#sibylline books

[illustratus]

The Cumaean Sibyl by Elihu Vedder

#cumaean sibyl #art #elihu vedder #priestess #oracle #cumae #ancient rome #sibyl #prophetess #virgil #roman #history #sibylline books #lucius tarquinius superbus #tarquin #roman kingdom #roman republic #mythology #europe #european #antiquity #prophecy #prophecies #rome #italy #sibylline #religious #religion #roman mythology #scrolls

[onthedriftinthetardis]

So, I've been thinking about climate change, and the younger generations who have been placed in the impossible position of figuring out how to survive the crisis, and bring along as many species of animals and plants as they can. Which means making choices about which species to save, and which ones to let go extinct. And sometimes I've wondered if we can even save ourselves.

But there's a paleontologist I know whose focus is on the Permian-Triassic extinction event, also known as the Great Dying. It's Earth's worst-ever extinction event, wiping out perhaps 90 percent of the species on our planet. And this guy has thought about mass extinctions A LOT. He's also one of the smartest people I've ever met.

I asked him once whether human beings survive all of this *gestures to everything* -- and he said yes -- because we're so adaptable. He thinks we're one of the species that makes it through this mess we brought upon ourselves (and the rest of the world.) And maybe there's still time to avert a biological Apocalypse.

As a parable about the sixth great mass extinction we're currently living through, Douglas Adams retold the story of the Sibylline books in his book Last Chance to See -- I'll try to paraphrase.

It's about an old woman who came to the gates of a prosperous city with 12 books of all the knowledge and wisdom in the world, and offered to sell it to them for a sack of gold. They laughed and sent her away. She burned six of the books in front of them before she left.

After a hard winter, the woman was back with six books, but this time the price was two sacks of gold. Again, the people refused, and again the woman burned half of the remaining books.

When she returned with three books after a really hard winter, and some famine, the people said, look, we can't pay four sacks of gold, it's hard times. The woman said, take it or leave it. The people refused again, and the woman burned two of the remaining books, and left.

After a winter of terrible famine and disease, the people awaited the return of the woman with the last book. Sixteen bags of gold, the woman demanded. The people said they had only budgeted for eight. The woman shrugged. Wait, wait! the people said, and went in to talk amongst themselves. They returned with the sixteen bags of gold, and the woman gave them the last book of knowledge and wisdom in the world in exchange for two ox carts full of gold, and left the people to fend for themselves as best they could.

The cost of waiting to act on climate change is only going to increase, but it's human nature to wait until the last possible moment to do something costly and difficult. We'll survive, but we're going to have to make sacrifices along the way.

#Having thinky thoughts tonight #Climate Change #Mass extinction #Current events #Douglas Adams #Last Chance to See #Sibylline books #This isn't fandom related but you're getting it anyway

[therealfrancisabernathy]

The world would be more peaceful if we still had the Sibylline Books, I think

#the secret history #francis abernathy #ancient history #ancient rome #history #antiquity #rome #dark academia #sibylline books

[gwydpolls]

Time Travel Question 17: The Library of Alexandria (Miscellaneous Edition)

I welcome your suggestions for both Library of Alexandria and other lost works of World Literature and History, as there will be future polls.

#Time Travel #Library of Alexandria #Euripides #The Twelve Tables #Ancient Egypt #The Sibylline Books #Stesichorus #Lycophron #Xenocles #Mark Antony #Pytheas #Ctesias #Tacitus

[babylon-crashing]

Tarot deck based on the fine art of, "Sibylline Xenomorphia;" featuring Syssk, an Alien marooned in Japan's Warring States era; mapping out her attempts to pass in the bewildering and often contrary world of strife, chaos and fabulous kimonos.

Syssk Online Shop Space.

A free guide book written in Armenian and Galactic Basic (Syssk’s native tongue) for the deck, translated by Lilit "Baba" Yagian, can be found here at my favorite Internet lending library:

TAROT of SYSSK [4th edition] : Lilit "Baba" Yagian : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

A translation in English is in the works. The colorized editions (at this point just curiosities) date back to earlier versions of the deck which were never published.

