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Guess I'm Here


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#1 eidolon

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Posted 25 June 2019 - 06:32 AM

Hi. Been on Neopets for a long, long time (since I was eight or nine I think), but growing frustration with the site and general boredom has sort of driven me to try out something new. Going to be seeing how much I can get away with on a second "main". Should be fun until I almost inevitably get frozen, haha. :)

 

Anyway, it's good to be here. This seems like a really nice community with some good, solid people. As for myself: I'm a historian, I like ghost shows, and I keep pet rats. That's honestly the most important stuff to know. If you ever want to talk about Ancient Greek etymologies or medieval literature please hmu, I could rant for hours. I've got some great anecdotes about dog saints and demon priests.


Edited by eidolon, 25 June 2019 - 06:33 AM.


#2 KaibaSama

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Posted 25 June 2019 - 11:58 AM

Welcome! If you have any questions, feel free to ask! 

 

Also, I love Ancient Greece, so I'd be happy to listen to you rant. 



#3 Bones

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Posted 25 June 2019 - 11:06 PM

Welcome to NC im Bones or Philip either is fine :D



#4 Guest_iCarly_*

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Posted 25 June 2019 - 11:18 PM

Dog saints and demon priests? You have my attention. 



#5 eidolon

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Posted 26 June 2019 - 04:59 AM

Haha, glad to know that my esoteric knowledge has at least some appeal! KaibaSama, I'm far from a proper translator but I've spent some time reading the classics and I can say there's a lot of stuff that people tend to leave out or brush over when they put it into English, and a lot of it is good and funny. One of my favorite scenes is in the Hymn to Demeter when the Great Goddess has disguised herself as a little old lady, but even though she looks really tiny and cute she hits her head on the rafters because it's just an illusion and she actually has the stature of a god.

 

Amethyst, the dog saint is named Saint Guinefort, and he was pretty popular around Lyons in the 14th century. :) The only proper source we have on him is (unfortunately) Stephen of Bourbon's De Supersticione, which takes the stance that the locals were actually unwitting devil-worshipers. There's an interesting Neopets parallel here, actually: St. Guinefort's backstory is the same as the archetypal Gelert, and it's possible the two came from the same storytelling tradition. Go figure!

 

As for the demon priests, there was a fad around the 14th century (those wacky 1300s) where people would go to listen to public speakers who claimed to be demons possessing human form. It was kind of a public spectacle thing. When you live in a thatch hut and have dysentery you take any kind of entertainment you can get, and in this case it was demon-priests mourning their fall from Heaven and trying to con people into sin. The Church obviously disapproved, but then a lot of these "possessions" started when stressed-out young church scholars "summoned demons" for help on their exams. Your call whether they actually got supernatural aid or just had nervous breakdowns.

 

I could probably write essays on all three of these subjects but nobody wants to read that on the intro board of a Neopets program forum, lol. Point is never let anyone tell you history is boring, because history is actually wack. People have been weird for centuries.




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