Archive for September, 2007
By: The Scribe on September, 2007
No, it’s not a splash of spilled ink… the ancient Norse blot was actually a pagan sacrifice to the Norse gods and the Elves, held at several times throughout the year. The sacrifice typically took the form of a sacramental feast or meal, and the sacrificial victims tended to be pigs and horses. The meat from these festivals was then boiled in enormous cooking pots heated by stones, and the blood from the animals was sprinkled on the community’s statues of their gods, on the walls, and on the people, as it was believed to hold special magical powers.
The word “blota”, from which the sacrificial festival took its name, means “to worship with sacrifice” in Old Norse, and the people would gather around the boiling pots of meat as it cooked, believing they were having a meal with the Elves! They also passed around a drink that was blessed and considered sacred, each person taking a drink as the cup came into their hands. Typically, the drink would be either beer or mead, while the high-class nobility often imported wine just for the occasion!
Several blots were held throughout the year, one in October and then later on, one in December called “The Great Midwinter Blot.” Interestingly enough, the tradition of eating ham at the December blot has continued, as it still tends to be the main course at Christmas feasts in Scandinavian countries. Around April, a third ‘summer’ blot was held in honor of the god Odin, celebrating the beginning of the season of war and Viking raid expeditions.
Blots were actually held in their own little blot buildings called ‘hovs’, however most hovs were destroyed or built over during Christianization of the area – namely, medieval churches were built overtop these spots in an effort to redeem the land. Several laws were also put into place that forbade various forms of pagan worship, but the traditions were so ingrained into the local culture that elements of the rituals have survived until today, such as the Christmas tradition.
Each Scandinavian country had their own variations on each blot throughout the year, though the basic concept remained the same: kill a pig, have dinner with elves!
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Tomorrow: more Ancient Standard!
By: The Scribe on September, 2007
Shocking archaeologists and historians around the world, it was in August 2007 that an undisturbed Etruscan tomb was found was completely intact, full of human remains and stunning personal possessions of about 30 people. The tomb was located in the woods near Tuscany, about 70 miles south of Florence.
The tomb consists of a 2 meter long stone chamber, buried in the ground inside the nearby woods and containing at least 30 jars of human ash – consistent with the Etruscan tradition of cremation instead of full body burials. Three of the burial urns were made of stone, two were bronze, and the last 25 were made of a reddish ceramic known as terracotta. A likely explanation for the amount of people buried here is that they were all members of the same family, and the smaller burial urns probably contain the ashes of their servants.
Archaeologists are at a loss to understand how, in the whole of 2,200 years, no one managed to find and break into this tomb and steal the artifacts. As a result, everything the people were buried with was still there: bronze coins, rings, several bronze mirrors, some small terracotta plates, and a stunning black stone amulet.
The Etruscan people existed in the area before the Roman empire began to conquer their territories and eventually eradiated them, and this tomb would have dated back to around the same time as the period when Etruscan settlements in the region were being taken over by the Romans. At this time in history, the Etruscan cities had already been demolished and claimed for Rome, which meant that only those people who dwelt in the countryside still held onto the culture’s traditional practices and rituals.
As a result, the intact tomb found here represents one of the last vestiges of the Etruscan people before they completely disappeared – something which is very valuable in helping to understand their ancient culture and lifestyle. Since this tomb was found undisturbed, it is now thought highly likely that there are more tombs buried in the woods across the Tuscan countryside… who knows what else may appear here in the future?
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Tomorrow: Viking Elf Blot!
By: The Scribe on September, 2007
In the end, Mary Baker/Wilcox was one of the most successful individuals to ever fool an entire class of people – in this case, the whole British upper crust. While it is absolutely incredible that she was able to maintain the hoax for such a long time, one of the leading theories on how she did it centers around the fact that people believed she could not read or understand English. Once people had that idea in their heads, they spoke openly and freely around her, probably providing her with most of the information she used and needed when eventually having ‘conversations’.
Of course, it would have certainly helped that people showed her books that described exotic locales and languages, thinking that she could not read, which only fueled her highly accurate and believable descriptions of faraway lands. Thus, as Mary continued to store up information from visitors to Knole Park – especially those who wanted to show off their knowledge and refined behaviors to this exotic princess – her own behavior became more convincing as she merely catered to other people’s expectations, unbeknownst to them.
