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Greg Lake performs his 1975 classic "I Believe in Father Christmas" filmed live at St. Bride's Church, Fleet Street, in the City of London with Jethro Tull' ...

Attached: 1 video I thought seeing a cockroach in your bathroom was bad. I won't complain anymore Hrrrrk PS: this was taken in a condo Btw one of these was seen casually slithering a few meters from my parents home. Where it lives remains a mystery. Fyi my parents live in the city!! Not a jungle in sight! #Malaysia #Horror

Attached: 1 image ✨Plato’s Academy✨ This Roman mosaic depicts seven men together outside appearing in conversation. Found in the villa of T. Siminius Stephanus in Pompeii, it is now held in the MAN Napoli. The theme of the mosaic also conforms to the ‘Seven Sages’ of ancient Greece (all of whom predated Plato). Even though the central subject remains open for discussion, we can all agree that the details of the scene and the border are simply stunning. #MosaicMonday #AncientRome #History

A lot of my time exploring fantastical literature ends up being spent on trying to understand facts from widely-separate fields of knowledge that, in the context of a story, seem like they’re disconnected. So it’s a pleasure to report a case in which everyone just plain agrees. As we noted earlier, Tolkien re-used a medieval cure for elf-shot to describe how Aragorn and Elrond cured Frodo of the Witch-King’s knife-wound. The cure involves boiled herbs (feverfew, deadnettle, and plantain), a knife held in the healer’s hands, and an incantation in an ancient language. Cutting and pasting from _LotR I, xii_ : > He sat down on the ground, and taking the dagger-hilt laid it on his knees, and he sang over it a slow song in a strange tongue. … He crushed a leaf in his fingers, and it gave out a sweet and pungent fragrance. ‘It is fortunate that I could find it, for it is a healing plant that the Men of the West brought to Middle-earth. Athelas they named it’…. He threw the leaves into the boiling water and bathed Frodo’s shoulder. There’s one problem, though: Athelas is the cure for Black Breath, not for elf-shot. Frodo probably suffers from both, so athelas is worth trying. But the text says Aragorn knows he’s not doing the cure with the right herb: _It has great virtues, but over such a wound as this its healing powers may be small. (Ibid.)_ e43r87[1] Ought to be suitable for next year’s questing In their book _Flora of Middle-Earth_ , Walter & Graham Judd looked around our world to find something that might be athelas, and they decided comfrey was the closest thing. As it happens, I’ve just planted comfrey in a little plot on my farm. It has some useful properties for building up soil fertility that this plot badly needs. But comfrey is kind of a cult-object, too . When you talk to an expert about comfrey, you get lots of other information along with advice relevant to your primary application. In particular, I got a cautionary story about its healing properties. Comfrey is useful for topical treatment of wounds. It closes up cuts fast, even though that’s not always the best thing. I heard the story of a dog who lacerated himself on a barbed-wire fence. He was treated with comfrey salve, and the wound closed up nicely, but such a closure was premature. There was something still deep inside, and the wound got infected. A vet had to slice the scar back open to remove whatever the little splinter was. This sounds familiar:_‘His wound was small, and it is already closed. There’s nothing to be seen but a cold white mark on his shoulder.’_ (_Ibid_., a few pages later) Aragorn the field medic had to stop the bleeding, ward off the Black Breath, and keep Frodo mobile, so he used the strongest herb he could find. When the patient gets to the hospital, the doctors there can undo the quick fix. Elrond will be called upon to do a similar re-opening, and make use of his more-complete herbarium in Rivendell. So, for once, we have 10th-century herbal lore, 20th-century fiction, 21st-century botany, and current lived experience all neatly lined up, with no contradictions to be reconciled. An account to the Tolkien blogosphere of so strange an event was required, I think. * * * [1] While I was writing, Fléau the Cat walked across my keyboard and I didn’t notice her scribal interpellation until the post went live. So I left it in. This is her first contribution to Tolkien scholarship. ##### Works Cited Judd, Walter S., and Graham A. Judd. _Flora of Middle-Earth: Plants of JRR Tolkien’s Legendarium_. Oxford University Press, 2017. Tolkien, J.R.R. _The Lord of the Rings._ Houghton-Mifflin, 2002. ### Share this: * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit * Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * ### _Related_

_The Return of the King_ by J.R.R (Harper Collins 1991) pp 741-743 I posed a question in the title of this blog post because I don’t think that the answer is immediately obvious. If the quotation in the title was a part of a quiz question and you were asked to identify who is being described I feel quite certain that a few, at least, of my reade1rs would not identify the character. After all, in Peter Jackson’s films there are only two occasions on which he laughs aloud. The first is upon his arrival in the Shire at the beginning of the story, the second when he celebrates the fall of Sauron and the recovery of Frodo and Sam. The character to whom I am of course referring is Gandalf and the one who is describing him is Pippin. I think that there is an element of surprise here about both of them. Gandalf is usually a very serious character and Pippin is surprised indeed by the sound of Gandalf’s laughter. “Are you angry with me, Gandalf?” Pippin asks as they emerge from the throne room together. “I did the best I could.” “You did indeed!” said Gandalf, laughing suddenly; and he came and stood beside Pippin, putting his arm across the hobbit’s shoulders, and gazed out of the window. Pippin glanced in some wonder at the face now close beside his own for the sound of that laugh had been gay and merry. Yet in the wizard’s face he saw at first only lines of care and sorrow; though as he looked more intently he perceived that under all there was a great joy: a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth.” I will return to thoughts about Gandalf in a moment as it is about him that we are thinking in this post but I did refer to two elements of surprise. The second element, of course, is what we learn about Pippin. It is Pippin who _glances_ in wonder at Gandalf. He glances, of course, because he is too shy to stare at Gandalf. But his glance is one of wonder, wonder at the gaiety and merriment that he discerns in a laugh that comes from someone in whom until now he has only seen “care and sorrow”. Pippin is growing. And he is growing fast. We will return to Pippin on another occasion but now we must think more about Gandalf. Perhaps, like Pippin, we have only seen Gandalf’s surface, his care and sorrow, until now. There is nothing to be ashamed of here. Gandalf has much to be sorrowful about as he has long carried the burdens of care for Middle-earth upon his shoulders. As he said to Denethor in the throne room: “But all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, those are my care.” For Gandalf too is a steward, even as Denethor is, but his stewardship is over a greater realm than Gondor and he is a lord over no realm or people. His stewardship is one of care alone. When Gandalf first arrived at the Grey Havens in Middle-earth around the year 1000 of the Third Age Círdan, the Warden of the Havens greeted him with sober speech. “Great perils and labours lie before you, and lest your task prove too great and wearisome, take this ring for your aid and comfort.” (_Unfinished Tales_ Harper Collins 1998 p. 504) In the next few posts on my blog I intend to think much more about Gandalf, both about his labours but also about his joy. The two are intimately bound together and it is essential that we see them as such. As we think about Gandalf we might be reminded of lines from William Blake’s great poem, _Auguries of Innocence:_ “Joy and woe are woven fine, A clothing for the soul divine.” For Blake it is impossible to separate the two aspects of our lives and unwise even to seek to do so. It is only possible, as he puts it in the poem, to go safely through the world if we know that we are “made for joy and woe”, together. If we try to eliminate woe, or sadness, from our lives, we will go astray, if we are willing to carry our share of the burdens and care of the world upon our shoulders and yet to bear them with joy then we can do some good in the world. To live a life of joyful responsibility might release, if not a fountain of mirth to set a kingdom laughing, then perhaps at least a merry stream that bubbles up from the ground to water our families and maybe something wider than that. ### Share this: * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Like Loading...

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