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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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I heard that one was about throwing salt in the face of the Devil.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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| I heard that one was about throwing salt in the face of the Devil. |
That's when you accidentally spill salt, an unpardonable waste when salt was precious and expensive, hence the need to expiate your 'sin'. A bit Calvinistic. Presumably your guardian angel is overlooking your right shoulder so you need to get it right, I mean left.
Salt in the eyes would be painful, not so on a tail - I wonder if the identification of salt with a bird's tail preceded the Devil association. It's just that the Devil's tail is forked, and birds' tails are vaguely fork-shaped or at least fan-shaped, so there may well be a sexual symbolism, sex and the Devil being closely linked again in a puritannical sense.
There may also be intimations of the story of Lot's wife; to avoid being turned into a pillar of salt, on no account look behind you.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Hatty wrote: | | It's just that the Devil's tail is forked, and birds' tails are vaguely fork-shaped or at least fan-shaped, so there may well be a sexual symbolism, sex and the Devil being closely linked again in a puritannical sense. |
I've already given you the etymological connection between Fork and Fuck. It's the same word and refers to the same act, once you recognise the specifics.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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For some reason that I can't precisely identify, this announcement set my antennae twanging
Gildas Sapiens: New Perspectives
University of Manchester
19-20 May 2009
Our knowledge of Britain in the fifth and early sixth centuries still depends to a remarkable degree on the surviving work De excidio Britanniae ('Concerning the Ruin of Britain'), by one Gildas, a learned British writer using Latin and working from a self-consciously Christian perspective. However, there has been comparatively little work published on Gildas since the seminal volume Gildas: New Approaches, edited by Michael Lapidge and David Dumville in 1984.
25 years on, this Symposium offers an opportunity for scholars to come together once more and debate the nature and significance of Gildas and his writings. Papers will focus on historical and philological aspects of his work, the later fortunes of De excidio as a piece of medieval literature, and the meaning and value of this mysterious author for the 21st century. | |
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| Hatty wrote: | | It's just that the Devil's tail is forked |
I was intrigued by this, because I had always had a vision of the Devil with an arrow shape at the end of his tail. So I went looking for an explanation and I couldn't find one. Where does the Devil's "forked tail" originate?
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| Ishmael wrote: | | I've already given you the etymological connection between Fork and Fuck. It's the same word and refers to the same act, once you recognise the specifics. |
Have you heard the one about the dyslexic who took his goat to a toga party? Or the other one who went looking for a dog in a church?
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| There may also be intimations of the story of Lot's wife; to avoid being turned into a pillar of salt, on no account look behind you. |
"Get thee behind me, Satan"?
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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| Where does the Devil's "forked tail" originate? |
Don't know precisely but assume it's part of the serpent analogy, forked tongue i.e. persuasive, lying. Sometimes the devil is portrayed with a pitchfork rather than a tail, or with horns atop, all part of the same metaphor. The horns are specifically alluding to sexual deception, far older no doubt than the satanic depictions with which we're familiar.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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| There may also be intimations of the story of Lot's wife; to avoid being turned into a pillar of salt, on no account look behind you. |
"Get thee behind me, Satan"? |
Probably not relevant but whiteness as symbolised by salt though traditionally associated with purity is the colour of death in China. Lot's wife preserved for eternity in salt sounds like embalming; was Egypt the only land where mummification was practised and, if so, is the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah a(nother) metaphor for Egypt, standing for the way of the flesh, debasement, infidelity to the Just way?
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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| This reminds me of the day I disagreed with Tolkien on some Anglo-Saxon website or other. I was convicted unanimously of blasphemy since Tolkien was not regarded as a middle-ranking Anglo-Saxon scholar (his actual academic status) but The Master From Whom All Flows. |
Tolkein's reputation as an Anglo-Saxon scholar rests to a certain extent on his resurrection of Beowulf, in particular an essay written in the '30's on the role of 'monsters' being a crucial aspect not an irrelevancy, in other words a literary appreciation. When did Anglo-Saxon studies as an integral part of Eng Lit arise? Perhaps round about the time of his tenure of some chair or other at Oxford. Somewhat to my surprise a lot of his work seems to have been published posthumously by his son; makes you wonder what held The Master From All Flows back during his life-time.