It also probably helped that Mrs. Worrall seemed to desperately want to believe she was a foreign princess, and the presence of Princess Caraboo would have helped to fulfill a common desire and fascination for foreign lands that was prevalent in UK high society during this period. Foreign countries had a romantic appeal, and Mary’s performance hit right at the heart of it.
While it is entirely possible that Mary actually did spend some time with gypsies – after all, she had managed to integrate many of their words and phrases into her own language – it seems that she was simply a natural for improvisational acting, and developed the majority of her character on the spot at Knole Park. The clinching piece of the whole scheme also seems to hang on the appearance of Manuel Eynesso, who was able to ‘translate’ her foreign language – who he was, or why he worked with Mary to secure her position as Princess Caraboo will likely never be known, but his appearance and role in the drama seems to have sprung from her earlier experience when she met the ‘Spanish expert’ on the road to Clifton…
Although many details of Mary’s life still remain a mystery, her legacy endures as a young, country heroine who made a name for herself by deceiving the naïve, rich upper class of Britain. In 1994, a film studio made a movie based on her life, and in 2006, a blue plaque was placed at Number 11, Princess Street in Bristol, where Mary lived for the final eleven years of her life.
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Tomorrow: More Ancient Standard
By: The Scribe on September, 2007
At the workhouse, Mary was persuaded to turn the child over to the Foundling Hospital. In order to do so, she was required to give up personal facts and details – all of which are still on record in the hospital archives – to explain why she could not support the child. What she told the hospital was probably as close to the truth as she had ever revealed: her name was given as Mary Wilcox, unmarried, 25 years old, and the father had been a bricklayer named John Baker who had deserted her after they walked to London together.
For the next several months Mary worked for a family near the hospital, visiting her son every week until he died in October of 1816. He was only about 9 months old. Mary didn’t tell the people she was working for that the child had been in hospital, instead choosing to explain he had died at Mary’s mother’s house. Regardless, the Starling family thought she was an excellent servant, albeit somewhat ‘out of her mind’ – apparently her eccentric behavior manifested itself in terrifying stories about gypsies, which she told to the children each night.
Oddly enough, Mary was eventually fired for the reason that she had set fire to the beds! So, she returned to Devon with money she had saved, and told her parents that her baby was dead and she was going to sail for the East Indies. Ten days later, she sent a trunk with her belongings ahead and departed for Bristol, where she planned to leave on her voyage. However, instead of heading to Bristol, she ended up begging toward Plymouth and – according to Mary herself – stayed for awhile with some gypsies. Finally, in March of 1817, she made it to Bristol.
As she looked for a ship heading to Philadelphia, Mary found that she could leave on one in 15 days if she could only raise the passage money of five guineas. She was able to find lodging in a house run by a woman named Mrs. Neale, where she also made friends with a young Jewish girl. Apparently, Mary and her new friend Eleanor went begging together each day, and on one occasion, Eleanor convinced Mary to make a turban out of her black shawl to “make her look more interesting” – after all, French lace-makers were receiving more interest from people because of their high lace headwear.
Mary kept up her farce as a ‘French beggar’ for awhile, but eventually restlessness set in again, and she left Bristol, UK. She frequently used her own made-up language to entertain people or convince them to give her more money, which worked wonderfully until she inevitably met someone who actually spoke French. Quickly improvising, Mary claimed that she was Spanish… and it was around this time that she met the wheelwright’s son who would eventually give the second testimony against her disguise as Princess Caraboo.
Speaking to the wheelwright’s son and many others in her strange language, Mary found that people were eager to assist her and would offer her food and drink for free. At the pub where she met the wheelwright’s son, she refused most of what she was offered, and eventually managed to escape the attention by heading up the road toward Clifton – wheelwright’s son in tow. As they traveled, they met two men, one who claimed to speak perfect Spanish… forcing Mary to talk to him in her ‘language’. Amazingly, the man said he understood it as Spanish, ‘translating’ her words as saying that her parents were behind her on the road, following along. This, of course, gave Mary an understanding in how to use people’s ‘expertise’ to her own advantage.
Tired and bored of the wheelwright’s son, they had a final dinner together when he purchased steak and tea for himself and Mary, and subsequently Mary managed to lose him in the crowds along the quay in Bristol. She stayed in a local lodging house that night, and the next morning, began her journey toward Gloucester – and international fame as Princess Caraboo.
So, how did she actually pull the whole thing off?
…to be continued…
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Tomorrow: The conclusion of the story!
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