No man can kill him
Drak Bibliophile
--
Paul Howard (Alias Drak Bibliophile), AIM id DrakeBookLover
*
Sometimes The Dragon Wins! [Polite Dragon Smile]
*
Brenda Clough
Oh, it's very old. You have seen MULAN? It is based on a very old
Chinese legend.
Brenad
--
---------
Brenda W. Clough
http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda/
My novel REVISE THE WORLD is now appearing at
www.bookviewcafe.com
Dorothy J Heydt
Drak Bibliophile <drakbib...@comcast.net> wrote:
>-=-=-=-=-=-
>
>but a woman did.
>
>This is really a fantasy theme but I thought somebody here
>might know who first used this idea.
Fantasy is an acceptable topic here. The SF in the name is
defined as "speculative fiction," including both fantasy and
science fiction, and some of the horror fringes like
werewolves and ....
>
>Tolkien used it in The Return Of The King but was he the
>first?
Almost certainly.
The thing is, it isn't *just* "a woman killed him."
Remember that Tolkien was a philologist, and the study of
language was his primary occupation and chief joy.
Now, the word "man" in modern English has two meanings, which
used to be covered by two separate words. _Mann_ in Old
English meant "a man, as distinguished from a woman or a
child." But _wer_ meant "a man, as distinguished from an
animal or a god." Or an Elf, or a Dwarf, or a Hobbit....
Tolkien has implicitly gifted the Westron tongue with the
same kind of ambiguity.
Compare Latin _vir_ corresponding to _wer_; _homo_
corresponding to _mann_, and equivalents in several other
Indo-European languages.
Eowyn was not alone in slaying the Witch-King. Meriadoc
struck the first blow, setting the WK up for Eowyn's killing
stroke.
Tolkien was covering all bases, if I may use a term that is
probably not used in cricket. The WK was killed by a not-man
(a woman) AND a not-Man (a Hobbit).
It's a linguistic pun. I don't think there are any other
fantasy writers who would've come up with it. Well, Lewis
maybe, but AFAIK he never did anything of that kind.
And if you do find any other stories where something is killed
by the joint efforts of a woman and a nonhuman, do let me
know. I'm not optimistic. Stories where something is killed
by a woman, those will be two-a-penny by now. There are
bound to be a couple of examples in each volume of _Sword and
Sorceress_, for starters.
Quoting from another post I made once upon a time:
>If Eowyn and the Witch-King had been pedants like the herb-master
>of Minas Tirith, the dialogue might have gone more like this:
>
>"You fool, no living man may harm me."
>
>"_Distinguo_, Sir, I am not _vir_ but _femina._ Prepare to die."
>
>"Excuse me, your Westron is so imprecise. I did not mean _vir_, I
>meant _homo_."
>
>"Ah, point taken! In that case, permit me to point out that
>Meriadoc, who is not _homo_ but _dimidiulus,_ a Halfling, has
>just introduced an Arnorian blade into your knee."
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at hotmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the hotmail edress.
Kithrup is getting too damn much spam, even with the sysop's filters.
David Johnston
<drakbib...@comcast.net> wrote:
>but a woman did.
>
>This is really a fantasy theme but I thought somebody here
>might know who first used this idea.
>
>Tolkien used it in The Return Of The King but was he the
>first?
>
>I'd accept the idea that a 'curse was unstopable by a man
>but a woman stopped it' as being the same theme.
Well Tolkien was inspired by the "no man born of woman" thing in
Shakespeare, because he figured that was a cheat. Caesarians are
still birth.
Drak Bibliophile
David Johnston
wrote:
>Drak Bibliophile wrote:
>> but a woman did.
>>
>> This is really a fantasy theme but I thought somebody here might know
>> who first used this idea.
>>
>> Tolkien used it in The Return Of The King but was he the first?
>>
>> I'd accept the idea that a 'curse was unstopable by a man but a woman
>> stopped it' as being the same theme.