[Tolkein's family came from Germany originally, Saxony to be more precise; wiki says the name is a kenning (there's a nice coincidence) or an oxymoron even. Toll is translated as 'foolhardy', giving us 'dull-keen' in English, but when I looked toll up the word is given as 'mad' with the evolved, modern meaning of 'great, spiffing(!), fantastic'; kien, a common German or Dutch name, is derived from kuhne apparently which in turn is linked to 'kohn' or Cohen. German/Dutch, possibly Jewish, bookish types seem strangely drawn to A-S and assorted esoterica.]
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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Gildas' reputation might be faltering. Michael Lapidge, an English prof and fellow of the British Academy and therefore in the bosom of the establishment, reappraised De Excidio more than 20 years ago and apparently no-one has taken it further since then.
| Gildas's 'De Excidio Britanniae' is the prime source of our knowledge of post-Roman Britain, but because it is such an isolated text, for which we have no obvious historical, geographical or cultural background, it is a work which raises more questions than answers. |
The 'questions' centre on whether the text is reliable it seems, no mention of the 'f' word.
| This is a volume which no student of post-Roman Britain can afford to ignore; it does not attempt to present clear-cut conclusions or optimistic certainties, but establishes a basis on which further research can be carried out. |
A glowing review acknowledging the author's erudition and avoiding 'revisionist', never mind 'forgery'. Is it an instance of careful ignoral?
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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| I was intrigued by this, because I had always had a vision of the Devil with an arrow shape at the end of his tail. So I went looking for an explanation and I couldn't find one. |
It's almost the converse of Cupid's arrows, a mirror image even, a 'secret weapon' against which the victim has no defence; the arrow of love is quite explicitly sexual and "pagan" but the Devil's arrow-shaped -- or should that be fish-shaped? -- tail might be a much more recent addition to Christian lore (the seventeenth-century springs to mind as a time of particularly lurid imaginings and witch crazes).
[Dan's "Get thee behind me, Satan" is specifically addressed to Peter, the Rock (or Stone), can't help being reminded of Renaissance-style paintings of grinning faces in mirrors and the Medusa myth... if the onlooker becomes petrified on seeing himself in a mirror, like Narcissus imprisioned by his reflection, there's good cause to avoid facing the mirror-holder, or light-bearer.]
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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There's something deep here, but I'm not sure what. The Devil 'belongs' behind you (looking over your left shoulder*) and it's safe to look at the monster in the mirror, but not to look back yourself... and not safe to look at yourself in the mirror, as Narcissus did. (Something about photographs capturing the soul? Man made in God's image?) I wonder if you're not to catch sight of yourself when scrying into a bowl. I wonder if crystal balls guarantee you'll never see yourself.
Can the Devil see his own arse? Is it the most evil thing in the universe? Is that why witches were accused of kissing it?
Does your own back side represent evil because that's the one place you can't look directly? (You can circumspect everywhere else.) Sight is equated with Reason, and your bum is purely Sensual. The missionary position was advocated because you can see (and rationalise) what's going on?
* I don't believe that bit about the spilling of the salt being the sin because it's so expensive. If the Devil is over your shoulder all the time, then you should be throwing salt all the time. No one can afford to do that, but when you've spilled it anyway, take the opportunity to throw some.
Mind you, spilling salt must be like spilling seed on the ground: a blasphemy in its own right, emulating Amun.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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These Trolls being connected with seafaring peoples is interesting; an arrow- or fish-shaped tail, and especially the pitchfork business, is very Neptune-like. Aren't there ghost stories about seeing the (bleached) faces of drowned sailors peering up from the depths?
Crystal balls are cloudy so, yes, there'd be no danger in gazing into them.
Religions are often fiercely adamant that no likeness of man, or god, be made, to do with eliminating idolatrous worship; Christianity revels in 'portraits' though, decidedly paganistic ones at that. It shouldn't come as a surprise to find that depictions of the devil also resemble a pagan god.
{I agree about throwing salt over your shoulder being hard to swallow. But, if it was salty, or even sea, water, that could tie in with the tradition of making offerings to spirits...a bit like saying Grace.}
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| I agree about throwing salt over your shoulder being hard to swallow |
Joke of the day!
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