*Ask Jen: Bless Your Heart Edition

Jim writes: "I’m having difficulty nailing down this particular southern idiom. I hear 'bless her (or rarely his) heart' in conversations that sound nothing like a blessing. Can you dig into this one?"

As you well know, Southern Ladies would never speak rudely of another. So tacking "bless her/his heart" onto the end of an insult is just a way of making it seem nicer: "That boy is dumber than a box of rocks, bless his heart." Which in the North might be said something like, "I don't want to be mean, but that boy is not the sharpest pencil in the drawer."

Do you have a question for me? You can e-mail it. If I know the answer, I'll answer it. If I don't know the answer, I might make something up.

*Superstitions: Black Cats

Cross-posted at DDBBG.

Americans tend to think of black cats as bad luck, especially if one crosses their path, but the black cat is actually a very popular good-luck symbol in England today. Historically, cats in general have had a mixed bag of luckiness/unluckiness in Europe. In France, cats of any color that were suspected of being witches were caged and set on fire. In Eastern Europe, some cats were marked with crosses to prevent them from turning into witches.

Besides witches, black animals can be associated with other evil spirits. Demons tend to prefer to become black animals--whether cats, dogs, or other creatures. And it is believed that sorcerers often turn themselves into black cats.

The American superstition about black cats is based on the association of black cats with witches, originating in the late 1800s when cartoons and children’s books started pairing the two. Now you can hardly imagine a witch without her black cat keeping her company. Before this, witches in America were usually associated with rabbits and other animals.

Reference: Most of the material from this post was found in David Pickering's Dictionary of Superstitions and Steve Roud's The Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland.

*Jinx! Patriotic-Style

As most of you know, The Star-Spangled Banner didn't become the national anthem until 1931. However, it did make its debut at a baseball game long before that.

When?

In the 1918 World Series.

Some of you may recall that World Series featured the Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox, with the Cubs losing and the Red Sox winning but waiting 86 years to do so again. And the Cubs still waiting...

Hmm.

Reference: The anthemy part comes from Solomon M. Skolnick's American History Pop Quiz.

Boo!

You should really check out my latest ghost story at DDBBG...I went with a Japanese classic this time.

I've heard several different versions of the story of Oiwa and Iemon, and what I posted pretty much combines the best parts of them all.

Happy Birthday, Guillotine!

On this date in 1792, Jacques Nicolas Pelletier became the first to experience the guillotine.

For more info, please visit Wikipedia...I particulary enjoy the "Living Heads" section. But I'm all morbidly curious like that.

2nd Niece

Click to enlarge and get a better view of a nearly-nine-pound baby.

*Ask Jen: Tooth Fairy Edition

Jim writes, "Where does the Tooth Fairy come from? Bacon has lost about 50 teeth in the last two weeks and it is putting a serious dent in my ready cash. Who can I blame for this?"

A couple things worry me about your question, Jim. Firstly, Bacon is apparently half-shark, because 50 teeth is a lot of toofs to be losing!

Secondly, I do not understand how his losing teeth is affecting your cashflow, since the Tooth Fairy provides her own money in exchange for teeth.

But I will tell you about the Tooth Fairy. She was born about 100 years ago in America, keeping her tooth-routes pretty small for the first few decades. After WWII she expanded her territory by hiring a cracker-jack PR firm, and now visits most English-speaking countries.

Beyond her public persona, not much is known about the Tooth Fairy. She lays relatively low. Unlike, say, Santa Claus, no one is really sure where the Tooth Fairy lives or what exactly she does with all those teeth.

Do you have a question for me? You can e-mail it. If I know the answer, I'll answer it. If I don't know the answer, I might make something up.

*Superstitions: Horseshoes

Cross-posted to DDBBG.

In the late 1300s, we see the first British record of a found horseshoe being considered lucky. This belief has been held by pretty much every horseshoe-producing culture, from Scandinavia to Asia. The key was to have a found horseshoe, rather than a new horseshoe, and various degrees of luck were associated with intact nails, number of nail holes, etc.

By the late 1500s, the English were nailing their found horseshoes above their doors to keep the witches at bay. This is probably related to a long-held belief in the power of iron, which protected European people from fairies and other spirits before witches came along.

As we got closer to 1900, horseshoes above the door were less about witches and more for general luckiness. Whether the horseshoe’s ends should face up or down has never been completely resolved. Some people think facing the ends up will keep the luck from falling out of the horseshoe, while others believe facing the ends down will direct all that luckiness to the people walking below it.