>>
>> --
>>
>> Paul Howard (Alias Drak Bibliophile), AIM id DrakeBookLover
>> *
>> Sometimes The Dragon Wins! [Polite Dragon Smile]
>> *
>
>
>Oh, it's very old. You have seen MULAN? It is based on a very old
>Chinese legend.
But not really relevant since Mulan wasn't exploiting any prophecy
loopholes.
Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
news:KouG7...@kithrup.com:
> It's a linguistic pun.
Which Tolkein was quite fond of, and fairly good at. LotR is full of
them.
--
Terry Austin
Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole. - David
Bilek
Yeah, I had Terry confused with Hannibal Lecter. - Mike Schilling
Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.
Dorothy J Heydt
Brenda Clough <clo...@erols.com> wrote:
>Drak Bibliophile wrote:
>> but a woman did.
>>
>> This is really a fantasy theme but I thought somebody here might know
>> who first used this idea.
>>
>> Tolkien used it in The Return Of The King but was he the first?
>>
>> I'd accept the idea that a 'curse was unstopable by a man but a woman
>> stopped it' as being the same theme.
>>
>
>Chinese legend.
But see my previous post. It was not just a woman, but a
woman and a nonhuman together, who killed the Witch-King.
T. A. Shippey points out that it's a sort of reaction to the
bit in _Macbeth_ where Macbeth "cannot be killed by man of
woman born," but it turns out Macduff was "from his mother's
womb untimely ripp'd,"* and for purposes of the prophecy that
counts as not "born."
*By some impatient obstetrician, as Richard Armour put it;
more likely Mrs. Macduff senior died in childbirth and the
infant was saved by quick&dirty emergency surgery. Cf.
Julius Caesar.
Dorothy J Heydt
Depends on how you define your terms, doesn't it?
There are several digs at Macbeth and related Scottishisms in
LotR. Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane --- but it's just
soldiers carrying branches! Holy fright! Why couldn't
Shakespeare -- since he was having it all described off-stage
anyway -- have the very TREES stand up and attack the castle
of the murderous usurper?
Then there's Boromir's line, "How long does it take to make a
steward a king, if the king return not?" and Denethor
answered, "Little time, maybe, in places of less lineage. In
Gondor not a thousand generations would suffice." (That's a
dig at the Stewart line, which arose when a Steward married
the daughter of a sonless King.
After that it gets complicated....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_II_of_Scotland
Mind you, I don't think Tolkien had anything in particular
against the Scots or Scotland. His quarrel seems to've been
with Shakespeare, for writing dull, stick-to-the-facts*
history, when he could have written the March of the Ents!
*When something else was possible. Obviously, it wasn't
feasible to tell the truth about Richard III during Elizabeth's
reign.
Dorothy J Heydt
Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
>news:KouG7...@kithrup.com:
>
>> It's a linguistic pun.
>
>Which Tolkein was quite fond of, and fairly good at. LotR is full of
>them.
Indeed. But if I tried to list all of them, we'd be here
till the cows came home, and T. A. Shippey did it better.
Paul Ciszek
In article <KouJv...@kithrup.com>,
Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>
>*By some impatient obstetrician, as Richard Armour put it;
>more likely Mrs. Macduff senior died in childbirth and the
>infant was saved by quick&dirty emergency surgery. Cf.
>Julius Caesar.
Morbid question: How do-able is that, at the level of technology
implied by the setting? I'm sure its a lot easier than performing
a Caesarian on a living woman and have her remain living, but I
was wondering if the popular plot twist (Jaxom in Dragonriders,
Dahut in King of Ys) is really feasible.
--
Please reply to: | "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is
pciszek at panix dot com | indistinguishable from malice."
Autoreply is disabled |
Kurt Busiek
> In article <DJgkm.525$5c6...@nwrddc02.gnilink.net>,
> Brenda Clough <clo...@erols.com> wrote:
>> Drak Bibliophile wrote:
>>> but a woman did.
