Since the Luciferian Rebellion, the Fallen Angelic Annunaki factions that are sympathetic to the Nibiruian Agendas
implanted alien machinery in the earth to set up reversal current
networks that artificially forced the lowest density of the 3rd
dimensional plane into misalignment with Nibiru. The Alien Machinery
was used to force the planet earth to run reversal currents into the
planetary grid networks, which forced an unnatural reversal merkaba spin
that greatly increased matter densification. The artificial reversals
running in the planetary merkaba field forced the individual inner
merkaba spin to run reversals, which resulted in Gender Reversals and extensive DNA mutations in the original human body blueprint. This effectively damaged the process of spiritual Ascension, gender unification and the potential for 12 strand DNA activation, which was required for full ascension and passage through the Stargate system.
The iron found in iron meteorites was one of the earliest sources of usable iron available to humans, before the development of smelting that signaled the beginning of the Iron Age.
Although they are fairly rare compared to the stony meteorites, comprising only about 5.7% of witnessed falls, iron meteorites have historically been heavily over-represented in meteorite collections. This is due to several factors:
They are easily recognized as unusual even by laymen, as opposed
to stony meteorites. Modern-day searches for meteorites in deserts and
Antarctica yield a much more representative sample of meteorites
overall.
They are much more resistant to weathering.
They are much more likely to survive atmospheric entry, and are more resistant to the resulting ablation. Hence, they are more likely to be found as large pieces.
They can be found even when buried by use of surface metal detecting equipment, due to their metallic composition.
Because they are also denser than stony meteorites, iron meteorites
also account for almost 90% of the mass of all known meteorites, about
500 tons. All the largest known meteorites are of this type, including the largest—the Hoba meteorite.
A discovery of unusual glass stones has led scientists to question the origins of our solar system and how it was formed.
Back in 1996, unusual yellow glass stones were found by a scientist in a virtually uninhabited place on Earth—The Great Sand Sea.
In 2013, researchers at the University of Johannesburg determined that
minerals in the stone—which they named Hypatia, after a female
mathematician and astronomer—were not from our planet. In 2015, other
researchers found that the stones were not part of any known meteorites
or comets that have been studied.
Research professor Jan Kramers and senior research fellow Georgy
Belyanin in the Department of Geology at Johannesburg believe that the
Hypatia stone was part of an extraterrestrial rock, probably several
meters in diameter, that fell to Earth and broke into hundreds of
fragments.
It’s not that extraordinary, since meteorites periodically fall to Earth. What makes it noteworthy is that Hypatia’s mineral makeup is atypical of meteorites that have fallen to Earth.
“If it were possible to grind up the entire planet Earth to dust in a
huge mortar and pestle, we would get dust with on average a similar
chemical composition as chondritic meteorites,” Kramers says in a Johannesburg news release.
“In chondritic meteorites, we expect to see a small amount of carbon
and a good amount of silicon. But Hypatia’s matrix has a massive amount
of carbon and an unusually small amount of silicon.”
In addition to the unusual ratio of carbon and silicon, the matrix
contains polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), the stuff of interstellar
dust. Most of the PAH was turned into small diamonds, which the
researchers believed were formed upon impact with the Earth.
And the researchers observed something else—pure metallic aluminum as
well as silver iodine phosphide and silicon carbide in “highly
unexpected forms.”
“The aluminum occurs in pure metallic form, on its own, not in a
chemical compound with other elements,” Belyanin says in the release.
“As a comparison, gold occurs in nuggets, but aluminum never does. This
occurrence is extremely rare on Earth and the rest of our solar system,
as far as is known in science.”
Widmanstätten patterns, also known as Thomson structures, are figures of long nickel–iron crystals, found in the octahedriteiron meteorites and some pallasites. They consist of a fine interleaving of kamacite and taenite bands or ribbons called lamellae. Commonly, in gaps between the lamellae, a fine-grained mixture of kamacite and taenite called plessite can be found. Widmanstätten patterns describe features in modern steels, titanium and zirconium alloys.
(in popular Chinese literature) genie; elf, fairy; nymph; 仙境 (xian jing is fairyland, faery)
(based on the folk etymology for the character 仙, a compound of the characters for person and mountain) sage living high in the mountains; mountain-man; hermit; recluse
Xian semantically developed from meaning spiritual
"immortality; enlightenment", to physical "immortality; longevity"
involving methods such as alchemy, breath meditation, and tai chi chuan, and eventually to legendary and figurative "immortality".
They are immune to heat and cold, untouched by the
elements, and can fly, mounting upward with a fluttering motion. They
dwell apart from the chaotic world of man, subsist on air and dew, are
not anxious like ordinary people, and have the smooth skin and innocent
faces of children. The transcendents live an effortless existence that
is best described as spontaneous. They recall the ancient Indian
ascetics and holy men known as ṛṣi who possessed similar traits. (1994:376)
The most famous Chinese compound of xiān is Bāxiān (八仙 "the Eight Immortals"). Other common words include xiānrén (仙人 sennin in Japanese, "immortal person; transcendent", see Xiānrén Dòng), xiānrénzhăng (仙人掌 "immortal's palm; cactus"), xiānnǚ (仙女 "immortal woman; female celestial; angel"), and shénxiān (神仙 "gods and immortals; divine immortal"). Besides humans, xiān can also refer to supernatural animals. The mythological húlijīng 狐狸精 (lit. "fox spirit") "fox fairy; vixen; witch; enchantress" has an alternate name of húxiān 狐仙 (lit. "fox immortal").
The etymology of xiān remains uncertain. The circa 200 CE Shiming, a Chinese dictionary that provided word-pun "etymologies", defines xiān (仙) as "to get old and not die," and explains it as someone who qiān (遷 "moves into") the mountains."
Edward H. Schafer (1966:204) defined xian
as "transcendent, sylph (a being who, through alchemical, gymnastic and
other disciplines, has achieved a refined and perhaps immortal body,
able to fly like a bird beyond the trammels of the base material world
into the realms of aether, and nourish himself on air and dew.)" Schafer
noted xian was cognate to xian 䙴 "soar up", qian 遷 "remove", and xianxian 僊僊 "a flapping dance movement"; and compared Chinese yuren 羽人 "feathered man; xian" with English peri "a fairy or supernatural being in Persian mythology" (Persianpari from par "feather; wing").
Two linguistic hypotheses for the etymology of xian involve Arabic and Sino-Tibetan languages. Wu and Davis (1935:224) suggested the source was jinn, or jinni "genie" (from Arabic جنيjinnī). "The marvelous powers of the Hsien are so like those of the jinni of the Arabian Nights that one wonders whether the Arabic word, jinn, may not be derived from the Chinese Hsien." Axel Schuessler's etymological dictionary (2007:527) suggests a Sino-Tibetan connection between xiān (Old Chinese *san or *sen)
"'An immortal' ... men and women who attain supernatural abilities;
after death they become immortals and deities who can fly through the
air" and Tibetangšen < g-syen "shaman, one who has supernatural abilities, incl[uding] travel through the air".
Two circa 3rd century BCE "Outer Chapters" of the Zhuangzi (莊子 "[Book of] Master Zhuang") use the archaic character xian 僊. Chapter 11 has a parable about "Cloud Chief" (雲 將) and "Big Concealment" (鴻濛) that uses the Shijing compound xianxian ("dance; jump"):
Big Concealment said, "If you confuse the constant
strands of Heaven and violate the true form of things, then Dark Heaven
will reach no fulfillment. Instead, the beasts will scatter from their
herds, the birds will cry all night, disaster will come to the grass and
trees, misfortune will reach even to the insects. Ah, this is the fault
of men who 'govern'!" "Then what should I do?" said Cloud Chief. "Ah," said Big Concealment, "you are too far gone! [僊僊] Up, up, stir yourself and be off!" Cloud Chief said, "Heavenly Master, it has been hard indeed for me to meet with you—I beg one word of instruction!" "Well,
then—mind‑nourishment!" said Big Concealment. "You have only to rest in
inaction and things will transform themselves. Smash your form and
body, spit out hearing and eyesight, forget you are a thing among other
things, and you may join in great unity with the deep and boundless.
Undo the mind, slough off spirit, be blank and soulless, and the ten
thousand things one by one will return to the root—return to the root
and not know why. Dark and undifferentiated chaos—to the end of life
none will depart from it. But if you try to know it, you have already
departed from it. Do not ask what its name is, do not try to observe its
form. Things will live naturally end of themselves." Cloud Chief
said, "The Heavenly Master has favored me with this Virtue, instructed
me in this Silence. All my life I have been looking for it, and now at
last I have it!" He bowed his head twice, stood up, took his leave, and
went away. (11, tr. Burton Watson 1968:122-3)
The Eight Immortals (Chinese: 八仙; pinyin: Bāxiān; Wade–Giles: Pa¹-hsien¹) are a group of legendary xian ("immortals") in Chinese mythology. Each immortal's power can be transferred to a vessel (法器) that can bestow life or destroy evil. Together, these eight vessels are called the "Covert Eight Immortals" (暗八仙). Most of them are said to have been born in the Tang or Shang Dynasty. They are revered by the Taoists and are also a popular element in secular Chinese culture. They are said to live on a group of five islands in the Bohai Sea, which includes Mount Penglai.
The tradition of depicting humans who have become immortals is an ancient practice in Chinese art, and when religious Taoism gained popularity, it quickly picked up this tradition with its own immortals.[citation needed] While cults dedicated to various Taoist immortals date back to the Han dynasty, the popular and well-known Eight Immortals first appeared in the Jin dynasty.
The art of the Jin tombs of the 12th and 13th centuries depicts a group
of eight Taoist immortals in wall murals and sculptures. They
officially became known as the Eight Immortals in the writings and works
of art of the Taoist group known as the Complete Realization
(Quanshen). The most famous art depiction of the Eight Immortals from
this period is a mural of them in the Eternal Joy Temple (Yongle Gong)
at Ruicheng.
The Eight Immortals are considered to be signs of prosperity and
longevity, so they are popular themes in ancient and medieval art. They
were frequent adornments on celadon vases. They were also common in sculptures owned by the nobility. Their most common appearance, however, was in paintings.[citation needed]
Many silk paintings, wall murals, and wood block prints remain of the
Eight Immortals. They were often depicted either together in one group,
or alone to give more homage to that specific immortal.
