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"Song of Strange Love"

The other day, nature decided to make a frank muck. On Thursday, it rained all evening and night, and at that time it was about -5 outside - and as a result, everything around is now covered with a centimeter layer of ice. I have claws on my feet, I can still somehow walk, but the rest is very hard. Sad, in short.

So, armed with a triple dose of ginger and cinnamon teas, I'll tell you a little about a thing that is considered one of the earliest descriptions of interspecies romantic relationships in our Orean history.

This little thing is a poem called "Layğr ed fuamāyāe sawūr" - translated from dzhearta, this is "A Song of Strange Love." It was written in Eryakhshara, somewhere in the 9th-8th centuries BC. The author is unknown, and this is not surprising: even now, interspecies love in society is not strongly approved, but then it was completely shameful. It is generally accepted (based on the analysis of the text) that the famous poet Vizhir gur Heshsh at Kuyab, who lived at that time, wrote the "Song", but this is not very accurate.

The poem tells how the lyrical hero (or heroine), having met a person, falls in love with him/her quite unexpectedly. The first third of the poem is a lengthy discourse on why it happened and what to do about it; the second is a brief episode of happiness, when the hero finds the strength to confess his feelings to a person and it turns out that they are mutual; the third is separation (most likely eternal), the lyrical hero rethinks his life in the context of the events that happened to him and finds the strength to live on.

The poem is also interesting because it was written in something like free verse: there are simply no typical means of expression characteristic of the then Eryakhshar poetry (alliteration, an equal number of syllables in lines). Why this is so, we are unlikely to ever know.

Finally, we will show you a couple of stanzas from the very, very beginning.

That night went crazy

The rain was like
Azur splashed in the well of heaven,
And the water poured down.

That night the people came
You were one of them.

The face of a man on whom water runs,
faceless, on other people
Seems like.

Were your eyes? Palms, smell, or
something else - than from others
were you different?

Why you
without even touching
remember?

(Original:

Kam şebāj ţakrilajaypyāv emq —

Eryāj
Azūr şapurimirimyāseḑ ħelaxt,
Yī abalad sūryā hayɠōvv
vad.

Kam şebyāseḑ maşyā rağjind —
Sār yekē ḑin vadar

Meşfēyē maşyā ed abalyāv oţsavayp
ameşfayna ħer, melţē maşyāe antarayram
vast.

Ganbeşr vadundhal? Qardā, xşads, paḑ
jal māe—ed jadyāv antarāyrzem
jivoţħōskar?

Ejjadyav şard
nequşp ħer
şemanam?)

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About Therianthropy

Again a find and again a small digression, only not historical and cultural, but scientific.

Lycanthropy (or, more correctly, therianthropy - from el. θηρίον "beast" + ἄνθρωπος "man") is a group of hereditary diseases characteristic of the genus Homo. Caused by several different related mutations on the X chromosome; type of inheritance - X-linked recessive.

There are four different courses of the disease:

  • chronic: a person can, at will, magically very quickly rebuild his body, thus turning into an animal (which one depends on the type of mutation);
  • subacute: a person cannot control his transformations, and they occur spontaneously, under the influence of various exogenous and endogenous factors;
  • acute: a person uncontrollably turns into a beast and back; the number of such transformations can reach ten to twenty per hour. Usually ends in death without proper magical medical assistance;
  • asymptomatic: a person cannot turn into an animal (and, without being examined, it is unlikely that he will ever know that he is a carrier of a mutation).

A subacute course can develop into an acute one with severe exhaustion of the nervous system; chronic - very rarely in subacute; asymptomatic of almost everything and remains asymptomatic.

Since with such a rapid restructuring of the structure of the body, nervous tissue suffers a lot (which, in fact, is destroyed, and then almost reassembled), the body stops the pain that occurs (and they are very terrible, believe me) in two ways:

  • in 5% percent of carriers (a harmless variant) - turning off the cerebral cortex and the rest of the nervous system. The person thus sinks into a state like fainting and total sensory deprivation, waking back up after the transformation is over;
  • the rest 95% - throwing into the blood a huge amount of adrenaline, serotonin and endorphins. This whole hormonal cocktail overloads the sensory system, which makes pain feel more muted.