>>>
>>> This is really a fantasy theme but I thought somebody here might know
>>> who first used this idea.
>>>
>>> Tolkien used it in The Return Of The King but was he the first?
>>>
>>> I'd accept the idea that a 'curse was unstopable by a man but a woman
>>> stopped it' as being the same theme.
>>>
>>
>> Oh, it's very old. You have seen MULAN? It is based on a very old
>> Chinese legend.
>
> But see my previous post. It was not just a woman, but a
> woman and a nonhuman together, who killed the Witch-King.
Yeah, but that's not the question.
Tolkien was indeed probably the first to do the "not a man but a woman
and a non-human," but your pointing that out doesn't mean that's the
parameters the OP is asking about. He's asking about "No man can kill
him...but a woman did."
Tolkien's scene fits that, but other scenes that fit that without
hobbits or other non-humans in them would work too.
MULAN doesn't count because, as noted, she doesn't defy any "no man can
kill him" prophecies, not because there aren't any hobbits involved.
kdb
--
Visit http://www.busiek.com -- for all your Busiek needs!
Kurt Busiek
> Drak Bibliophile wrote:
>> but a woman did.
>> This is really a fantasy theme but I thought somebody here might know
>> who first used this idea.
>> Tolkien used it in The Return Of The King but was he the first?
>> I'd accept the idea that a 'curse was unstopable by a man but a woman
>> stopped it' as being the same theme.
>
>
> Oh, it's very old. You have seen MULAN? It is based on a very old
> Chinese legend.
It may be that the earliest recorded version of it is the Hindu legend
of Mahishasura, who was magicked by Brahma so that he could not be
killed by man or god. He was killed by his wife, who was empowered by
the gods' female attributes.
Dorothy J Heydt
Paul Ciszek <nos...@nospam.com> wrote:
>
>In article <KouJv...@kithrup.com>,
>Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>>
>>*By some impatient obstetrician, as Richard Armour put it;
>>more likely Mrs. Macduff senior died in childbirth and the
>>infant was saved by quick&dirty emergency surgery. Cf.
>>Julius Caesar.
>
>Morbid question: How do-able is that, at the level of technology
>implied by the setting? I'm sure its a lot easier than performing
>a Caesarian on a living woman and have her remain living, but I
>was wondering if the popular plot twist (Jaxom in Dragonriders,
>Dahut in King of Ys) is really feasible.
Well, it has been done. Nineteenth-century doctors were
instructed on how to do it. The really nasty cases came in
when the mother was still alive, but the child was *stuck*
and no way was it going to get out in one piece. In which
case, the doctor would have to ask the mother (if she were in
any condition to speak) or the father, which one do you want
me to save? If the answer was "the child," the doctor would
perform an emergency quick-and-dirty C-section and take out
the baby. The mother, depend on it, would die. If the
answer was "the mother," then the doctor had to use certain
other tools to cut up the child into small enough pieces that
they could be delivered vaginally. I've seen pictures of
"embryotomy tools." Now if you'll excuse me, I don't want to
talk or think about it any more.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
I was just reminded of a scene I envisioned years ago, in which it was
prophesied that no one could kill the enemy, and the Captain of the
Nautilus shot him dead.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
David Johnston
Ciszek) wrote:
>
>In article <KouJv...@kithrup.com>,
>Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>>
>>*By some impatient obstetrician, as Richard Armour put it;
>>more likely Mrs. Macduff senior died in childbirth and the
>>infant was saved by quick&dirty emergency surgery. Cf.
>>Julius Caesar.
>
>Morbid question: How do-able is that, at the level of technology
>implied by the setting? I'm sure its a lot easier than performing
>a Caesarian on a living woman and have her remain living, but I
>was wondering if the popular plot twist (Jaxom in Dragonriders,
>Dahut in King of Ys) is really feasible.
If the kid is ready to pop, I don't see any particular problem with
it. The tricky part is leaving the mother alive.