An interesting feature of early Eight Immortal artwork is that
they are often accompanied by jade hand maidens, commonly depicted
servants of the higher ranked deities, or other images showing great
spiritual power. This shows that early on, the Eight Immortals quickly
became eminent figures of the Taoist religion and had great importance.[citation needed] We can see this importance is only heightened in the Ming and Qing dynasties.
During these dynasties, the Eight Immortals were very frequently
associated with other prominent spiritual deities in artwork. There are
numerous paintings with them and the Three Stars
(the gods of longevity, prosperity, and good fortune) together. Also,
other deities of importance, such as the Queen Mother of the West, are
commonly seen in the company of the Eight Immortals.
Fusang (Chinese: 扶桑; pinyin: Fú Sāng)
refers to several different entities in ancient Chinese literature,
often either a mythological tree or a mysterious land to the East.
The Five Grains or Cereals (simplified Chinese: 五谷; traditional Chinese: 五穀; pinyin: Wǔ Gǔ) are a grouping (or set of groupings) of five farmedcrops that were all important in ancient China. Sometimes the crops themselves were regarded as sacred; other times, their cultivation was regarded as a sacred boon from a mythological or supernatural source. More generally, wǔgǔ can be employed in Chinese as a synecdoche referring to all
grains or staple crops of which the end produce is of a granular
nature. The identity of the five grains has varied over time, with
different authors identifying different grains or even categories of
grains.
The sense of holiness or sacredness regarding the Five Grains
proceeds from their traditional ascription to the saintly rulers
credited with creating China's civilization. They were seen not merely
as five crops chosen from many options but as the source permitting agrarian society and civilization itself. "Squandering the Five Grains" was seen as a sin worthy of torment in Diyu, the Chinese hell.[citation needed]
As the position of emperor
was seen as an embodiment of this society, one's behavior towards the
Five Grains could take on political meaning: as a protest against the
overthrow of the Shang Dynasty by the Zhou, Boyi and Shuqi
ostentatiously refused to eat the Five Grains. Such rejections of the
grains for political reasons underwent a complex development into the
concept of bigu, the esoteric Taoist practice of achieving immortality by avoiding certain foods.
By the time of written records, the development of agriculture in
China had become greatly mythologized. There were various traditions
regarding which of the early Chinese leaders introduced the Five Grains:
Shennong (神农) (lit. "Divine Farmer") was a Chinese culture hero credited with the development of agriculture. He was often conflated with Yandi (the "Flaming Emperor") and is also sometimes described as the Wugu Xiandi or "Emperor of the Five Grains". Sima Qian's chronology placed him around 2737–2699 BC.[citation needed]
In the Shennongjia ("Shennong's Ladder") area of Hubei, an oral epic poem titled the Hei'anzhuan ("Story of Chaos") describes Shennong finding the seeds of the Five Grains:
Shennong climbed onto Mount Yangtou,
He looked carefully, he examined carefully,
Then he found a seed of millet.
He left it with the Chinese date tree,
And he went to open up a wasteland.
He planted the seed eight times,
Then it produced fruit.
And from then on humans were able to eat millet.
He sought for the rice seed on Mount Daliang,
The seed was hiding in grasses.
He left it with the willow tree,
And he went to open up a paddy field.
He planted the seed seven times,
Then it produced fruit.
And from then on humans were able to eat rice.
He sought for the adzuki bean seed,
And left it with the plum tree.
He planted it one time.
The adzuki bean was so easy to plant and was able to grow in infertile fields.
The soybean was produced on Mount Weishi,
So it was difficult for Shennong to get its seeds.
He left one seed of it with a peach tree,
He planted it five times,
Then it produced fruit,
And later tofu was able to be made south of the Huai River.
Barley and wheat were produced on Mount Zhushi,
Shennong was pleased that he got two seeds of them.
He left them with a peach tree,
And he planted them twelve times,
Then later people were able to eat pastry food.
He sought the sesame seed on Mount Wuzhi,
He left the seed with brambles.
He planted it one time.
Then later people were able to fry dishes in sesame oil.
Shennong planted the five grains and they all survived,
Because they were helped by the six species of trees.
Huangdi (lit. "Yellow Emperor"), placed 2699–2588 BC by Sima Qian, was also credited in ancient texts as the first teacher of cultivation to his subjects.
Houji (lit. "Lord Millet") is sometimes credited with the original provision of millet from heaven to mankind[citation needed] and sometimes credited with its exemplary cultivation.[3] Lord Millet was a title bestowed upon this figure by King Tang, founder of the Shang dynasty, and may have been an early position in the Chinese government.[3] He was later worshipped as one of the patron gods of abundant harvests, like Lai Cho.
Bigu (simplified Chinese: 辟谷; traditional Chinese: 辟穀; pinyin: bìgǔ; Wade–Giles: pi-ku; literally: 'avoiding grains') is a Daoistfasting technique associated with achieving xian "transcendence; immortality". Grain avoidance is related to multifaceted Chinese cultural beliefs. For instance, bigu fasting was the common medical cure for expelling the sanshi 三尸 "Three Corpses", the malevolent, grain-eating spirits that live in the human body (along with the hun and po
souls), report their host's sins to heaven every 60 days, and carry out
punishments of sickness and early death. Avoiding "grains" has been
diversely interpreted to mean not eating particular foodstuffs (food grain, cereal, the Five Grains, wugu, or staple food), or not eating any food (inedia, breatharianism, or aerophagia). In the historical context of traditional Chinese culture within which the concept of bigu
developed, there was great symbolic importance connected with the five
grains and their importance in sustaining human life, exemplified in
various myths and legends from ancient China and throughout subsequent
history. The concept of bigu developed in reaction to this tradition, and within the context of Daoist philosophy.
The Chinese word bigu compounds bi辟 "ruler; monarch; avoid; ward off; keep away" and gu穀 or 谷 "cereal; grain; (穀子) millet". The bi 辟 meaning in bigu is a variant Chinese character for bi避 "avoid; shun; evade; keep away" (e.g., bixie 辟邪 or 避邪 "ward off evil spirits; talisman; amulet"). The alternate pronunciation of pi 辟 "open up; develop; refute; eliminate" is a variant character for 闢. The complex 14-stroke traditional Chinese charactergu 穀 "grain" has a 7-stroke simplified Chinese charactergu 谷 "valley; gorge." Although a few Chinese dictionaries (e.g., Liang & Chang 1971, Lin 1972) gloss the pronunciation of bigu 辟穀 as pigu, the definitive Hanyu Da Cidian (1997) gives bigu.
English lexicographic translations of bigu are compared in this table.
Chinese-English Dictionary
Definition of 辟穀 / 辟谷
Giles (1912)
"to give up eating the five cereals, with a view to immortality. Also, to refuse food, -- and starve"
Mathews (1931)
"to abstain from cereals in order to attain to immortality; to starve"
Liang & Chang (1971)
"to avoid eating cereals in order to obtain immortality"
Lin (1972)
"stop even vegetarian food, as a way of becoming Taoist immortal"
DeFrancis (2003)
"avoid eating cereals in order to gain immortality"
Kleeman & Yu (2010)
"refuse to eat grain"
Catherine Despeux (2008:233) lists synonyms for bigu "abstention from cereals": duangu 斷穀 "stopping cereals" (with duan斷 "cut off; sever; break; give up"), juegu 絕穀 "discontinuing cereals" (jue絕 "cut off; sever; refuse; reject"), quegu 卻穀 "refraining from cereals" (que卻 "retreat; decline; reject; refuse"), and xiuliang 修糧 "stopping grains" (with xiu修 "repair; trim; prune' cultivate" and liang糧 "grain; food").
Juegu, unlike these other alternative expressions, had meanings besides Daoist dietary practices. For instance, the (c. 139 BCE) Huainanzi uses juegu
in a traditional saying (tr. Major et al. 2010:775): "Now, rejecting
study because those who study have faults is like taking one instance of
choking to refuse grain and not eat or taking one problem with
stumbling to stop walking and not go [anywhere]." About one century
later, Liu Xiang's Shuoyuan 說苑 "Garden of Stories" rephrases this simile about choking once and discontinuing grains.
Chinese folklore and mythology associated several divinities with agriculture and grains.
Suiren "Firelighting Person" was a three-eyed sage who discovered how to make fire and invented cooking. This sui燧 means "flint; bow drill; burning mirror".
Shennong "Farmer God", also known as Wuguxiandi 五穀先帝
"Emperor of the Five Grains", taught humans agricultural techniques and
herbal medicine. Shennong is specifically credited with teaching humans
to cultivate and eat the five grains. The list of which grains were
counted varied, but the various lists generally include the leguminous
soybean, according to Lihui Yang (2005:70 and 191-192). The (139 BCE) Huainanzi describes Shennong transforming human society from hunter-gatherer to agriculture.
In ancient times, the people fed on herbaceous plants and
drank [only] water, picked fruit from shrubs and trees and ate the meat
of oysters and clams. They frequently suffered tribulations from
feverish maladies and injurious poisons. Consequently, the Divine Farmer
first taught the people to plant and cultivate the five grains. He
evaluated the suitability of the land, [noting] whether it was dry or
wet, fertile or barren, high or low. He tried the taste and flavor of
the one hundred plants and the sweetness or bitterness of the streams
and springs, issuing directives so the people would know what to avoid
and what to accept. At the time [he was doing this], he suffered
poisoning [as many as] seventy times a day. (19, tr. Major et al.
2010:766-767)
Houji "Lord Millet" is the god or goddess of agriculture and ancestor of the Zhou people. The Shijing poem Shengmin "Birth of the [Zhou] People" praises Houji for inventing both agriculture and sacrifices (Campany 2005:10-13).
Hou Tu "Lord Earth" was the god or goddess deity of the soil, and supposedly the progenitor of the giant Kua Fu. Worshipped at sheji altars.
While traditional Chinese mythology depicted cooking and agriculture
as key elements of civilization, the Daoists created a
"counter-narrative" (Campany 2005:16) to justify the idea of grain
avoidance. For example, the ConfucianistXunzi and LegalistHanfeizi describe Suiren as cultural folk hero.
