GUNS, BOOKS, LIQUOR, AND REVOLUTION

In the late Middle Ages, the most powerful rulers in the Western world decided to expand their power onto the closest independent areas: the larger the realm, the harder to invade. The completion of this view of conquest was facilitated partially by the baby boom that followed the Black Death, partially by some powder brought from the East. A powder that, combined with lead and fire, could pierce even the stoutest bulwarks and breastplates.
At the same time, books started to be published at lightning speed in workshops, no longer handwritten over the course of years in secluded and sacred scriptoria, no longer the privilege of the Church, but also at the disposition of nobles and commoners.
And some alchemists looking for the so-called water of life discovered they had, in its pursuit, discovered an inflammable liquid, that turned out to be a far stronger drink than those already known: this liquid could be used as a weapon and as a painkiller.
The known world was on the brink of revolution. Guns, books, and liquor were to change the lives of the hot shots and their subjects alike. Forever.

THE BIBLE AND ETYMOLOGY

Months ago, I wrote about the Bible and words like "lieutenant". Another interesting word in the Bible in the bible is "nation" (most frequently used in plural as "the nations", and also as "the kings of the earth"). In other translations, and in the original, it is featured as the word for "ethnic group" ("ethnos" in Greek, "Volk" in German, "folk" in Sweden). And the word "nation" itself comes from the Latin word for "birth". It refers, in its original sense, to a bond of blood rather than to one of land. In the days of King James, it must have been completely synonymous with "ethnos", "Volk", and "folk". As time changed, the royal courts' surrounding areas expanded, warfare and education gave hinterlanders (the people of the capitals' surroundings) a sense of common territorial identity... and thus, the term "nation" began to be used as synonymous (and, nowadays, vicarious) with the concept once known as "province", "region", or "kingdom/realm"... for which the present-day scientific denomination is "territorial state". A bond of land, of living in the same territory/realm/areas, rather than one of blood and common descent.