#syssk #tarot #tarot of syssk #onsale #free books #sibylline xenomorphia

[lionofchaeronea]

Roman marble statuette (2nd cent. CE) of the Phrygian goddess Cybele, aka the Magna Mater ("Great Mother"). The goddess was imported to Rome from Pergamum during the Second Punic War, in the form of a black meteoric stone (βαίτυλος), at the behest of the Sibylline Books; she was given a festival in April (the Megalensia), but due to the "exoticness" of her cult, Romans were barred from taking part in the ecstatic procession of her eunuch priests. Here, the goddess is shown seated and attended by the lions that were said to draw her chariot. Now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Photo credit: LACMA.

#classics #tagamemnon #Ancient Rome #Roman Empire #Roman religion #Ancient Roman religion #religio Romana #Cybele #Kybele #art #art history #ancient art #Roman art #Ancient Roman art #Roman Imperial art #sculpture #statuette #marble #stonework #carving #Los Angeles County Museum of Art #LACMA #lacmamuseum

[sgiandubh]

The sound of silence

With the end of August already in sight - somebody, please, tell me where did this botched summer go, all of a sudden? -, a somewhat different landscape is slowly emerging, on the S&C front.

Dare we hope? The new normal seems to be a mix of latergrams, sibylline tweets, ultra-muted innuendo (most of it the result of a couple of pundits' sterile speculations on meagre hints dropped on purpose) and secondary (even third-circle) players being conveniently called to the rescue. A low budget, almost homemade solution to keep the prayer wheels of this fandom spinning. A fandom both of these two know, by now, like the back of their hands.

For months and months in a row, I tried to understand something that puzzled me constantly: not the messages being ventilated in here, but their circuit and lifespan, if you want. For what is worth, the rinse and repeat image is fine in my book, but in no way comprehensive, nor intellectually satisfying. And then, a couple of weeks ago, I started to suddenly figure it out.

I am not going to insult you with savant jargon or Venn diagrams, rest assured. However, I need some arrows. I called it the 4 R Circuit and here we go:

(an information is being) Released (via Anons or DMs exclusively: it's never sheer luck, that is a bloody lie and a poor one, at it) -> (it then prompts a couple different) Reactions -> (followed by an almost immediate) Retcon (by the other side of this very antagonistic fandom) -> (in response, an old information is being) Recycled (thus effectively keeping the chatter alive, but re-oriented until ) -> (a new or old/new information is being) Released

Historically, the lifespan of this news cycle was never shorter than 24, but seldom (if ever) longer than 72 hours. This summer is a resolute break off this pattern, but old habits die hard: the collective attention span has been also conditioned accordingly.

And how could it be otherwise? Because neither of them had any consistent A-list level gossip history, the emerging fandom had to resume itself to their social media accounts, for a start. And boy, were we copiously spoiled, with banter and innuendo and double-entendre galore, and then with voluble Anons being simultaneously directed to the main players of all the factions. I bet it was elating. I am sure it was also great fun: a merry, sunny age of innocence. Until it wasn't and the ugly manipulative streak began its inglorious march in here. The thirst grew, and so did the stakes. Pictures, pictures or it did not happen. And when we got them, we started to immediately diss and hiss and hum and drum. In the Real World (you know, out there, where we all go every morning and are civilized, amiable people), this kind of behavior would be more than uncanny: it would be uncalled for and drastically sanctioned as such. But, I digress.

The result of this disco inferno by design is a pattern of reactivity I have never seen in my entire life. Nano-inquisitors immediately spring out of their chairs once you dare write something: why did you say that? how dare you speak your mind, you are supposed to be a stupid, stupid shipper? In the meantime, almost nobody bothers connecting the dots, finding a solid background for arguments, placing facts or speculation in a logical context. It's frowned upon. Yet, the whole experience would be way more enjoyable, if instead on focusing on idiotic and obviously doctored details, we could bring some perspective to all this hubbub.

Last case in point, this freshly baked imbecility:

We all know who the fuck Brave Heart is: the kilt obsessed, once Mightiest Troll of Mordor. The one who invented by herself the grotesque story of the Hôtel Costes Rash sightings, last April, via Anons written in painful English. Also, the one who spun, based on a friendly snap at a sportive event, the Ellenwood Innuendo, promptly ditched - it didn't stick well enough- now reactivated. A sample:

Calling all stations: there is no side exit at the Hôtel Costes' restaurant, you fool, who's been to Paris as often as I went to Oahu, which is to say never. There is a back exit, through the kitchen, madam: next time, do your damn homework properly! Unlike you, I often went there (I preferred other, less nouveau riche playgrounds, that being said), back in 1996-2002, when it still was the boldest celeb' spotting venue in town. Not anymore. And who in their right mind would bring luggage or shopping bags in a very peculiarly laid-out French restaurant, without immediately taking the risk of being a conversation stopper, a bull (heh) in a china shop?

