Wisdom from the Book of the Dragontooth

Having recently rediscovered De Historia et Veritate Unicornis, I decided to seek out other works by its author and cheerfully discovered The Book of the Dragontooth which I soon obtained.

“All knowledge is vain except where there be work, and all work is empty except where there be love.”

-Eugnostos from The Book of the Dragontooth

Balderdash for the Medieval Gay #2

(a compendium of queer words for the modern fag with a passion for the Middle Ages added hebdomadally on the Sabbath day)

2.) Alectorian
-noun singular

a.) Cockstone. A Type of stone said to be found in (the gizzards of) poultry; used as a victory charm by an athlete.*

[Origin: Greek alector, cock; marteia, divination]

According to Pliny the Elder, “the name given to a stone that is found in the crop of poultry, like crystal in appearance, and about as large as a bean in size” and which made the athlete Milo of Crotona undefeatable. Pliny does not make clear which part of the cock it is found. In The Book of Secrets of Albertus Magnus it says “Alectoria…is white as a Crystal, and it is drawn out of the Cock’s gizzard, or maw, after that he hath been gelded more than four years…put under the tongue, it quencheth thirst.” While real Albertus Magnus says that “A capon…after six years a stone named electorius grows in its liver, and from that time onwards the capon does not drink, and therefore a man who wears this stone is said not to get thirsty.”

Alectromancy is a kind of divination by use of a cock. Draw a circle, and write in succession round it the letters of the alphabet, on each of which lay a grain of corn. Then put a cock in the centre of the circle, and watch what grains he eats. The letters will prognosticate the answer. Libanius and Jamblicus thus discovered who was to succeed the emperor Valens. The cock ate the grains over the letters t, h, e, o, d = Theod [orus].

*Cocks and small game were often given as love tokens by the erasti (lover) to the eromenos (beloved) in ancient Greece.  Someone please get me some cock!

Balderdash for the Medieval Gay #1

(a compendium of queer words for the modern fag with a passion for the Middle Ages added hebdomadally on the Sabbath day)

1.) Nimbi
-noun plural (nĭm-bī’) or nim·bus·es, singular nimbus

a.) A cloudy radiance said to surround a classical deity when on earth.

b.) A radiant light that appears usually in the form of a circle or halo about or over the head in the representation of a god, demigod, saint, or sacred person such as a king or an emperor.

c.) A splendid atmosphere or aura, as of glamour, that surrounds a person or thing.*

d.) A rain cloud, especially a low dark layer of clouds such as a nimbostratus.

[Origin: 1610–20; < Latin: a rainstorm, rain cloud, thundercloud, cloud; akin to the Latin nebula and Greek nephélé, néphos cloud]

*Fabulous! Work it girls!

“For Every Seeker of the Beautiful and Wondrous”

I thus begin this, my first web log, with mention of a treasured little book entitled De Historia et Veritate Unicornis (On the History and Truth of the Unicorn) that I think my late grandfather gave me as a present when I was a little boy. Purporting to be the facsimile and translation of an original 15th century manuscript known as the Codex Unicornis (Book of the Unicorn) written by the alleged Master Magnalucius, this elegantly detailed work of fiction (described as having been “discovered and annotated” by Michael Green in 1982) utterly captivated me when I was younger. Although in its flights of fancy it arguably flouts the lineage of actual early literary sources raising the question of the existence of the unicorn (such as the Indica of Ctesias in the late 5th century B.C.E. and Pliny the Elder’s De Historia Naturalis in the 3rd century A.D.) in which I have since developed an interest, the style of this charming and mysterious book speaks directly to an essential part of my childhood, namely my personal method of invention which intentionally confounds poetry with history and mythology.

I have to admit that I always wanted to be a Sunday’s child (in folk legend one who is born on a Sunday is endowed with the ability to see faeries and other visions). When I was a boy my favorite species of unicorn mentioned in the Codex Unicornis was the Nimbi, a most precious and elusive creature said to be seen only by children. The title of this web log, The Land of Nimbi, referring literally both to these elegant diminutive beasts as well as to the plural of the word nimbus (either a dark rain-bearing cloud or a radiant light that appears in the form of a circle or halo about or over the head of a holy person), intends to evoke a place where one may rejuvenate her or his imagination with offerings in the form of illuminated fragments of my own life’s manuscript. As is so clearly stated on the cover of De Historia et Veritate Unicornis, it is also in my mind simply a place “for every seeker of the beautiful and wondrous.”