Author: cursedtraveler

Rusalii -the beauty of a dream

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Today I shall take you for a walk in a forest we shall go near Bucharest where is a little pond where witches are supposed to come, we can hunt treasures as today is a big day.

This Sunday will be 50 days since Easter. For many, that means the Holy Spirit came on earth, and the apostles started to convert more people to Christianity. Today in my country we also celebrate a Roman holiday named Rusalli. So take my hand and let me tell you their story. Rusalii are some beautiful women. They are supposed to be the daughters of Rusalim Emperor, for some a personification of Jerusalem. Others say that the Rusalii are just some beautiful girls with magic powers. In some versions, they are wrong if you upset them. They like to dance in the forests. Those that see them get enchanted by their beauty and their dance so enchanted that the only way to bring back that person will be to let Calusarii (a group of 13 men who will dance a traditional dance). This dance is known to bring good luck but also to help those that were enchanted by the Rusalii). 

Where the Rusalli are dancing, the grass will get black, and if any mortal is watching, they will be punished. Some say that the herbs are healing until July, when there is another holiday like this one. On the Rusalii, people put all kinds of green leaves on doors. Some even put garlic to keep the evil spirits away. The green is supposed to bring good luck.

I know it is dangerous to have this walk, so if you are afraid to come and walk with me here, you can go. I will have this by myself. For women should be less dangerous, the Rusalii prefer men more than women. But if you are not afraid, grab my hand and let’s go. 

We can feel the grass, feel how relaxing it is to walk even if it is pretty dark. Can you feel the smell of the linden tree? Is so powerful. There you can also feel the smell of water, can you?

Yes, I thought that you felt it.

Come close to the pound, we shall find a spot on the grass near the water to just stay and enjoy. 

On this night, we might also maybe see some flames as is a big night, the flames of a treasure might also appear, or we might have the good luck or bad luck to meet the white-dressed girls, the Rusalii.

Is so quiet, you can hear the wind and somewhere in the dark. I think it is a tiny frog as I can listen to.

Mmm, there is a strange sweet smell. Can you feel it? It doesn’t seem to be from a linden tree.. it is so sweet, and the air seems so hmm bit strange…

Are you a bit scared that we might meet the beautiful girls?

Talking about beautiful girls, do you hear that noise?

It seems we are not entirely alone. Can you hear them? We are not alone. The wind started to be stronger, and also the sweet smell. There is something white, can you see it? Right there near the tree… Looks like a human. Shh, keep quiet.

Yes, we see good there are… they look like beautiful women indeed, so beautiful and with such white dresses, they seem like fireflies, they are lighted. They seem so beautiful, and they dance so beautifully. I just feel so drawn to them to go and dance with them. Can you hear them? They sing, so lovely like they are from heaven. If I didn’t know they could be dangerous, I would dance with them.

What are you doing? Stay down. They will see us!

Where do you think you will go? You can’t go to them, can you hear me?

No way, you got enchanted by their song, you can’t go to them to dance with them. That’s too dangerous, don’t go, please. 

Wait! You forget they are evil and can punish you. I took you here not to go to them. 

But even if I beg, he goes away, and they see him, they still dance and sing so lovely.. so nice that I’m so tempted to go to join them. He is near now, and I can’t stop him, they now see him, one is taking his hand, he grabs her and starts to sing like them. He is too enchanted. He is dancing with them. I feel so drowned in them. I try to resist the feeling…

Try to not go, now they seem to be floating, not dancing, and the wind feels so good. It is strange how I know it’s not good to go, but my curiosity is so big to just see them a bit closer. 

Just to have a grasp of them … I can’t resist the feeling I need to see them closer no matter what. So I’m going to them, dance with them to feel their hands in mine to float with them. Oh, they saw me, called me, and knew my name. Here I come to dance with you to discover your mysteries…

Mmm, I feel so tired, I can hear the birds singing it seems it is morning, I’m near a pond and a forest it seems I got asleep here… in the middle of nowhere, I can’t remember too much, I do have a strong headache. It seems I’m alone. Even if I remember well, last night I wasn’t. I think I dreamed about the Rusalii ?! They were so beautiful, danced so lovely, and were like floating and I think I dreamed that they took me with them. We were flying ?! We got into another forest, where I had never been before, full of long trees, and there were many big stones. Then they showed me a cave, we entered inside, they were smiling. They showed me a treasure. I think there were big boxes with all kinds of golden things. There were rubies, sapphires, and all sorts of stones. They smiled and showed me their treasure, there were also some books, they seemed so old, they were skin-covered, but wait there in corners were some skeletons… Those skeletons were wearing some jewelry. The rest of the dream I can’t remember. But wait, what I have on my neck, this is not my necklace… so I wasn’t dreaming… 

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The clay man-Golem- between tradition and fiction

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Today, I shall take you on a trip in time. We will follow the tradition and religious field. I’m not too much into religion as you know, but I do like rituals and discovering more about them.