The "have seen it with my own eyes" gave you away, this time. A classical, by the book way to spin a cheap lie.

Also, C's witty latergram, via a tertiary player. I am sure (and I will film myself eating my socks live, if proven wrong) that back in Mordor someone already came with the agit-prop retcon: "it's irrelevant when the picture was taken".

It is very relevant. July 31. One day before August 1st: I always admired her humor. But who would take the time to tell 1+1= 2?

If I could gift this fandom anything, let it be this: context is always important. Manipulation starts exactly when you stop questioning and let your brain live the 72 hours news cycle.

The only real sound of this August, on the S&C front, is the sound of silence.

I rest my case.

#fandom

[newromesweirdest]

octavian fanfic preview

I call this one "screw canon, I do what I want" or "hey, so what if Octavian had more allies and actually got to look for the Sibylline Books?"

I plan to post the full thing soon, but here's a tidbit. Content below the cut!

-

Note: This is a loose interpretation of canon, so Octavian has additional allies taken from a pool of Camp Jupiter characters that I enjoy writing about, and also characters of my own creation.

-

Reyna blinked. “Do you even know what we’re voting on?” “Something about the Sibylline books, right?”

Reyna nodded, still looking confused. Lucas shot her two messy thumbs up. “Yeah, well I’m in. It sounds epic!” If the Senate meeting wasn’t such a formal event, Octavian would have died of laughter in that exact moment. Reyna’s face shifted from confusion to realization to horror, and then back again. “Praetor, I believe that tips the vote in Octavian’s favor?” Michael said calmly from the corner, barely hiding a smirk as he watched Lucas stumble to his seat. “I-” Reyna began, seemingly in disbelief. “I suppose so.” The Senate erupted with noise, the Fourth and Fifth cohorts immediately accusing the First, Second, and Third of cheating somehow. Everything was relatively under control until a legionnaire from the Fifth launched a spitball which hit a First Cohort legionnaire directly in the forehead, which then led to Dakota, Octavian’s only ally in the Fifth, launching himself onto a chair to give the offender a “piece of his mind.”

Reyna stared as the entire Senate devolved into chaos, and then slowly turned to Octavian, her expression filled with annoyance and anger. “You’re leading this quest on your own.” Octavian blinked in confusion. “I can’t leave camp! I have the auguries to attend to.” Reyna stared at him as if he had two heads. “Well, if you want the books, you go alone. That’s the deal.” “That’s insane!” countered Octavian. Even most demigods regarded solo missions as something to be done only if you had a death wish, and Octavian wasn’t even a demigod! He was a legacy!

“Reyna, you can’t be serious.” Octavian said, quickly walking after her as she began to leave the chambers in search of someone to calm down the crowd. “Oh, I’m very serious. You wanted your quest and now you have it. So what else do you want?” Octavian gaped like a fish, feeling at a loss for words.

What did he want? Well, he didn’t want a suicide mission, that’s for sure!

#camp jupiter #octavian hoo #octavian pjo #heroes of olympus #percy jackson #the heroes of olympus #octavian

[pwlanier]

Discovered in the early 1980s at a homeless center in New York City, Melvin Way is now a key figure in contemporary art brut. Having interrupted his scientific studies because of his schizophrenia, he relentlessly covers fragments of papers of mathematical and chemical formulas, sibylline sketches… These dense talismanic notes, which he treasures in his pockets, exhale a rare magnetism. The 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Critics, Jerry Saltz, considers him “a mystic visionary genius, one of the greatest living American artists.” The artist’s works are now in the collections of the MoMA (New York) and the Smithsonian (Washington).

Scraps of found paper covered in writing, numbers, mathematical and chemical formulae, geometric shapes, musical scores, and sticky tape… The density of script layered on Melvin Way’s graceful works gives them a rare magnetism. They reflect his obsession with space and time, while his equations seem intended to calculate the channels between the two; they act as a path of enfranchisement, abolishing the place assigned to us by time and space, thereby opening new vistas to the artist, who sometimes signs his works Melvin “Milky” Way.