In the earliest times ... the people lived on fruit,
berries, mussels, and clams – things that sometimes became so rank and
fetid that they hurt people's stomachs, and many became sick. Then a
sage appeared who created the boring of wood to produce fire so as to
transform the rank and putrid foods. The people were so delighted by
this that they made him ruler of the world and called him the Fire-Drill
Man (Suiren 燧人). (Hanfeizi 49, tr. Campany 2005:15)
In contrast, the Zhuangzi "Mending Nature" chapter mentions Suiren first in a list of mythic sage-rulers – Fu Xi, Shennong, Yellow Emperor, Tang of Shang, and Yu the Great,
traditionally credited with advancing civilization – but depicts them
as villains who began the destruction of the primal harmony of the Dao.
Campany (2005:16) calls this "the decline of Power and the ever-farther
departure from the natural Dao into systems of social constraint and
what passes for culture."
The ancients, in the midst of chaos, were tranquil
together with the whole world. At that time, yin and yang were
harmoniously still, ghosts and spirits caused no disturbances; the four
seasons came in good time; the myriad things went unharmed; the host of
living creatures escaped premature death. … This condition persisted
until integrity deteriorated to the point that Torchman [Suiren] and
Fuhsi arose to manage all under heaven, whereupon there was accord, but
no longer unity. Integrity further declined until the Divine Farmer and
the Yellow Emperor arose to manage all under heaven, whereupon there was
repose, but no longer accord. Integrity declined still further until
T'ang and Yu arose to manage all under heaven. They initiated the
fashion of governing by transformation, whereby purity was diluted and
simplicity dissipated. (tr. Mair 1994:149)
The traditional Chinese symbol for civilization and state was gu "grains; cereals" (a synecdoche for "agricultural products").
The Wangzhi "Royal Regulations" chapter of the Liji
uses cooking food and eating grains to culturally classify the Chinese
"Middle Kingdom" bordered by the "Four Barbarians" (eastern Yi, southern Man, western Rong, and northern Di).
Thus the people of the five regions … each had their
several natures, which they could not be made to alter. Those of the
east were called Yi; they wore their hair unbound and tattooed their
bodies, and some of them ate their food without cooking it. [The people
ofΣ the south were called Man; they tattooed their foreheads and had
their feet turned in toward each other, and some among them ate their
food without cooking it. [The people of] the west were called Rong; they
wore their hair unbound and wore skins, and some of them did not eat
grain. [The people of] the north were called Di; they wore feathers and
furs and lived in caves, and some of them did not eat grain. (tr.
Campany 2005:7-8)
Kwang-chih Chang (1977:42) interprets this Liji
context to mean, "One could eat grain but also eat raw meat or one
could eat his meat cooked but eat no grain. Neither was fully Chinese. A
Chinese by definition ate grain and cooked his meat."
During the first dynasties of the Qin and Han, when Daoism
simultaneously became a mass movement, Chinese agricultural techniques
were revolutionized. Applying methods from the (256 BCE) Dujiangyan Irrigation System, arable land was converted into rice fields, with two or more harvests annually, resulting in widespread deforestation.
The peasants depended entirely on agriculture and were
forever tied to their land through all kinds of fiscal and
administrative measures. As a result, the rural communities became an
easy prey to all the ills of sedentary civilization: ever-higher taxes,
enslavement to the government through corvée labor and military draft,
epidemics, periodic shortages and famines, and wars and raids by
non-Chinese tribes from across the borders. (Schipper 1993:168)
When natural or human catastrophes occurred, the peasants could take
refuge in non-arable regions of mountains and survive on wild foods
other than grains.
The sheji 社稷 "altars to soil and grain gods" were the ritual center of a Chinese state. Originally, she 社 was the "god of the land" and ji 稷 the "god of the harvest" (cf. Houji above), and the compound sheji "gods of soil and grain" metaphorically means "the state; the nation". The Shiji (Campany 2005:21) says establishing a new dynasty required eliminating the sheji altars of the preceding dynasty and erecting one's own.
Offerings of grain, liquor (a grain product), and meat were necessary not only for sheji sacrifices but for ancestral sacrifices.
The obligation to feed the ancestral dead was fundamental to Chinese
society. Campany summarizes the cultural importance of sacrificing
"grains" to feed both natural and ancestral spirits.
Grain was, in short, a symbol and summation of culture
itself, or rather of nature acculturated, as well as of the completely
human community. A natural locus of nutritive "essence" (jing),
grain nevertheless required cooperative, communal and differentiated
stages of production—planting, tending, harvesting, storing, thrashing,
milling, mixing, and cooking—to be transformed into food. Thus
transformed, it was perhaps the most culturally celebrated food of
humans (both living and dead) and of gods. (2005:24)
Ancient grains are a grouping of grains and pseudocereals that are considered to have been minimally changed by selective breeding over recent millennia, as opposed to more widespread cereals such as corn, rice and modern varieties of wheat, which are the product of thousands of years of selective breeding. Ancient grains are often marketed as being more nutritious than modern grains, though their health benefits have been disputed by some nutritionists.
The origin of grains goes back to the Neolithic Revolution about 10,000 years ago, when prehistoric communities started to make the transition from hunter-gatherer
to farmer. Modern varieties of grains have been developed over time
through mutation, selective cropping, breeding and research in
biotechnology. Ancient grains, however, are said to be largely unchanged from their initial domesticated varieties.
Various forms of archaeobotanical evidence, such as carbonized and semicarbonizeed grains, coprolites and imprints of grains, husks or spikelets on potsherds, have been found during excavations of Neolithic sites.
Ancient grains played a role in the spiritual life of several ancient civilizations, from the Aztecs to the Greeks and Egyptians. Quinoa was called the "mother of all grains" and considered sacred by the Inca people.
Amaranth was likewise considered sacred by the Aztecs, and was used as
part of a religious ceremony, its cultivation being banned by Spanish
colonial authorities. Farro grains are mentioned in the Old Testament.
The first reference to ancient grains as a health food was in Daily News (New York) in 1996. Since then the popularity of ancient grains as a food has increased
Spelt (Triticum spelta; Triticum dicoccum), also known as dinkel wheat or hulled wheat, is a species of wheat cultivated since approximately 5000 BCE.
Spelt has a complex history. It is a wheat species known from genetic evidence to have originated as a naturally occurring hybrid of a domesticated tetraploid wheat such as emmer wheat and the wild goat-grass Aegilops tauschii. This hybridisation must have taken place in the Near East because this is where Aegilops tauschii grows, and it must have taken place before the appearance of common or bread wheat (Triticum aestivum, a hexaploid free-threshing derivative of spelt) in the archaeological record about 8,000 years ago.[improper synthesis?]
Genetic evidence shows that spelt wheat can also arise as the
result of hybridisation of bread wheat and emmer wheat, although only at
some date following the initial Aegilops–tetraploid wheat hybridisation. The much later appearance of spelt in Europe might thus be the result of a later, second, hybridisation between emmer and bread wheat. Recent DNA evidence supports an independent origin for European spelt through this hybridisation.[4] Whether spelt has two separate origins in Asia and Europe, or single origin in the Near East, is currently unresolved.
Khorasan wheat or Oriental wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. turanicum also called Triticum turanicum), commercially known as kamut, is a tetraploid wheat species.[2] It is an ancient grain type; Khorasan refers to a historical region in modern-day Iran in the northeast and parts of Central Asia including modern-day Afghanistan. This grain is twice the size of modern-day wheat and is known for its rich, nutty flavor.
Original botanical identifications were uncertain. The variety is a form of Triticum turgidum subsp. turanicum (also known as Triticum turanicum), usually called Khorasan wheat. Identifications sometimes seen as T. polonicum
are incorrect as the variety, although long-grained, lacks the long
glumes of this species. Recent genetic evidence from DNA fingerprinting
suggests that the variety is perhaps derived from a natural hybrid
between T. durum and T. polonicum, which would explain past difficulties in arriving at a certain classification.
Freekeh (sometimes spelled frikeh) or farik (Arabic: فريكة / ALA-LC: farīkah) (pronounced free-kah /fɺi: kə/) is a cereal food made from green durum wheat (Triticum turgidum var. durum) that is roasted and rubbed to create its flavour. It is an ancient dish derived from Levantine and North African cuisines, remaining popular in many countries of the eastern Mediterranean Basin where durum wheat originated.
Durum wheat (/ˈdjʊərəm/), also called pasta wheat or macaroni wheat (Triticum durum or Triticum turgidum subsp. durum), is a tetraploid species of wheat. It is the second most cultivated species of wheat after common wheat, although it represents only 5% to 8% of global wheat production. It was developed by artificial selection of the domesticated emmer wheat strains formerly grown in Central Europe and the Near East around 7000 BC, which developed a naked, free-threshing form. Like emmer, durum wheat is awned (with bristles). It is the predominant wheat that grows in the Middle East.
Farro is an ethnobotanical term derived from Latin for a group of three wheat species: spelt (Triticum spelta), emmer (Triticum dicoccum), and einkorn (Triticum monococcum), which are all types of hulled wheat (wheat that cannot be threshed). In Italian cuisine, the farro species are sometimes distinguished as farro grande,farro medio, and farro piccolo. Confusion is generated by the difficult history in the taxonomy of wheat and the colloquial, regional use of the term for specific wheat species; for example, emmer grown in the Garfagnana region of Tuscany
is known as farro and can receive an Indicazione Geografica Protetta
(IGP) designation which, by law, guarantees its geographic origin.
Emmer is by far the most common variety grown in Italy, specifically in certain mountain regions of Tuscany and Abruzzo. It is also considered higher quality for cooking than the other two grains and is sometimes called "true" farro. Farro is also sometimes referred to inaccurately as "spelt" in English (Dinkel in German), specifically distinguished from both emmer and einkorn.
Along with einkorn wheat, emmer was one of the first crops domesticated in the Near East. It was widely cultivated in the ancient world, but is now a relict crop in mountainous regions of Europe and Asia. Emmer is considered a type of farro food especially in Italy.
Wild emmer grows wild in the Near East. It is a tetraploid wheat formed by the hybridization of two diploid wild grasses, Triticum urartu, closely related to wild einkorn (T. boeoticum), and an as yet unidentified Aegilops species related to A. searsii or A. speltoides.
Millets (/ˈmɪlɪts/) are a group of highly variable small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cerealcrops or grains for fodder and human food.
Millets are important crops in the semiarid tropics of Asia and Africa (especially in India, Mali, Nigeria, and Niger), with 97% of millet production in developing countries. The crop is favored due to its productivity and short growing season under dry, high-temperature conditions.
Millets may have been consumed by humans for about 7,000 years
and potentially had "a pivotal role in the rise of multi-crop
agriculture and settled farming societies.