THE RINGSTETTEN SAGA XXII: THE RETURN OF THE PAST

Previously on The Ringstetten Saga:
The young officer didn't see that coming: a royal pardon, instead of a court martial! And besides, His Majesty reunites Krister with his regiment, for the lieutenant to read a few letters from his loved ones. One from a certain estate in Värmland, the other from a bourgeois household on the outskirts of Uppsala.
The latter is, obviously, his ailing brother Kristian's will. He wishes to be buried in the Ringstetten estate garden in Värmland, he has appointed his twin brother Krister (who survived the war, as he has stated in a letter sent to Kristian during his convalescence, before desertion) his heir, consoled his own parents in another previous letter, and there is even an arrangement of a levirate marriage between the widowed Erika and the still unmarried Krister. The young bridegroom is somewhat startled, and he doubts what to do for a while: he's queer, like his liege lord, yet he feels sorry for the plight of Erika and her daughters. And thus, he decides to return to Vänersvik. With Krister comes Charlotte, now a ward of the State and completely orphaned after her father's death on the battlefield. Peace has been signed. And Sweden has proved not to be a fallen empire by winning the war! 
The young girl is somewhat jealous of her beloved's betrothed, which may have devastating consequences...
The promise has nevertheless to be fulfilled. A modest gentleman, his daughter, and her twin children soon arrive at Vänersvik, all dressed in black and having travelled in a black-draped carriage with the lifeless form of a young scholar across a cold, snowy landscape. At the funeral, in a French garden covered in a blanket of snow, they encounter a young man with Kristian's exact appearance, dressed in an officer's uniform. The next day, as Karl Johan returns to Uppsala, Erika and the twins stay on the estate and prepare a second wedding while getting to know Krister. He has become a reserved and cold veteran, at first indifferent to Erika yet compelled to marry her, but soon he feels sorry for her and opens up to his new relatives, though he is at first reluctant to make love and produce an heir, as Linnéa and Tradescantia gradually start to accept him. They even get to visit Miss Ulrika on Honeysuckle Farm, where the young girls will go to school together with peasant children, to bring the elite closer to the common people. And so will the expected male heir: Krister has finally yielded to his duty, and Erika has a bun in the oven!
As for Charlotte, she reacts coolly to the appearance of a young wife for her Krister and two foster sisters for herself. The redhead is five or six years older than Erika's daughters... and there will be a fourth child in November: a little Gustav or Sophia (the Ringstettens' hopes of a male heir are high once more!). But is her coolness for real?
Erika and her husband decide to give Vänersvik a greenhouse, to transplant all the specimens they will soon inherit from her father in Uppsala. The project is soon approved and scheduled for spring.
In midwinter, straight before Christmas, Charlotte (dressed in her custom blue military overcoat) goes out ice skating in Lake Vänern with the other girls. But, unfortunately, she crosses into thin ice, that soon breaks under her. Linnéa runs off to the estate to warn Krister, and soon the young count is on the shore, throwing the redhead a rope that Charlotte instantly catches to hold herself to and writhe her way onto land. When she has finally made it, she collapses, freezing and exhausted. Her saviour helps her into the sleigh, wrapping her in his coat and offering her a warming draught of brandy.
Thus saved, Charlotte reconciles with Krister and Erika.
On Christmas Eve, the old Count of Ringstetten suffers a sudden stroke, to be succeded by his now only son and heir. The heartwarming funeral celebrated by the local church on such a day can't be a good omen.
When springtime comes in April, the greenhouse structure and the bun in Erika's oven start developing their respective shapes. The "winter garden" is ready, stocked, and open by Midsummer. And the young hopeful sees the light of day in mid-autumn. It's a healthy boy, ostensibly the image of his late father... if it weren't for his violet eyes. Christened Gustav Paul (after the respective Crown Princes of Sweden and Russia) with the first snows, he is meant to be raised by his parents instead of strangers, and to attend the Honeysuckle Farm Public School (which Charlotte and the twin girls already attend) upon reaching the age of seven. Krister finally consents that it shall be so.
The new diverse generation of Ringstettens takes part actively in celebrations, whether Christmas, Easter, Midsummer, or harvest festivals. While, on the 14th of July that year, in another kingdom, a fortress prison yields to a storming by commoners... This is a turning point in world history that the Ringstettens won't learn about until half a decade later.
So quickly and merrily pass a few years of peace and hopes. Little Gustav Paul soon says his first words, and he is gradually learning to walk. He is now the centre of life at Vänersvik, which makes Linnéa and Tradescantia develop middle child syndrome. Krister, Erika, and Charlotte have relationships all three together in secret. What could possibly go wrong?
In springtime 1792, after hosting the Easter Dance on the Midsummer Green, the estate gets an unexpected visit from a detachment. Rather strange... Hadn't Krister, as a lieutenant, received a royal pardon in spite of his desertion?
The commanding officer, who states they've come "in the name of the Regent", wishes to have a talk with Count Ringstetten in private. Krister and Erika part, both of them worried: if a regent rules the land, something must have befallen the King!...
During the short conversation, Krister discovers the reason for the military's arrival: Gustavus III has lost his life in his bedchamber, due to wounds inflicted (a gunshot in the back) during a masquerade ball. The heir to the throne, Gustavus IV, is still a child. Thus, Duke Charles (the admiral of the fleet and Gustavus III's reserved younger brother, the middle one, an eighteenth-century Stannis Baratheon), who made a promise by his older brother's deathbed, is in charge of affairs of state. The oath: to punish the ones involved in the plot that has claimed the ruler's life. And such an oath is meant to be kept come what may.
Thus, the Anjala officers are being arrested throughout Sweden, to be subsequently banished or imprisoned for life.
And thus, Krister von Ringstetten is arrested and whisked away in a cage cart heading for the island fortress of Carlsten, on the west coast of Sweden, not to be set free until his death.
At dusk, the detachment sets off towards the setting sun. Erika kisses the prisoner farewell through the bars of the cage cart, shedding tears and then fainting. She remains between life and death for days, trying to console her children. Finally, in summer, the memory of the arrest ceases to be painful to all of them, and another funeral takes place on Midsummer Eve: the funeral of the old Countess Mother, Katarina, the arrest of whose son caused her to plunge into a coma.
Then, a letter from Carlsten comes to Vänersvik: it's from Krister, now employed as a smith in the garrison forge. He has grown a beard and been branded with the number 39 on the chest and left arm.
Soon, the Ringstettens receive a letter from the Walloons in the forge: they've just given some French refugees asylum, and they've adopted their suddenly orphaned baby daughter, Louise-Antoinette or Louison, called Loulou. Erika, though still somewhat inexperienced in the ways of the gentry, agrees that Loulou shall be betrothed and married to her Gustav Paul, whom she pets, and even spoils, more for each day.
One day in November the same year, upon returning home from school after a thunderstorm, Charlotte and the twin girls come across the Sidhe in the woods. When they finally reach Vänersvik, a threefold rainbow colours the sky.  Her look is worried, though she smiles and offers them a bluebell charm that will bestow protection upon its bearers. The test of the wishing nuts has finally come to an end, and the Sidhe has finally decided to sign peace with the human foreigners who came to these lands a century before. For a new age will dawn within another hundred years: an era of steel and steam, when the worth of a person shall no longer be measured in blood, but in wealth. The world of nature spirits is as fated as that of the gentry, yet there shall be another hundred years before that fateful twilight.
And, though the seeds of syncretism and of freedom have been finally sown after countless wars and persecutions, their shoots will take more than that century to grow strong and firm.

