Swans, which are the property of the Crown elsewhere in the UK, are the property of the people in Orkney and Shetland.[12]
Source: Udal law – Wikipedia
Author: Tim B. Page 151 of 204
The name lituus is Latin, thought to have been derived from an Etruscan cultic word describing a soothsayer’s wand modelled on a shepherd’s crook and associated with sacrifice and favourable omens. Earlier Roman and Etruscan depictions show the instrument used in processions, especially funeral processions.
Source: Lituus – Wikipedia
In ancient times, augurs (augures ex caelo) faced south, so the happy orient, where the sun rose, lay at their left. Consequently, the word sinister (Latin for left) meant well-fated. When, under Greek influence, it became customary for augurs to face north, sinister came to indicate the ill-fated west, where light turned into darkness. It is this latter and later meaning that is attached to the English word sinister.
A templum was the sacred space defined by an augur for ritual purposes, most importantly the taking of the auspices, a place “cut off” as sacred: compare Greek temenos, from temnein to cut.[549] It could be created as temporary or permanent, depending on the lawful purpose of the inauguration. Auspices and senate meetings were unlawful unless held in a templum; if the senate house (Curia) was unavailable, an augur could apply the appropriate religious formulae to provide a lawful alternative.[550]
To create a templum, the augur aligned his zone of observation (auguraculum, a square, portable surround) with the cardinal points of heaven and earth. The altar and entrance were sited on the east-west axis: the sacrificer faced east. The precinct was thus “defined and freed” (effatum et liberatum).[551] In most cases, signs to the augur’s left (north) showed divine approval and signs to his right (south), disapproval.[552]
Henry David Thoreau compared the song of the wood thrush to a ranz des vaches: “So there is something in the music of the cow bell, something sweeter and more nutritious, than in the milk which the farmers drink. This thrush’s song is a ranz des vaches to me. I long for wildness, a nature which I cannot put my foot through, woods where the wood thrush forever sings, where the hours are early morning ones, and there is dew on the grass, and the day is forever unproved, where I might have a fertile unknown for a soil about me.”
Source: Ranz des Vaches – Wikipedia
In Japanese culture, Hatsuyume (初夢) is the first dream one has in the new year. Traditionally, the contents of such a dream would foretell the luck of the dreamer in the ensuing year. In Japan, the night of December 31 was often passed without sleeping, thus the hatsuyume is often experienced during the night of January 1. […]
It is considered to be particularly good luck to dream of Mount Fuji, a hawk, and an eggplant. This belief has been in place since the early Edo period but there are various theories regarding the origins as to why this particular combination was considered to be auspicious. One theory suggests that this combination is lucky because Mount Fuji is Japan’s highest mountain, the hawk is a clever and strong bird, and the word for eggplant (茄子 nasu or nasubi) suggests achieving something great (成す nasu).
Source: Hatsuyume – Wikipedia
17th–19th century collections of alpine myths and legends suggest that alphorn-like instruments had frequently been used as signal instruments in village communities since medieval times or earlier, sometimes substituting for the lack of church bells.
Source: Alphorn – Wikipedia
A wolf tone is frequently accompanied by an oscillating beating (due to the uneven frequencies between the natural note and artificial overtone), which may be likened to the howling of a wolf.
Source: Wolf tone – Wikipedia
Galdr (plural galdrar) is one Old Norse word for “spell, incantation”; these were usually performed in combination with certain rites.[1] It was mastered by both women and men.[2] Some scholars have assumed they chanted it in falsetto (gala).[2][3]
[…] The Old English forms were gealdor, galdor, ȝaldre “spell, enchantment, witchcraft”, and the verb galan meant “sing, chant”. It is contained in nightingale (from næcti-galæ), related to giellan, the verb ancestral to Modern English yell; compare also the Icelandic verb að gala “to sing, call out, yell” and Dutch gillen “to yell, scream”.
[…] It is also mentioned in several of the poems in the Poetic Edda, and for instance in Hávamál, where Odin claims to know 18 galdrar.[1] For instance, Odin mastered galdrar against fire, sword edges, arrows, fetters and storms, and he could conjure up the dead and speak to them.[8][9]
Source: Galdr – Wikipedia