And the second method has many unpleasant side effects. A person, if treated regularly and often enough, becomes an adrenaline-serotonin addict and begins to do it more and more often; the body does not have time to produce hormones, their supply is depleted, as a result of which depression develops ... Well, not to mention the fact that the nervous system itself cannot withstand frequent appeals and begins to collapse because yes.

For such people, various complex preparations have been specially developed. The principle of their work is the same: firstly, they contain all the above hormones in the right proportion; secondly, they themselves oppress and suppress sensory systems, which makes it less painful and unpleasant.

And here's the thing: we found some vials of this drug... made in the first half of the fourth century! First half! 4th century AD! No; It's clear that Alvian medicine was very advanced even then, but all the same, the discovery is very sudden - especially since the examination is unlikely to lie. The werewolf who had this thing with him was very lucky.

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And a little more Acherus

Yesterday we had a very stressful day in a good way, on which we were finally able to take a break from the bad weather, and from a disgusting mood, and simply from fatigue. Sponsor of a successful weekend - Acherus!

First of all, we went to bed last night somewhere around three in the morning. At first Acherus played the violin, then Berenice brought a lute, I grabbed the guitar - we ended up having a very sudden and amateur concert. I don’t remember exactly who, but someone opened a bottle of wine, and the evening was a great success.

Further, I can say with confidence that Acherus is the best sleeper? Solezhets? which only I had: he just passed out instantly and slept until the morning. He also smells like oranges.

In the morning we gave up on all our business and went to Hveitstad, to the sea. And they walked along the shore and around the city itself until the evening, until they were completely numb. And then they drove to the very outskirts of the city, went out to a deserted beach where there was no one, and Acherus showed his Dragar magic in action. With just a few words, he created such a fire show that our jaws dropped at once - it seems no one even thought to start filming.

When the time came to leave, we said goodbye to our new comrade for a very long time. He promised to come more often, and we will wait for him.

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Acherus

It turns out that if you sit at home in wet and cold weather and do nothing, sooner or later a draghar in human form will come to you. At least that’s exactly what happened to us today. This is the same friend of ours (if you can call him that) who helped write stereotypes and then answered a little questions.

As it turned out, he was very bored and had absolutely nothing to do, so he decided to visit us. We were in complete solidarity with him, and therefore we sat him down at the table and fed him without further ado. And this time it was not we who asked him questions, but he himself told us some things that we would hardly have thought to ask.

  • his real name is Acherus (Âcêrxus [ɒ.tʃʌ.ʀus]). No one except his fellow Dragars will be able to identify him by it, so he calmly revealed it to us;
  • Dragars, it turns out, have their own techno-magical internet. The principle of its operation, as he himself said, he is unlikely to be able to explain, but it works - and well;
  • in private, draghars (even those with human or similar bodies) prefer to communicate telepathically;
  • Dragars (unlike elves) need six hours of sleep every day. Even those with human/Alvian bodies;
  • all, all, all the Dragars of the world have one single language with dialects quite far apart from each other. But telepathic communication eliminates possible difficulties, since words are also supplemented by images;
  • Specifically, Acherus himself loves green tea so much that he could drink it around the clock. True, then he becomes too cheerful and active, and begins to cause inconvenience to others;
  • and he also loves to play the violin.

At the end of our conversation, he somewhat embarrassedly asked if he could stay with us for the night. The only free space left was on my bed, so I honestly warned him that if he doesn’t mind my loud snoring, then let him spend the night with us for good measure.

So today, late in the evening, we are planning a big violin concert. I have already agreed that the first composer on the program will be Sibelius.

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About the Central Turan Rubaiyat

I have two news.

Firstly, I finally (yesterday) defended my master’s thesis, which I am incredibly happy about. Hooray!