THE END.

A DAY TO CELEBRATE

Once upon a time, there was an ugly duckling, shunned by farm and woodland animals alike, and even by humans. All of them said he was ugly because he didn't look like the other ducklings: he was larger than life, gray with a black beak and black feet, and he even honked instead of quacking.
In those days, "different" was a dangerous word. So he was referred to as "ugly", which sounds even more offensive. But the duckling didn't lose confidence, and he carried on in spite of all the privations that the thorny path of life could endure.
There was once a crippled soldier who fell in love with a lovely ballerina. He was a military man, and she was a performer, star-crossed lovers as different as day and night. Yet Cupid is blindfolded. And though she was betrothed to another, and her fiancé employed all tricks he could, both young lovers were finally reunited and consumed by the flames of the same passion.
There was an unusually clever princess (in fact, she had read all the newspapers in the world), who couldn't become queen without a betrothal. She wanted her king to be young and dashing, but neither shallow nor greedy. Suitors from far and near frequented her court, but they were so impressed by her wealth and/or her beauty that they became tongue-tied in the throne room, and thus, they were sent away to where they came from. Until, on the third evening, a modest youth in knee-length boots, with a knapsack on his back, marched dauntlessly into the royal palace, saluting the guards and winking at the valets. He hadn't come for her love or for her wealth, but for her wit alone... and he was as pleased with her as she was with him.
There was also a pretty maiden born within a flower, who was wooed by a frog in spring, a beetle in summer, and a mole during the cold seasons, until she found a bridegroom and sanctuary in a southern garden, with her own fairy kin.
And there was a historian who travelled back in time to the Dark Ages, and an alchemist's daughter who boarded a ship in the guise of a boy, and a ruby-eyed artificial nightingale which could only play the same waltz again and again.
And all of them were the children of the ugly duckling, who never had children of the flesh, but sired countless of them in spirit.
Today, 2014, is World Children's Literature Day, commemorating the birthday of that Northern swan than never forgot he had been an ugly duckling: Hans Christian Andersen!

APRIL FOOLS!

You thought I was dead, maybe?
I'm actually not that easy to kill!
And I'm currently in perfect shape, prepared for much more than my young life has given me.
So, did you fall for yesterday's post?
If so... APRIL FOOLS!

FRATER PERDURABO ON NURSERY RHYMES

An Interlude
Frater Perdurabo

Fra. P. said jokingly that everything contained the Truth, if you knew how to find it; and, being challenged, proceeded to make good. It is here inserted, not for any value that it may have, but to test the reader. If it is thought to be a joke, the reader is one useless kind of fool; if it is thought that Fra. P. believes that the makers of the rimes had any occult intention, he is another useless kind of fool.