David Johnston
Dorothy J Heydt
OK, that's close.
But it's not a linguistic pun.
Dorothy J Heydt
You probably had in the back of your brain somewhere the
scene in the Odyssey where Polyphemus complains that Noman
has blinded him, and the others reply, "Then it is the work
of the gods, and we dare not interfere."
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
Actually, it derived from my old superhero joke about the most powerful
trio of heroes in the world: Nobody, No-one, and Nothing.
Kurt Busiek
> In article <h6sbue$um1$1...@solani.org>, Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.com> wrote:
>> On 2009-08-23 12:26:27 -0700, Brenda Clough <clo...@erols.com> said:
>>
>>> Drak Bibliophile wrote:
>>>> but a woman did.
>>>> This is really a fantasy theme but I thought somebody here might know
>>>> who first used this idea.
>>>> Tolkien used it in The Return Of The King but was he the first?
>>>> I'd accept the idea that a 'curse was unstopable by a man but a woman
>>>> stopped it' as being the same theme.
>>>
>>>
>>> Oh, it's very old. You have seen MULAN? It is based on a very old
>>> Chinese legend.
>>
>> It may be that the earliest recorded version of it is the Hindu legend
>> of Mahishasura, who was magicked by Brahma so that he could not be
>> killed by man or god. He was killed by his wife, who was empowered by
>> the gods' female attributes.
>
> OK, that's close.
It's an exact match.
> But it's not a linguistic pun.
So what?
He didn't ask for linguistic puns. He asked for "No man can kill
him...but a woman does."
That you're het up about Tolkien's liguistic pun does not make it part
of the original question, no matter how much you enjoy repeatedly
pointing it out.
Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
> In article <Xns9C708B62065...@69.16.186.50>,
> Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
>>news:KouG7...@kithrup.com:
>>
>>> It's a linguistic pun.
>>
>>Which Tolkein was quite fond of, and fairly good at. LotR is
>>full of them.
>
> Indeed. But if I tried to list all of them, we'd be here
> till the cows came home, and T. A. Shippey did it better.
>
That is entirely true. Though it never hurts to remind ourselves of
his genius.
Robert Bannister
> In article <DJgkm.525$5c6...@nwrddc02.gnilink.net>,
> Brenda Clough <clo...@erols.com> wrote:
>> Drak Bibliophile wrote:
>>> but a woman did.
>>>
>>> This is really a fantasy theme but I thought somebody here might know
>>> who first used this idea.
>>>
>>> Tolkien used it in The Return Of The King but was he the first?
>>>
>>> I'd accept the idea that a 'curse was unstopable by a man but a woman
>>> stopped it' as being the same theme.
>>>
>> Oh, it's very old. You have seen MULAN? It is based on a very old
>> Chinese legend.
>
> But see my previous post. It was not just a woman, but a
> woman and a nonhuman together, who killed the Witch-King.
>
> T. A. Shippey points out that it's a sort of reaction to the
> bit in _Macbeth_ where Macbeth "cannot be killed by man of
> woman born," but it turns out Macduff was "from his mother's
> womb untimely ripp'd,"* and for purposes of the prophecy that
> counts as not "born."
What about Siegfried, whose one weak point is betrayed by a woman?
--
Rob Bannister
David Johnston
wrote:
Actually it might very well be a linguistic pun. I wouldn't be
surprised if other languages had the default setting for humanity be
"man" so it works that way.
Mike Schilling
>
> What about Siegfried, whose one weak point is betrayed by a woman?
Like he's the only one that's ever happened to.
Walter Bushell
Thanks, I was reading this just before going to bed. Pleasant dreams to
you too!
Dorothy J Heydt
Oh, there are *lots* of stories like that. But since it was
never mentioned who was going to be able, or unable, to kill
him, (I don't *think*), I don't think it counts.
Particularly since Siegfried wasn't *killed* by a woman.