Secondly, I wanted to post all the translated rubai at once in the original writing and spelling, but for some reason it takes a terribly long time to rewrite them all. That's why I'll be alone. And, at the same time (at least in this post) I will explain some aspects of how the Central Tur writing works.

She:

  1. Consonantal (only consonants are recorded).
  2. It is written from right to left.
  3. Has a bunch of characters spelled the same way (w and n; y, d and g…)
  4. Very archaic: uses old styles for phonemes that now sound different. For example, -t- between vowels voiced in -d-, but still continues to be written as -t-.
  5. It was stolen from the Kharsei who lived nearby, and therefore many words are written down as so-called. “harseograms” - a set of letters corresponding to the original word from Harse.

Now let's show with an example, looking at the first line:

nkwns'l HẔYTWNšn-t dwš'k's ml'd bwt
nigūnsār wēnišn-it dūšāgāh ma-rāy būd

All words, except the second one, are written more or less phonetically (at least some matches can be found). The root of the second one looks terribly crazy: HẔYTWN Doesn't look like Stur at all wēn. The answer why this is so is simple: in Harsean “to see” will be ḥəzā (root ḥ—z—y, and that’s what we see in HẔY; TWN - some additional morpheme).

And, finally, transliteration and transcription (for the third time, yes).

nkwns'l HẔYTWNšn-t dwš'k's ml'd bwt
TL h'mwš 'w'c-t wtnkyk' ml'd bwt
y PWN 'hn' LK HWEyḏ MN PWN NYŠE hmtmtl
BRA dwst' lwštl MN LK LA hklc ml'd bwt

Nigūnsār wēnišn-it dušāgāh ma-rāy būd,
U xāmōš āwāz-it widangīg ma-rāy būd.
Ē, pad āhan tō hē az pad zan hamdamtar,
Be dōst rōštar az tō ne hagriz ma-rāy būd.

And, judging by the fact that the author uses harseograms almost everywhere where they are found in other Middle Turk texts, we can judge that he was a fairly educated person. The less educated usually wrote everything down phonetically.

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Star of the First House

A small find, which again requires a short historical excursion to explain.

Among the Glinnar Alvs, in addition to the two and a half ethnic groups that I showed, there was another ethnic group... which, alas, almost completely died out/assimilated. That’s why they don’t single her out now; however, I tried to poke around a little with the mouse in the graphic editor and show what they might have looked like when they were still alive.

When, even before 10,000 AD, they lived in the north of Orova, they had three ruling houses, which were called very simply: First, Second and Third. The coat of arms of the first looked like an eight-rayed star, in which the four main rays were always even and of a certain shape, and the side rays changed slightly from one personal coat of arms to another (for example, stylized as flames or something like that).

Then, when almost all of these guys were killed, the remaining members of the First House began to wear this very coat of arms star around their necks. And guess what? We found one of these. On a silver chain; made of almost pure (!) titanium. You can, of course, think that this is simple some kind star, but it doesn't really seem like a coincidence.

Owner - if you are still alive - respond!

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رباعی ۶

r u b a i
u b a i r
b a i r y
a and r y b
and r u b a

(sixth, last)

/ / / / / / / U / / U /

Ēr tundīh ī wāzān tō tagīg waxš nihuft,
Ēr kādag ī wad-wāž tō burāg wīr nihuft.
Pērāmōn ī tō sangīg tarāzūg gardēd —
Čē rāy āsn-stī ī tō az abārīg nihuft?

Verbatim:

Under the harshness of words you hid a strong spirit,
Under slanderous jokes you hid a clear mind.
Scales of stone turn around you -
Why did [you] hide your innate essence from others?

Poetic:

Behind the noise of harsh words you hid the fortress of the spirit
And he covered his clear mind with greasy jokes.
Scales of stone keep you all;
Why did you hide your essence from others?

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guide

While the trial is going on, we finally excavated a new room. It looked even worse than the one we were working in now; it looks like a warehouse of weapons, armor and clothing, and it’s all piled up in such a terrible mess that it will take a lot of time to sort it out.

