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While we are translating another part of the Volkolak and going to the country of Stursky, keep the post about ... hairstyles!

When we imagine some ancient people or look at their images, the first thing we pay attention to is clothes and hairstyles. And if you can talk a lot about the first and write entire encyclopedias for a single nation and a single historical period, then the second is somewhat more difficult. The reasons, in general, are clear: photography was invented relatively recently, hair on fossil skeletons usually does not exist ... well, you yourself understand. That's why it happens that artists draw whatever comes into their heads, the image goes to the people, the image is imprinted in the people's consciousness - and hello. It turns out a false stereotype, which is hardly possible to knock out of your head.

Let's take, for example, Prince Volodymyr. Surely many immediately come to mind something like the attached image: a long mustache, an earring and some strange thing on his head. But was it really so? Let's dive deeper into history!

In Leo the Deacon we read: τὴν δὲ κεφαλὴν πάνυ ἐψίλωτο· παρὰ δὲ θάτερον μέρος αὐτῆς βόστρυχος..., which in translation looks like:

“his head was shaved bald; part of his hair fell on one [or: on two] sides of his head ... "

The problem here is in the word θάτερον, which can mean both "on one side" and "on both sides." Historically, (probably also under the influence of Cossack hairstyles), Volodymyr is depicted with such a forelock falling to one side. But then again, is it true?

Let's digress specifically from him and talk about the Rechan princes in general. You will hardly be surprised if I say that they had very close ties with the Normans - and it is quite natural that they could borrow some of their cultural traditions from them. To clarify the situation a little, let's look at another text about the Normans, already in Old English.

…tysliað ēow on Ryġisc, ābleredum hneccan and āblendum ēagum.

“... you dress yourself like Ruginians, with a shaved neck and closed [lit. blinded] eyes.

That is, we see the same thing with the Normans as with Volodymyr: a shaved neck. But what about closed eyes? It is unlikely that with such a forelock, as it is customary to portray, it would be possible to close your eyes normally, and therefore the assumption seems more likely that the Hellenic θάτερον here means just “on both sides”, and the hairstyle (of both the Normans and Volodymyr) looked like this: a shaved neck and the back of the head, and the front with hair that falls forward, covering the eyes, and on both sides of the head. That is, approximately, as in the image below. Except maybe a little longer.

Conclusion: the story is fascinating, but no less complicated.

Friday post to think about (but not too much).

Fact 1. Science knows quite well how people got to Aznata - by migrating from Atia along the Möller Isthmus (and not just once, but several times), when the sea level dropped enough to reveal some kind of dry land. This happened so long ago that now, when studying the relationship of the indigenous Aznat and Atiat peoples, we can only rely on genetics - even the languages diverged so long ago that today we have only a couple of not very recognized theories that claim the relationship of some language groups from there and there.

Fact 2. Science distinguishes three subspecies (or species, or races - as you wish) of Gearths: Leoids (that's Zear), Kanoids (that's me) and Linkoids (we don't have any). Leoids are most common in Orov and Atia, Kanoids in Aznath, and in other parts of the world it varies, but the ratio of their prevalence throughout the world as a whole is: Leoids:Linkoids:Kanoids = 4:3:1.

Then, again, it is obvious that they went to Aznata along the same isthmus, settled there and began to fight with people. But then everything becomes a little more complicated.

Leoids and Canoids (as subspecies) have diverged for quite a long time; this is clear even to the uninitiated reader: it is enough to look at a wolf and a lion, and compare their appearance. Genetically, this is also confirmed, but there is one catch - the languages of the Orovean Leoids (who live in Eryakhshar) and one tribe of Aznat Canoids (to which my ancestors belonged) are related! At first glance, this is not very noticeable, and there are still doubters, but the evidence is irrefutable, really.

For example, my last name, Ašaţ'ōḑḑy'ah (read approximately as "ashafoddya" and means "the sun, the blackest of the stars"), if it is "translated" into dzheartoy, it will look like this āşār tōţeḑē xalşem(an) (ashar tofede halshem(an)). If you try, you can find some similarities. But the thing is that it is still not very clear how to correlate linguistic and genetic data. There are many hypotheses, but…

And finally, I decided to attach an example of a Leoid, Lincoid, and Canoid skull. Sorry for the watermarked images, but this is literally the best I could find.

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As always, I start the post from afar.

The Glinnar elves traditionally had (and still do) popular jewelry, which is called fáchráda, which in translation from clay means "word ring". They look like this: a ring along which a word is written, going in a circle - but the trick is that this inscription is closed, and thanks to this the word can be read in two different ways.

