Archaeology · Faith · The East · Ethnography

How Farmers of Ancient Qatar Painted Pebbles to Protect Crops from Spirits

The farmers of ancient Qatar spent most of the winter painting pebbles with horsehair brushes, which they sowed in spring together with the grain. The intricately decorated pebbles were meant to scare off greedy spirits that spoil the seed

NB! · Faith · Art

The Tetramorph from the vision of the prophet Ezekiel (angel, lion, eagle, ox): the biblical allegory of the four Evangelists frames a carved Cretan cross

Carved wooden iconostasis with a gilded crucifix cross, icons, and figures of angels and birds beneath a painted blue ceiling.

NB! · Faith · Art

Griffins beside the crucifix on the Cretan cross at the Vidiani Monastery of the Mother of God

The Cretan cross in the Monastery of the Virgin of Vidiani. On either side of the crucifix stand griffins, symbolising dominion over sky, land and water. The griffins have been subdued by the Church, which has therefore come into possession of that dominion

Carved gilded cross with a crucifixion and icons of the Evangelists, with small angels, winged dragons and a skull and crossbones below.

NB! · Faith · Art

Cretan cross in the Kera Kardiotissa Monastery with images of the four Evangelists

A traditional Cretan cross, Kera Kardiotissa Monastery. At the top of the crucifix is the Evangelist John, at the bottom Luke, on the left Matthew, on the right Mark. Sometimes they appear as an eagle, an ox, an angel and a lion

Illustration of a hunched old woman with a cane and a bundle walking through snow past a Japanese house during a snowfall.

NB! · Faith · The East · Ethnography

The yokai Amazake Baba, who knocks on doors in winter, and how to ward her off

Among the Japanese supernatural creatures, the yokai, there is an old woman called Amazake Baba, who knocks at doors in winter and calls out to the householders; whoever answers will fall mortally ill. The old crone can be frightened off with a cedar branch

Painting of a preacher in a pulpit, a clerk with clasped hands below, and a sleeping woman in a red dress.

NB! · Faith · Art · Observations · Humour

Hogarth's “The Sleeping Congregation” of 1728, with a preacher resembling Desaguliers

The Sleeping Congregation, 1728. Hogarth. It is very Hogarthian that the man in the pulpit looks like the celebrated natural philosopher, propagandist of Newtonian theories and freemason John Theophilus Desaguliers. And the flock is asleep

Two terracotta figurines of Baubo on white stands in a museum display, the left one wearing a headdress, the right one with a large top piece.

NB! · Archaeology · Faith · Ethnography · Humour

Terracotta figurines of Baubo, who made the grieving Demeter laugh

Figurines of Baubo, the old woman who made the goddess Demeter laugh in her grief for her daughter by lifting her skirts and displaying her nether parts. There were Baubos in the old days!

NB! · Faith

When Asked Not to Disturb Prayerful Seclusion

NB! · Faith · Art · Heritage

An Apostle Refuses the Cup of Drink or the Food at the Last Supper

An Apostle refuses the cup of drink or the food at the Last Supper. The beautifully preserved stone reredos of the 1400s from Somerton church survived Puritan iconoclasm by being hidden behind boards

Faith · Observations · Mores · Ethnography

In England there was a fortune-telling custom before Christmas or on St Thomas's Day: girls took three, five or eight onions and pierced them with pins, marking each with a special sign or initial standing for the names of the young men they had their eye

In England there was a fortune-telling custom before Christmas or on St Thomas's Day: girls took three, five or eight onions and pierced them with pins, marking each with a special sign or initial standing for the names of the young men they had their eye on,

Faith · Books · Humour

Ethiopians at the deathbed in the “Testimonies of Blessed Theodora” on the afterlife

There is a text called "The Testimony of Blessed Theodora", in which the spirit of a righteous woman of the tenth century, who lived in Tsargrad, tells the cleric who summoned her in a dream what befell Theodora in the afterlife. The pearl of the tale is, beyond

Old woodcut of two men with eyes dangling on strings and a winged devil carrying a man on a cloud above a town with spires.

NB! · Faith · Mores · Humour

A Puritan warning to sinners about falling eyes and a devil on a cloud

If you sin, your eyes will fall out, and then the devil will carry you off on a cloud. Hold fast to Puritan values, and have a good week!