The Men For Whom The World Exists
There exists a belief among Jewish mystics in a group of 36 humble righteous men for whom God permits the world to continue to exist. There are many names for these men. One is ‘lamedvavniks’. Their profound goodness, even in the face of a degenerate world, shows God that the world is worth perpetuating. For […]
Help! My roommate is a genie!
Robert Lebling, in his wonderful book Legends of the Fire Spirits: Jinn and Genies from Arabia to Zanzibar retells a bit of Bangladeshi creepypasta about a coed who was revealed to be a jinniya, a female jinni. If Lebling repeats the story a little credulously, well, it’s a good story. The yarn, reportedly found on […]
Saber-Toothed Tigers and Weapons Ghosts Recognize
Medieval Finns believed stone age artifacts were magical. The millennia-old knapped stone tools sometimes turned up by their plows could, they thought, ward off evil. Medieval Finns buried these tools in the foundations of their walls and hearths to guard their homes. There’s something very cool about stone arrowheads and adzes as wards, whether they […]
Elephants vs. Dragons
I stumbled upon this wonderful bit of Pliny the other day, and there was no way I wasn’t sharing it. Pliny the Elder was a first-century A.D. Roman author, natural philosopher, military officer, and senior Imperial official. His Naturalis Historia was an encyclopedia covering much of what Romans knew about the natural world. It also […]