Melvin was born in South Carolina and brought up by relatives in Brooklyn. He was fascinated by science at high school, where he also played bass and sang in a group. He was a student at the Technical Career Institute when he developed symptoms of mental illness that worsened over time. His girlfriend at the time was also struggling with drug addiction. He decided to become a musician before eventually finding himself homeless on Wards Island. The artist Andrew Castrucci came across Melvin’s drawings in a homeless drop-in centre in the mid-1980s and set up an exhibition to showcase them. Melvin used a ball-point pen to draw on scraps of paper, scribbling countless signs, forms, and mysterious formulae, some gleaned from books, their secret known to no-one but him. He spends weeks, even months, working on his drawings, keeping them in his pocket or between the leaves of a book, and returning to work on them years later.

Courtesy Christian Berst

#outsider art #art brut

[calaisreno]

WIP Wednesday

I'm currently posting Long for the World, but when I need a break from that, I'm looking at one of these:

Doting Husbands: A sweet sequel to Wooing Sherlock Holmes, with retired Johnlock, neighbour Lestrade, and a minor case to solve.

Wait for Me: Another one for the Many Happy Returns series.

Looking Glass: a plotty little story of accidental time travel, parallel worlds, and Moriarty framing Sherlock for his murder.

The Secret of Agra: A year after The Reichenbach Fall, John finds out that Sherlock isn't dead, but has now found himself in a spot of trouble. John goes after him. Much weirder than this description suggests.

The Sibylline Book: In which John Watson is an ABD grad student obsessed with a mysterious, untranslated manuscript who becomes a suspect in the murder of an archaeologist. Sherlock investigates.

I have a few short stories as well.

I'd love 💕 to hear what other people are working on!

@keirgreeneyes @meetinginsamarra @bertytravelsfar @totallysilvergirl @raina-at @jrow @momma2boys @discordantwords @lisbeth-kk and anyone else who feels like sharing!

#my fics #bbc sherlock #johnlock fanfiction #my wips

[chrysoula]

The Imaginary Book Heist

The Sanctuary of Surasthana was unusually crowded at the moment but it was the safest place for this meeting. Absolutely nobody could listen in uninvited. 

Excited despite her best efforts at Archon-calm, Nahida once again inspected the five-person team she’d put together.

“Are we waiting for anybody else?” asked Alhaitham, continuing to read a small book held in one hand. “Or can you finally explain what this is all about?”

Lumine shrugged but Paimon said, “This looks like everybody! Over to you, Nahida!”

“Hi, everybody! Welcome to Project Sibylline, a book recovery task force.”

Paimon instantly interrupted. “Aww, Paimon thought you were going with ‘book heist.’ What the heck is a Sibylline?”

 Alhaitham’s book finally snapped shut as he repeated,  “A book heist.”

This was the wrong answer! Nahida explained, “It’s a reference to a Remurian legend. Cyno didn’t like me calling it a heist. I decided he was right.”

#genshin impact #faruzan #alhaitham #wanderer #enjou #genshin fanfic

[cithaerons]

From his fever in Brundisium he visits like the wavering in bronze scratched grave-bound across its gods and heroes, the worried wick of a face still breathing light. Ceaseless as a vow, he is muttering the thread of elisions and emendations spinning ever finer, down to the last minute’s snap. He will reach its harsh caesura between the swell of the Adriatic and the setting Pleiades, his books unburnt, immortal, incomplete. He stands at your shoulder like a shade in a mist of marshes, carrying the torch for every maker who would have glimpsed just one more line ahead.

– Sonya Taaffe, Sibylline

#y'all!!!!! #virgil #vergil #words #poetry #sonya taaffe #dante tag #those last lines #favorites

[partiallypearl]

A Little Northwest Soul With Them - or the jeyna roadtrip au:

The roadtrip is initially Jason’s idea. It’s 9:49 on a Tuesday night and they are two bottles into wine that Reyna had snuck from Nadia’s house the last time she had been over. The war has been raging for a week now.

“If you could leave…” Jason begins, his eyes slightly glazed over. He’s a lightweight, always has been and Reyna bites back a snort. “If you could leave, where would you go? Back to the islands or-?”

Reyna shakes her head. She’s never wanted to go back to the Caribbean or Latin America. There’s too much painful history for her there. She pauses, swirls what’s left of her wine around in her glass before taking sip. Her voice wavers as she speaks.

“Maybe Oregon? Or Washington. I liked Seattle when we were there. Y’know outside of the running from monsters bit.” They had been 14. It was crazy to her that that had been only two and a half years ago.