Reference: Most of the material from this post was found in Christina Hole's The Encyclopedia of Superstitions and Steve Roud's The Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland.

Still Daring

I posted another new ghost story over at DDBBG.

Oh, and also, I now have 4 "celebrity" friends versus 2 "normal" friends at MySpace. Clearly, the famous and semi-famous are nicer than the rest of you. I don't even know what to think about one of you who shall not be named, who apparently asked me to be your friend but then withdrew the invite, because I got an email notice but now it's not showing up on the control panel thingawhatsit.

*Ask Jen: In a Nutshell

Since no one will e-mail a question for me, I am forced to pull my "Ask Jen" questions from other sources.

SarahK posted, "That, in a nutshell, is why you are only just now getting Idol. If you want the whole nut (what *does* 'in a nutshell' mean, anyway? Jennifer, please explain.), here it is."

To which I responded via comment: Apparently Pliny (Elder) mentioned in his writings a copy of the Iliad that was so small it fit into a nutshell…it was a condensed version, so “in a nutshell” came to be used to mean “the condensed version.”

Do you have a question for me? You can e-mail it. If I know the answer, I'll answer it. If I don't know the answer, I might make something up.

Superstitions: Salt, Garlic, and Silver Bullets

(Cross-posted to DDBBG.)

Salt and garlic have long been used throughout the world for medicinal and preservative purposes, and as a result generally have "lucky" reputations.

For example: if you spill salt, take a pinch and throw it over your left shoulder to avoid bad luck. The earliest record of this practice dates from around 1584; it was seen quite commonly thereafter. Why do people do this? The reasoning is largely unknown. Some people say the Devil whispers in your left ear and the salt will blind him or drive him away. (As for why spilling salt is unlucky in the first place, this is due to salt's historically high value.)

An older salty superstition said that keeping a bag of salt with a baby before baptism guarded the child against witches. This practice arose at least partly because salt was mentioned in the Bible for use in the baptismal ceremony, and was used in pagan ceremonies long before that.

Garlic also has a history of use as a protectant. The protection against vampires sprang from literature. (See: Dracula, 1897.) Before this, however, it was used to protect against witchcraft everywhere from Europe to Asia.

And since we're talking about modern-day monsters, how about silver bullets? Long before they stopped vampires and werewolves, they were believed to be the only thing that could harm a witch who had taken the form of a rabbit or other animal. Silver itself has a long history of being used for luck, because of its value in general. It is supposedly able to withstand enchantment, which is why it can't be deflected by evil beings.

Reference: Most of the material from this post was found in David Pickering's Dictionary of Superstitions and Steve Roud's The Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland.

Most Excellent

天使 - this is one of my tattoos, which means "angel"

餓鬼 - this is another of my tattoos, which means "brat"

But as it turns out, the "brat" tattoo can also be translated into "little devil", which is even better.

(And if your computer doesn't display kanji, お詫びいたします.)

I'm Daring

So, this easing-back-into-blogging thing is including some posting at the Dangerous and Daring Blog for Boys and Girls (which I tend to shorten to DDBBG). I seem to be the only one over there for now, but you should check it out anyway.

I've cross-posted the Superstition posts, and have now also posted a new ghost story.

Maybe other people will feel inspired to return to blogging at DDBBG if they see some action there.

Russian History: Origins

SarahK likes Russian History, so here is a tidbit.

Imperial Russia long accepted 862 as the birth of the state. Before that, Russia was a bunch of tribes and marauders and so forth roaming around the countryside. After that, it was actually pretty much the same for awhile. But in 862, the first imperial dynasty was established in Novgorod.

And what totally awesome Russian started it all, you might ask?

Well, as the story goes, a Viking named Ryurik took the first step towards building a mighty Soviet Emp--wait. Viking?!

Vikings aren't Russian!

Yes, well. There is a little controversy about the ethnic origins of the Ryurikids. According to the Russian Chronicle of the 1100s, the locals invited the Viking Ryurik to rule over them and protect them from Huns and the like.

According to later (*cough*Communist*cough*) Russian histories, this is a pack of lies! Russians didn't need any Nordic riffraff to take care of business.

So. What is the truth of the matter? Well, the first Russian princes had Scandinavian names. So they were probably Vikings.

But. Very few Nordic words made it into Old Russian, and not much else culturally seems to have been borrowed from the Scandinavians, either. So if the princes were Vikings, they adopted their new languages and cultures pretty completely.

