry Baby Bunting" were not intended to be important - it was the sound of the music to accompany it! The song "Cry Baby Bunting" would be sung softly to a young child as a lullaby.

Ah so! It is to send the child to sleep.

Perhaps to explain the disappearance of Father to a crying child!

Or amateur psychotherapy, depending. Anyway there is a typical nod to the Official Roots:

Earliest traceable publication 1784. There is however a version of this lullaby which clearly has American roots - please see lyrics below.

OK, we will:

Bye, baby bumpkin
Where's Tony Lumpkin
My lady's on her death-bed,
For eating half a pumpkin

Presumably it is 'American' because of the pumpkin reference, yet pumpkins turn up in the very European and very traditional Cinderella. The origin of the pumpkin is unknown, it is one of our very own 'are they domesticated gone feral' plants. Tony Lumpkin is a character in She Stoops to Conquer, the eighteenth century play which would tie in with both America and 1784 but I wonder if Goldsmith was using a known folktale name.

On American roots generally, earlier traditions are often to be found lurking over there and clearly, in the present case, it is hard to believe that one poem could have turned into the other in the short period of time between 1620 and 1784. Their associating pumpkins with Halloween (Samhain) needs explaining.
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nemesis8


In: byrhfunt
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OK I am up for the AD, QI guess.... I reckon..umm...Bunting sounds like "bonnet" therefore I would say rabbit skinned cap, to keep a baby warm...as per the Inuit.....probably explains "bonne" good and lucky as well.... time of year...err.... very cold....winter....?
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Hatty
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In: Berkshire
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It's not a test! A bunny bonnet is a lovely image though Baby Bunting seems to be about hunting or rather trapping. Perhaps hunters caught warrened rabbits and used them as decoys like ducks. (Dunting means 'bobbing up and down' in Northumbria where eider ducks, famous for their down, were farmed). Bobbing or ducking for apples is another time-honoured Halloween custom.

Bunt (origin unknown) is a) the middle part of a sail where it forms a pouch to maximise the effect of the wind and b) the middle part of a net that forms a sort of pouch where the fish catch is most concentrated.

The 'half a pumpkin' suggests a seasonal turning-point, the lady on her death-bed is perhaps the waning of the sun or the dying of the year. Pumpkins are round and golden, they make quite a good model for the earth. The Halloween lanterns may have a calendrical basis that then passed into folklore. Tony Lumpkin is a variation of Jack o' Lantern, a trickster character.
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Hatty
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Actually a rabbit cap is rather apt, there are some very striking carvings found across Europe as far as China and in England, mostly in churches in Devon, of three hares running in a circle joined by one of their ears. The hares all face the same direction so they form a continuous circle. No-one knows what the three hares mean but hares in folklore are associated with the moon (the Chinese 'hare in the moon', moon-mad etc.).

The Welsh have a patron saint of hares, St. Melangell (mil, i.e. a thousand, angels?). According to legend a hare that was being hunted by a prince took refuge under her cloak. She was praying inside a thicket of brambles and thorns, again a circle. Naturally she repulsed the advances of the prince-hunter, being totally chaste like all good moon goddesses.
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