Trade Secrets

[TisILeclerc]

Oh dear, sorry for being stupid. I'll have to find the sarcasm moji or whatever they're called.

Still, now that I know that the Roman Catholic church destroyed nothing and didn't take over I can sleep easier in my bed.

And no doubt Columbo the Irish detective priest didn't destroy the druids at Iona because they didn't exist and he didn't exist either.

And don't talk about snakes.

[Mick Harper]

[hvered]

Yonah in Hebrew means dove. It sounds like Iona which is always linked with St Columba, columba being Latin for dove. That seems too odd to not mean something but I don’t know what.

There's no evidence of an early church on Iona but perhaps there was something else going on (as with Cuddy ducks over on the Farnes).

[hvered]

[Mick Harper]

Is the dove a Christian symbol? Noah uses one for the same purpose imputed to Christopher Columbus (a right pair of Megalithics) but do doves much appear'in the literature'? Apart from hanging around St Francis and suchlike routine iconography?

There is also the small matter of distinguishing doves from pigeons. Since modern taxonomy treats them all of a piece, I wonder why the ancients seem to draw such a very severe distinction. Not to mention everybody else -- I've never heard of doves being called 'flying rats'.

[hvered]

Pigeon is a young bird, 'especially a young dove', and 'probably from Latin', according to etymologists, unlike dove which is 'probably a native word'. Duvet (from French?) is presumably derived from dove, though officially it 'comes from down', i.e. young bird feathers.

The etymologists also say dove applied to all pigeons originally, old or young. Dove is so widespread it's difficult to tell where it originated. Just as useful in Muslim and Jewish circles as in Christian ones.

[TisILeclerc]

[Boreades]

[hvered]

On a recent visit to Abbotsbury swannery, I've learned that swans were not kept for eating purposes. Even cygnets, which are slightly less unpalatable, were only eaten out of necessity. They are oily and taste fishy, similar to seabirds which also reportedly taste disgusting. I expect the eggs are good though.

In more Megalithic mode, the first thing I noticed about the swannery was the embankment, as level and straight as a Roman agger. I thought it was a railway embankment but there's no railway line there. I defy anyone who says the causeway is not manmade. The swannery is at the eastern end of the Fleet lagoon which the bank protects -- clearly the water is intended to be brackish as there's a small channel to the sea, the only part of the lagoon not cut off from the sea.

[Boreades]