Walter Bushell
"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
In one of Turtledove's Fox series, the villain claims he is going to win
because there is a prophecy that no one will know where his grave will
be. Said villain burns to ashes which scatter in the wind.
Walter Bushell
You mean his stupidity? Very handsome and very strong and very *stupid*,
as Anna Russell said.
Dorothy J Heydt
And, as George Bernard Shaw said, the effect of the dragon's
blood (to let him understand the speech of birds, and read
men's hidden thoughts) must wear off pretty quickly, because
for the rest of the cycle he lets people lead him around like
a sheep.
Dorothy J Heydt
Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>In one of Turtledove's Fox series, the villain claims he is going to win
>because there is a prophecy that no one will know where his grave will
>be. Said villain burns to ashes which scatter in the wind.
Heh. Like the Nootka story of where mosquitoes come from.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Heydt) wrote:
>In article <proto-0AAADA....@news.panix.com>,
>Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
>>
>>In one of Turtledove's Fox series, the villain claims he is going to win
>>because there is a prophecy that no one will know where his grave will
>>be. Said villain burns to ashes which scatter in the wind.
>
>Heh. Like the Nootka story of where mosquitoes come from.
I know the northern Cherokee legend -- an unkillable monster was
defeated by burning it to ash. Is the Nootka one similar?
--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
I'm selling my comic collection -- see http://www.watt-evans.com/comics.html
I'm serializing a novel at http://www.watt-evans.com/realmsoflight0.html
Dorothy J Heydt
Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>On Mon, 24 Aug 2009 04:12:08 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>Heydt) wrote:
>
>>In article <proto-0AAADA....@news.panix.com>,
>>Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>In one of Turtledove's Fox series, the villain claims he is going to win
>>>because there is a prophecy that no one will know where his grave will
>>>be. Said villain burns to ashes which scatter in the wind.
>>
>>Heh. Like the Nootka story of where mosquitoes come from.
>
>I know the northern Cherokee legend -- an unkillable monster was
>defeated by burning it to ash. Is the Nootka one similar?
The vampiric monster was a newborn baby. At the age of a few
weeks, people in his tribe started turning up dead with a
hole in their sides. The child's mother finally watched him
one night, as he sat up in his cradle, pushed off his
head-flattener, and crawled out of her house. One of his
victims had been his own uncle, and his mother decided enough
was enough. The tribesfolk surrounded him and, strangely
enough, he didn't resist. He said, "Gather a pile of wood
and burn me on it, and thereupon now I shall turn into
nothing. So they did, and he was burnt to ashes -- and the
ashes were blown by the wind and turned into mosquitoes,
which ever since have been sucking people's blood. And that
is what happened to the one who was fond of blood.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Heydt) wrote:
Ah. Similar, not the same story. Thanks.
Elaine Thompson
wrote:
There's a Michael Scott Rohan stand alone wherein the villain has been
magically protected from all sorts of things, including the usual
swords and other standard weapons wielded by people of the time. Our
hero is present when the villain gets a prophecy about what he does
have to fear: The roof over his head being one.
He's confident of surviving anything so even when he's captured and
the king has authorized his demise he's not afraid until...
He sees his captors melting the lead off his castle roof.
Even his enemies are sickened although they also are all too aware of
his nastiness, and he really does have to be permanently dealt with.
One of the only fantasies I've read that uses the historical Michael
Scott as a character. Seems like he ought to be as useful as John
Dee, but maybe John Dee is more popular because his era is.
--
Elaine Thompson <Ela...@KEThompson.org>
David DeLaney
>Brenda Clough <clo...@erols.com> said:
>> Drak Bibliophile wrote:
>>> but a woman did.
>>> This is really a fantasy theme but I thought somebody here might know
>>> who first used this idea.
>>> Tolkien used it in The Return Of The King but was he the first?
>>> I'd accept the idea that a 'curse was unstopable by a man but a woman
>>> stopped it' as being the same theme.
>>
>> Oh, it's very old. You have seen MULAN? It is based on a very old
>> Chinese legend.