Every nursery rime contains profound magical secrets which are open to every one who has made a study of the correspondences of the Holy Qabalah. To puzzle out an imaginary meaning for this "nonsense" sets one thinking of the Mysteries; one enters into deep contemplation of holy things and God Himself leads the soul to a real illumination. Hence also the necessity of Incarnation; the soul must descend into all falsity in order to attain All-Truth.

For instance:

Old Mother Hubbard
Went to her cupboard
To get her poor dog a bone;
When she got there,
The cupboard was bare,
And so the poor dog had none.

Who is this ancient and venerable mother of whom it is spoken? Verily she is none other than Binah, as is evident in the use of the holy letter H with which her name begins.

Nor is she the sterile Mother Ama—but the fertile Aima; for within her she bears Vau, the Son, for the second letter of her name, and R, the penultimate, is the Sun, Tiphareth, the Son.

The other three letters of her name, B, A, and D, are the three paths which join the three supernals.

To what cupboard did she go? Even to the most secret caverns of the Universe. And who is this dog? Is it not the name of God spelt Qabalistically backwards? And what is this bone? The bone is the Wand, the holy Lingam (Phallus)!

The complete interpretation of the rune is now open. This rime is the legend of the murder of Osiris by Seth his brother and usurper.

The limbs of the quartered Osiris were scattered in the Nile.

Isis sought them in every corner of the Universe, and she found all except his sacred lingam (male member), which was not found until quite recently (vide Fuller, The Star in the West).

Let us take another example from this rich storehouse of magick lore.

Little Bo Peep
She lost her sheep,
And couldn't tell where to find them.
Leave them alone!
And they'll come home,
Dragging their tails behind them.

"Bo" is the root meaning Light, from which spring such words as Bodhi-tree, Bodhisattva, and Buddha.

And "Peep" is Apep, the Serpent Apophis. This poem therefore contains the same symbol as that in the Egyptian and Hebrew Bibles.

The Snake is the Serpent of Initiation, as the Lamb is the Saviour.

This ancient one, the Wisdom of Eternity, sits in its old anguish awaiting the Redeemer. And this holy verse triumphantly assures us that there is no need for anxiety. The Saviours will come one after the other, at their own good pleasure, and as they may be needed, and drag their tails, that is to say those who follow out their holy commandment, to the ultimate goal.

Again we read:

Little Miss Muffett
Sat on a tuffet,
Eating of curds and whey,
Up came a big spider,
And sat down beside her,
And frightened Miss Muffett away.

Little Miss Muffett unquestionably represents Malkah; for she is unmarried. She is seated upon a "tuffet"; id est, she is the unregenerate soul upon Tophet, the pit of hell. And she eats curds and whey, that is, not the pure milk of the mother, but milk which has undergone decomposition.

But who is the spider? Verily herein is a venerable arcanum connoted! Like all insects and arachnids, the spider represents a demon. But why a spider? Who is this spider "who taketh hold with her hands, and is in King's Palaces"? The name of this spider is Death. It is the fear of death which first makes the soul aware of its forlorn condition.

It would be interesting if tradition had preserved for us Miss Muffett's subsequent adventures.

Let us pass from this most blessed subject to yet another.

Tom, Tom, the piper's son,
Stole a piggy and away he run.
The pig was eat,
And Tom was beat,
And Tom went roaring down the street.

This is one of the more exoteric of these rimes. In fact, it is not much better than a sun-myth. Tom is Toum, the God of the Sunset (called the Son of Apollo, the Piper, the maker of music). The only difficulty in the poem concerns the pig; for anyone who has watched an angry sunset in the Tropics upon the Caribbean Sea, will recognize how incomparable a description of that sunset is given in that wonderful last line. Some have thought that the pig refers to the evening sacrifice, others that she is Hathor, the Lady of the West, in her more sensual aspect.

But it is probable that this poem is only the frst stanza of an epic. It has all the characteristic marks. Someone said of the Iliad that it did not finish, but merely stopped. This is the same. We may be sure that there is more of this poem. It tells us too much and too little. How came this tragedy of the eating of a merely stolen pig? Unveil this mystery of who "eat" it!

