Of course, it's by no means proven that these foxes were pets. It's possible, for instance, that the foxes were buried with humans for some ritual or religious reason. However, the "pet" deduction does make some sense: foxes are distantly related to dogs, which were almost certainly the first non-livestock critters to be domesticated (there is some neurological proof for this, in that the area of the brain given over to being a domestic is far larger comparatively in dogs than it is in cats). And while it's tricky to domesticate foxes, it's not impossible. It's a bit difficult to imagine foxes being used as hunting animals, but it's possible (and this is mentioned by the researchers in the above article) that they were camp scavengers who simply eventually "moved in."
In any case, it's interesting stuff, and it will become even more intriguing if more human-animal burials are discovered in the area!
[Scene: A kitchen in the Warrens. Enter two panicky Kobold Blog-Herders.]
First Blog-Herder: Ohgodohgodohgodohgod - it's hungering! Do something!
Second Blog-Herder: Find it something to eat!
[They rummage through various cupboards, fridges, pantries, freezers, coolers, store-rooms, butteries, cellars, sideboards, and so on]
Second Blog-Herder: Aha! We could toss it a musical interlude or two!
First Blog-Herder: Won't work - it'll just be hungry again in a day or so. Should we fry it up a nice Catullus poem, or something like that?
Second Blog-Herder: Takes too long - that thing is ravenous (you could put some out to thaw, though - we haven't had any Catullus in a long time. Am I actually speaking in parentheses? I am! Cooooool...). Hey look! We've got half a barrel of Edmonton Oilers material - we could whip that up in a jiffy!
First Blog-Herder: Ennh, it's not very nutritious, especially right now.
Second Blog-Herder: Some Millwall, then?
First Blog-Herder: Better, but still - same problem. [wanders into cooler] Hey look! We've still got that pot of snark we made this summer and never used! You remember - the one with the ESPN guy who wrote the column about how the main problem with sports these days is that athletes don't hate each other enough, the column in which he completely screwed up the anecdote about Ted Williams! That one!
Second Blog-Herder: Ooh, I remember that - that was good snark! Well-researched, if I recall. Let's save that one for a special occasion, like next week.
First Blog-Herder: Ok. Hmm, what's in this jar marked "Use only on Fridays"?
Second Blog-Herder: Who cares, it's Thursday. [wanders into larder] Oh, here we go - I've got just the thing! [emerges from larder bearing bag labelled "Emergency Blog Food"]
Ortona, Italy, December 1943. (National Archives of Canada, PA-136332)
The temptation, of course, is to try to say something meaningful, but I think instead I will simply let Lt. Col. McCrae take it from here:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie, In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.
Remember the bad old days? Remember how, back in Medieval times, if the bubonic plague or rampaging Vikings didn't get you, well, there were always the marauding packs of wolves to contend with? Remember that?
Yeah, marauding wolves. Good thing we don't have to worry about them any more!
In unrelated news, here's some surveillance footage of a completely routine traffic stop just outside Rostov-na-Donu, Russia:
And we would be remiss if we were to pass up this opportunity to provide the following musical interlude:
Ok, so it's about the 8th century A.D., and the scene is Reichenau Island,1 in the very very South of what is now Germany, as seen on the map above. Specifically, we are looking at the Benedictine Abbey of Reichenau, founded in A.D. 724 by St. Pirmin, who may have been a Visigoth although that's beside the point. The Abbey of Reichenau is believed (to this day!) to contain the jug used at the Wedding at Cana, although that too is irrelevant to our purpose.
No, our interest today is drawn to the abbey's scriptorium, wherein we shall find a possibly bored monk.2 He is busy working on a document that will become known as the Reichenauer Schulheft (Stift St. Paul Cod. 86a/1), which translates as the Reichenauer Primer. The Primer contains a general miscellany of writings, mostly in Latin, but including some Greek and bits of Old High German. It was probably intended purely as scribing practice, which may explain why the monk is bored. Here's a sample page:
One folio of the Reichenauer Schulheft. The chart on the right-hand side appears to be astronomical in nature, to judge from the constellation names. Click to see larger version.
