Appendix Nu

Reading the ambitious "inspirational reading" list at Huge Ruined Pile led me to believe that an "Appendix Nu" would be a useful addition to the canon. Appendix Nu would include the body of myth, legendry, historical narratives, and early works of fiction that inspired modern fantastists. The assembly of Appendix Nu would have to be a group effort in order to close any lacunae that would inevitably result from our cultural biases (I am not using this term pejoratively- my own biases are toward Greek and Roman legends, Norse Sagas, Irish and Welsh legends, and the picaresque tales of the Iberian peninsula- with a passing familiarity of the epics of India and some of the Mesoamerican material).

Peryton Put-on

Being a rabid fan of Jorge Luis Borges, I ordered a copy of the latest edition of the previously scarce Book of Imaginary Beings, and found that the entry for the Perytion (sic- the original Spanish name for the beast was peritio reveals some...uh... problems:


The Sibyl of Erythraea, it is said, foretold that the city of Rome would finally be destroyed by the Perytons. In the year A.D. 642 the record of the Sibyl's prophecies was consumed in the great conflagration of Alexandria; the grammarians who undertook the task of restoring certain charred fragments of the nine volumes apparently never came upon the special prophecy concerning the fate of Rome. In time it was deemed necessary to find a source that would throw greater light upon this dimly remembered tradition. After many vicissitudes it was learned that in the sixteenth century a rabbi from Fez (in all likelihood Jakob Ben Chaim) had left behind a historical treatise in which he quoted the now lost work of a Greek scholiast, which included certain historical facts about the Perytons obviously taken from the oracles before the Library of Alexandria was burned by Omar. The name of the learned Greek has not come down to us, but his fragments run:
"The Perytons had their original dwelling in Atlantis and are half deer, half bird. They have the deer's head and legs. As for its body, it is perfectly avian, with corresponding wings and plumage. . . . Its strangest trait is that, when the sun strikes it, instead of casting a shadow of its own body, it casts the shadow of a man. From this, some conclude that the Perytons are the spirits of wayfarers who have died far from their homes and from the care of their gods. . . . . and have been surprised eating dry earth . . . flying in flocks and have been seen at a dizzying height above the Columns of Hercules. . . . they [PerytonsJ are mortal foes of the human race; when they succeed in killing a man, their shadow is that of their own body and they win back the favor of their gods. . . . and those who crossed the seas with Scipio to conquer Carthage came close to failure, for during the passage a formation of Perytons swooped down on the ships, killing and mangling many. . . . Although our weapons have no effect against it, the animal-if such it be-can kill no more than a single man. . . . wallowing in the gore of its victims and then fleeing upward on its powerful wings. . . . in Ravenna, where they were last seen, telling of their plumage which they described as light blue in color, which greatly suprised me for all that is known of their dark green feathers. Though these excerpts are sufficiently explicit, it is to be lamented that down to our own time no further intelligence about the Perytons has reached us. The rabbi's treatise, which preserved this description for us, had been on deposit until before the last World War in the library of the University of Dresden. It is painful to say that this document has also disappeared, and whether as a consequence of bombardment or of the earlier book burning of the Nazis, it is not known. Let us hope that one day another copy of the work may be discovered and again come to adorn the shelves of some library."


So, the only sources which mention the peritio have been destroyed, and the first mention of it in an extant document is in a work by a known trickster. Yeah, we've been played by a master- the guy who would have us believe that Don Quixote was written by a Frenchman named Pierre Menard.

The Wikipedia entry for the peryton has been corrected to reflect the peryton put-on but other wikis haven't been updated to reflect the circumstantial evidence that Borges punked us. This particular juxtaposition from Monstropedia is unintentionally hilarious:

The Peryton (or winged dear) is a legendary creature combining physical features of a stag and a bird.


The earliest verifiable account of the peryton occurs in Jorge Luis Borges' Book of Imaginary Beings, in which he refers to a now-lost medieval manuscript as a source. The word is completely unknown in sources from Classical antiquity and from morphological and thematic characteristics one could conclude that if is not a completely modern invention, neither could it be of any origin earlier than the medieval period. The concept of the peryton seems to have become widely known due to its inclusion in the first edition Monster Manual from the popular role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons.


Borges dedicated the story There Are More Things to H.P. Lovecraft- it's tempting to picture the perytion as a fictional relative of the Shantak, or perhaps a winged horror, the multi-branching tentacles of which (used for sanguivorous purposes no doubt) were mistaken for antlers.

The Shaddow Kingdom*

*The double "D" is intentional- a viewing of the video will reveal the reason for the unorthodox spelling.