Barley (Hordeum vulgare), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago.[3] Barley has been used as animal fodder, as a source of fermentable material for beer and certain distilled beverages, and as a component of various health foods. It is used in soups and stews, and in barley bread of various cultures. Barley grains are commonly made into malt in a traditional and ancient method of preparation.
In 2017, barley was ranked fourth among grains in quantity produced (149 million tonnes) behind maize, rice and wheat.
Leviticus 19:19
You
shall keep my statutes. You shall not let your animals breed with a
different kind; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed; nor
shall you put on a garment made of two different materials.
Deuteronomy 22:9
You
shall not sow your vineyard with a second kind of seed, or the whole
yield will have to be forfeited, both the crop that you have sown and
the yield of the vineyard itself.
Noah
was a righteous man and walked with God. Seeing that the earth was
corrupt and filled with violence, God instructed Noah to build an ark
in which he, his sons, and their wives, together with male and female
of all living creatures, would be saved from the waters. Noah entered
the ark in his six hundredth year, and on the 17th day of the second
month of that year "the fountains of the Great Deep burst apart and the
floodgates of heaven broke open" and rain fell for forty days and forty
nights until the highest mountains were covered 15 cubits, and all
earth-based life perished except Noah and those with him in the ark.
In Jewish legend, the kind of water that was pouring to the earth
for forty days is not the common, but God bade each drop pass through Hell of Gehenna
before it fell to earth, and the 'hot rain' scalded the skin of the
sinners. The punishment that overtook them was befitting their crime. As
their sensual desires had made them hot, and inflamed them to immoral
excesses, so they were chastised by means of heated water.
After 150 days, "God remembered Noah ... and the waters subsided" until
the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat. On the 27th day of the
second month of Noah's six hundred and first year the earth was dry.
Then Noah built an altar and made a sacrifice, and God made a covenant with Noah
that man would be allowed to eat every living thing but not its blood,
and that God would never again destroy all life by a flood.
Odin (/ˈoʊdɪn/; from Old Norse: Óðinn, IPA: [ˈoːðinː]) is a widely revered god in Germanic mythology. Norse mythology,
the source of most surviving information about him, associates Odin
with wisdom, healing, death, royalty, the gallows, knowledge, war,
battle, victory, sorcery, poetry, frenzy, and the runic alphabet, and portrays him as the husband of the goddess Frigg. In wider Germanic mythology and paganism, the god was known in Old English as Wōden, in Old Saxon as Wōdan, in Old Dutch as Wuodan and in Old High German as Wuotan.
In Old English texts, Odin holds a particular place as a euhemerized
ancestral figure among royalty, and he is frequently referred to as a
founding figure among various other Germanic peoples, such as the Langobards. Forms of his name appear frequently throughout the Germanic record, though narratives regarding Odin are mainly found in Old Norse works recorded in Iceland, primarily around the 13th century. These texts make up the bulk of modern understanding of Norse mythology.
The Old Norse theonymÓðinn (runic ᚢᚦᛁᚾ on the Ribe skull fragment)[3] and its cognates, including Old EnglishWōden, Old SaxonWōden, and Old High GermanWuotan, derive from the reconstructed Proto-Germanic theonym *wōđanaz. The masculine noun *wōđanaz developed from the Proto-Germanic adjective *wōđaz, related to Latinvātēs and Old Irishfáith, both meaning 'seer, prophet'. Adjectives stemming from *wōđaz include Gothicwoþs 'possessed', Old Norse óðr, 'mad, frantic, furious', and Old English wōd 'mad'.[4] In his opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, Richard Wagner refers to the god as Wotan, a spelling of his own invention which combines the Old High German Wuotan with the Low GermanWodan.[5]
More than 170 names
are recorded for Odin; the names are variously descriptive of
attributes of the god, refer to myths involving him, or refer to
religious practices associated with him. This multitude makes Odin the
god with the most known names among the Germanic peoples.
The earliest records of the Germanic peoples were recorded by the
Romans, and in these works Odin is frequently referred to—via a process
known as interpretatio romana
(where characteristics perceived to be similar by Romans result in
identification of a non-Roman god as a Roman deity)—as the Roman god Mercury. The first clear example of this occurs in the Roman historian Tacitus's late 1st-century work Germania, where, writing about the religion of the Suebi (a confederation of Germanic peoples),
he comments that "among the gods Mercury is the one they principally
worship. They regard it as a religious duty to offer to him, on fixed
days, human as well as other sacrificial victims. Hercules and Mars they
appease by animal offerings of the permitted kind" and adds that a
portion of the Suebi also venerate "Isis". In this instance, Tacitus refers to the god Odin as "Mercury", Thor as "Hercules", and Týr as "Mars", and the identity of the "Isis" of the Suebi has been debated.
Anthony Birley
noted that Odin's apparent identification with Mercury has little to do
with Mercury's classical role of being messenger of the gods, but
appears to be due to Mercury's role of psychopomp.[8]
Other contemporary evidence may also have led to the equation of Odin
with Mercury; Odin, like Mercury, may have at this time already been
pictured with a staff and hat, may have been considered a trader god,
and the two may have been seen as parallel in their roles as wandering
deities. But their rankings in their respective religious spheres may
have been very different.[9] Also, Tacitus's "among the gods Mercury is the one they principally worship" is an exact quote from Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico (1st century BCE) in which Caesar is referring to the Gauls
and not the Germanic peoples. Regarding the Germanic peoples, Caesar
states: "[T]hey consider the gods only the ones that they can see, the
Sun, Fire and the Moon", which scholars reject as clearly mistaken,
regardless of what may have led to the statement.[8]
Although the English kingdoms were converted as a result of Christianization of the Germanic peoples by the 7th century, Odin is frequently listed as a founding figure among the Old English royalty.[10] He is also either directly or indirectly mentioned a few times in the surviving Old English poetic corpus, including the Nine Herbs Charm and likely also the Old English rune poem. Odin may also be referenced in the riddle Solomon and Saturn. In the Nine Herbs Charm, Odin is said to have slain a wyrm (serpent, European dragon)
by way of nine "glory twigs". Preserved from an 11th-century
manuscript, the poem is, according to Bill Griffiths, "one of the most
enigmatic of Old English texts". The section that mentions Odin is as
follows:
+ wyrm com snican, toslat he nan,
ða genam woden VIIII wuldortanas,
sloh ða þa næddran þæt heo on VIIII tofleah
Þær gaændade æppel and attor
þæt heo næfre ne wolde on hus bugan.[11]
A serpent came crawling (but) it destroyed no one
when Woden took nine twigs of glory,
(and) then struck the adder so that it flew into nine (pieces).
There archived apple and poison
that it never would re-enter the house.
The emendation of nan to 'man' has been proposed. The next stanza comments on the creation of the herbs chervil and fennel while hanging in heaven by the 'wise lord' (witig drihten)
and before sending them down among mankind. Regarding this, Griffith
comments that "In a Christian context 'hanging in heaven' would refer to
the crucifixion;
but (remembering that Woden was mentioned a few lines previously) there
is also a parallel, perhaps a better one, with Odin, as his crucifixion
was associated with learning." The Old English gnomic poem Maxims I also mentions Odin by name in the (alliterative) phrase Woden worhte weos, ('Woden made idols'), in which he is contrasted with and denounced against the Christian God.
The Old English rune ós, which is described in the Old English rune poem
The Old English rune poem is a rune poem that recounts the Old English runic alphabet, the futhorc. The stanza for the rune ós reads as follows:
ōs byþ ordfruma ǣlcre sprǣce
wīsdōmes wraþu and wītena frōfur
and eorla gehwām ēadnys and tō hiht
god is the origin of all language
wisdom's foundation and wise man's comfort
and to every hero blessing and hope
—Stephen Pollington
The first word of this stanza, ōs (Latin 'mouth') is a homophone for Old English os,
a particularly heathen word for 'god'. Due to this and the content of
the stanzas, several scholars have posited that this poem is censored,
having originally referred to Odin. Kathleen Herbert comments that "Os was cognate with As in Norse, where it meant one of the Æsir,
the chief family of gods. In Old English, it could be used as an
element in first names: Osric, Oswald, Osmund, etc. but it was not used
as a word to refer to the God of Christians. Woden was equated with
Mercury, the god of eloquence (among other things). The tales about the
Norse god Odin tell how he gave one of his eyes in return for wisdom; he
also won the mead of poetic inspiration. Luckily for Christian
rune-masters, the Latin word os
could be substituted without ruining the sense, to keep the outward
form of the rune name without obviously referring to Woden."
In the poem Solomon and Saturn, "Mercurius the Giant" (Mercurius se gygand)
is referred to as an inventor of letters. This may also be a reference
to Odin, who is in Norse mythology the founder of the runic alphabets,
and the gloss a continuation of the practice of equating Odin with
Mercury found as early as Tacitus. The poem is additionally in the style of later Old Norse material featuring Odin, such as the Old Norse poem Vafþrúðnismál, featuring Odin and the jötunnVafþrúðnir engaging in a deadly game of wits.
In Norse mythology, the Vanir (/ˈvɑːnɪr/; singular Vanr)
are a group of gods associated with nature, fertility, wisdom, and the
ability to see the future. The Vanir are one of two groups of gods (the
other being the Æsir) and are the namesake of the location Vanaheimr (Old Norse "Home of the Vanir"). After the Æsir–Vanir War,
the Vanir became a subgroup of the Æsir. Subsequently, members of the
Vanir are sometimes also referred to as members of the Æsir.
The Vanir are attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources; the Prose Edda and Heimskringla, both written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson; and in the poetry of skalds. The Vanir are only attested in these Old Norse sources.
All sources describe the Njörðr, and his children Freyr and Freyja as members of the Vanir. A euhemerized prose account in Heimskringla adds that Njörðr's sister—whose name is not provided—and Kvasir were Vanir. In addition, Heimskringla reports a tale involving king Sveigðir's visit to Vanaheimr, where he meets a woman by the name of Vana and the two produce a child named Vanlandi (whose name means "Man from the Land of the Vanir").
While not attested as Vanir, the gods Heimdallr and Ullr have been theorized as potential members of the group. In the Prose Edda, a name listed for boars is "Van-child". Scholars have theorized that the Vanir may be connected to small pieces of gold foil found in Scandinavia at some building sites from the Migration Period to the Viking Age and occasionally in graves. They have speculated whether the Vanir originally represented pre-Indo-European deities or Indo-European fertility gods, and have theorized a form of the gods as venerated by the pagan Anglo-Saxons.