Not really, okay? Let me explain. Let's take, for example, the most popular and well-known option: a ring with the word written on it fae dh a ll.

faedhall translated from Llaech (a now dead Alf language related to Glinar) means "fire, flame"; more specifically, fire as an animated entity, but let's not go into the connotations too much. And also - if you turn the ring correctly - the same word can be read as allfaedh, which means "secret, hidden." And it turns out that one word written on the ring can be read in different ways, and both of these meanings add up to a completely clear phrase - "secret flame." Beautiful? At least, beautiful enough.

Well, and, accordingly, a find. Exactly the same ring as I describe, with the same word: faedhall (allfaedh), made of silver. I don't take pictures of it, but I'll show you mine, which looks very similar. Yes, I like word games, what can I do.

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A little historical fun.

I think that most of you already know what fufarq (futhark) is. If not, then briefly: the runic writing of the ancient Germans, and in particular, their northern tribes (Lavinavia and environs). The first inscriptions were recorded in the third century BC, then it evolved and changed until it completely died out in the 12th-13th century, giving way to romanica. Sad, but natural.

However, with the advent of printing in Sneland (16th century AD), a movement to restore the futhark suddenly arose. It took off very quickly; to convey the letters of the Sneland alphabet, the entire classic senior fufark was used with some nuances:

• ᛇ was used for æ;
• ᚣ (Old English rune) - for y;
• ᚬ (late version of the rune ᚨ) - for o;
• ᛄ (rune variant ᛃ) - for ð;

It is also important that the runes were adapted to look more like something… novelistic, let's say. And over the next century, many books were printed, and then the initiative faded away and everything returned to normal.

But the inscriptions remained, and I will show you one of their options now. This is the Universal Declaration of the Rights of the Individual, its very beginning in Snelandic.

ᛊᛖᚱᚺᚹᛖᚱ ᛗᚨᚾᚾᛖᛊᚲᛃᚨ ᛖᚱ ᛒᛟᚱᛁᚾ ᚠᚱᛃᚨᛚᛊ ᛟᚷ ᛃᚬᚠᚾ ᚬᛄᚱ ᚢᛗ ᚨᛄ ᚹᛁᚱᛄᛁᛜᚷᚢ ᛟᚷ ᚱᛖᛏᛏᛁᚾᛞᚢᛗ. . ᚲᚹᛖᛄᚢᚱ ᚨ ᚢᛗ ᛗᚨᚾᚾᚱᛖᛏᛏᛁᚾᛞᛁ ᛊᛖᛗ ᚨᛚᛚᛁᚱ ᛖᛁᚷᚨ ᛃᚨᚠᚾᛏ …

Sérhver manneskja er borin frjáls og jöfn öðrum að virðingu og réttindum. Mannréttindayfirlýsing Sameinuðu þjóðanna kveður á um mannréttindi sem allir eiga jafnt tilkall til án tillits til kynþáttar, …

Once upon a time I already showed here a small excerpt from the travel notes of some guys. Finally got around to getting him properly dressed and groomed! Some of you have already seen this thing, but if you look at it a second time, it’s still okay.

Don’t be surprised by the abundance of dialectisms; this is a necessary stylization. The original looks about the same.

You can read it Here.

Today we have prepared for you some of the most ... albeit cute - ancient written monuments. When I say “ancient”, I really mean the oldest things that exist, such as Lavinavian runic inscriptions on stones, Rech birch bark letters and other similar things.

Go?

1. Runic inscription on a ruined obelisk near Trondheim (Ruginia), 2nd century BC.

ᛖᚲ ᚷᛟᛞᚨᚷᚨᛊᛏᛁᛉ ᛊᚨᛏᛁᛞᛟ ᛊᛏᚨᛁᚾᚨ
ᚨᚢᚲ ᚦᚢ ᛖᚱᛁᛚᚨᛉ ᛖᛏ ᛊᚲᛁᛏᛁ

ek Godagastiz staido staina
auk þu Erilaz et skiti

“I, Godagast (= Good Guest), put a stone
And you, Eryl (= Husband; Jarl), eat shit"

Perhaps the reason for the destruction of the obelisk somehow indirectly relates to this inscription. In any case, he obviously did not fall by himself.

2. Philosophical prose from Mesopotamia. "Master and Slave Dialogue" in Samsi, circa 1st millennium BC. The whole of it is quite long, so I will attach only a small fragment of it.

[arad mi-tan-gur-an-ni] an-nu-u be-lí an-[nu-u]
[ši-šìr-ma di-kan-ni-ma GIŠnarkab]ta ṣi-in-dam ana ēkalli lu-un-š[ur]
…

- Slave, agree with me!
— Yes, my lord, yes!
- Hurry up the chariot, harness it, in
palace I wish to go!
- Go, my lord, go! Will you
luck! When the king sees you, he will shower you with favors!
“No, slave, I don’t want to go to the palace!”
- Don't go, my lord, don't go! The king saw you
send on a long trip, make you go unknown
dear, make you suffer daily and nightly!