>
>It may be that the earliest recorded version of it is the Hindu legend
>of Mahishasura, who was magicked by Brahma so that he could not be
>killed by man or god. He was killed by his wife, who was empowered by
>the gods' female attributes.
On a related subject,
"Indra swore to the demon Namuci that he would slay him neither by day nor by
night, neither with staff nor with bow, neither with the palm of the hand nor
with the fist, neither with the wet nor with the dry. But he killed him in the
morning twilight by sprinkling over him the foam of the sea."
-- Sir James George Frazer
Dave "ObSF: Well, if you don't know that one I'll give hints" DeLaney
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Ken from Chicago
"Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy" <taus...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9C708B62065...@69.16.186.50...
> djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
> news:KouG7...@kithrup.com:
>
>> It's a linguistic pun.
>
> Which Tolkein was quite fond of, and fairly good at. LotR is full of
> them.
Examples?
> --
> Terry Austin
-- Ken from Chicago
Ken from Chicago
"Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
news:KouKB...@kithrup.com...
> In article <Xns9C708B62065...@69.16.186.50>,
> Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
>>news:KouG7...@kithrup.com:
>>
>>> It's a linguistic pun.
>>
>>Which Tolkein was quite fond of, and fairly good at. LotR is full of
>>them.
>
> till the cows came home, and T. A. Shippey did it better.
A few examples?
> Dorothy J. Heydt
> Vallejo, California
> djheydt at hotmail dot com
> Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the hotmail edress.
> Kithrup is getting too damn much spam, even with the sysop's filters.
-- Ken from Chicago
Ken from Chicago
"Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy" <taus...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9C70A015DA...@69.16.186.7...
> djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
> news:KouKB...@kithrup.com:
>
>> In article <Xns9C708B62065...@69.16.186.50>,
>> Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
>>>news:KouG7...@kithrup.com:
>>>
>>>> It's a linguistic pun.
>>>
>>>Which Tolkein was quite fond of, and fairly good at. LotR is
>>>full of them.
>>
>> Indeed. But if I tried to list all of them, we'd be here
>> till the cows came home, and T. A. Shippey did it better.
>>
> That is entirely true. Though it never hurts to remind ourselves of
> his genius.
>
> --
> Terry Austin
Someone keeps reminding us of some girl's genius.
-- Ken from Chicago
Robert Carnegie
wrote:
> "Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy" <tausti...@gmail.com> wrote in messagenews:Xns9C708B62065...@69.16.186.50...
>
> > djhe...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
> >news:KouG7...@kithrup.com:
>
> >> It's a linguistic pun.
>
> > Which Tolkein was quite fond of, and fairly good at. LotR is full of
> > them.
>
> Examples?
Gandalf finds the door of Moria labelled "Speak friend and enter",
infers there is a secret password, and spends an awkwardly long time
trying to guess it. It's "friend".
Robert Carnegie
wrote:
> but a woman did.
>
> This is really a fantasy theme but I thought somebody here
> might know who first used this idea.
>
> Tolkien used it in The Return Of The King but was he the
> first?
>
> I'd accept the idea that a 'curse was unstopable by a man
> but a woman stopped it' as being the same theme.
Either an animal, inanimate object, or perhaps accidentally killing
yourself should count, but I don't have new examples.
I think there's a Greek one about the inescapable hunter chasing an
uncatchable quarry... probably it's
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_%28mythology%29>
"Orion chased Pleione, the mother of the Pleiades, for seven years,
until Zeus intervened and raised all of them to the stars. In Works
and Days, Orion chases the Pleiades themselves. Canis Minor and Canis
Major are his dogs, the one in front is called Procyon. They chase
Lepus, the hare, although Hyginus says some critics thought this too
base a prey for the noble Orion and have him pursuing Taurus, the
bull, instead."
