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Dark Age Obscured (History)
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Boreades wrote:
"Dragons". Like Uther Pendragon.


Penned Dragon eh.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Earth Pen Dragon
.
Thanks Borovich.
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Wile E. Coyote


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No wonder Arthur had a round table.
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Wile E. Coyote


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Wile E. Coyote wrote:
The problem for the medieval scribe was that the written word, in book form was highly susceptible to attack by demons.

The scribes "solved" this problem by placing complex spirals and knot-work patterns around the borders of the pages as a distraction.

The demons would then became so entranced by these patterns they were unable to attack the written text.

So at one level the spiral functions as magic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apotropaic_magic

Orthodoxy gets this.

But it cant take it further.



Wile E. Coyote wrote:
Our scribe is not engaged in "art" he is engaged in battle and should be understood accordingly.

The strategy is to defend the Word and the tactics are to use intricate patterns to disorientate the demons.

Our scribe is more a soldier than a artist. In his minds eye he is a saint taking on a serpent. The patterns evolve according to the "Fullerite Constant Tactical Factor" that states that every improvement in warfare is checked by a counter-improvement, causing the advantage to shift back and forth between the offensive (the demons) and the defensive (the scribe).

The success of the pattern is not how appealing it looks but whether the demons are defeated. The threat of defeat creates the need for innovation within the patterns.

The scribes strategy of disorientation is as old as deer hunting as modern as Clausewitzian center of gravity (COG).

The Strategy dictates the plan the tactics implement the strategy.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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The dragonpen is mightier than the sword....
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aurelius



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'Pendragon'

literally means "Chief-Dragon", but in a figurative sense, "foremost leader" or "chief of warriors".[3] The name was misinterpreted by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the Historia to mean "dragon's head"
(Wiki)

As you will know there are many settlements around the western coast of England and Wales prefixed by 'Pen' - Penmaenmawr, Pendennis, Penzance etc., usually corresponding to a headland.

I'm just back from a holiday break so I have a lot of catching up to do but I intend to resume the thread proper when I can. Thanks all for chipping in.
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aurelius



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Boreades wrote:
I refer my honourable colleagues to Victor Clube, an astrophysicist. He has been looking into the cyclic nature of the Taurid-Arietid meteor showers that arrive in Britain in late June and November.

He hypothesises that these are remnants of a much bigger meteor cluster on an orbit that intercepts with Earth every c.500 years, and have had bigger impacts with Earth in the past.

Like the Tunguska event in Siberia.

Clube says that dendochronology in Britain says there was a major event c.540AD.


I am aware of Clube & Napier's book but haven't read it. In terms of 540 AD they probably used some of the sources I have been reading, which all point to something devastating happening 535-540 as I have outlined earlier.

Thanks Borry.
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aurelius



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In TME, Hatty and Mick depict the Michael Line as running from St Michaels Mount to Avebury and beyond to cut the East Anglian coast at Ormesby St Margaret, just north of Caister on Sea and East of the Norfolk Broads.

Opposite the title page in Ralph Whitlock's book Here Be Dragons there is a small (quarto-size) map of England Wales and Scotland showing the distribution of 194 British dragon/wyvern/serpent/worm legends referred to therein. Of these, a remarkable number - about 30 - form an approximately 25 mile wide meander around the Michael Line.

Whitlock states "Jacqueline Simpson has discovered over forty dragon-slaying saints in the Western Church and doubtless study of the lore of Eastern Churches would add to the number. Among them is St Margaret...by far the greatest number representations of dragons are to be found in churches. They are in the form of carvings on bench-ends, misericords and other items of ecclesiastical furniture,or stone sculptures. or paintings either framed or on walls, and of stained glass windows".

At Trull in Somerset, appropriately dedicated to St Michael, "a stained glass window portrays St Michael, St George and St Margaret of Antioch, each killing a dragon"...
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aurelius



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About 20 miles from Avebury is the Uffington White Horse...on Dragon Hill,

Dragon Hill is a low flat-topped mound situated in the valley below the White Horse. In legend it is the place where St George slew the dragon, its blood spilling on the hilltop and leaving forever a bare white patch where no grass can grow. Some suggest that the horse is a representation of St George's steed or even of the slain dragon itself.


http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/oxfordshire/featured-sites/uffington-white-horse-and-dragon-hill.html
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Wile E. Coyote


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A word to Auro.