In the Poetic Edda, the Vanir, as a group, are specifically referenced in the poems Völuspá, Vafþrúðnismál, Skírnismál, Þrymskviða, Alvíssmál and Sigrdrífumál. In Völuspá, a stanza describes the events of the Æsir–Vanir War,
noting that during the war the Vanir broke the walls of the stronghold
of the Æsir, and that the Vanir were "indomitable, trampling the plain."
In Vafþrúðnismál, Gagnráðr (the god Odin in disguise) engages in a game of wits with the jötunnVafþrúðnir. Gagnráðr asks Vafþrúðnir where the Van god Njörðr came from, for though he rules over many hofs and hörgrs, Njörðr was not raised among the Æsir. Vafþrúðnir responds that Njörðr was created in Vanaheimr
("home of the Vanir") by "wise powers" and details that during the
Æsir–Vanir War, Njörðr was exchanged as a hostage. In addition, when the
world ends (Ragnarök), Njörðr "will return to the wise Vanir."
Alvíssmál consists of question and answer exchanges between the dwarf Alvíss and the god Thor.
In the poem, Alvíss supplies terms that various groups, including the
Vanir, use to refer to various subjects. Alvíss attributes nine terms to
the Vanir; one for Earth ("The Ways"), Heaven ("The Weaver of Winds"),
clouds ("Kites of the Wind"), calm ("The Hush of the Winds"), the sea
("The Wave"), fire ("Wildfire"), wood ("The Wand"), seed ("growth"), and
ale ("The Foaming").
Old
English Israel, "the Jewish people, the Hebrew nation," from Latin
Israel, from Greek, from Hebrew yisra'el "he that striveth with God"
(Genesis xxxii.28), symbolic proper name conferred on Jacob and extended
to his descendants, from sara "he fought, contended" + El "God."
strive (v.)c.
1200, "quarrel, contend," from Old French estriver "to quarrel,
dispute, resist, struggle, put up a fight, compete," from estrif, estrit
"quarrel" (see strife). It became a strong verb (past tense strove) by
rhyming association with drive, dive, etc. Meaning "try hard" is from
early 14c.
from
Old Norse vanir "the Vanir," one of the families of Scandinavian gods,
from Proto-Germanic *wana-, perhaps from PIE root *wen- (1) "to desire,
strive for."
In Norse mythology, Surtr (/ˈsɜːrtər/; Old Norse "black" or "the swarthy one") is a jötunn. Surtr is attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson. In both sources, Surtr is foretold as being a major figure during the events of Ragnarök; carrying his bright sword, he will go to battle against the Æsir, he will do battle with the major god Freyr, and afterward the flames that he brings forth will engulf the Earth.
In a book from the Prose Edda additional information is given about Surtr, including that he is stationed guarding the frontier of the fiery realm Múspell,
that he will lead "Múspell's sons" to Ragnarök, and that he will defeat
Freyr. Surtr has been the subject of place names and artistic
depictions, and scholars have proposed theories regarding elements of
Surtr's descriptions and his potential origins.
Ezekiel 1:13
“As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and
like the appearance of lamps: it went up and down among the living
creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth
lightning.”
Surtr is mentioned twice in the poem Völuspá, where a völva divulges information to the god Odin. The völva says that, during Ragnarök, Surtr will come from the south with flames, carrying a very bright sword:
Following this, the völva says that "stone peaks clash", "troll wives take to the road", "warriors tread the path from Hel", and the heavens "break apart". The next stanza relates that Odin is to be killed by the wolf Fenrir, and that Surtr will go to battle against "Beli's bane", a kenning for the god Freyr,
who slew the giant Beli. No further detail is given about the fight
between Surtr and Freyr in the poem. In the stanzas that follow, a
number of gods and their opponents are described as doing battle at
Ragnarök, and that the world will be consumed in flames, yet afterward a
new world rises from the sea, fertile and teeming with life, and the
surviving gods will meet again.
In the poem Vafþrúðnismál, the wise jötunn Vafþrúðnir
poses the question to Odin (disguised as "Gagnráðr") "what the plain is
called where in battle Surt and the sweet gods will meet". Odin
responds that the "ordained field" is Vígríðr, and that it stretches "a hundred leagues" in every direction.
Later in the poem, Odin, still disguised and now questioning
Vafþrúðnir, asks which of the Æsir will "rule over the possessions of
the gods when Surt's fire is slaked". Vafþrúðnir responds that, "when
Surt's fire is slaked" the god Thor's sons Móði and Magni shall possess Thor's hammer Mjöllnir.
In the poem Fáfnismál, the hero Sigurd asks the mortally wounded dragonFáfnir the name of the island where Surtr and the Æsir "will mingle sword-liquid together". Fáfnir says that the island is called Óskópnir, that all of the gods shall go there bearing spears, and that on their way there the bridge Bifröst will break beneath them, causing their horses to "flounder in the great river".
In Norse mythology, Bifröst (/ˈbɪvrɒst/ (listen) or sometimes Bilröst or Bivrost) is a burning rainbow bridge that reaches between Midgard (Earth) and Asgard, the realm of the gods. The bridge is attested as Bilröst in the Poetic Edda; compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and as Bifröst in the Prose Edda; written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson, and in the poetry of skalds. Both the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda alternately refer to the bridge as Ásbrú (Old Norse "Æsir's bridge").
According to the Prose Edda, the bridge ends in heaven at Himinbjörg, the residence of the god Heimdallr, who guards it from the jötnar. The bridge's destruction during Ragnarök by the forces of Muspell is foretold. Scholars have proposed that the bridge may have originally represented the Milky Way and have noted parallels between the bridge and another bridge in Norse mythology, Gjallarbrú.
Scholar Andy Orchard posits that Bifröst may mean "shimmering path." He notes that the first element of Bilröst—bil (meaning "a moment")—"suggests the fleeting nature of the rainbow," which he connects to the first element of Bifröst—the Old Norse verb bifa (meaning "to shimmer" or "to shake")—noting that the element evokes notions of the "lustrous sheen" of the bridge. Austrian Germanist Rudolf Simek says that Bifröst either means "the swaying road to heaven" (also citing bifa) or, if Bilröst is the original form of the two (which Simek says is likely), "the fleetingly glimpsed rainbow" (possibly connected to bil, perhaps meaning "moment, weak point").
The bridge is mentioned in the Prose Edda books Gylfaginning and Skáldskaparmál, where it is referred to as Bifröst. In chapter 13 of Gylfaginning, Gangleri (King Gylfi in disguise) asks the enthroned figure of High
what way exists between heaven and earth. Laughing, High replies that
the question isn't an intelligent one, and goes on to explain that the
gods built a bridge from heaven and earth. He incredulously asks
Gangleri if he has not heard the story before. High says that Gangleri
must have seen it, and notes that Gangleri may call it a rainbow.
High says that the bridge consists of three colors, has great strength,
"and is built with art and skill to a greater extent than other
constructions."
High notes that, although the bridge is strong, it will break when "Muspell's
lads" attempt to cross it, and their horses will have to make do with
swimming over "great rivers." Gangleri says that it doesn't seem that
the gods "built the bridge in good faith if it is liable to break,
considering that they can do as they please." High responds that the
gods do not deserve blame for the breaking of the bridge, for "there is
nothing in this world that will be secure when Muspell's sons attack."
In chapter 15 of Gylfaginning, Just-As-High says that Bifröst is also called Asbrú, and that every day the gods ride their horses across it (with the exception of Thor, who instead wades through the boiling waters of the rivers Körmt and Örmt) to reach Urðarbrunnr, a holy well where the gods have their court. As a reference, Just-As-High quotes the second of the two stanzas in Grímnismál
that mention the bridge (see above). Gangleri asks if fire burns over
Bifröst. High says that the red in the bridge is burning fire, and,
without it, the frost jotnar and mountain jotnar would "go up into
heaven" if anyone who wanted could cross Bifröst. High adds that, in
heaven, "there are many beautiful places" and that "everywhere there has
divine protection around it."
Comments
Nibiruian Agenda
Iron meteorites , also known as siderites, or ferrous meteorites, are a type of meteorites that consist overwhelmingly of an iron–nickel alloy known as meteoric iron that usually consists of two mineral phases: kamacite and taenite. Iron meteorites originate from cores of planetesimals.
The iron found in iron meteorites was one of the earliest sources of usable iron available to humans, before the development of smelting that signaled the beginning of the Iron Age.
Although they are fairly rare compared to the stony meteorites, comprising only about 5.7% of witnessed falls, iron meteorites have historically been heavily over-represented in meteorite collections. This is due to several factors:
Because they are also denser than stony meteorites, iron meteorites also account for almost 90% of the mass of all known meteorites, about 500 tons. All the largest known meteorites are of this type, including the largest—the Hoba meteorite.
A discovery of unusual glass stones has led scientists to question the origins of our solar system and how it was formed.
Back in 1996, unusual yellow glass stones were found by a scientist in a virtually uninhabited place on Earth—The Great Sand Sea. In 2013, researchers at the University of Johannesburg determined that minerals in the stone—which they named Hypatia, after a female mathematician and astronomer—were not from our planet. In 2015, other researchers found that the stones were not part of any known meteorites or comets that have been studied.
Research professor Jan Kramers and senior research fellow Georgy Belyanin in the Department of Geology at Johannesburg believe that the Hypatia stone was part of an extraterrestrial rock, probably several meters in diameter, that fell to Earth and broke into hundreds of fragments.
It’s not that extraordinary, since meteorites periodically fall to Earth. What makes it noteworthy is that Hypatia’s mineral makeup is atypical of meteorites that have fallen to Earth.
“If it were possible to grind up the entire planet Earth to dust in a huge mortar and pestle, we would get dust with on average a similar chemical composition as chondritic meteorites,” Kramers says in a Johannesburg news release. “In chondritic meteorites, we expect to see a small amount of carbon and a good amount of silicon. But Hypatia’s matrix has a massive amount of carbon and an unusually small amount of silicon.”
In addition to the unusual ratio of carbon and silicon, the matrix contains polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), the stuff of interstellar dust. Most of the PAH was turned into small diamonds, which the researchers believed were formed upon impact with the Earth.