So, today we will travel and discover more about the Judaic religion. I shall tell you about a Judaic tradition. According to tradition, if you are in trouble and you are of Judaic religion .. well then you are in luck. The tradition says you can invoke a clay creature to come and save you from your foe. You may ask, how come? What kind of creature is, does that exist? Well, until recently I never heard about it, but it seems that this creature has a long history. Long enough that the first time when mentioned is in the book of books, and that is the Bible. Where we humans, were seen by God as raw, unfinished creatures of clay. 

We are supposed to be made out of clay considering religions ..even if science has an opposite view about this, saying that more likely we are made out of blood and flesh ( I tend to believe the seconds as hmm I never bleed clay, but who knows:) ) 

Let’s get back to the story, so this creature that you can invoke when you are in big trouble and you need protection is a Golem. Golem in Hebrew means dumb, brainless. Getting back to the Bible, it seems that the two words were characteristic of Adam, the first man. I hope that they were wrong… 

In Talmud, the book of books, of Jewish there are also mentioned other guys, that are made of clay and can’t speak for themselves or so I heard.

What is supposed to be a Golem? It seems a golem is a clay creature, that was created by someone to protect him or to protect loved ones. Now you will wonder how can we create a Golem? Well, the tradition says first you should know some words in Hebrew as you will need to use them in your spell or prey, however you want to call it. 

Here in this link, you can see a picture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem

A man that brought to life a Golem was the rabbi of Prague, Judah Loew ben Bezalel ( I hope I spelled right his name, he might send a Golem after me if I upset him even if he is from a long time passed on the other world). He brought to life the Golem to protect his community. As in those times, the Jews were persecuted. He brought it to life by sticking in his clay figurine the ” truth” word written in Hebrew. The Golem protected them for a time until one day, Judah Loew ben Bezalel forgot to indicate his Golem. So the golem started to attack everyone. The story goes, that to stop him from killing, another word had to be put in his mouth, the word “death” in Hebrew. 

What remained from this Golem was stored in the old Synagogue from Prague, in the attic. Those that are curious can go to look for it and see if the legend has some truth in it.

But have in mind that a few hundred years went by since then and two wars, so most likely the Golem, if he was there, probably was moved or vanished with time( clay can do that at times).

The legends about Golems are not just Prague. It seems another Golem was about to be born in Vilna, Lithuania, in the 18 century, when the rabbi Chaim Volozhin tried when he was a boy to bring one to live but he received a sign from heaven to stop, and so he did.

So we have at least two legends, at least so far those that I found. While we have this trip, maybe we will encounter other people that know more about these legends. Or you who have joined me, perhaps you know more. If you do, let me know 🙂

I hope you enjoyed this short trip and that you will want to follow me on other trips too.

 

Crystal Skulls Quartz

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Today, I shall take you on a new trip. Grab my hand, and let’s get lost in history. We would try to find out why people are fascinated by skulls. Not any kind of skulls, crystal skulls made of quartz. 

Around the 19 century, the first skull appeared. The word came that the skull could be from the Aztec period. Aztecs had the habit of gathering many skulls and building them into a wall. This kind of wall was called Tzompantli. It was a wall full of skulls, but it wasn’t made of crystal skulls but from real skulls that dried into the wall with time. The Aztecs sacrificed people, getting their hearts off and keeping their heads for the wall. They were pretty good with obsidian blades and very precise. I guess they were doing it quite often. This wall was dedicated to their war god.

 Now let’s go back to the crystal skulls. Some skulls are part of the museum’s collection. One of them is exhibited in the British Museum. You can see it on the link below.

https://www.britishmuseum.org/system_pages/beta_collection_introduction/beta_collection_object_details/beta_collection_image_gallery.aspx?assetId=20718001&objectId=662974&partId=1

Another one is in the Smithsonian Museum, and you can also see it on the link below.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-smithsonians-crystal-skull-51638609/

Other crystals have private collectors. People are fascinated about the skulls as a memento mori, constantly reminding us that death can come, and also, for some, the crystal skulls seem to have some powers, or at least that’s what some are pretending. Some people think the skulls have healing power. So if you touch them, you might get healed( I wonder if they really do that, it could be suitable for this season to cure all the flu, at least for sure I would need that to get rid of my flue 🙂 ) or you psychic abilities might expand in the presence of them. Some find the skulls like some kind of computer that are already programmed. You just need to touch them. Others believed they could bring misfortune for some.

Nobody was able to find anything about their power scientifically. Except maybe they can enchant the eyes with their beauty as they are adorable carved in quartz.

They can’t be dated. The date can be approximated by how skulls were made. The tools that were used to carve them. These crystals were probably made somewhere in Germany, probably somewhere late in the 19 century. The material probably came from Madagascar or Brazil. At first, they were supposed to be from the pre-Columbian period. But there were no such skulls in any excavations found.

Another famous skull was supposed to be discovered in 1924 by Anna Mitchel Hedges, a British adventurer’s adopted daughter of Mitchel Hedges. This skull, at first glance, seems like a replica of the skull from the British Museum, a more intricate replica with mobile teeth. It seems, according to Anna, that she found it buried into a collapsed altar inside a temple in Lubaantun in British Honduras, now Belize. There are some proofs the skull wasn’t found there but bought by Mitchel Hedges at an auction in London. He wrote a letter to his brother where he mentioned this fact.