And how do we know/suspect that the monk is finding this day's work a bit tedious? Well, we know because he has become distracted by the antics of his little scriptorium cell's other denizen. The end result of this distraction is a short poem, jotted down in the Primer in Old Irish, which we may safely assume is the monk's mother tongue. The poem is at the bottom of the left-hand page in the above picture, but here it is, in its original language, so that you don't have to squint:
Now, I confess that my knowledge of Old Irish is practically non-existent. I know that "bán" means "white," or "pale," or, in modern Irish, "blonde," and I can hazard a guess that "lebran," in the second verse, means "book," on account of us dealing with an Indo-European language. I've got some vague notions about a coupld of other words in the poem, but that's about as far as I can go, so I will step aside, and hand things over to a translation by J. Marchand (found here, with some other translations). Of all the translations of the poem that I've seen, I prefer this one, as I get the sense that it sticks quite closely to the original language.
The Scholar and his Cat
1. I and White Pangur, each of us in his special craft. His mind is set on hunting; my mind is on my special subject.
2. I love resting (better than any fame) at my book, with diligent understanding; White Pangur is not envious of me; he loves his childish craft.
3. When we are (tale without tiredness), in our house, being alone, we have an endless sport, a thing to which we may apply our skill.
4. It is usual, at times, by feats of valor, that a mouse sticks in his net. As for me, there falls into my net, a difficult rule with hard meaning.
5. He points fiercely against an enclosing wall his eye, bright, perfect. I myself direct against the keenness of knowledge my sharp eye, though it be quite weak.
6. He is happy with swiftness of movement upon a mouse sticking in his sharp paws. Which I understand a difficult pleasant problem, as for me, I am happy, too.
7. Though we may be indeed (like this) at any time, neither disturbs his partner; good to each of us is his art, each rejoices in them.
8. He himself is master of it, the work which he does every day. To bring clarity to difficulty, I am at my own work.
A more poetic translation may be found here. Anyway, there we have it. A monk at work in a scriptorium took a brain-break, and because of that, 1250 or so years later, we know of the existence (and name!) of a particular white cat. Neat, hmmm?
1At least, it's probably Reichenau Island, or at least somewhere in the vicinity. 2It is just possible that this monk is Sedulius Scottus, but we don't know for sure.
So with the Premiership season due to commence on Saturday, the wizened Kobold seers are even now adding the eye of newt and such to the scrying cauldrons to see what may be seen. Last year the seers did pretty well, actually correctly selecting the three relegated teams (missed on the title winners, though, and went three-for-four on Champions League participants).
That's for tomorrow, however. In the meantime, behold! as one of the greatest scientific questions of our age is at last answered:
I am currently on that gig once more, hence the lack of much blogging in the last week or so. This time I have three furry ones to take care of, although they're pretty good at taking care of themselves (particularly the eldest of the three, who is prone to holding the other two down and giving them tongue baths.
Ok, maybe not really "breaking," so much, since this story is a few days old, but to make an 8-years-long story short, Alberta finally got around to putting the grizzly bear on the Threatened List. Now we wait to see if the gov will in fact follow through, and start taking the necessary steps (restricting access, etc.) to actually protect the grizzly population. At least, in the meatime, the bears can't be hunted.
Hmm, so, let's see, what's up in the world these days? Well, everything seems to be going swimmingly in regards to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Why, the next attempt to contain the leak will probably only INCREASE the rate of flow from it by 20%!!!!!!!! Sucks to be you, things that live in, on, or by the Gulf! Fortunately, the head cheese of British Petroleum says that things aren't that bad at all, and we should all just settle down and not pay any attention to those horrible sciencey people, with their science and everything. Next up - hurricane season!
And... look over here! An attempt to lessen, in some minor and perhaps symbolic way, the suffering of the city of Gaza has been met with lethal force, thus providing the extremist wings of both sides of the Israel-Palestine debate with a prime chance to get up and scream at each other. At press time, Gaza itself remained more-or-less screwed.
