Faith · Books · Mores · Humour
Since time immemorial, lilies have been a symbol of innocence. Christians linked the image of this flower with the tears of Eve and with the Virgin Mary. In the Middle Ages the lily, precisely in its meanings associated with purity, was widespread in mythology, in iconography and in heraldry alike.
Archive · Observations
To mark our five-thousandth reader, I have started a new channel where I shall post headlines and wild stories from the archival periodicals I read for work. Do subscribe: https://t.me/cucumberdeath
Books · Observations · Mores · Ethnography
In the 11th and 12th centuries a struggle unfolded in Rus' between two types of matrimonial norm: the exogamous (forbidding marriage within a family, clan, tribe or other group) and the endogamous (permitting it). Strange as it may seem, this confrontation is reflected in the bylina of Ilya Muromets,
NB! · Archaeology · Faith · Mores · Ethnography · Humour
In medieval Sweden, unmarried women were buried with a mirror, so that they might set their hair straight at the resurrection at the end of time and look a little better. Even at the Last Judgement, one is received by one's dress
NB! · The East · Art · Monarchies · Museums · Humour
An ivory suite presented by Louis XVI to Tipu Sultan, ruler of the Indian state of Mysore, is on display in the Salar Jung Museum, India's largest art museum. A question: why carry sand to the beach?
NB! · Aristocracy · Art · Mores · Humour
Problems of the aristocracy: how to settle relations between the servants? Claude Gillot, The Two Carriages, 1707. And do not be alarmed: the woman with the reptilian face is in fact merely wearing a velvet mask known as a “moretta”.
NB! · Books · Society · People
The book by KGB chairman Vladimir Semichastny, "The Soviet Special Services in the Secret War", contains a curious episode about Pasternak. His words on the attempt by Western intelligence services to promote a "dissident" sound especially lively
NB! · Aristocracy · Art · Monarchies · People · Pop Culture · Humour
NB! · Faith · Art · Cinema · Humour
An incredible likeness! A bust of Friedrich Charles Timothy Emmerich (1786-1820), preacher at the Church of Saint Thomas in Strasbourg, who looks remarkably like Alfie Allen, Theon Greyjoy of "Game of Thrones"
NB! · Books · Mores · Paris · Humour
There’s a damn’d Love-trick new brought oer from France. In short, John Dryden holds France to be the lawgiver of sex between men. The tragedy “The Duke of Guise” dates from 1683, and the idea is alive and well to this day
NB! · Archive · Books · Science · Nature
No one ever saw a genuine barometz, and the search for it went on until the end of the eighteenth century. Drawing from a book by the German Friedrich Justin Bertuch
The East · Books · Nature · Ethnography
From the Middle Ages onwards, European literature mentions a mythical plant-animal known as the Baranets, sometimes called the Boranets or Boramets. It is also known as the Tartar lamb or the Scythian lamb. The first mentions of the Baranets appear in the notes of medieval travellers; in time the