Found 38 posts matching ‘Dragons’ |
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The Right Word –
November 4, 2017 |
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This is the final line of The Female Freemasons, 1840. One recalls what Warren Mars said: "The final line should have read: 'and they watched the young dragons fly up and up into the azure sky until they became just dots, and then disappeared. "Let’s go home," said Reyne.'" Granted, Mars was referring to a different book, but we find that his suggestion has universality.
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Restoring the Lost Sense –
April 19, 2017 |
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Restoring the Lost Sense –
December 2, 2016 |
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Restoring the Lost Sense –
August 26, 2016 |
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Restoring the Lost Sense –
July 28, 2016 |
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Restoring the Lost Sense –
November 10, 2015 |
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The Right Word –
October 26, 2015 |
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We celebrate how Webster's dictionary used to be truly practical — back when it covered (counterclockwise from the top left) tritons, phrenology, the zodiac, the Colossus of Rhodes, satyrs, dragons, unicorns, Pan, and Atlas (the Greek god, not the maps). Here's to Webster's Practical Dictionary, 1906, for covering topics to which we daily devote ourselves.
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I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought –
January 9, 2012 |
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Ponce’s Honor Lionized by Scholar
St. Augustine, Florida — An unlikely quest to vindicate Ponce de León’s integrity has led a lexicographer of magic words to demystify the Fountain of Youth.
Equipped with a portable camera obscura and a reference tome of alchemical symbols, scholar Craig Conley formally verified De León’s prediction that the spring of healing waters would not be guarded by "shapes of magic.”
"De León may have been a visionary,” Conley said, "but his head wasn’t stuck in the clouds.”
Conley, author of Magic Words: A Dictionary (Weiser Books), explained his use of the camera obscura, an antique photographic instrument.
"Often, magical symbols are only detectable from oblique angles. The camera obscura projects an upside down image inside its darkened chamber. It offers a way of studying something without directly looking at it, to examine from a fresh perspective, without preconceptions.”
Indeed, a popular preconception about De León’s motives is what inspired Conley’s own pursuit for vindication.
Just as facts can become muddied over time, folklore can devolve into "fakelore,” as oral historian Richard Dorson dubbed it.
Hence, De León’s quest for the Fountain of Youth is now popularly regarded as a childish pipe dream—a castle in Spain, if you will—even though evidence points toward a scientific initiative.
De León’s level-headedness is self-evident in a conversation with King Ferdinand, transcribed by Eugene Lee-Hamilton in 1891. De León explained that the Fountain of Youth is a miracle of nature, not of alchemy:
"No shapes of magic guard the potent spring; no circling dragons watch it night and day; no evil angels sit beside its brink, to mirror their dark wings within its waves. It hath nor spell nor supernatural essence, but is mere natural water,” rich in minerals and salts and filtered through highly potent medicinal mosses.
Ferdinand asked what then guarded the Fountain of Youth. In answer, De León described the wilds of Florida:
"The dreadful guard of Nature: inextricable forests and morasses, haunts of the panther and all clawed assassins, in whose pestiferous depths and clueless tangle no white man yet has ventured.”
Granted, De León didn’t become associated with healing waters until after his death. Yet popular legends possess an authenticity independent of cold fact.
For example, the "higher truths” in accounts of Washington’s honesty, Lincoln’s humility, and De León’s derring-do are crucial to American civilization.
Conley affirms that the integrity of folklore calls for preservation, maintenance, and protection.
A scholar of esoterica would seem an unlikely champion of De León’s scientific approach. Conley explains, "Old-school skeptics are open-minded. I came to the Fountain of Youth unsure of whether or not I’d find magical symbols. Frankly, had I found them, it would have been an exciting chapter in the living history of the spring.
"However, I must admit that I’m delighted to vindicate Ponce de León.”
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The Ghost in the [Scanning] Machine –
June 12, 2011 |
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Colorful Allusions –
September 25, 2008 |
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First China’s sons, with early art elate, / Form’d the gay tea- pot, and the pictured plate; / Saw with illumined brow and dazzled eyes / In the red stove vitrescent colours rise; / Speck’d her tall beakers with enamel’d stars, / Her monster- josses, and gigantic jars; / Smear’d her huge dragons with metallic hues, / With golden purples, and cobaltic blues; / Bade on wide hills her porcelain castles glare, / And glazed Pagodas tremble in the air.
—Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), Botanic Garden.
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Chris of the Buggeryville blog refers us to this thoughtful piece on why unicorns are traditionally slaughtered rather than caught. Meanwhile, our Field Guide to Identifying Unicorns by Sound: A Compact Handbook of Mythic Proportions is now available through Amazon.com. Did you know you can preview the book in HTML format at OneLetterWords.com? A pragmatic reference book replete with tips and easy-to-digest tidbits from folklore, physics, and literature, A Field Guide to Identifying Unicorns by Sound is at once a commonplace book, a work of refined playfulness and wit, and ultimately a self-help tool for centering and opening awareness through active listening. Blending the author’s signature sensitivity to the awe and magic wrapped up in folkloric phenomena with a tongue-in-cheek bending of scientific principles to his fanciful purpose, this concise book uniquely balances humor, scholarship, spirituality, and imagination. A Field Guide to Identifying Unicorns by Sound invites imaginative readers to step outside and suspend disbelief for a spell. The book gently reminds readers of their capacity to perceive subtle signals in nature as they meditatively pay attention. As readers open their ears and awaken their inner senses, they are guided to effortlessly attune to whispers of the soul. Receptivity and intuition emerge from dormancy. Readers may set off in search of hearing a unicorn, but through deep listening they are likely to encounter their higher selves. From time immemorial, unicorns have captured the imagination of humankind and figured in fantasy, folklore, and myth. Public interest in unicorns is at an all-time high, as evidenced by the American Museum of Natural History’s recent “Mythic Creatures” exhibit about dragons, unicorns and mermaids. Yet until now there has not been a practical guide to observing these beloved creatures. A Field Guide to Identifying Unicorns by Sound fills this void with light-hearted humor. It’s the only portable handbook of auditory unicorniana you’ll ever need. A Field Guide to Identifying Unicorns by Sound is organized into approximately fifty brief chapters, each of which serves to expose the reader to a particular variety of unicorn sound. Only the author who dazzled us with a thousand One-Letter Words could have catalogued 49 distinct varieties of unicorn sounds and described in luscious, colorful detail their salient qualities. Delightful, enchanting, and unique, it is perhaps the ultimate in whimsical zoology. Through how-to narration, evocative imagery, meaningful quotations, and irreverent asides, the author sustains a premise as well developed as it is accessible and as engaging and convincing as it is fantastic. The meditational imagination is stimulated, and the funny bone tickled, by means of eclectic lists of evocative associations that illustrate the sonic flavor of each featured unicorn sound. In concert with all this, dozens of easy-to-grasp, deceptively sensible illustrations expertly marry science and whimsy. Enchanted by the author’s hushed whispers, cogent explanations, and fresh, sparkling laughter, readers will experience a strong yearning to listen for unicorns. Moreover, they will be pleased to learn that in the stillness of profound, focused listening they may discover a transformative connection to the grand mystery of the universe. The book encourages readers to “slow down, sit in silence, and savor all of the precious moments that enrich our daily lives,” as in Virginia Lang & Louise Nayer’s How to Bury a Goldfish. (Thanks, Jonathan!) |
Original Content Copyright © 2025 by Craig Conley. All rights reserved.
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