Either way is a beautiful skull made of clear quartz having the same size as a small human cranium, measuring 13 cm height, 18 cm long, 13cm wide with the lower jaw detached. At some point, the skull was in the custody of freelancer art restorer Frank Dorland. He thought that the skull was quite old, around 12000 years old. He felt that he couldn’t fine any tell-tall scratch marks except mechanical grinding on teeth, thinking that it was chiseled into a rough form, probably using diamonds and the final polish using sand of a period of 150 to 300 years. While the skull had Anna Mitchel Hedges, she refused other tests on the skull.

The skull is mentioned scarcely in the autobiography of Mitchel Hedges without saying from where he got it. But he did claim that it was at least 3600 years old, saying that according to the legend, it was used by the Highest Priest of the Maya when he was performing esoteric rites. The Priest was using it when he wanted the death of someone, and the end would come. For that reason, the skull was also called the Skull of Doom.

After Anna died, the skull got into the possession of her husband. He took the skull to the office of an anthropologist in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History for examination. A detailed examination of the skull was carried using ultraviolet light, a high-powered light microscope, and computerized tomography. A year later, the skull was examined again for a documentary. On this occasion, two sets of silicone molds of surface skull marks were made for the scanning electron microscope. It seems that the skull was made with a high-speed metal rotary tool coated with an abrasive such as diamond. This fact leads to the conclusion that most probably that skull was carved around 1930 probably as a replica of the one exhibited in the British Museum. The exciting part of the documentary is that there was a facial reconstruction after the skull, and it seems it was a female skull with European characteristics. So most probably, the skull was carved over a replica of an actual human skull. So most likely is not an ancient skull.

With or without special powers, the skulls still remain beautiful carvings, even if most probably they are not ancient and probably not from Aztecs or Maya times, they are still beautiful, mysterious carvings.

Here is a documentary that I found on YouTube: 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxEmA1rTQdk ;

I hope you enjoyed the trip with me and next time you will come to enjoy another trip to an exciting place.

Pigot Diamond

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Today I shall take you on a new trip in time we will follow the history of another diamond. A diamond that got lost in time. So grab my hand prepare yourself, and let’s get lost in history.

Our diamond is called Pigot Diamond or the Lottery diamond, had 47,38 carats, was without color, oval-shaped cut brilliant, saw the light on Golkonda mine before the year 1763, to follow his history we shall go to India, to Golkonda mine. After we follow this diamond history in England, for that time was the largest diamond in Europe. Our diamond won’t stay long in Europe. In 1820, the diamond will be found in Egypt, from where it will get lost.

Let’s follow his history closer. The diamond will be obtained by Sir George Pigot when he was a governor in Madras. Probably he received it as a gift from the Rajah, a gift that will bring trouble for Pigot as some will consider that he misused his powers to obtain it. Because of it, Pigot was imprisoned in 1776. Fortunately, the Parliament decided he wasn’t guilty, and they passed two resolutions against his imprisonment. Even if the Parliament decided in his favor, he died imprisoned the following year. The Pigot diamond’s next owner will be his family. The value of the diamond was quite impressive that they couldn’t obtain the right price, so they thought to sell the diamond in a new way.

They decided a lottery should be organized then. Games of chance were illegal in England, but they could obtain the Parliament to agree with this lottery. There were 11428 tickets to be sold, each for two guineas. Diamond got in the end to Rundell and Parker. From this, our diamond can bear the name of Lottery diamond, as you don’t sell diamonds in this way usually.

As we follow this diamond history, we discover that later, Rundell and Parker will try to sell the diamond to France to the famous Napoleon Bonaparte. There was just a problem at that moment France and England were at war. So the story goes that Napoleon started to think that the diamond came from England, so Rundell and Parker will have to wait until Napoleon falls. It is not pleasant to wait the fall of a man, to get back what you own. 

Rundell and Parker will file a lawsuit and recover their diamond. The owners will be now Rundell and Bridge after Parker gets out of the business. They will try to sell it. First, they will be sending replicas of diamonds worldwide to clients that can afford them. It seems the diamond attracted many eyes. The story goes in two different ways: one says that the diamond got the interest of the Pasha of Egypt who, will buy it in 1822, the other story favors an Albanian Prince who is supposed to buy it, but they both had the same intention to give the stone to mighty Sultan. The story’s first version says that when Pasha( he didn’t obey the Sultan the same as the Prince) was killed by Sultan’s men, he told his best friend to smash the beautiful diamond. Others favor the rumors that the diamond is the Spoon diamond that lays in Topkapi Palace. But diamonds had different weights, the Spoon diamond being larger than the Pigot diamond.

Unfortunately, we can’t follow more of this beautiful history. We can only hope that the diamond wasn’t smashed and maybe is somewhere on a piece of beautiful jewelry waiting to be admired by hungry eyes. I hope you enjoyed this trip in time and that you will again come with me on another trip.