And the researchers observed something else—pure metallic aluminum as well as silver iodine phosphide and silicon carbide in “highly unexpected forms.”
Xian (Chinese: 仙/仚/僊; pinyin: xiān; Wade–Giles: hsien) is a Chinese word for an enlightened person, translatable into English as:
Xian semantically developed from meaning spiritual "immortality; enlightenment", to physical "immortality; longevity" involving methods such as alchemy, breath meditation, and tai chi chuan, and eventually to legendary and figurative "immortality".
Victor H. Mair describes the xian archetype as:
According to the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism, Chinese xian (仙) can mean rishi (Sanskrit: ऋषि IAST: ṛṣi), the inspired sage of the Vedas.
The most famous Chinese compound of xiān is Bāxiān (八仙 "the Eight Immortals"). Other common words include xiānrén (仙人 sennin in Japanese, "immortal person; transcendent", see Xiānrén Dòng), xiānrénzhăng (仙人掌 "immortal's palm; cactus"), xiānnǚ (仙女 "immortal woman; female celestial; angel"), and shénxiān (神仙 "gods and immortals; divine immortal"). Besides humans, xiān can also refer to supernatural animals. The mythological húlijīng 狐狸精 (lit. "fox spirit") "fox fairy; vixen; witch; enchantress" has an alternate name of húxiān 狐仙 (lit. "fox immortal").
The etymology of xiān remains uncertain. The circa 200 CE Shiming, a Chinese dictionary that provided word-pun "etymologies", defines xiān (仙) as "to get old and not die," and explains it as someone who qiān (遷 "moves into") the mountains."
Edward H. Schafer (1966:204) defined xian as "transcendent, sylph (a being who, through alchemical, gymnastic and other disciplines, has achieved a refined and perhaps immortal body, able to fly like a bird beyond the trammels of the base material world into the realms of aether, and nourish himself on air and dew.)" Schafer noted xian was cognate to xian 䙴 "soar up", qian 遷 "remove", and xianxian 僊僊 "a flapping dance movement"; and compared Chinese yuren 羽人 "feathered man; xian" with English peri "a fairy or supernatural being in Persian mythology" (Persian pari from par "feather; wing").
Two linguistic hypotheses for the etymology of xian involve Arabic and Sino-Tibetan languages. Wu and Davis (1935:224) suggested the source was jinn, or jinni "genie" (from Arabic جني jinnī). "The marvelous powers of the Hsien are so like those of the jinni of the Arabian Nights that one wonders whether the Arabic word, jinn, may not be derived from the Chinese Hsien." Axel Schuessler's etymological dictionary (2007:527) suggests a Sino-Tibetan connection between xiān (Old Chinese *san or *sen) "'An immortal' ... men and women who attain supernatural abilities; after death they become immortals and deities who can fly through the air" and Tibetan gšen < g-syen "shaman, one who has supernatural abilities, incl[uding] travel through the air".
Two circa 3rd century BCE "Outer Chapters" of the Zhuangzi (莊子 "[Book of] Master Zhuang") use the archaic character xian 僊. Chapter 11 has a parable about "Cloud Chief" (雲 將) and "Big Concealment" (鴻濛) that uses the Shijing compound xianxian ("dance; jump"):
The Eight Immortals (Chinese: 八仙; pinyin: Bāxiān; Wade–Giles: Pa¹-hsien¹) are a group of legendary xian ("immortals") in Chinese mythology. Each immortal's power can be transferred to a vessel (法器) that can bestow life or destroy evil. Together, these eight vessels are called the "Covert Eight Immortals" (暗八仙). Most of them are said to have been born in the Tang or Shang Dynasty. They are revered by the Taoists and are also a popular element in secular Chinese culture. They are said to live on a group of five islands in the Bohai Sea, which includes Mount Penglai.
The Immortals are:
In literature before the 1970s, they were sometimes translated as the Eight Genies. First described in the Yuan Dynasty, they were probably named after the Eight Immortal Scholars of the Han.
The tradition of depicting humans who have become immortals is an ancient practice in Chinese art, and when religious Taoism gained popularity, it quickly picked up this tradition with its own immortals.[citation needed] While cults dedicated to various Taoist immortals date back to the Han dynasty, the popular and well-known Eight Immortals first appeared in the Jin dynasty. The art of the Jin tombs of the 12th and 13th centuries depicts a group of eight Taoist immortals in wall murals and sculptures. They officially became known as the Eight Immortals in the writings and works of art of the Taoist group known as the Complete Realization (Quanshen). The most famous art depiction of the Eight Immortals from this period is a mural of them in the Eternal Joy Temple (Yongle Gong) at Ruicheng.
The Eight Immortals are considered to be signs of prosperity and longevity, so they are popular themes in ancient and medieval art. They were frequent adornments on celadon vases. They were also common in sculptures owned by the nobility. Their most common appearance, however, was in paintings.[citation needed] Many silk paintings, wall murals, and wood block prints remain of the Eight Immortals. They were often depicted either together in one group, or alone to give more homage to that specific immortal.
An interesting feature of early Eight Immortal artwork is that they are often accompanied by jade hand maidens, commonly depicted servants of the higher ranked deities, or other images showing great spiritual power. This shows that early on, the Eight Immortals quickly became eminent figures of the Taoist religion and had great importance.[citation needed] We can see this importance is only heightened in the Ming and Qing dynasties. During these dynasties, the Eight Immortals were very frequently associated with other prominent spiritual deities in artwork. There are numerous paintings with them and the Three Stars (the gods of longevity, prosperity, and good fortune) together. Also, other deities of importance, such as the Queen Mother of the West, are commonly seen in the company of the Eight Immortals.
Fusang (Chinese: 扶桑; pinyin: Fú Sāng) refers to several different entities in ancient Chinese literature, often either a mythological tree or a mysterious land to the East.
In the Classic of Mountains and Seas and several contemporary texts,[1] the term refers to a mythological tree of lifeThe sense of holiness or sacredness regarding the Five Grains proceeds from their traditional ascription to the saintly rulers credited with creating China's civilization. They were seen not merely as five crops chosen from many options but as the source permitting agrarian society and civilization itself. "Squandering the Five Grains" was seen as a sin worthy of torment in Diyu, the Chinese hell.[citation needed]
As the position of emperor was seen as an embodiment of this society, one's behavior towards the Five Grains could take on political meaning: as a protest against the overthrow of the Shang Dynasty by the Zhou, Boyi and Shuqi ostentatiously refused to eat the Five Grains. Such rejections of the grains for political reasons underwent a complex development into the concept of bigu, the esoteric Taoist practice of achieving immortality by avoiding certain foods.By the time of written records, the development of agriculture in China had become greatly mythologized. There were various traditions regarding which of the early Chinese leaders introduced the Five Grains:
Shennong (神农) (lit. "Divine Farmer") was a Chinese culture hero credited with the development of agriculture. He was often conflated with Yandi (the "Flaming Emperor") and is also sometimes described as the Wugu Xiandi or "Emperor of the Five Grains". Sima Qian's chronology placed him around 2737–2699 BC.[citation needed]
In the Shennongjia ("Shennong's Ladder") area of Hubei, an oral epic poem titled the Hei'anzhuan ("Story of Chaos") describes Shennong finding the seeds of the Five Grains:
Shennong climbed onto Mount Yangtou,He looked carefully, he examined carefully,
Then he found a seed of millet.
He left it with the Chinese date tree,
And he went to open up a wasteland.
He planted the seed eight times,
Then it produced fruit.
And from then on humans were able to eat millet.
He sought for the rice seed on Mount Daliang,
The seed was hiding in grasses.
He left it with the willow tree,
And he went to open up a paddy field.
He planted the seed seven times,
Then it produced fruit.
And from then on humans were able to eat rice.
He sought for the adzuki bean seed,
And left it with the plum tree.
He planted it one time.
The adzuki bean was so easy to plant
and was able to grow in infertile fields.
The soybean was produced on Mount Weishi,
So it was difficult for Shennong to get its seeds.
He left one seed of it with a peach tree,
He planted it five times,
Then it produced fruit,
And later tofu was able to be made south of the Huai River.
Barley and wheat were produced on Mount Zhushi,
Shennong was pleased that he got two seeds of them.
He left them with a peach tree,
And he planted them twelve times,
Then later people were able to eat pastry food.
He sought the sesame seed on Mount Wuzhi,
He left the seed with brambles.
He planted it one time.
Then later people were able to fry dishes in sesame oil.
Shennong planted the five grains and they all survived,
Because they were helped by the six species of trees.
The Chinese word bigu compounds bi 辟 "ruler; monarch; avoid; ward off; keep away" and gu 穀 or 谷 "cereal; grain; (穀子) millet". The bi 辟 meaning in bigu is a variant Chinese character for bi 避 "avoid; shun; evade; keep away" (e.g., bixie 辟邪 or 避邪 "ward off evil spirits; talisman; amulet"). The alternate pronunciation of pi 辟 "open up; develop; refute; eliminate" is a variant character for 闢. The complex 14-stroke traditional Chinese character gu 穀 "grain" has a 7-stroke simplified Chinese character gu 谷 "valley; gorge." Although a few Chinese dictionaries (e.g., Liang & Chang 1971, Lin 1972) gloss the pronunciation of bigu 辟穀 as pigu, the definitive Hanyu Da Cidian (1997) gives bigu.
English lexicographic translations of bigu are compared in this table.
Catherine Despeux (2008:233) lists synonyms for bigu "abstention from cereals": duangu 斷穀 "stopping cereals" (with duan 斷 "cut off; sever; break; give up"), juegu 絕穀 "discontinuing cereals" (jue 絕 "cut off; sever; refuse; reject"), quegu 卻穀 "refraining from cereals" (que 卻 "retreat; decline; reject; refuse"), and xiuliang 修糧 "stopping grains" (with xiu 修 "repair; trim; prune' cultivate" and liang 糧 "grain; food").
Juegu, unlike these other alternative expressions, had meanings besides Daoist dietary practices. For instance, the (c. 139 BCE) Huainanzi uses juegu in a traditional saying (tr. Major et al. 2010:775): "Now, rejecting study because those who study have faults is like taking one instance of choking to refuse grain and not eat or taking one problem with stumbling to stop walking and not go [anywhere]." About one century later, Liu Xiang's Shuoyuan 說苑 "Garden of Stories" rephrases this simile about choking once and discontinuing grains.