In Chinese martial arts, "Dragon style" is used to describe styles of fighting based more on understanding movement, while "Tiger style" is based on brute strength and memorization of techniques
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aurelius



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Wile E. Coyote wrote:
A word to Auro.

In Chinese martial arts, "Dragon style" is used to describe styles of fighting based more on understanding movement, while "Tiger style" is based on brute strength and memorization of techniques


I'm going to get around to the Eastern dragons but I'm time poor at the moment and I haven't got it all planned out in advance.
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Wile E. Coyote


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Just to add colour.

Wiki wrote:
In Welsh legend, the white dragon was one of two warring dragons who represented the ongoing war between the English and the Welsh. The white dragon represented England, as opposed to the red dragon of Wales.[2]

The battle between the two dragons is the second plague to strike the Island of Britain in the mediaeval romance of Lludd and Llefelys. The White Dragon would strive to overcome the Red Dragon, making the Red cry out a fearful shriek which was heard over every Brythonic hearth. This shriek went through people’s hearts, scaring them so much that the men lost their hue and their strength, women lost their children, young men and the maidens lost their senses, and all the animals and trees and the earth and the waters, were left barren. The plague was finally eradicated by catching the dragons and burying both of them in a rock pit at Dinas Emrys in Snowdonia, north Wales, the securest place in Britain at that time. The dragons were caught by digging out a pit under the exact point where the dragons would fall down exhausted after fighting. This place was at Oxford, which Lludd found to be the exact centre of the island when he measured the island of Britain. The pit had a satin covering over it and a cauldron of mead in it at the bottom. First, the dragons fought by the pit in the form of terrific animals. Then they began to fight in the air over the pit in the form of dragons. Then exhausted with the fighting, they fell down on the pit in the form of pigs and sank into the pit drawing the satin covering under them into the cauldron at the bottom of the pit whereupon they drank the mead and fell asleep. The dragons were then wrapped up in the satin covering and placed in the pit to be buried at Dinas Emrys.[3]



Wiki wrote:
The ultimate source for the symbolism of white dragons in England would appear to be Geoffrey of Monmouth’s fictional History of the Kings of Britain (c. 1136), where an incident occurs in the life of Merlin in which a red dragon is seen fighting a white dragon which it overcomes. The red dragon was taken to represent the Welsh and their eventual victory over the Anglo-Saxon invaders, symbolised by the white dragon.[4] The tale is taken up by Nennius in the Historia Brittonum. The dragons remain at Dinas Emrys for centuries until King Vortigern tries to build a castle there. Every night the castle walls and foundations are demolished by unseen forces. Vortigern consults his advisers, who tell him to find a boy with no natural father, and sacrifice him. Vortigern finds such a boy (who is later, in some tellings, to become Merlin) who is supposed to be the wisest wizard to ever live. On hearing that he is to be put to death to solve the demolishing of the walls, the boy dismisses the knowledge of the advisors. The boy tells the king of the two dragons. Vortigern excavates the hill, freeing the dragons. They continue their fight and the red dragon finally defeats the white dragon. The boy tells Vortigern that the white dragon symbolises the Saxons and that the red dragon symbolises the people of Vortigern. If Vortigern is accepted to have lived in the fifth century, then these people are the British whom the Saxons failed to subdue and who became the Welsh.


This brings to mind the battle the battle between Red Thor and White Christ.
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Wile E. Coyote


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aurelius wrote:

I'm going to get around to the Eastern dragons but I'm time poor at the moment and I haven't got it all planned out in advance.


No problem. That is the best way to travel, don't take baggage.
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Mick Harper
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If he stopped going on holiday with Dame Lowell Goddard he might get some work done.
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Wile E. Coyote


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Mick Harper wrote:
If he stopped going on holiday with Dame Lowell Goddard he might get some work done.


Come on Auro, get those motorised sledges to work, Amundsen is just about to arrive.
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