After the usual job-related October ass-kicking, I finally have some leisure time to surf the 'net, and I came across this gem (I'm a sucker for cognitive junk food like the Shaver mystery, von Dänikenism, and the like) of a video:





A more cynical person would say that Ms. Thomas' ample display of cleavage is a crass attempt to garner views, but I am sure that she is just making us aware of her mammalian bona fides, as she warns us of the Reptilian Menace. It's amazing that the basic premise of the Reptilian Invasion conspiracy "theory" has been lifted whole-cloth from Robert E. Howard's The Shadow Kingdom. It boggles my mind to think that now, over eighty years later, the story still has legs.

I think REH had one detail slightly wrong... the one phrase that our hidden Reptilian overlords cannot say is actually "Que tatas aah mammamamma!"

My favorite line in the scrolling text of the video has got to be, "I am fully versed in physics, politics, earth history, and alien affairs." This particular line is the funniest bombast I've read since the infamous ""I am aware of all internet traditions." The title is also a winner- media blits? "Blits" must be a portmanteau word, combining "Blitz" and, oh, why even bother to spell it out?

The Destroying Muse

It's been many years since I've been involved with a tempestuous beauty with a virulent temper and a wicked throwing arm, but I have always been fascinated with the archetype of the destroying muse, best known in the figure of the Leanan Sidhe of Celtic legend. Seabury Quinn's Dark Rosaleen, sharing the title of James Clarence Mangan's poem, is a good introduction to this shadowy figure, as is this song by Australian garage rock band The Screaming Tribesmen:

That Time of the Year

This is the time of the year that, to put it bluntly, kicks my ass. When the movie Thirty Days of Night came out, I joked about how it described a typical October for me, which is the busy season on the job. On a typical Saturday, I leave the house at 8AM for a volunteer gig, then hotfoot it to work, typically coming home after 1AM on Sunday. I'm not complaining, though- overwork beats no work at all.

Pure Pulpy Goodness

I picked this up at the local library's fifty-cent per pound used book sale:





It's a 1994 Barnes & Nobel anthology of stories from Weird Tales, containing more pulpy goodness than a fifty-five gallon drum of orange juice. I was able to buy it just in time for the Halloween season, when eldritch escapism is the flavor of the month.

Stolen Apples Taste the Best

Last summer, I made a resolution to forage for at least one wild foodstuff a week during the growing season. This time of year, ripe wild grapes are abundant, and apples are available to those who know of untended orchards (which are not uncommon in localities which were once farmland). This week, I was able to pick some "feral" apples:





I do not, and would not, pick apples on private land without permission from the owner, but apple-theft, or scrumping, traditionally has been common enough to earn its own verb. This crime, usually indulged in by youthful gadabouts, was referred to in the Who's 5:15:

On a raft in the quarry
Slowly sinking.
On the back of a lorry
Holy hitching.
Dreadfully sorry
Apple scrumping.
Born in the war
Birthday punching.


While I have never played Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, I purchased the Hogshead publishing version of the first edition rulebook and have read it enough to write up a brief summary of "Scrumper" as an introductory profession within the thief class:

M __
WS__
BS +10
S__
T__
W__
I__
A__
Dex +10
LD__
Int__
Cl__
WP__
Fel__


Skills:
Concealment-Rural
Flee!
Indentify Plant
Scale Sheer Surface
Silent Move-Rural


Trappings:
Shoulder bag
Knife
15' Rope


Career exits:
Woodsman
Thief (general)
Servant
Outlaw
Herbalist
Gamekeeper/Poacher


Not an overly powerful career, but an appropriate skill set for a 16th Century apple-thief in a magic-haunted, decadent world.


To clarify that I am not, indeed, a thief, my activity, picking otherwise unused fruits, is more properly known as usufruct (gleaning is a particular type of usufruct- gleaners would follower harvesters and take the agricultural products that had been missed (the French documentary The Gleaners and I is a poignant and entertaining look at this phenomenon). For additional reading on usufruct, this thread about "guerrilla harvests" has an anecdote, from commenter "Keith Talent", which amused and impressed me to no end:

When we were kids, my mother was a devoted canner, her favourite game, (still is actually) was "lets pretend we're poor," which dovetailed nicely with her other favourite passtime (sic) "Lets save pennies." Explaining the cost of driving across town to save on tinned tuna wasn't really a savings due to gas and time did not compute for her.

Anyway, the local high security prision (sic) had a number of apple trees on the grounds, outside of the formal prison proper but within a barbed wired yard. Mom marched up to the gate, informed the gaurds (sic) on duty she was a taxpayer and intended to not see the apples fall uneaten to the ground agian (sic), she was here to pick them with her two young sons. She'd make applesauce.

Unbeleiveably (sic) they allowed it, we picked apples on the prison yard. I liked my mom for throwing nice apples over the fence to the prisoners on excercise break in the actual yard. My brother and I were completely terrified the whole time. We never went back a second time, I suspect my father probably forbid it, or maybe my brother and I whining made the apples cost more than they were worth.