Balderdash for the Medieval Gay #50
October 26, 2008
(a compendium of queer words for the modern fag with a passion for the Middle Ages added hebdomadally on the Sabbath day)
50.) Ingle
-noun singular
a.) An open fire in a fireplace.*
b.) A fireplace.
[Origin: Unknown. Perhaps from the Scots Gaelic or Irish aingeal meaning "a light, fire, or live ember," it may also relate to the Latin igniculus, a diminutive of ignis, or "fire."]
*It is to the fire or the cheerful and comfortable inglenook in a home to which faeries are reportedly drawn, just as humans were drawn to that same magical element when Prometheus had breathed life into them. The secret of fire is a most ancient and sacred thing.
Balderdash for the Medieval Gay #49
October 19, 2008
(a compendium of queer words for the modern fag with a passion for the Middle Ages added hebdomadally on the Sabbath day)
49.) Hircocervus
-noun singular
a.) A mythological beast, half goat and half stag.
b.) A thing that is knowable but that does not exist.*
[Origin: from a combination of the Latin hircus meaning "billy goat" and cervus meaning "stag."]
*The hircocervus strikes me as a quite zoomorphically possible beast and even uncannily close to certain descriptions of the basic anatomy of the fabled unicorn, but it was never thusly associated to my knowledge. Simultaneously conjuring it and denying its physical existence, Plato maintained the idea that this mythical goat-stag was something that was knowable but that did not exist. Here we have another example of a mythological hybrid beast who met a similar fate as that of the chimera (part goat, part lion, and part serpent) whose image was most likely a powerful calendar-symbol of the ancient tripartite year, but whose name eventually came to mean something that is a fanciful mental illusion or fabrication.
Balderdash for the Medieval Gay #48
October 12, 2008
(a compendium of queer words for the modern fag with a passion for the Middle Ages added hebdomadally on the Sabbath day)
48.) Theandric
-adjective
a.) Relating to, or existing by, the union of divine and human operation in Christ, or the joint agency of the divine and human nature.
b.) Pertaining to a god-like human being.*
[Origin: From the Greek theos meaning "god" and andros meaning "man."]
*Many members of the tribe will relate to fantasizing about the more theandric gentlemen among us.
Balderdash for the Medieval Gay #47
October 5, 2008
(a compendium of queer words for the modern fag with a passion for the Middle Ages added hebdomadally on the Sabbath day)
47.) Nemoral
-adjective
a.) Of or pertaining to a wood or grove.
b.) Fond of forests or woods.*
c.) Living in forests or groves.
[Origin: from the Latin nemus meaning "grove" and the French némoral, "pertaining to a wood or grove."]
*Members of the tribe will possibly relate to those secretive creatures and other elusive ilk that have been forced over time to conduct their arts and leisure activities covertly in remote nemoral or even subterranean loci.