On the local front, someone took it upon him/her/itself this past weekend to wander down to the zoo and wipe out the guinea pigs. "Why?" you ask? Nobody knows. However, I feel strongly that The Stealthy Dachshund's response has much merit to it.
Nothing for it, I guess, but to run a nice picture of a tulip, taken by me. Click to embiggen, as always!
So there you are, innocently suveying the ocean floor using one of those nifty remote-controlled unmanned submarines. At the end of the long day, quittin' time rolls around, and you reel the machine back in. And then you discover that it has acquired a passenger, and the passenger is one of these:
I mean look at that thing! It's three times the size of Nefertiti! And its feet - that monstrosity could seriously injure you by stabbing you with its feet!! Think about that for a sec - its legs, of which it has far too many, end in seriously sharp points!! And it's wearing armour!! What the hell, Earth's Oceans, what the hell?!
Ahem.
Anyway, it's a fairly common critter, a species of giant isopod which scurries about the ocean floor, feeding on large dead things and slow live ones. Its scientific name is Bathynomus Giganteus.
For the record, I think it's about the niftiest thing I've seen all day. And I am so making a D&D monster out of it.
Many a book, pen, and doodad with the University crest on it has been counted in the last couple of days, I can tell you... And it went very smoothly, all-in all. Anyway, more on that later.
In the meantime, some inventory-done celebratory music is in order! Here's "Devil's Dance Floor" by Flogging Molly, with penguins dancing to it. That should about do the trick.
In the videoclip below, you will see Beppe Bigazzi, a fairly well-known Italian chef and specialist in regional delicacies. You will see him get himself in trouble by discussing, with far too much approbation and enthusiasm, a dish apparently native to the Tuscan region of Valdarno, just east of Florence. A dish that is, I would further note, illegal-with-a-capital-I in Italy.
The best part of the video, for me, is the understandably horrified reaction of his co-host, Elisa Isoardi, who finally ends up seeking mortified shelter behind the salad greens. Here's the clip, and I've provided a translation below it:
Bigazzi: Tomorrow is Fat Thursday...
Isoardi: True
Bigazzi: ...which in Valdarno is called "Berlingaccio," because there's a [indecipherable] Berlingaccio. Furthermore, there's a proverb for Berlingaccio: "He who has no fat kills the cat." Because we're in February...
Isoardi: Excuse me...
Bigazzi: ..."Cat February," and one of the great dishes of Valdarno was braised cat.
Bigazzi: (sarcastic) Because people don't eat rabbit, they don't eat chicken...
Isoardi: (also sarcastic) No! Let's eat cats, since there are so many of them!
Bigazzi: ...they don't eat pigeon, et cetera? A cat, kept for three days in the running water of a [indecipherable] stream, comes out with its meat white. I assure you - I've eaten it many times - I assure you that it's a delicacy. So now there are going to be letters and things... yes, letters from lovers of nature! Why don't they defend rabbits? For these animals they're racists! Ok, it's not important...
Isoardi: Let's talk about vegetables.
Bigazzi: Why should we talk about vegetables?
The response to Bigazzi's little expedition into cat recipes has been, shall we say, noisy and enraged, and rightly so. The eating of cats, of course, is not an unknown phenomenon, even in the West, where it's generally considered taboo. There's an interesting article on the practise here. However, in most places where cats are kept as pets, they are eaten only as a last resort, when instability or other factors have caused severe food shortages.
The Valdarnese proverb quoted by Bigazzi, "he who has no fat kills the cat," in fact speaks directly to this motive. Cats are to be eaten only by someone who is desperately starving. And it is worth pointing out at this point that the Valdarno has suffered periods of extreme privation during its history - during the upheavals of the Renaissance before the Florentines took over the area, for example, and more recently during Fascism and the Second World War. I would hazard that the use of cats for food in the area grew out of one of these periods.
There is also the question that Bigazzi hints at towards the end of the clip: why don't the people who are outraged at the thought of cat-eating get similarly worked up over the consumption of, for example, rabbits? It's a good question, but one with a simple answer: it is because cats are considered pets. This means, among other things, that we tend to view them individually rather than collectively, which is a good and humane impulse. As an example of such a view, take Isoardi's response to the first mention of braised cat. The mental image that obviously comes to her right away is that of the cooking and eating of a specific, individual, animal, and it's no wonder that she responds with horror.
