#I'm reading The Oak King the Holly King and the Unicorn
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"In whatever religious framework it appears, the function of water is shown to be the same; it disintegrates, abolishes forms, 'washes away sins' - at once purifying and giving new life."
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*Sees an oak tree* Whoa nice reference to the pre-Christian European vegetation deity who symbolizes spring and summer and the fertility of the natural world and who is ritually sacrificed to ensure his vitality never fades or else the cycle might be broken
#please feel free to ignore this#I'm reading The Oak King the Holly King and the Unicorn#I returned the book to the library and on the way back I saw an oak tree and I was like wrow I can't believe they made those real...#(this is a joke)
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The author keeps citing the most crazy-making quotes from Ad de Vries like "[the mirror] is the door through which the soul frees itself by passing" and "the gift of the apple of immortality automatically includes death"
#please feel free to ignore this#I'm reading The Oak King the Holly King and the Unicorn#Mr. de Vries you Get It#I need to read the book he cited these from and then I need to tattoo it to my body and also eat it
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"The pheasant became associated with Narcissus because for centuries this bird was caught by placing a mirror in a cage." Sure why not
#please feel free to ignore this#I'm reading The Oak King the Holly King and the Unicorn#And that other bird in the mirror. Who is he
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#pictures#I'm reading The Oak King the Holly King and the Unicorn#This is the explanation for like 2 of the 7 tapestries
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I love when art historians get mean about poor restorations
#please feel free to ignore this#I'm reading The Oak King the Holly King and the Unicorn#I mean I don't blame them I would too#Anyway one of you read this book
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Check out this funky little guy
#pictures#please feel free to ignore this#I'm reading The Oak King the Holly King and the Unicorn#It's a squirrel riding a raft filled with nuts and using its tail as a sail#Apparently squirrels were considered messengers for the underworld#They would listen to departed souls and then climb trees to relay messages to the gods#Nuts were also considered dwellings for souls of the dead#And as everyone knows wquirrels cross bodies of water in tiny boats using their tails to blow them across#It reminds me of Charon
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I'm tempted to buy my own copy of this book so I can like cross reference a bunch of random shit when I finally sit down to read as much of the Arthurian cycle as I possibly can
#please feel free to ignore this#I'm reading The Oak King the Holly King and the Unicorn#I'm just having a really good time#I found some copies on Amazon for like $20 I might ask for it for Christmas
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More medieval wisdom: If your stepmom tries to poison you, eat an orange
#pictures#please feel free to ignore this#I'm reading The Oak King the Holly King and the Unicorn#Technically a citron could also be a lemon or lime but the book is specifically discussing oranges so that's the joke I picked
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Thinking about the quote "History cannot basically modify the structure of an archaic symbolism. History constantly adds new meanings, but they do not destroy the structure of the symbol" and the constant re-appropriation of various gods and symbols and ceremonies going back to before recorded history
#please feel free to ignore this#I'm reading The Oak King the Holly King and the Unicorn#Thinking about a shrine that people have worshipped at throughout the ages in almost exactly the same way#and the name of the holy being who is invoked changes but nothing else#I've said this before but I really liked the way they introduced this in The Forgotten City#How the deeper you went in the city you found the same gods with different names#because ancient cultures borrowed or 'borrowed' these ideas from each other
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#pictures#please feel free to ignore this#I'm reading The Oak King the Holly King and the Unicorn#This is a joke but every time I see a dichotomy it's either this post or 'the two genders'
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I know I keep making fun of myself for reading this book, but if you're interested in non-Christian/pre-Christian European folklore, the evolution of religions/cultural practices, and/or European art from the pre-Renaissance (including Arthuriana), I really do recommend The Oak King, the Holly King, and the Unicorn: The Myths and Symbolism of the Unicorn Tapestries by John Williamson
#please feel free to ignore this#I'm reading The Oak King the Holly King and the Unicorn#I'm assuming it's out of print so I recommend checking your local libraries or online#The ISBN no. is 0-06-015530-2#The focus is obv the unicorn tapestries but there's so much rich history to discuss first#and the examples the author uses are like vivid and compelling on their own#The section I'm on rn is about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and how vegetation deities in pre-Christian influenced portrayals/rituals#associated with Easter and Jesus
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Do NOT fuck with holly trees or else
#pictures#please feel free to ignore this#I'm reading The Oak King the Holly King and the Unicorn#ask to tag
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"We may expect little more than an effusive aethestic pleasure from the arts of different time and different cultures unless we attain some comprehension of the icons which underline the society that produced them." This is why I have to know everything about the whole world right now or I will die
#please feel free to ignore this#I'm reading The Oak King the Holly King and the Unicorn#I feel this a lot when watching East Asian dramas lol esp historical ones#I'm missing something! I'm missing something! What am I missing! *Sobs and throws up because I don't know everything*#I need to know what it MEANS what does it MEAN
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"The religious fever that transfixed those converts embracing Christianity did not obliterate their pre-Christian reverence for symbols." I love the implication that people were like "hmm, Christianity 🤔 yeah, I'll get behind that, but the iconography could use some sprucing up first"
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Love when there's a footnote in a nonfiction book that's like "So-and-so will insist that their theory is correct, but no one else believes them and actually someone else in this field pretty soundly disproved it in their own book"
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