Category: Uncategorized

Monday is a hard day (especially today for some reason), so nothing useful will happen, alas! Instead, I’ll write a post with a story that recently happened to Zahar and which he really asked not to tell.

Sorry, Zear.

But, since my professional deformation is already at a completely unimaginable level, first, again, the background with a brief historical excursion.

As you know, Recan is a state with a very interesting geographical location. His curiosity lies in the fact that wherever you go: from Ruginia to Hellas, from Recinia to Gesia, from Binisia in general anywhere to the north, you will still have to go through Recan. That’s why our ethnic composition here is, to put it mildly... diverse. And especially in the south.

- first the Hellenes visited here and founded a number of colonies. The most famous is the city of Agnon (Old El. Ἁγνόν), which is still in good health to this day, and is located exactly where the Ivolga River flows into the Ore Sea. And the Hellenes themselves still live in compact groups along the coast;
- fouls. There is no need to describe anything here: the city of Hveitstad, near which we are sitting, is just Folsky. And there are not just a handful of them here, but a whole impressive national minority;
- Kayans. They came from the east a long time ago, settled here and feel good;
- Eryakhshari dzherts. These fled from Eryakhshar to the north when the Biniz began to conquer them. Zeara's ancestors, in fact, are just one of these.
- well, and, in fact, rechans. They are the majority here.

But why am I telling this anyway? And the fact that such coloring inevitably leads to the fact that various national traditions mix and move back and forth, sometimes turning into something completely crazy.

Yesterday we decided to unwind a little, go around these places and see the views (and, believe me, there are a lot of them here). And somehow it turned out that we ended up in a certain Geart village, in which a wedding ceremony was being held. Of course, everyone became interested in watching... and then it began.

As soon as they noticed Zehar (I prudently moved away), they immediately dragged him to dance. It seems like nothing like that, right? But then a local girl ran up to him with a whole pot of dried peas - and poured it all right on his head. And while he stood there, blinking his eyes in confusion, the girl broke a pot in front of his feet and... jumped right on him.

It’s worth admitting: in such a situation, perhaps anyone would be scared. But Zehar was completely stunned and, either screaming or growling, pulled this lady off of him in the blink of an eye and literally threw her at one of the celebrants; and then, jumping over the shards, he rushed as fast as he could to the car. It’s clear that we didn’t stay in this village for long.

Tradition, as we later managed to find out, is something German that clearly came from fouls, but has become something completely incomprehensible. Thus, an unmarried girl at a wedding chooses her groom from among the guests - and if he agrees, he patiently waits until she breaks the pot, and if not, he takes it from her and carefully places it near her feet. Such and such things.

And now I press the “send” button from the bathroom so that Zear doesn’t find me. At least in the near future.

A couple of days ago we found a little thing. A magic glass lamp that lights up at the owner's will. Sheer nonsense, you say? Of course, it's a completely ordinary thing, many people have it, but! Do you know the history of the origin of such lamps?

As for visual magic (i.e., having visible manifestations) and various enchanted objects, the dwarves of Harassukhum have been competing with the elves of the Glinnar Dimonarchy in this area for an unknown number of thousands of years. And both have their own opinions about who first invented such lamps.

The Alvas claim that they were the first. A certain maiden, whose name has not been preserved in history, invented them and called them easy-going - "glass light". The Dvergi borrowed the technology from her, and then started doing it themselves.

The Dverg do not deny that they borrowed - but they borrowed, as they say, the idea, not the technology. The lamps that the nameless maiden made were of disgusting quality, but the Dverg learned to make them so good that the technology has now been borrowed by the Elves.

But what really? But in fact, they were invented by people! Yes, those same homo sapiens. For some reason, neither the dwarves nor the elves mention this, but we have some information from the hvenvants, and most importantly, from the dragars. The latter mention the name in this regard Rxuḑğâsîrxâg — "Fastfoot"; it's clearly a translation, but what was this guy's real name — alas, we don't know. And the records tell of how this same Fastfoot was once able to "contain fire in glass," and everyone liked the idea so much that they themselves began to stamp out lanterns in unlimited quantities. Moreover, it is reliably known that these records are much older than both legends, so!

News! Or a find. It doesn't really matter, just read.

On one of the pages of the "Words of Travel...", which we will not get around to translating any time soon, our experts discovered the following. The people who are telling the story have already reached the "Stur country" by this time - that is, they have entered the territory of the Theispis Empire. And one of the authors, Emed (judging by the fact that this piece is written in Middle Turkic), mentions a certain new religion that he had not heard of before, and calls it an interesting phrase to eat and drink and to protect.

don't worry - it is clear that, "Mazdean faith", it is also "Mazdeism"; but what is it guard? This word, hapax, is not found anywhere else, and we would never have known what it was if the author had not further described a certain characteristic decoration that people belonging to this faith wear on their hand.

In short, I won't delay. to eat and drink and to protect — the same as what in modern Stor looks like دین مزدیسنای مسیحی (in mazdayasnā-ye masihi), which in Retzin means "messianic Mazdayasna". In short, these are people who believe in various Mazdaic dogmas and revere Christ as the Messiah and Savior. There is nothing surprising in this, however, because in the original Mazdayasna there is a figure named Saoshyant - precisely the eschatological savior who will come to Earth for the final victory of good over evil. There are not many representatives of this religion in the world now - perhaps somewhere around a couple of tens of thousands. But they exist.

A guard, thus, is an adjective from the word guard, which is a tracing of the Hellenic χριστός, and simply means "anointed one". In the Middle Turan texts, I repeat, neither the verb itself nor its derivatives are found anywhere else, but they are found in related languages. However, I will not focus on this.

And finally, what do they wear on their hand? Almost the same as the followers of the original Mazdeism - a bracelet with the image of a fravahr. Except that the fravahr is different: instead of a human figure, personifying, according to various interpretations, a pure soul/spirits of ancestors, it uses a regular Christian kolo. In the image below (in comparison with the original fravahr above).

There was a slight delay with the texts (we hope to post one of them tomorrow), so just some random historical information. Truthful! And a little materials science.

It is known that in Kharassukhum doors have been working with titanium, if not since time immemorial, then at least for a very, very long time. The Glynnar Alv borrowed technology from them (and most likely some blacksmiths from other places and nations), and kept it secret until things began to slowly approach the Industrial Revolution. But that’s not what my story is about today.

Among archaeological sites, armor made of titanium alloys is quite common, but weapons are very rare. Thanks to this, the myth arose that rarity is due to high cost, and since titanium weapons are expensive, then they are very cool. Logical?

No! At a minimum, one can recall ceremonial weapons with handles inlaid with gems. It's also expensive, but what's the point?

Almost no one uses weapons made of titanium because this metal holds an edge very poorly. The most terrible knife made from the most terrible steel will be sharper than titanium (and also much cheaper), which is why the question arises: why use a sledgehammer to hammer nails? Titanium cutting tools have a completely different application: they are used, for example, under water: iron, especially in sea water, quickly rusts, but titanium is of no use. In general, we see that half of the found titanium weapons and names are probably used in approximately this way, and the rest are just expensive status trinkets.

Another myth dispelled! All the best - and don't forget to sharpen your knives.

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, …