Chinese folklore and mythology associated several divinities with agriculture and grains.
While traditional Chinese mythology depicted cooking and agriculture as key elements of civilization, the Daoists created a "counter-narrative" (Campany 2005:16) to justify the idea of grain avoidance. For example, the Confucianist Xunzi and Legalist Hanfeizi describe Suiren as cultural folk hero.
The traditional Chinese symbol for civilization and state was gu "grains; cereals" (a synecdoche for "agricultural products").
The Wangzhi "Royal Regulations" chapter of the Liji uses cooking food and eating grains to culturally classify the Chinese "Middle Kingdom" bordered by the "Four Barbarians" (eastern Yi, southern Man, western Rong, and northern Di).
Kwang-chih Chang (1977:42) interprets this Liji context to mean, "One could eat grain but also eat raw meat or one could eat his meat cooked but eat no grain. Neither was fully Chinese. A Chinese by definition ate grain and cooked his meat."
During the first dynasties of the Qin and Han, when Daoism simultaneously became a mass movement, Chinese agricultural techniques were revolutionized. Applying methods from the (256 BCE) Dujiangyan Irrigation System, arable land was converted into rice fields, with two or more harvests annually, resulting in widespread deforestation.
The nong 農 "peasant; farmer" was second-highest of the Four Occupations under the traditional Chinese feudal system. Kristofer Schipper says,
When natural or human catastrophes occurred, the peasants could take refuge in non-arable regions of mountains and survive on wild foods other than grains.
The sheji 社稷 "altars to soil and grain gods" were the ritual center of a Chinese state. Originally, she 社 was the "god of the land" and ji 稷 the "god of the harvest" (cf. Houji above), and the compound sheji "gods of soil and grain" metaphorically means "the state; the nation". The Shiji (Campany 2005:21) says establishing a new dynasty required eliminating the sheji altars of the preceding dynasty and erecting one's own.
Offerings of grain, liquor (a grain product), and meat were necessary not only for sheji sacrifices but for ancestral sacrifices. The obligation to feed the ancestral dead was fundamental to Chinese society. Campany summarizes the cultural importance of sacrificing "grains" to feed both natural and ancestral spirits.
The Chinese character for jing 精 "spirit; essence of life; energy" is written with the rice radicalAncient grains are a grouping of grains and pseudocereals that are considered to have been minimally changed by selective breeding over recent millennia, as opposed to more widespread cereals such as corn, rice and modern varieties of wheat, which are the product of thousands of years of selective breeding. Ancient grains are often marketed as being more nutritious than modern grains, though their health benefits have been disputed by some nutritionists.
The origin of grains goes back to the Neolithic Revolution about 10,000 years ago, when prehistoric communities started to make the transition from hunter-gatherer to farmer. Modern varieties of grains have been developed over time through mutation, selective cropping, breeding and research in biotechnology. Ancient grains, however, are said to be largely unchanged from their initial domesticated varieties.
Various forms of archaeobotanical evidence, such as carbonized and semicarbonizeed grains, coprolites and imprints of grains, husks or spikelets on potsherds, have been found during excavations of Neolithic sites.
Ancient grains played a role in the spiritual life of several ancient civilizations, from the Aztecs to the Greeks and Egyptians. Quinoa was called the "mother of all grains" and considered sacred by the Inca people. Amaranth was likewise considered sacred by the Aztecs, and was used as part of a religious ceremony, its cultivation being banned by Spanish colonial authorities. Farro grains are mentioned in the Old Testament.
The first reference to ancient grains as a health food was in Daily News (New York) in 1996. Since then the popularity of ancient grains as a food has increasedSpelt has a complex history. It is a wheat species known from genetic evidence to have originated as a naturally occurring hybrid of a domesticated tetraploid wheat such as emmer wheat and the wild goat-grass Aegilops tauschii. This hybridisation must have taken place in the Near East because this is where Aegilops tauschii grows, and it must have taken place before the appearance of common or bread wheat (Triticum aestivum, a hexaploid free-threshing derivative of spelt) in the archaeological record about 8,000 years ago.[improper synthesis?]
Genetic evidence shows that spelt wheat can also arise as the result of hybridisation of bread wheat and emmer wheat, although only at some date following the initial Aegilops–tetraploid wheat hybridisation. The much later appearance of spelt in Europe might thus be the result of a later, second, hybridisation between emmer and bread wheat. Recent DNA evidence supports an independent origin for European spelt through this hybridisation.[4] Whether spelt has two separate origins in Asia and Europe, or single origin in the Near East, is currently unresolved.Farro is an ethnobotanical term derived from Latin for a group of three wheat species: spelt (Triticum spelta), emmer (Triticum dicoccum), and einkorn (Triticum monococcum), which are all types of hulled wheat (wheat that cannot be threshed). In Italian cuisine, the farro species are sometimes distinguished as farro grande, farro medio, and farro piccolo. Confusion is generated by the difficult history in the taxonomy of wheat and the colloquial, regional use of the term for specific wheat species; for example, emmer grown in the Garfagnana region of Tuscany is known as farro and can receive an Indicazione Geografica Protetta (IGP) designation which, by law, guarantees its geographic origin.
Emmer is by far the most common variety grown in Italy, specifically in certain mountain regions of Tuscany and Abruzzo. It is also considered higher quality for cooking than the other two grains and is sometimes called "true" farro. Farro is also sometimes referred to inaccurately as "spelt" in English (Dinkel in German), specifically distinguished from both emmer and einkorn.Along with einkorn wheat, emmer was one of the first crops domesticated in the Near East. It was widely cultivated in the ancient world, but is now a relict crop in mountainous regions of Europe and Asia. Emmer is considered a type of farro food especially in Italy.
Wild emmer grows wild in the Near East. It is a tetraploid wheat formed by the hybridization of two diploid wild grasses, Triticum urartu, closely related to wild einkorn (T. boeoticum), and an as yet unidentified Aegilops species related to A. searsii or A. speltoides.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MilletMillets (/ˈmɪlɪts/) are a group of highly variable small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food.
Millets are important crops in the semiarid tropics of Asia and Africa (especially in India, Mali, Nigeria, and Niger), with 97% of millet production in developing countries. The crop is favored due to its productivity and short growing season under dry, high-temperature conditions.
Millets are indigenous to many parts of the world. The most widely grown millet is pearl millet, which is an important crop in India and parts of Africa. Finger millet, proso millet, and foxtail millet are also important crop species.
Barley (Hordeum vulgare), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago.[3] Barley has been used as animal fodder, as a source of fermentable material for beer and certain distilled beverages, and as a component of various health foods. It is used in soups and stews, and in barley bread of various cultures. Barley grains are commonly made into malt in a traditional and ancient method of preparation.
In 2017, barley was ranked fourth among grains in quantity produced (149 million tonnes) behind maize, rice and wheat.Leviticus 19:19
Deuteronomy 22:9
Noah was a righteous man and walked with God. Seeing that the earth was corrupt and filled with violence, God instructed Noah to build an ark in which he, his sons, and their wives, together with male and female of all living creatures, would be saved from the waters. Noah entered the ark in his six hundredth year, and on the 17th day of the second month of that year "the fountains of the Great Deep burst apart and the floodgates of heaven broke open" and rain fell for forty days and forty nights until the highest mountains were covered 15 cubits, and all earth-based life perished except Noah and those with him in the ark.
Name: Wodewose, faunis ficariis*
Range: The Wirral Peninsula, Africa
Habitat: Forest
Predators: Alexander the Great
Threat Level: Endangered, possibly extinct
*faunis ficariis is translated as 'wodewose' in the Wycliffite Bible (Jeremiah 50:39).
The Old Norse theonym Óðinn (runic ᚢᚦᛁᚾ on the Ribe skull fragment)[3] and its cognates, including Old English Wōden, Old Saxon Wōden, and Old High German Wuotan, derive from the reconstructed Proto-Germanic theonym *wōđanaz. The masculine noun *wōđanaz developed from the Proto-Germanic adjective *wōđaz, related to Latin vātēs and Old Irish fáith, both meaning 'seer, prophet'. Adjectives stemming from *wōđaz include Gothic woþs 'possessed', Old Norse óðr, 'mad, frantic, furious', and Old English wōd 'mad'.[4] In his opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, Richard Wagner refers to the god as Wotan, a spelling of his own invention which combines the Old High German Wuotan with the Low German Wodan.[5]
Anthony Birley noted that Odin's apparent identification with Mercury has little to do with Mercury's classical role of being messenger of the gods, but appears to be due to Mercury's role of psychopomp.[8] Other contemporary evidence may also have led to the equation of Odin with Mercury; Odin, like Mercury, may have at this time already been pictured with a staff and hat, may have been considered a trader god, and the two may have been seen as parallel in their roles as wandering deities. But their rankings in their respective religious spheres may have been very different.[9] Also, Tacitus's "among the gods Mercury is the one they principally worship" is an exact quote from Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico (1st century BCE) in which Caesar is referring to the Gauls and not the Germanic peoples. Regarding the Germanic peoples, Caesar states: "[T]hey consider the gods only the ones that they can see, the Sun, Fire and the Moon", which scholars reject as clearly mistaken, regardless of what may have led to the statement.[8]
Although the English kingdoms were converted as a result of Christianization of the Germanic peoples by the 7th century, Odin is frequently listed as a founding figure among the Old English royalty.[10] He is also either directly or indirectly mentioned a few times in the surviving Old English poetic corpus, including the Nine Herbs Charm and likely also the Old English rune poem. Odin may also be referenced in the riddle Solomon and Saturn. In the Nine Herbs Charm, Odin is said to have slain a wyrm (serpent, European dragon) by way of nine "glory twigs". Preserved from an 11th-century manuscript, the poem is, according to Bill Griffiths, "one of the most enigmatic of Old English texts". The section that mentions Odin is as follows:
+ wyrm com snican, toslat he nan,
ða genam woden VIIII wuldortanas,
sloh ða þa næddran þæt heo on VIIII tofleah
Þær gaændade æppel and attor
þæt heo næfre ne wolde on hus bugan.[11]
A serpent came crawling (but) it destroyed no one
when Woden took nine twigs of glory,
(and) then struck the adder so that it flew into nine (pieces).
There archived apple and poison
that it never would re-enter the house.