Today, genetic testing is attempting to answer the question, and thus far it looks like Ryurik came from...(drumroll)...Sweden!

(Reference: Ronald Hingley's Russia. Also see: Ancestry.com.)

*Ask Jen: BEARS! Edition

(The title is a well-disguised nod to Stephen Colbert, btw.)

My nephew, on a trip to the zoo a couple months ago, asked, "Why isn't that bear sleeping?" Which I shall translate into: "Why don't zoo bears hibernate in winter?" Because my nephew is a genius who realizes bears hibernate in wintertime, and some bear blatantly gallivanting about in February has some explaining to do.

Well, Favorite Nephew, I am glad you asked. First of all, it shows you've been paying attention to my in-car lecture series on the animal kingdom. (Lacking a rear-seat DVD player, I rely on actual conversation to keep the kids occupied on car trips.) Secondly, it shows a flair for critical thinking that I value highly.

The reason why bears don't hibernate in zoos is because they don't have to. They are kept warm and fed, and have no need to conserve energy by hibernating. Bears in the wild hibernate when temperatures are below freezing and their food sources are depleted.

It's not easy to find enough food when it's cold and snowy in the woods, but it's super-easy to find food when a keeper throws it in your habitat on the daily.

Do you have a question for me? You can e-mail it. If I know the answer, I'll answer it. If I don't know the answer, I might make something up.

Superstitions: Knock on Wood

If you say something to tempt fate, knocking on wood will protect you. (Example: "I'm the only one in my house to not get the flu. Knock wood.")

This superstition can be traced to the early 1800s, with some people believing it invokes the wood of the crucifix for protection.

The real origin seems to be a children’s game from the early 1800s called “Tig-touch-wood”. Children playing tag were “safe” when they touched wood. Touching wood for luck became knocking on wood for luck in the U.S. and Germany.

(Cross-posted at DDBBG.)

Reference: Most of the material from this post was found in Steve Roud's The Penguin guide to the superstitions of Britain and Ireland.

*Ask Jen: Mooning Edition

Jim (yay!) asks: "So Jen, why does the moon sometimes look tiny like a dime and other times it is huge like a baby's head?"

Well, Jim, I am glad you asked. The moon has an elliptical orbit, so sometimes it is closer to the earth...but that does not account for the dramatic "change" in size during one night. What I think you are referring to is the illusion that the moon is huge near the horizon, and smaller as it rises in the sky.

This change in size is only seen by the human eye--cameras do not record the same phenomena. If you take a series of pictures of the moon throughout the evening, you'll see that the moon remains the same size. Our brains must be tricking us!

The prevailing theory on this is that we judge the size of the moon compared to what's nearby. So when the moon is near a house in our sight-line, for example, we think the moon is larger than when we see the moon hanging out by itself.

Personally, I have seen a ginormous orange moon on the horizon a couple times that I don't believe can be explained away by the above theory. It happens when the moon rises above the waste treatment plant east of my parents' town...so I think in my non-scientist way that the gases and chemical whatnot affect the appearance of the moon at those times. Seriously, it's HUGE! Then it rises and becomes white and normal-sized.

Is my mind just being tricksy? Until I start carrying a camera everywhere I go--or holding up dimes against the moon--I won't know for sure.

Do you have a question for me? You can e-mail it. If I know the answer, I'll answer it. If I don't know the answer, I might make something up.

Superstitions: Throwing Rice at the Bride and Groom

Some superstitions may have lost their original meaning, but have become ingrained in cultural behavior. These behaviors are no longer tied to a superstitious belief; throwing rice is one of these behaviors that simply became part of the culture. Of course, now you are more likely to see bubbles, flower petals, or birdseed at a wedding in the United States, but most of us have pelted a bride and groom with rice at one time or another.

The earliest known reference to throwing grains at a wedding occurred when a baker’s wife tossed wheat at Henry VII for good luck in 1486, and it became a widespread practice in England soon thereafter. The switch to rice took place around 1870, probably because rice was cheaper than wheat at the time.

Why throw anything? The Victorians liked to say it was to ensure fertility, but it was generally just to wish the new couple lots of luck, happiness, and prosperity. Using foodstuffs as good luck charms is not confined to weddings. We'll discuss salt and garlic another time.

(Cross-posted at DDBBG.)

Reference: Most of the material from this post was found in Steve Roud's The Penguin guide to the superstitions of Britain and Ireland.