Cloak-not-Dagger (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Hatty]

On spring festivals, Pesach (Passover), the equivalent of Easter, means 'to limp, stagger, perform a hobbling dance'. Pesach is of course an annual celebration of release from slavery, in a religious context the symbolism of setting out across the desert to the Promised Land is self-explanatory. But 'hobbling' is generally equated with capturing/castrating/sacrificing, not with release.

There is also a connection with worshippers of Dionysus who performed a hobbling or 'partridge-dance'. The partridge-dance is so called because a cock partridge was attracted by a lame duck, a decoy, into the centre of a maze. The maze is acting as a bird-trap. The idea of a maze tracing a spiritual journey probably came later.

[Mick Harper]

It turns out that bird-capturing was the original (or at any rate a central) purpose of the Megalithics. It's all in The Magic Flute.

[Hatty]

"And a partridge in a pear tree." No-one knows where or when The Twelve Days of Christmas song originated though France seems to be cited most, rather aptly in view of their penchant for devouring small birds.

The first seven gifts refer to birds, the "gold rings" apparently meaning golden ring-necked pheasants* (perhaps guinea-fowl, since according to Greek myth they were Artemis' favourites?). The point is that it evokes an end-of-the-year celebration and the reoccurring partridge or perdrix, pronounced pear-dree, is sacred to Artemis, the goddess of the moon and hunting, who was born on Ortygia, the 'isle of quail' (though some say Delos).


* Girls aged not less than five dressed in saffron robes (arktoi) were sent to serve the goddess for a year.

[nemesis8]

[Mick Harper]

So a partidge in a pear-tree means a partridge in a partridge. It all fits into place.

[Ishmael]

huh?

[Mick Harper]

[Ishmael]

Wow!!!

[Hatty]

According to Robert Graves (Greek Myths), the pear-tree is sacred to Artemis. Apple-trees were presumably sacred to her twin brother, Apollo (having an apple-y name), so fair do's and suitably 'Druidic'. Anyway, it's clear from the ditty that a play on words is going on.

[Graves wrote that wooden Artemis-dolls were hung on the branches of pear trees as votive offerings though it sounds suspiciously like bird-scaring tactics].

[Mick Harper]

The partridge is one of those is-it/was-it? species that are, even now, slightly domesticated ie prime facie used-to-be Megalithic, now feral. Two other birds of similarly doubtful provenance are the zebra finch and the bullfinch. All info on these gratefully accepted.

[Mick Harper]

And speaking of pear-trees, is it absolutely certain that the pear is not a domesticated variant of the apple-tree? Or perhaps vice versa.

[Hatty]

Cider is made from pears as well as apples. The wild varieties are more acidic than cultivated species, cf. sage apples and oak-gall apples (but as with sloe berries etc. are clearly suitable for alcohol).

[Artemis turned someone or other into a guinea-fowl, another bird 'sacred' to her. I noticed a flock of guinea-fowl pecking around near the Thames (with the megalithic accoutrements of a weir, a mill and a pub) and wondered how they avoided predation from foxes. Like peacocks, they roost overnight in small trees. Hanging things from branches would deter predators but not disturb domesticated birds, hence scare-crows scare everything except crows.]

[nemesis8]

[Hatty]

Why do frogs turn into princes when kissed? Just checked 'frog in folklore' and the first thing that came up is the frog was associated with Heqet, the Egyptian goddess of childbirth, magic, etc., known as Hecate to the Romans.

Not sure why the frog is so emblematic in Ancient Egypt, perhaps to do with the Nile. Male frog-headed deities were found in Hermopolis, the capital of Upper Egypt, strategically built on the Nile.

Would frogs eat lotus flowers growing in the Nile mud? The lotus has psychoactive properties so if the frog was eaten the effects would presumably be attributed to it.

[Mick Harper]

We now know one of the methods the Megalithics used in domesticating plants, converting apple trees into pear trees etc (and maybe animals)