The emendation of nan to 'man' has been proposed. The next stanza comments on the creation of the herbs chervil and fennel while hanging in heaven by the 'wise lord' (witig drihten) and before sending them down among mankind. Regarding this, Griffith comments that "In a Christian context 'hanging in heaven' would refer to the crucifixion; but (remembering that Woden was mentioned a few lines previously) there is also a parallel, perhaps a better one, with Odin, as his crucifixion was associated with learning." The Old English gnomic poem Maxims I also mentions Odin by name in the (alliterative) phrase Woden worhte weos, ('Woden made idols'), in which he is contrasted with and denounced against the Christian God.
The Old English rune poem is a rune poem that recounts the Old English runic alphabet, the futhorc. The stanza for the rune ós reads as follows:
ōs byþ ordfruma ǣlcre sprǣce
wīsdōmes wraþu and wītena frōfur
and eorla gehwām ēadnys and tō hiht
god is the origin of all language
wisdom's foundation and wise man's comfort
and to every hero blessing and hope
The first word of this stanza, ōs (Latin 'mouth') is a homophone for Old English os, a particularly heathen word for 'god'. Due to this and the content of the stanzas, several scholars have posited that this poem is censored, having originally referred to Odin. Kathleen Herbert comments that "Os was cognate with As in Norse, where it meant one of the Æsir, the chief family of gods. In Old English, it could be used as an element in first names: Osric, Oswald, Osmund, etc. but it was not used as a word to refer to the God of Christians. Woden was equated with Mercury, the god of eloquence (among other things). The tales about the Norse god Odin tell how he gave one of his eyes in return for wisdom; he also won the mead of poetic inspiration. Luckily for Christian rune-masters, the Latin word os could be substituted without ruining the sense, to keep the outward form of the rune name without obviously referring to Woden."
In the poem Solomon and Saturn, "Mercurius the Giant" (Mercurius se gygand) is referred to as an inventor of letters. This may also be a reference to Odin, who is in Norse mythology the founder of the runic alphabets, and the gloss a continuation of the practice of equating Odin with Mercury found as early as Tacitus. The poem is additionally in the style of later Old Norse material featuring Odin, such as the Old Norse poem Vafþrúðnismál, featuring Odin and the jötunn Vafþrúðnir engaging in a deadly game of wits.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanir
In Norse mythology, the Vanir (/ˈvɑːnɪr/; singular Vanr) are a group of gods associated with nature, fertility, wisdom, and the ability to see the future. The Vanir are one of two groups of gods (the other being the Æsir) and are the namesake of the location Vanaheimr (Old Norse "Home of the Vanir"). After the Æsir–Vanir War, the Vanir became a subgroup of the Æsir. Subsequently, members of the Vanir are sometimes also referred to as members of the Æsir.
The Vanir are attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources; the Prose Edda and Heimskringla, both written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson; and in the poetry of skalds. The Vanir are only attested in these Old Norse sources.
All sources describe the Njörðr, and his children Freyr and Freyja as members of the Vanir. A euhemerized prose account in Heimskringla adds that Njörðr's sister—whose name is not provided—and Kvasir were Vanir. In addition, Heimskringla reports a tale involving king Sveigðir's visit to Vanaheimr, where he meets a woman by the name of Vana and the two produce a child named Vanlandi (whose name means "Man from the Land of the Vanir").
While not attested as Vanir, the gods Heimdallr and Ullr have been theorized as potential members of the group. In the Prose Edda, a name listed for boars is "Van-child". Scholars have theorized that the Vanir may be connected to small pieces of gold foil found in Scandinavia at some building sites from the Migration Period to the Viking Age and occasionally in graves. They have speculated whether the Vanir originally represented pre-Indo-European deities or Indo-European fertility gods, and have theorized a form of the gods as venerated by the pagan Anglo-Saxons.
In the Poetic Edda, the Vanir, as a group, are specifically referenced in the poems Völuspá, Vafþrúðnismál, Skírnismál, Þrymskviða, Alvíssmál and Sigrdrífumál. In Völuspá, a stanza describes the events of the Æsir–Vanir War, noting that during the war the Vanir broke the walls of the stronghold of the Æsir, and that the Vanir were "indomitable, trampling the plain."
In Vafþrúðnismál, Gagnráðr (the god Odin in disguise) engages in a game of wits with the jötunn Vafþrúðnir. Gagnráðr asks Vafþrúðnir where the Van god Njörðr came from, for though he rules over many hofs and hörgrs, Njörðr was not raised among the Æsir. Vafþrúðnir responds that Njörðr was created in Vanaheimr ("home of the Vanir") by "wise powers" and details that during the Æsir–Vanir War, Njörðr was exchanged as a hostage. In addition, when the world ends (Ragnarök), Njörðr "will return to the wise Vanir."
Alvíssmál consists of question and answer exchanges between the dwarf Alvíss and the god Thor. In the poem, Alvíss supplies terms that various groups, including the Vanir, use to refer to various subjects. Alvíss attributes nine terms to the Vanir; one for Earth ("The Ways"), Heaven ("The Weaver of Winds"), clouds ("Kites of the Wind"), calm ("The Hush of the Winds"), the sea ("The Wave"), fire ("Wildfire"), wood ("The Wand"), seed ("growth"), and ale ("The Foaming").
Israel
*wen- (1)
Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to desire, strive for."
It forms all or part of: vanadium; Vanir; venerate; veneration; venerable; venereal; venery (n.1) "pursuit of sexual pleasure;" venery (n.2) "hunting, the sports of the chase;" venial; venison; venom; Venus; wean; ween; Wend "Slavic people of eastern Germany;" win; winsome; wish; wont; wynn.
In Norse mythology, Surtr (/ˈsɜːrtər/; Old Norse "black" or "the swarthy one") is a jötunn. Surtr is attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson. In both sources, Surtr is foretold as being a major figure during the events of Ragnarök; carrying his bright sword, he will go to battle against the Æsir, he will do battle with the major god Freyr, and afterward the flames that he brings forth will engulf the Earth.
In a book from the Prose Edda additional information is given about Surtr, including that he is stationed guarding the frontier of the fiery realm Múspell, that he will lead "Múspell's sons" to Ragnarök, and that he will defeat Freyr. Surtr has been the subject of place names and artistic depictions, and scholars have proposed theories regarding elements of Surtr's descriptions and his potential origins.
Ezekiel 1:13
Surtr is mentioned twice in the poem Völuspá, where a völva divulges information to the god Odin. The völva says that, during Ragnarök, Surtr will come from the south with flames, carrying a very bright sword:
Old Norse:
English:
Following this, the völva says that "stone peaks clash", "troll wives take to the road", "warriors tread the path from Hel", and the heavens "break apart". The next stanza relates that Odin is to be killed by the wolf Fenrir, and that Surtr will go to battle against "Beli's bane", a kenning for the god Freyr, who slew the giant Beli. No further detail is given about the fight between Surtr and Freyr in the poem. In the stanzas that follow, a number of gods and their opponents are described as doing battle at Ragnarök, and that the world will be consumed in flames, yet afterward a new world rises from the sea, fertile and teeming with life, and the surviving gods will meet again.
In the poem Vafþrúðnismál, the wise jötunn Vafþrúðnir poses the question to Odin (disguised as "Gagnráðr") "what the plain is called where in battle Surt and the sweet gods will meet". Odin responds that the "ordained field" is Vígríðr, and that it stretches "a hundred leagues" in every direction. Later in the poem, Odin, still disguised and now questioning Vafþrúðnir, asks which of the Æsir will "rule over the possessions of the gods when Surt's fire is slaked". Vafþrúðnir responds that, "when Surt's fire is slaked" the god Thor's sons Móði and Magni shall possess Thor's hammer Mjöllnir.
In the poem Fáfnismál, the hero Sigurd asks the mortally wounded dragon Fáfnir the name of the island where Surtr and the Æsir "will mingle sword-liquid together". Fáfnir says that the island is called Óskópnir, that all of the gods shall go there bearing spears, and that on their way there the bridge Bifröst will break beneath them, causing their horses to "flounder in the great river".https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bifröst
In Norse mythology, Bifröst (/ˈbɪvrɒst/ (
listen) or sometimes Bilröst or Bivrost) is a burning rainbow bridge that reaches between Midgard (Earth) and Asgard, the realm of the gods. The bridge is attested as Bilröst in the Poetic Edda; compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and as Bifröst in the Prose Edda; written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson, and in the poetry of skalds. Both the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda alternately refer to the bridge as Ásbrú (Old Norse "Æsir's bridge").
According to the Prose Edda, the bridge ends in heaven at Himinbjörg, the residence of the god Heimdallr, who guards it from the jötnar. The bridge's destruction during Ragnarök by the forces of Muspell is foretold. Scholars have proposed that the bridge may have originally represented the Milky Way and have noted parallels between the bridge and another bridge in Norse mythology, Gjallarbrú.
The bridge is mentioned in the Prose Edda books Gylfaginning and Skáldskaparmál, where it is referred to as Bifröst. In chapter 13 of Gylfaginning, Gangleri (King Gylfi in disguise) asks the enthroned figure of High what way exists between heaven and earth. Laughing, High replies that the question isn't an intelligent one, and goes on to explain that the gods built a bridge from heaven and earth. He incredulously asks Gangleri if he has not heard the story before. High says that Gangleri must have seen it, and notes that Gangleri may call it a rainbow. High says that the bridge consists of three colors, has great strength, "and is built with art and skill to a greater extent than other constructions."
High notes that, although the bridge is strong, it will break when "Muspell's lads" attempt to cross it, and their horses will have to make do with swimming over "great rivers." Gangleri says that it doesn't seem that the gods "built the bridge in good faith if it is liable to break, considering that they can do as they please." High responds that the gods do not deserve blame for the breaking of the bridge, for "there is nothing in this world that will be secure when Muspell's sons attack."
In chapter 15 of Gylfaginning, Just-As-High says that Bifröst is also called Asbrú, and that every day the gods ride their horses across it (with the exception of Thor, who instead wades through the boiling waters of the rivers Körmt and Örmt) to reach Urðarbrunnr, a holy well where the gods have their court. As a reference, Just-As-High quotes the second of the two stanzas in Grímnismál that mention the bridge (see above). Gangleri asks if fire burns over Bifröst. High says that the red in the bridge is burning fire, and, without it, the frost jotnar and mountain jotnar would "go up into heaven" if anyone who wanted could cross Bifröst. High adds that, in heaven, "there are many beautiful places" and that "everywhere there has divine protection around it."