Triggered by another post I didn’t want to hijack:
Excalibur.
In the legends, Excalibur comes out of a lake (although some versions have Excalibur as the sword in the stone, those are later…the sword Arthur pulls from the stone breaks and he goes to get a better one).
From the “Lady of the Lake.”
Here’s the thing.
In northern Europe in the Iron Age all the way through to the early Medieval period, most iron came from bog iron. It was hard to smelt, because it was a rather low grade ore, but you didn’t have to mine it and it was a renewable resource (in about twenty years you could just come back and get more, because it formed constantly).
Meaning that the iron used to make a sword came…out of water.
In most fairy stories, fairies don’t like iron. So the vision of the Lady as some kind of fairy or elf? Not likely.
The idea of her as a druid? Maybe.
But what’s far more likely is this: The Lady of the Lake was a smith.
But….but…
The Celtic deity in charge of smiths and ironworking was Bridget, a goddess. The mystical associations with the Lady would fit with her being a priestess of Bridget…and thus, a smith.
IOW, Arthurian people, maybe we should not be visualizing the Lady of the Lake as a slender, graceful woman in a gown…
(first tiger jumps in) *laughing* Vanya, what is this? Van’ … Van’, get out of the boot, Van’. (second tiger approaches) Mishka … let’s go. Mish, let’s go. Mishka! Mish, let’s go. Come on, sit. Sit. (third tiger comes in) Bonya, you too are here! Ok let’s go guys. Let’s go! *starts singing* x
Just Russian Things
Big cat stuff can often be sketchy even if the content looks cute, so I clicked on the source for the video and this guy apparently runs a sanctuary for rescue tigers and other big cats near Moscow. His YouTube bio is in Russian, but here’s what it says according to Google Translate:
So you can feel happy knowing that these big dumb cats are loved and being looked after.
What she means: I understand the Chronicles of Narnia was at its heart a fairytale with theological analogies for children. But why did Lewis never address how they had to adapted to life on Earth again. Why does no one talk about how the Pevensies had to grow up with a kingdom of responsibilities on their shoulders, only to return to Earth and be children. Take Lucy, she was youngest and perhaps she adapted more quickly-but she had the memories and mind of a grown woman in an adolescent body. Edmund literally found himself in Narnia, he went from a selfish boy to mature and experienced man. He found a purpose and identity through his experiences to come back as just Edmund, Peter’s younger brother. Did people wonder why the sullen, sour boy came back, carrying himself like a wisened king? Did his mother wonder why he and Peter suddenly got along so well, why they spent so much time together now? And Susan, the girl of logistics and reason came back with a difference in her. She learned how to be a diplomat and ambassador, Susan the Gentle had to live to endure not-so-gentle circumstances. She had the respect she wanted, only to be just another teen girl. And Peter, he entered the manhood and maturity he so wanted. He earned the responsibility and stripes he yearned for. He learned to command armies and conduct the menial tasks demanded of a king to rule a nation. But he came back, appearing to be just anther glory-hungry boy. Not to mention the PTSD they must have struggled with. Especially Edmund. How often did he wake up in a sweat, screaming a sibling or comrade’s name? His parents believe it’s the war, but it’s an entirely different one he has nightmares about. How often did he have trouble with flashbacks and mood swings? And how many times did he and Peter sit over a newspaper or near the radio listening to reports on the troops. How often did they pour over lost battles and debate better strategies. Did their parents ever wonder why they seemed to understand flight war so well? How long was it before they stopped discussing these things in front of people? Why does no one talk about this???
Why am i fucking crying
Why does no one talk about how the Pevensies had to grow up with a
kingdom of responsibilities on their shoulders, only to return to Earth
and be children
It’s not addressed because it’s understood. It was the shared experience of the generation. You are describing coming home from World War One, battle wearied and aged beyond belief, but walking around in the body of a youth. C S Lewis went to the front line of the Somme on his nineteenth birthday and went back to complete uni in 1918 after demob.
Not seen it with this very very pertinent addition before
Toddlers are so pure. She doesn’t understand that we help her with certain things because she’s little. She thinks that everyone just helps each other like that. So she tries to blow on my food and cut it up for me and tries to help me put on my shoes.
i was giving little wagon rides to a baby around the backyard one day and all of a sudden she hops off and slaps the seat of the wagon telling me to get on because it was my turn and i was like no it’s ok im too heavy and she was like NO ITS UR TURN and kept tugging on my hand so i would sit down. eventually i got on and it was just a little 2 year old trying so hard to push me around on a wagon not understanding why it wouldn’t budge but still so determined to let me have my turn lol
I work at a daycare with 2-year-olds and really frequently when I pass by one of my kids I just give their hair a little pat or ruffle, both as a way of letting them know I’m coming through so they don’t move suddenly and trip me, and just as a way of checking in, saying hey, taking their temp, etc. Well today we were playing inside and I was sitting on the carpet because we were playing ring around the rosie and I was tired, and one of my baby boys came up to me and gave my hair a rub and pat. And like it took me a second to realize what he was doing but, yeah. He was saying “hi.” He was saying “I love you”
When the toddlers ol clean up, we give them ice cubes to suck on and we congratulate them on their hard work. One time when I was helping a boy pick up a huge block and he told me “you need TWO ice cubes”.