Now, it is true that some animals, such as rabbits, ducks and chickens, do sometimes straddle the line between pets and livestock. However, I would be willing to wager that the people who do keep such animals as pets either do not eat them at all- either the pets themselves or other members of the species, or have a certain amount of difficulty with doing so. I am reminded here of one of James Herriot's anecdotes, about a pig-farmer of his acquaintance. This farmer was apparently a fairly typical example of the hardbitten, taciturn, Yorkshire dalesman. However, when it came time each year to slaughter the pigs, his wife had to do all the work, while he sat in the farmhouse kitchen and cried.
(A minor note about the Times article linked to here: I don't know where they got the "in-show" quotes that they attribute to Bigazzi, but he doesn't utter them in the clip that I've given you here)
To close, I would issue a reminder that Italy does have a specific law against the eating of cats (dogs, too). I think there's similar legislation in Canada, but if there isn't, there should be.
UPDATE:Chorus, in the comments, gives us a heads-up that Bigazzi has now in fact been fired. And indirectly reminds me to link to these people!
First of all, if you ever want to have a productive day at work again, you probably shouldn't read any further. We here at De Koboldorum Rebus will accept no liability, etc. etc.
So, anyway, Sporcle. If you have not yet encountered Sporcle, it is a site given over to a very large number of user-created quizzes, on just about any subject imaginable. The best bit is that, once you have finished the quiz, you can take a pick at which answers were most commonly missed, and how your quiz score fits in with the rest of the world.
Sporcle, we are proud to announce, has now been infiltrated by kobolds. Yes, you can take, for example, your new-found expertise in the esoterica of NHL awards over to Sporcle and put it to use! And there are other res koboldorumto be found as well, not to mention a couple coming up the pipe...
Well, I'm gradually getting around to the last bit of the trophies series, but in the meantime I leave you with this rather odd but catchy song, in which the ukulele makes its De Koboldorum Rebus debut! The video includes diabetes-inducing amounts of cuteness (of several different varieties), before coming to a morbid and tragic conclusion. Anyway, enjoy.
Taking a quick break from hockey trophies here. Anyway, up until yesterday, I had lived my life in blissful ignorance of the reason why cats, when frightened or startled, will flatten their ears, spit, and hiss. Like so:
Well, this behaviour is apparently a form of mimicry. When a cat hisses, it is saying, quite deliberately, "oh no, I'm not a poor little cat at all! I'm actually one of these guys:
...so I'm really much scarier than a cat, and you should leave me alone."
Ok, perhaps they're not mimicking the Armenian Viper specifically, but you get the idea.
Beginning with a bit of a soccer story: A Croatian goalkeeper rescued a cat which wandered onto the pitch during a game. Whereupon he was given a yellow card. All-in-all, it has not been a banner week for soccer referees. However, on the plus side, this blog does now have a "Medjimurje Cakovec" label!
I think Nefertiti is going to be an indoors cat indefinitely and probably for good. I am basing this on two things: first of all, although she loves to look out the window, she shows no interest in actually going outside. Secondly, when I stepped outside last night, there were what I would guess to be about four coyotes singing to each other in the ravine a whole two blocks away. I am all in favour of urban wildlife (indeed, I stood there for a time and listened to the coyotes), but I'd rather it didn't eat Nefertiti.
Last week saw the first meeting of a little Latin reading group that a former student of mine has set up. Although I was only able to be there for the first part of this session, I think it has great potential to be good fun! It's mostly former students of mine, with some friends and family along as well. We're reading Propertius, at least for starters.
Those of us who follow the Oilers may remember the whole Dany Heatley nastiness from this summer. Well, a couple of local businesses have got together to commemorate the trade-that-wasn't, and have found a way to make it into a charity event as well! It's actually quite a cool idea, and for a very good cause. And I think we are all happy that the Heatley deal, didn't actually happyen, in the end...
Speaking of the end, I think we have reached it for this post!