Jason hums, setting his own glass on the table. “Yeah. I liked it too. The trees were so… calming.”

Neither of them speak for a moment.

“If this war ends,” Jason begins, “and we make it through? I want to go there. With you. To Seattle and Portland and all those touristy places we never got to properly explore. We deserve it.”

Reyna stares at him, at his pale blue eyes and how the scar on his upper lip almost disappears as he looks at his glass, his face pensive.

He looks so much older than he is. He’s not even 16 yet. And when he does turn 16, in a year and a half, he might die.

“A Half-Blood of the eldest gods, shall reach sixteen against all odds, and see the world in endless sleep. The hero’s soul, cursed blade shall reap, a single choice shall end his days, Olympus to preserve or raze.”

That’s the prophecy Octavian heard. That’s the prophecy that the remaining Sibylline Books had contained.

Her best friend could die. He could die because of the war, or even after the war ends. There’s so many variables.

“Yeah.” Reyna says, her eyes welling up, “We deserve it.”

#jason grace #reyna avila ramirez arellano #reyna ramirez arellano #percy jackson #*mine #*mine: graphic #*mine: fic #my writing #jeyna #pjo #heroes of olympus

[gwydpolls]

Time Travel Question 12: The Library of Alexandria (Greek Edition)

#The Library of Alexandria #Time Travel #Aristotle #Sappho #Diogenes #Aristophanes #Aeschylus #Euripides

[babylon-crashing]

—Ace of Coins, from, “Tarot of Syssk [the book]: a simple to grok guide toward sibylline xenomorphia.”

Not all new beginnings are met with ecstasy. There will always be virgins starting off where you took your first step a hundred years ago. There will always be nightmarish firsts that leave you shaken. The three keys we are told to focus on, when dealing with the Ace of Coins, are: opportunity, manifestation and abundance. Temptations, however, are also required; otherwise it will never occur to seek out opportunities in the first place. Thus, the intoxicating scent of possibilities is also the scent of arousal, as echoed by Lola Ridge in her poem, Nocturne:

Indigo bulb of darkness Punctured by needle lights Through a fissure of brick canyon shutting out the stars, And a silver moon Spigoting two high windows over the West river....

Boy, I met tonight, Your eyes are two red-glowing arcs shifting with my vision.... They reflect as in a fading proof The deadened eyes of a woman, And your shed virginity, Light as the withered pod of a sweet pea, Moist and fragrant Blows against my soul. What are you to me, boy, That I, who have passed so many lights, Should carry your eyes Like swinging lanterns?

#tarot of syssk #syssk #study guide #simple #myart #sibylline xenomorphia #Syssk the Book #grok in fullness #lola ridge #nocturne #poetry

[dduane]

From So You Want To Be A Wizard: Perytons.

(And a bit of discussion from an older Tumblr post:)

When I first started reading the Young Wizards series, I read and took on the Perytons introduced in So You Want to Be a Wizard as they were but recently started coming across other mythological Perytons — crosses between stags and birds — and so was thrown off on some of my mythology. Since they share names, I'm curious where you got the idea for the Perytons shown in SYWtBaW.                

I borrowed it from Jorge Luis Borges, as everyone else has (whether they know it or not. Many, if not most, seem not to). ...And then tinkered with the concept to suit myself: just as Borges had.

Some background under the cut...

Borges’ The Book of Imaginary Beings was published in the late 1960s, initially in Spanish in 1967 and then in an English translation in 1969 (my copy is the Discus/Avon paperback published that year). It is a compendium/collection of more than a hundred of Borges’ short fictional works—many written for The New Yorker, and the rest either written specifically for this collection or published elsewhere without those previous publications being cited in the book.

Now, though a lot of people have taken the title of this book at its face value, assuming that it’s a reference to earlier mythological or fantastic creatures, it’s frequently not. Many of the creatures in it show signs of being Borges’s inventions, despite being attributed to other sources, and to my eye the peryton is the most obvious of these.