This is a bit of a mess and doesn't seem to fit the main story of
Orion, in which Darkseid sent him as an infant to be brought up by
Highfather... wrong "Orion" possibly. ;-)
Stewart Robert Hinsley
<fdfb2c6b-13a5-44db...@w41g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> writes
Less elegant ones, from The Hobbit - The Desolation of Smaug, and the
goblin king Golfimbul. A more Tolkeinesque one would be the Brandywine
river.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley
Michael Grosberg
>
> >If Eowyn and the Witch-King had been pedants like the herb-master
> >of Minas Tirith, the dialogue might have gone more like this:
>
> >"You fool, no living man may harm me."
>
> >"_Distinguo_, Sir, I am not _vir_ but _femina._ Prepare to die."
>
> >"Excuse me, your Westron is so imprecise. I did not mean _vir_, I
> >meant _homo_."
>
> >"Ah, point taken! In that case, permit me to point out that
> >Meriadoc, who is not _homo_ but _dimidiulus,_ a Halfling, has
> >just introduced an Arnorian blade into your knee."
"Oh! I have been waiting for nothing else for an hour!"
Robert Carnegie
> A mighty space it was, with gigantic machines here
> and there within it, huge mounds of material and
> strange shelter places. And scattered about it,
> some in their overturned war-machines, some in
> the now rigid handling-machines, and a dozen of
> them stark and silent and laid in a row, were the
> Martians--DEAD!--slain by the putrefactive and
> disease bacteria against which their systems were
> unprepared; slain as the red weed was being
> slain; slain, after all man's devices had failed,
> by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom,
> has put upon this earth.
Take that, you disgusting alien weirdos!
Don Bruder
d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) wrote:
> On a related subject,
>
> "Indra swore to the demon Namuci that he would slay him neither by day nor by
> night, neither with staff nor with bow, neither with the palm of the hand
> nor
> with the fist, neither with the wet nor with the dry. But he killed him in
> the
> morning twilight by sprinkling over him the foam of the sea."
> -- Sir James George Frazer
>
> Dave "ObSF: Well, if you don't know that one I'll give hints" DeLaney
Err... Sounds REAL familiar, in a "seems like I've read that somewhere
before..." fashion. After a bit of thought, are you connecting to
Saberhagen's Empire of The East? (and/or the rest of the tales that lead
into/follow up on the "The Xth Book of Swords"/"The Xth Book of Lost
Swords: <Swordname>'s Story" set?)
--
Email shown is deceased. If you would like to contact me by email, please
post something that makes it obvious in this or another group you see me
posting in with a "how to contact you" address, and I'll get back to you.
OWKtree
> In article <slrnh94e1p.l6h....@gatekeeper.vic.com>,
> d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) wrote:
>
> > On a related subject,
>
> > "Indra swore to the demon Namuci that he would slay him neither by day nor by
> > night, neither with staff nor with bow, neither with the palm of the hand
> > nor
> > with the fist, neither with the wet nor with the dry. But he killed him in
> > the
> > morning twilight by sprinkling over him the foam of the sea."
> > -- Sir James George Frazer
>
> > Dave "ObSF: Well, if you don't know that one I'll give hints" DeLaney
>
> Err... Sounds REAL familiar, in a "seems like I've read that somewhere
> before..." fashion. After a bit of thought, are you connecting to
> Saberhagen's Empire of The East? (and/or the rest of the tales that lead
> into/follow up on the "The Xth Book of Swords"/"The Xth Book of Lost
> Swords: <Swordname>'s Story" set?)
>
replacing the sea foam.
The "Swords" books are on a different path since most of the gods
there appear to be directly based on the Greek/Roman mythos. Whereas
the Empire of the East taps Indian myths for names at least.
- Kurt
plausible prose man
> On 2009-08-23 12:26:27 -0700, Brenda Clough <clo...@erols.com> said:
>
> > Drak Bibliophile wrote:
> >> but a woman did.
> >> This is really a fantasy theme but I thought somebody here might know
> >> who first used this idea.
> >> Tolkien used it in The Return Of The King but was he the first?