And so on, for a total of ten such passages.

3. Syncretic contraption called "Kojiki". Yashutia, 712 AD. I will also give an excerpt, but somewhat longer.

“Then the god Haya-Susa-no-o-no mikoto to the Great Sacred Goddess Amaterasu oo-mi-kami said: “My intentions are pure and bright. Because of the children born by me - tender women I received. So, of course, I won,” so saying, in a riot of [his] victory, the borders on the cultivated fields of the Holy Goddess Amaterasu oo-mi-kami demolished, [irrigation] canals fell asleep.

And also - in the chambers where they taste the first food, he defecated and scattered the feces.

And so, although [he] did this, the Great Sacred Goddess Amaterasu oo-mi-kami, without reproaching [him], said: “It looks like a bowel movement, but it’s my brother - a god, probably, having vomited while drunk, he did it. And the fact that he demolished the boundaries, filled up the canals - this, probably, my brother - God, having regretted the earth, did this, ”she justified [him], but nevertheless his evil deeds did not stop, but became even uglier. At the time when the Great Sacred Goddess Amaterasu oo-mi-kami, being in the sacred weaving chamber, was weaving the clothes that are supposed to be for the gods, [the god Susa-no-o] broke through the roof of those weaving chambers and stripped the heavenly piebald stallion from its tail, thrown inside.

Then the heavenly weavers, seeing this, got frightened, pricked themselves with shuttles in secret places and died.

I could go on and on, actually, but it's getting long enough already, so I'll tie it up. Maybe someday there will be a sequel.

And now it’s not me who has the news, but my friend Zehar (who is still sitting here with us because he has a remote job and no one kicks him out of our house). But first things first.

I have already mentioned that the Eryakhshar Jearts once had a tradition of applying patterns with indelible paint to their fur, which served as a kind of passport: they denoted their occupation, some important feats, and what not. Alas, after the conquest of Eryakhshar by the Biniz, this tradition began to slowly fade away until it completely disappeared.

Then, when the Gearts received autonomy as part of Binisia about a century ago, a national revival began to slowly rise until it reached today's proportions; in all the media now you only hear about pickets, unrest, demonstrations and other things. And it is quite natural that long-forgotten traditions began to be revived!

So Zahar, captured by the revolutionary spirit, also made his first drawing, literally yesterday. There he is, in the photo!

(don't mind his stern expression, he's actually a very nice guy)

So we have come to the point for which all this sad poetic movement was started yesterday. Speaking about Beta traditions, it was not for nothing that I mentioned that they are traced back to the sixth century AD, or even earlier - here, hold the thing.

A quatrain written in the form which in modern Botian is called englyn unodl union, that is, “straight single-rhyming Anglin.” With the only difference: it was written in the fourth century AD.

This form is structured like this: the first line has 10 syllables, after the fifth of them there is a caesura. In all the rest - seven, with the last syllable of the last three lines and the seventh, eighth or ninth syllable of the first line rhyming.

Further, each of the lines uses the so-called kinhaned - a certain technique consisting in constructing a verse based on alliteration and internal rhymes. The codification of different ways of organizing alliteration appeared already in the Middle Ages, but even here it can be traced very well. The verse itself is below:

Te-welenn, carenn, carwọ annverthọ
Aberthon ti, ammarwọ
Berọn, arbruyọn rowọn,
Blọdowon blėidhion llọnọn.

Translation:
I saw you, desired you, beautiful doe,
Sacrifice to you, immortal,
I would bring it; then I would buy space,
Full of wolf flowers.

And let’s quickly sort it out line by line.

1. Te-welenn || carenn || carwọ annverthọ
   This is the so-called cynghanedd groes - the syllables before the first caesura and the second rhyme, and the sequence of consonants between the first and second caesuras (cr) is repeated after the second.
2. Aberthon || ti, ammarwọ
   The sequence of consonants (br-th) before the caesura roughly repeats the sequence in the previous line (vr-th).
3. Berọn, ar||bruyọn rowọn,
   Cynghanedd sain: the sequence of consonants before the caesura (brnr) is repeated after it, with the syllable before the caesura (ar) must contain a vowel other than the last stressed syllable (ro V rowọn) - this also works.
4. Blọdowon || blėidhion llọnọn.
   It's either cynghanedd lusg - when the last syllable before the caesura and the last stressed rhyme (on and llọ[n]), or something that is not included in modern codification, since we also see alliteration with repetition: bldn - bl-dh-n-(ll-n) .

And finally, everywhere there is a rhyme (lax) in -ọ(n): carwọ,ammarwọ, rowọn, llọnọn.

It’s difficult to tell from the handwriting, but there is a strong suspicion that this is our old friend the werewolf, not least because of the “wolf flowers.”