It doesn’t hurt to remember that Borges as a writer is (when the mood moves him) not merely playful but often hilariously subversive, if not downright mischievous. In TBIB he’s very careful with his cites when he needs to be—his entries on “An Animal Imagined By Kafka”, “An Animal Imagined by C. S. Lewis”, “A Crossbreed”, and “The Odradek”, all carefully cite their sources and permissions in the front matter. Some other works that were apparently out of copyright he identifies without citation in the front matter (such as the wonderfully titled Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods, With A Few Desert and Mountain Beasts, which is now available online!). And ancient out-of-copyright resources he obviously doesn’t need to cite in too great a detail if he doesn’t want to. Which allows Borges to lull the reader into a false sense of security, and in some other articles, like the one about the peryton, leaves you susceptible to having the wool gently and carefully pulled over your eyes.

An excerpt from the full passage:

The Peryton

The Sibyl of Erythraea, it is said, foretold that the City of Rome would finally be destroyed by the Perytons. In the year A.D. 642 the record of the Sibyl’s prophecies was consumed in the great conflagration of Alexandria: the grammarians who undertook the task of restoring certain charred fragments of the nine volumes apparently never came upon the special prophecy concerning the fate of Rome.

…Now here we’ve already got a problem. Two of them, actually. First of all, Borges has just signaled the incoming wool-pulling by using the inevitably suspicious “It is said…” construction in the very first sentence. And secondly—regardless of whether there were copies of the Sibylline Books in the great Library of Alexandria or not—Borges has here told us twice that he’s pulling our legs, by giving the number of those books as nine.

This is of course pure nonsense. The best-known legend about the Books is quite clear. Six of them were burned by the Sibyl herself before King Tarquin realized he’d better buy however many books remained at whatever price she was asking. And then the remaining three were destroyed by fire in the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill in 83 BC. So subtle and careful a scholar as Borges does not make such mistakes by accident

So, having been doubly warned by the writer that we are now in the Classical Fibbing Department, we get the following (attributed to yet another scholar whose provenance is comically obscure):

The Perytons had their original dwelling in Atlantis and are half deer, half bird. They have the deer’s head and legs. As for its body, it is perfectly avian, with corresponding wings and plumage.

Its strangest trait is that, when the sun strikes it, instead of casting a shadow of its own body, it casts the shadow of a man. From this, some conclude that the Perytons are the spirits of wayfarers who have died far from their homes and from the care of their gods…

…they [perytons] are mortal foes of the human race; when they succeed in killing a man, their shadow is that of their own body and they win back the favor of their gods.

While a bit more about them appears in the original passage, what most strongly caught my attention when I read the book in the ‘70s was the twin issue of the creature that does not cast its own shadow (something I’ve since used elsewhere), and the part about the souls of wayfarers who die out of reach of their own gods. In the back of my mind those two concepts started running themselves together into the idea of creatures that had been human once, at least in spirit, but had taken a wrong turn somewhere—into the Lone Power’s service, specifically—and were trapped there, possibly also tormented by the idea that if they killed a human being then that human’s spirit would be forced to take their place in bondage. (Though I don’t believe that particular concept made it through into the final text of SYWTBAW. It was enough that the mere sight or smell of a human [and human spirit] not in bondage would so enrage them that they would try to kill the person on sight.)

I thought about the idea as a whole for a while, and generally it seemed to have merit. But it seemed to me that nobody was going to be particularly scared of some weird unfamiliar cross between a deer and a bird. Quickly enough, though, the answer suggested itself as the sequence started to form up in my head of [REDACTED INTERACTION WITH CHARACTER]-on-nasty-horseback as based on the Grant statue on Central Park South. Almost immediately the Wild Hunt archetype jumped up and started waving its arms shouting “Me, pick me…!” After that it was simple: for a hunt you need hounds. Except not hounds: wolves. Big wolves. With angry hating human spirits inside them.

By way of acknowledging the debt to Borges, I kept the name for the new fusion. (Also because it had the virtue of being unfamiliar to nearly everybody. TBIB had only been out for a decade and change when I was writing this sequence,and was still a bit of a specialist text). And there you have them: perytons, sort of mark II.

...That was 1983. Since then numerous sources, often associated with card- or RPG-gaming, have picked up on perytons in the Borgesian sense. As a result, scattered around the Web are various pictures of stags with wings stuck on them that make it plain almost nobody has read Borges’ full text... though many know about it, more or less, from the Wikipedia page, which does not cite the full, pertinent details. …Meanwhile others have been discussing where Borges got the word peryton (my guess is he coined it) and other issues.

So that’s how it went. Nothing’s ever simple, is it?  :)

#Young Wizards #So You Want To Be A Wizard #perytons #Jorge Luis Borges #YWiztober #YWiztober 9