However, we found something interesting. Rompheus (see attached image as an example) with inscriptions on both sides of the blade. They are made in a typical Glinnar technique: a composition that glows in the hands of the owner (and not only if you know a couple of correct spells).

On one side, the inscription is completely clear and written in Srednestur script (see another image, inscription on the right): rāh-nimāy, which could mean “guide” if such a word existed in Retzin. On the other hand, we had to rack our brains a little until we finally realized that this was ancient cuneiform (!), stylized as Glinnar (!) writing. The following is written:

𐎼𐎠𐎰𐎴𐎡𐎶𐎠𐎹
ra-a-θa-na-i-ma-a-ya,

which reads as rāθanimāya, again a “guide”, but in ancient Turkish (see image, inscription on the left).

Judging by the fact that the name of the sword (and we suspect that this is it) is written in Stursky, and the objects in this entire repository are associated with a certain circle of people, we can be almost sure that the sword belonged to the author of those rubai that I so I translate with a creak.

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رباعی ۵

r u b a i (penultimate, there are six of them)
at
b
A
and

U / U / / U / / / / U /

Agar dil-it dard kunēd, tō zāyam: ma griy.
Agar frawahr hušk šawēd, tārīg ast - ma griy.
Zi sad, hazār mard amāwandtar hē, e zan!
Fradom xwad-it, farroxīh wind - ud tō pas griy.

Verbatim:

If your heart hurts, I ask you: don't cry.
If your soul is dry and dark, don’t cry.
You are stronger than hundreds, thousands of husbands, wife.
First find yourself, find your destiny - and then cry.

Poetic:

If your heart hurts, I ask you: don’t cry.
If it’s burned inside, the soul is sleeping - don’t cry.
Hundreds, thousands of husbands, you are stronger, wife!
Be yourself, find yourself - and then cry.

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Cucumbers and stuff

I really love vegetables. Especially cucumbers - even when the season is over, I still buy at least half a kilo every week and just nibble on them during some meals.

That’s why yesterday at lunch a friend asked me, are there even vegan Gearts? At first I was somewhat taken aback, then I replied that it was very unlikely, and half a day later, for some reason, I thought about this question and decided to conduct a mini-research myself.

To be honest, at first I thought of it as something like feeding domestic dogs nothing but cabbage and carrots (spoiler: it doesn’t make them feel good at all). In the end it turned out similar, but not quite. Let's start with the fact that Gearts have a digestive system that is approximately the same as that of large cats (and let me remind you, they are real predators). In natural feeding behavior, we are more similar to bears: omnivores with some restrictions.

If we list the foods that are included in the human diet, then we do not eat a sufficiently large amount of them. Potatoes and corn, for example: starch is almost not digestible. Chocolate, onions and garlic are completely poisonous; many people have partial intolerance to grapes, raisins and the like. But the most important thing is that Gearts should not eat a lot of legumes.

Why am I focusing so much on this? Because in a vegan diet, legumes are the main source of protein. And you need a lot of it, because:

  • Gearts, on average, have more developed muscles than humans, and they need to be supported by something;
  • The average jeart is a carcass more than two meters tall and weighing more than a hundred kilograms. Well, you understand.

And I’m not even talking about animal fats and other such things!

Now let's move on to exceptions. There are some very specific diets based on cabbage, broccoli and pumpkin, and there are also gearts that follow them. You can really live on such food, but to do this you need to eat a head or two of cabbage and a whole pumpkin every day, and finish off the rest with broccoli; You can’t eat it in one or two meals, and because of this you have to split it into several meals, which is not good for the Geartian digestive system specifically (we eat two; maximum three times a day, but in large portions). In general, you yourself understand what quality of life will be with such a diet.

Therefore, if you are reading this and you are geart, do not torture yourself with vegan diets. If you don’t want meat, eat milk, fish, eggs; Veganism is unlikely to make you any better.

(but I will never, ever stop loving cucumbers)