 Others attribute to it a more profound significance—which it is impossible to go into at this moment, for we must turn to:—

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall;
Humpty Dumpty got a great fall;
All the king's horses
And all the king's men
Couldn't set up Humpty Dumpty again.

This is so simple as hardly to require explanation. Humpty Dumpty is of course the Egg of Spirit, and the wall is the Abyss—his "fall" is therefore the descent of spirit into matter; and it is only too painfully familiar to us that all the king's horses and all his men cannot restore us to the height.

Only The King Himself can do that!

But one can hardly comment upon a theme which has been so fruitfully treated by Ludovicus Carolus, that most holy illuminated man of God. His masterly treatment of the identity of the three reciprocating paths of Daleth, Teth, and Pe, is one of the most wonderful passages in the Holy Qabalah. His resolution of what we take to be the bond of slavery into very love, the embroidered neckband of honour bestowed upon us by the King himself, is one of the most sublime passages in this class of literature.

Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater,
Had a wife and couldn't keep her.
He put her in a pumpkin shell;
There he kept her very well.

This early authentic text of the Hinayana School of Buddhism is much esteemed even to-day by the more cultured and devoted followers of that school.

The pumpkin is of course the symbol of resurrection, as is familiar to all students of the story of Jonah and the gourd.

Peter is therefore the Arhat who has put an end to his series of resurrections. That he is called Peter is a reference to the symbolizing of Arhats as stones in the great wall of the guardians of mankind. His wife is of course (by the usual symbolism) his body, which he could not keep until he put her in a pumpkin shell, ie the orange-yellow robe of a Bhikkhu.

Taffy was a Welshman,

Taffy was a thief; 

Taffy came to my house

and stole a leg of beef. 

So went to Taffy's House... 

Taffy was in bed. 

I took a butchery knife 

and cut off Taffy's head. 

Taffy is merely short for Taphtatharath, the Spirit of Mercury or Hermes, and the God of Welshmen or thieves. "House" is of course equivalent to "my magick circle." Note that Beth, the letter of Mercury or Hermes and "The Magus," the Magician in Tarot, means "a house." The beef is a symbol of the Bull god, Apis the Redeemer. This is therefore that which is written, "Oh my God, disguise thy glory! Come as a thief, and let us steal away the sacraments!" In the following verse we find that Taffy is "in bed," owing to the operation of the sacrament. The great task of the Alchemist has been accomplished; the mercury is fixed. One can then take the Holy Dagger, and separate the Caput Mortuum from the Elixir. Some Alchemists believe that the beef represents that dense physical substance which is imbibed by mercury for his fixation; but here as always we should prefer the more spiritual interpretation.

Bye bye, Baby Bunting! 

Daddy's gone a-hunting. 

He's gone to get a rabbitskin 

To wrap my Baby Bunting in.

 

This is a mystical charge to the newborn soul to keep still, to remain steadfast in meditation; for, in Bye bye, Beth is the letter of thought, Yod that of the Hermit. It tells the soul that the Father of All will clothe him about with His own majestical silence. For is not the rabbit the one "who lay low and said nuffin'"?

 

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man!
Bake me a cake as fast as you can!
Pat it and prick it and mark it with P!
Put it in the oven for baby and me!

 

This rime is usually accompanied (even to-day in the nursery) with a ceremonial clapping of hands—the symbol of Samadhi. Compare what is said on this subject in our comment on the famous "Advent" passage in Thessalonians.

The cake is of course the Host, the bread of the sacrament, and it would ill become Frater P. to comment upon the third line—though it may be remarked that even among the Catholics the Host has always been marked with a phallus or cross.

AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

Sandra Dermark is dead.
The hitherto mistress of this blog, upon discovering that Joffrey Baratheon-Lannister would finally be dethroned in Season 4 of her favourite series, was so excited that she skipped and fell to the ground, breaking a half dozen ribs and her spine.
The end of The Ringstetten Saga, a secret she has zealously kept, will thus never see the light of day.
The late Sandra Dermark will be cremated, and her ashes scattered about Universitat Jaume I.
As her will states, this blog will be handed over to Juan Carlos Ruiz, who will turn it into a philology resource.