Faith · Books · Mores

The 18th-century term onanism and its mistaken link to the biblical Onan

The eighteenth century produced several bestsellers on masturbation, which naturally condemned it as not merely sinful but exceedingly harmful. There were, it is true, works that refuted the delusion, but, as so often happens, they never won popularity enough to dispel the myth. To the eighteenth century we also owe

NB! · Art · Observations · Humour

Jan Miense Molenaer, 17th century

Jan Miense Molenaer, 17th century. Children PLAYING AND MAKING MERRY. I can imagine what my mother would have done to these children for such games. Not that I am any fonder of tormentors of animals myself 👿

Seated stone statue of a bearded man in a cap with large eyes, his robe covered in cuneiform, with a display case of pottery behind.

NB! · Archaeology · The East · Art · Museums · Observations · Humour

Statue of Idrimi, King of Alalakh, with an autobiographical inscription on his robe

King Idrimi of Alalakh has been extremely tense for 3,500 years, as though disturbed at an inconvenient moment. And his face seems to say more than the autobiographical text inscribed across his robe

NB! · Faith · Monarchies · Observations · Humour

Queen Victoria Presents a Bible to an Ambassador from an East African Country

Queen Victoria presents a Bible to an ambassador from an East African country. I do love English humour

NB! · Observations

My Workplace, as You Can See

Archaeology · Archive · Monarchies · Heritage · Paris

The body of Henry IV when the Saint-Denis crypts were opened during the Revolution

There is one more detail in this story that I have not mentioned before. When the crypts of the French kings at Saint-Denis were opened during the Revolution, beginning with Clovis, who lived in the fifth century, the body of Henry IV was found in an extraordinarily good state

Park with a flower bed, a trimmed hedge and lamp posts in front of tall trees.

NB! · Observations · Nature · Ethnography

European superstition about straight-trimmed bushes as a path for witches

In Europe there was a superstition that shrubs clipped in a straight line serve as a pathway for witches, and so a hedge must take some other shape. But I am not afraid of witches and I enjoy the beauty of the park

NB! · Monarchies · Museums · People

The cradle of Henry IV rests upon the blue royal standard of the Bourbons; it served as a travelling cot for the heir, whom his grandfather, Henri d'Albret, King of Navarre, took with him on hunts and long rides

NB! · Monarchies · Museums · Mores

A cradle made from a tortoise shell beneath the banners of Navarre and the Bourbons: the cradle of the heir of Navarre, who would become the first King of France of the Bourbon dynasty, as Henry IV

Museums · Observations · Ethnography

The existing nábrók is probably a modern reconstruction, with little evidence for the original

Returning to the nábrók, NB: the surviving specimen is most likely a modern fabrication, merely reconstructing the legend. They are kept in a private museum, and since it is thanks to them that we learnt of it at all, they evidently do their work tolerably well. Evidence for the trousers

Museums · Ethnography · Humour

Magic trousers of human skin called naubrouki, and the rules for making and passing them on

In Iceland, at least until the seventeenth century, a man eager to grow rich could make himself a pair of magic trousers for the purpose. First, one had to ask a man for permission to make trousers from his skin. When he died, one had to dig up his corpse,

NB! · Faith · Museums · Ethnography

This alarming exhibit from the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft is a nábrók, ritual underwear made from the skin of a corpse, worn to attract great wealth

Alexandr Radayev