We’re going to talk about some of the amazing new things NICER is showing us about black holes. But first, let’s talk about black holes — how do they work, and where do they come from? There are two important types of black holes we’ll talk about here: stellar and supermassive. Stellar mass black holes are three to dozens of times as massive as our Sun while supermassive black holes can be billions of times as massive!
Stellar black holes begin with a bang — literally! They are one of the possible objects left over after a large star dies in a supernova explosion. Scientists think there are as many as a billion stellar mass black holes in our Milky Way galaxy alone!
Supermassive black holes have remained rather mysterious in comparison. Data suggest that supermassive black holes could be created when multiple black holes merge and make a bigger one. Or that these black holes formed during the early stages of galaxy formation, born when massive clouds of gas collapsed billions of years ago. There is very strong evidence that a supermassive black hole lies at the center of all large galaxies, as in our Milky Way.
Imagine an object 10 times more massive than the Sun squeezed into a sphere approximately the diameter of New York City — or cramming a billion trillion people into a car! These two examples give a sense of how incredibly compact and dense black holes can be.
Because so much stuff is squished into such a relatively small volume, a black hole’s gravity is strong enough that nothing — not even light — can escape from it. But if light can’t escape a dark fate when it encounters a black hole, how can we “see” black holes?
Scientists can’t observe black holes directly, because light can’t escape to bring us information about what’s going on inside them. Instead, they detect the presence of black holes indirectly — by looking for their effects on the cosmic objects around them. We see stars orbiting somethingmassive but invisible to our telescopes, or even disappearing entirely!
When a star approaches a black hole’s event horizon — the point of no return — it’s torn apart. A technical term for this is “spaghettification” — we’re not kidding! Cosmic objects that go through the process of spaghettification become vertically stretched and horizontally compressed into thin, long shapes like noodles.
Scientists can also look for accretion disks when searching for black holes. These disks are relatively flat sheets of gas and dust that surround a cosmic object such as a star or black hole. The material in the disk swirls around and around, until it falls into the black hole. And because of the friction created by the constant movement, the material becomes super hot and emits light, including X-rays.
At last — light! Different wavelengths of light coming from accretion disks are something we can see with our instruments. This reveals important information about black holes, even though we can’t see them directly.
So what has NICER helped us learn about black holes? One of the objects this instrument has studied during its time aboard the International Space Station is the ever-so-forgettably-named black hole GRS 1915+105, which lies nearly 36,000 light-years — or 200 million billion miles — away, in the direction of the constellation Aquila.
Scientists have found disk winds — fast streams of gas created by heat or pressure — near this black hole. Disk winds are pretty peculiar, and we still have a lot of questions about them. Where do they come from? And do they change the shape of the accretion disk?
It’s been difficult to answer these questions, but NICER is more sensitive than previous missions designed to return similar science data. Plus NICER often looks at GRS 1915+105 so it can see changes over time.
NICER’s observations of GRS 1915+105 have provided astronomers a prime example of disk wind patterns, allowing scientists to construct models that can help us better understand how accretion disks and their outflows around black holes work.
NICER has also collected data on a stellar mass black hole with another long name — MAXI J1535-571 (we can call it J1535 for short) — adding to information provided by NuSTAR, Chandra, and MAXI. Even though these are all X-ray detectors, their observations tell us something slightly different about J1535, complementing each other’s data!
This rapidly spinning black hole is part of a binary system, slurping material off its partner, a star. A thin halo of hot gas above the disk illuminates the accretion disk and causes it to glow in X-ray light, which reveals still more information about the shape, temperature, and even the chemical content of the disk. And it turns out that J1535’s disk may be warped!
Image courtesy of NRAO/AUI and Artist: John Kagaya (Hoshi No Techou)
This isn’t the first time we have seen evidence for a warped disk, but J1535’s disk can help us learn more about stellar black holes in binary systems, such as how they feed off their companions and how the accretion disks around black holes are structured.
NICER primarily studies neutron stars — it’s in the name! These are lighter-weight relatives of black holes that can be formed when stars explode. But NICER is also changing what we know about many types of X-ray sources. Thanks to NICER’s efforts, we are one step closer to a complete picture of black holes. And hey, that’s pretty nice!
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.
late night cashiers at 24-hour convenience stores are the holders of our greatest secrets and most intimate selves
not my mom, not my partner, not God himself has seen me no-make up in line to buy a choco-pop and panty liners while on the brink of a heart felt meltdown
no one has given me the empty stare of complete indifference that fills my anxious nerves with relief
there is nothing like the sweet freedom of complete nihilism experienced at a 7/11 at 2am, God lives in church, the randomness of the unfeeling universe lives at aisle 9 of CVS
what a fabulous and also philosophically horrifying tumblr post, thank you so much
rip tumblr 