A monstrum is a sign or portent that disrupts the natural order as evidence of divine displeasure.[327] The word monstrum is usually assumed to derive, as Cicero says, from the verb monstro, “show” (compare English “demonstrate”), but according to Varro it comes from moneo, “warn.”[328] Because a sign must be startling or deviant to have an impact, monstrum came to mean “unnatural event”[329] or “a malfunctioning of nature.”[330] Suetonius said that “a monstrum is contrary to nature <or exceeds the nature> we are familiar with, like a snake with feet or a bird with four wings.”[331] The Greek equivalent was teras.[332] The English word “monster” derived from the negative sense of the word. Compare miraculum, ostentum, portentum, and prodigium.
In one of the most famous uses of the word in Latin literature, the Augustan poet Horace calls Cleopatra a fatale monstrum, something deadly and outside normal human bounds.[333] Cicero calls Catiline monstrum atque prodigium[334] and uses the phrase several times to insult various objects of his attacks as depraved and beyond the human pale. For Seneca, the monstrum is, like tragedy, “a visual and horrific revelation of the truth.”[335]
The Great Rhetra (Greek: Μεγάλη Ῥήτρα, literally: Great “Saying” or “Proclamation”, charter) was used in two senses by the classical authors. In one sense, it was the Spartan Constitution, believed to have been formulated and established by the legendary lawgiver, Lycurgus. In the legend Lycurgus forbade any written constitution. It was therefore presumed to have been oral. In a second sense, the rhetra refers to an oracle of Delphi, which was believed to have contained the entire constitution in verse. Th
Source: Great Rhetra – Wikipedia
The Lia Fáil was thought to be magical: when the rightful High King of Ireland put his feet on it, the stone was said to roar in joy.[1] The stone is also credited with the power to rejuvenate the king and also to endow him with a long reign.
Source: Lia Fáil – Wikipedia
Using the Quatrian Oracle cards:
According to the legend found in Plutarch’s Lives and other sources, when Lycurgus became confident in his reforms, he announced that he would go to the oracle at Delphi to sacrifice to Apollo. However, before leaving for Delphi he called an assembly of the people of Sparta and made everyone, including the kings and Gerousia, take an oath binding them to observe his laws until he returned. He made the journey to Delphi and consulted the oracle, which told him that his laws were excellent and would make his people famous. He then disappeared from history. One explanation was that being satisfied by this he starved himself to death instead of returning home, forcing the citizens of Sparta by oath to keep his laws indefinitely.[11]
Source: Lycurgus of Sparta – Wikipedia
Feronia’s name is derived from a Sabine adjective corresponding to Latin fĕrus. Feronia comes from Etruscan, but with a long vowel, i.e. Fērōnǐa. The root fer has cognate words in every Indo-European language (e.g. Greek θήρ, θήριον) and is also the root of the Vedic god Rudrá’s name. Latin fĕrus means “not cultivated, untamed” (Thesaurus Linguae Latinae), “of the field, wood”, “untamed”, “not mitigated by any cultivation” (Forcellini Totius Latinatis Lexicon) which fits the environment of the sanctuaries of Feronia and is very close to rudis (rude).[…]
Source: Feronia (mythology) – Wikipedia
The Mistress of Animals is a widespread motif in ancient art from the Mediterranean world and the Ancient Near East, showing a central human, or human-like, female figure who grasps two animals, one to each side. The oldest such depiction, the Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük is a clay sculpture from Çatalhöyük in modern Turkey, made c 6,000 BC. This motif is more common in later Near Eastern and Mesopotamian art with a male figure, called the Master of Animals.
Although the connections between images and concepts in the various ancient cultures concerned remain very unclear, such images are often referred to as of Potnia Theron (Ἡ Πότνια Θηρῶν, “Mistress of Animals”), a term first used once by Homer (Iliad 21. 470) and often used to describe female divinities associated with animals.[1] The word Potnia, meaning mistress or lady, was a Mycenaean Greek word inherited by Classical Greek, with the same meaning, cognate to Sanskrit patnī.[2]
Source: Potnia Theron – Wikipedia
While hunting a stag Placidus saw a vision of a crucifix lodged between the stag’s antlers.[5] […]
In Armenia, Erewmanavank (“Convent of the Holy Apparition”) near Egin was said to be built on the actual location of the encounter of Placidus with the deer. The earliest surviving text detailing this is a manuscript from 1446, but the monastery is far older than that and probably a Byzantine foundation; J.-M. Thierry considers it to be a 10th-century foundation, perhaps by Greeks from Cappadocia. Although the monastery was destroyed during the Armenian Genocide, Thierry, in the 1980s, noted that a transmitted form of the legend still existed among local Muslim Kurds who talked of a “deer of light” appearing at the site.[14] […]
In Georgian mythology, Saint Eustace became associated with the hunting deity Apsat, patron of game animals.[26]
Source: Saint Eustace – Wikipedia
The Svan people of Georgia regard Apsat as one among a pantheon of hunting deities, said to be assistants of the deity Ber Shishvlish, the “Lord of the Bare Mountain”.[7] To the Svan, Apsat is the patron of fish and birds. In this capacity, he works with Dzhgyrag (the Svan name for St. George), who is associated with hunters and wolves, Cxek’ish angelwez (the Angel of the Forest) who is responsible for forest animals like bears and foxes, and the goddess Dali, the patron of hoofed mountain animals like goats.[2][7] […]
To the Ossetian people, Apsat is called Avsati or Æfsati, and he is regarded as the primary deity of the hunt.[8] He appears as such in the Ossetian epic called the Nart saga.[4] Ossetian hunters referred to game as Æfsati’s cattle (Ossetian: aefsatijy fos).[1] Hunters would make offerings and sing hymns begging his favor, and if successful in the hunt, would offer roasted organs such as the heart or the liver for thanks.[8] He is most commonly portrayed as elderly, bearded, and either one-eyed or blind.[4] It was said that he dwelt in a hut deep in the forest with his wife and daughters, and would occasionally permit huntsmen to marry his daughters.[8] Occasionally he was portrayed as a man with antlers or an animal with a white coat.[4]
Source: Apsat (mythology) – Wikipedia
During Hubert’s religious vision, the Hirsch (German: deer) is said to have lectured Hubertus into holding animals in higher regard and having compassion for them as God’s creatures with a value in their own right. For example, the hunter ought to only shoot when a humane, clean and quick kill is assured. He ought shoot only old stags past their prime breeding years and to relinquish a much anticipated shot on a trophy to instead euthanize a sick or injured animal that might appear on the scene.
Further, one ought never shoot a female with young in tow to assure the young deer have a mother to guide them to food during the winter. Such is the legacy of Hubert who still today is taught and held in high regard in the extensive and rigorous German and Austrian hunter education courses.
The legacy is also followed by the French chasse à courre masters, huntsmen and followers, who hunt deer, boar and roe on horseback and are the last direct heirs of Saint Hubert in Europe. Chasse à courre (riding to hounds) is currently enjoying a revival in France. The Hunts apply a specific set of ethics, rituals, rules and tactics dating back to the early Middle-Ages. Saint Hubert is venerated every year by the Hunts in formal ceremonies.
Source: Hubertus – Wikipedia