hamildolph

Via Memo of the Air, we are transported back a few years to enjoy this carol recounting one particular up-and-coming reindeer as told in the timeless style of rapped-through narrative of one of America’s Founding Fathers by a capella group the Eclipse Singers.

odile of alsace

Though no longer officially commemorated on the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar, Saint Odile’s cult was an extemely popular one (see previously), rapidly spreading across central Europe from the ninth century onward, with many chapels, churches and wells dedicated to the abbess born blind in France and Germany. According to her hagiography, daughter of the wealthy duke of Alsace, Etichon also called Aldaric, was bade be taken away by her mother Bethswinda to be raised by peasants in distant Burgundy rather than suffer the indignity of a handicapped child. Aged twelve, Odile was baptised, miraculously restoring her sight, prompting her brother, Hughes, to bring her back home. This reunion enraged her father so much that he let us wrath loose on both siblings, striking Hughes dead. Odile was able to revive her brother and they fled into the Rhin valley where a cliff face opened up to hide them from her father’s pursuers. Going on to found several religious communities, Odile’s father repented in his old age and endowed the abbeys his daughter had established. Expiring herself at the convent of Niedermünster in 720, Odile briefly returned from the dead at the insistent prayers of the sisterhood to describe the wonders of the afterlife, afterward taking communion alone and dying a second time. With many of the fountains associated with her credited with curing vision ailments, Odile is the patron of good eye-sight (and protector of the blind and partially-sighted) as well as the whole of the Alsace region and is sometimes venerated as a companion of Saint Lucy, with whom she shares this feast day.

umleitung: bedheim

We made a brief stop in the village outside of the town of Römhild in the county of Hildburghausen to take in the architectural ensemble, typifying a Baroque manor, of the three-wing castle and fortified church. First constructed in the thirteenth century and coming into ownership of the aristocratic family Rühle von Lilenstern once ennobled by Hapsburg Emperor Charles VII after 1743, chiefly then as a summer residence for Prince Joseph Friedrich von Sachsen-Hildburghausen, it is still the ancestral home of the heirs and an interesting architectural footnote on its own. 

The village became more intriguing, however, seeing that its crest features a pipe organ and a dinosaur. I don’t think we’d ever encountered this sort of charge before on a coat-of-arms and the raptor is definitely not a mythological griffin.  It turns out that one of the notable descendants, Hugo, was an avid paleotologist and had made many finds in the surrounding area, discovering among others an example originally referred to as the leaping lizard (Halticosaurus, springende Echse) and later renamed Liliensternus. 

I recall my grade three teacher, Miss Friday, one day bringing in a cast of a fossilised dinosaur foot discovered on their property with the taxonomical classification of Arkansaurus fridayius, which I thought was an odd instance of show-and-tell to end all show-and-tell sessions. A museum was established in the castle to display skeletal remains, but once the family could reestablish residence after the war in 1969, the collection was transferred to the Museum of Natural History in Berlin. The organ of the coat-of-arms is in deference to the pair of instruments installed in the church, a greater and a lesser installed in the early eithteenth century a decade apart (and can be played in tandem) by prominent local master builders and is adjacent to the entombment place of many members of the family Rühle von Lilienstern. We weren’t able to glean much about the war years and there was a sombre and intriguing memorial plaque to all those who underwent forced sterilisation during Nazi times and research yielded little. In better times, we’ll return to learn more, go to the Schloss café and maybe take in an organ concert.

sant kaourintin

First bishop of Quimper and patron of the west coast of Breton, Cornouaille (†460)—cognate with Cornwall just across the Channel, as well as of seafood, Saint Corentin is venerated on this day. Considered one of the seven founding evangelisers of the peninsula and counted as part of the pilgrimage circuit Tro Breiz (see link up top), Corentin was living humbly as a hermit, tending a fish in a fountain, which according to legend would offer itself to Corentin, who would take a small morsel for sustenance which would miraculous regrow without harming the fish (depicted in his iconography along with a bishop’s mitre), when as his reputation for humanitarian acts and humility preceded him, he was created bishop at the order of King Gradlon of Ys and dispatched to be concecrated by Saint Martin. Corentin’s companions were Saint Tudy of Tréguier and Saint Guénolé, founder of Landévennec Abbey.

сухой январь

Whilst likely true and sound medical advice for taking any vaccine to optimise immune response and ensure your body has as few distractions and detractors as possible, officials’ arguably belated warnings of not mixing Russia’s Sputnik V with alcohol, we learn via The Morning News, recommending an absention period of eighty-days—two weeks prior and forty days subsequent to getting the shot, has caused some to recoil and question whether they can swear-off or at least cut back (particularly during this festive season), of course taking the debate to social-media with anecdotal evidence for and against.

your (nearly) daily demon: caim

Presenting in the form of a thrush—disturbingly with arms and hands, this fifty-third spirit has the rank of infernal president—that is the presiding officer over a convocation and gives good counsel, dispelling sophistry and reveals the language of the birds, the apparition of glowing coals appearing under his feet if compelled to answer by a rendering of his sigil. Caim’s corresponding battle angel is a Principality called Nanael, called forth by reciting a certain Psalm but no elaboration as to whether or not his feet are held to the fire, however.

7x7

repetition: an exploration of built-environments as an audio-visual landscape of infinite regression  

a pigment of our imagination: the illusory nature of colour  

nationally determined contributions: European Union agrees to more than halve its carbon emissions by 2030—via Slashdot 

awesome sauce: a safari-pak of canned-meats from 1967 

road gritters: track Scotland’s fleet of snow-plows in real time by name  

training a generation of future karens: this scholastic kids books series are clearly coding adults as happy and confident with their life choices as monsters and misfits—via Super Punch 

a universe of imagination: revisiting a classic and inspiring documentary (previously) on cosmology on its sixtieth anniversary

statistrikk

Via Seitvertreib, we are introduced to these wonderful vignettes from associate biostatistics professor at the University of Oslo Kathrine Frey Frøslie who illustrates scientific concepts, in this case the R-number associated with viral contagion and herd immunity, through knitting and crochet (see also) projects. More to explore on science communication and data visualisations (including for the crafty the patterns to make your own COVID-related cosies) at the links above.