> >> I'd accept the idea that a 'curse was unstopable by a man but a woman
> >> stopped it' as being the same theme.
>
> > Chinese legend.
>
> It may be that the earliest recorded version of it is the Hindu legend
> of Mahishasura, who was magicked by Brahma so that he could not be
> killed by man or god. He was killed by his wife, who was empowered by
> the gods' female attributes.
Which is a much neater solution than Hiryankashipu:
After his brother's death at the hands of the Varaha avatar of Vishnu,
Hiranyaksha's brother Hiranyakashipu, started to abhor Lord Vishnu. To
which end he decides to attempt to kill Vishnu by gaining mystical
powers, which he believes Brahma, the chief among the devas will award
to him if he undergoes many years of great austerity and penance just
as Brahma has awarded to Rakshasas (e.g. such as Vibhishana.) This
initially seems to work as planned with Brahma becoming pleased by
Hiranyakashipu's austerities.[1] Brahma thus appears before
Hiranyakashipu and offers him a boon of his choice. Upon
Hiranyakashipu's asking for immortality however, Brahma refuses.
Hiranyakashipu then requests the following:
O my lord, O best of the givers of benediction, if you will kindly
grant me the benediction I desire, please let me not meet death from
any of the living entities created by you. Grant me that I not die
within any residence or outside any residence, during the daytime or
at night, nor on the ground or in the sky. Grant me that my death not
be brought by any being other than those created by you, nor by any
weapon, nor by any human being or animal. Grant me that I not meet
death from any entity, living or nonliving. Grant me, further, that I
not be killed by any demigod or demon or by any great snake from the
lower planets. Since no one can kill you in the battlefield, you have
no competitor. Therefore, grant me the benediction that I too may have
no rival. Give me sole lordship over all the living entities and
presiding deities, and give me all the glories obtained by that
position. Furthermore, give me all the mystic powers attained by long
austerities and the practice of yoga, for these cannot be lost at any
time.[2]
So when it came time to kill him, and you know, you're not going to
ask a god for a thing like that and die in your bed of old age, Vishnu
had to incarnate as a god-man-lion with a dozen or so cobras growing
out of his back, (which, if you ask me, is a bit of a cheat, but no
one did) at twilight, in a doorway, lift Hiryankashipu onto his thighs
to kill Hiryankashipu, which probably he should've seen coming.
Louann Miller
news:KouJv...@kithrup.com:
> T. A. Shippey points out that it's a sort of reaction to the
> bit in _Macbeth_ where Macbeth "cannot be killed by man of
> woman born," but it turns out Macduff was "from his mother's
> womb untimely ripp'd,"* and for purposes of the prophecy that
> counts as not "born."
>
> *By some impatient obstetrician, as Richard Armour put it;
> more likely Mrs. Macduff senior died in childbirth and the
> infant was saved by quick&dirty emergency surgery. Cf.
> Julius Caesar.
Mothers did not normally survive caesarians before anesthetics and
asepsis, did they? Antibiotics were a big help, too.
And of course, Tolkien also did the Birnham Wood thing.
Will in New Haven
> In article <7fe70pF2k03l...@mid.individual.net>,> > > In article <DJgkm.525$5c6....@nwrddc02.gnilink.net>,
> > > Brenda Clough <clo...@erols.com> wrote:
> > >> Drak Bibliophile wrote:
> > >>> but a woman did.
>
> > >>> This is really a fantasy theme but I thought somebody here might know
> > >>> who first used this idea.
>
> > >>> Tolkien used it in The Return Of The King but was he the first?
>
> > >>> I'd accept the idea that a 'curse was unstopable by a man but a woman
> > >>> stopped it' as being the same theme.
>
> > >> Oh, it's very old. You have seen MULAN? It is based on a very old
> > >> Chinese legend.
>
> > > But see my previous post. It was not just a woman, but a
> > > woman and a nonhuman together, who killed the Witch-King.
>
> > > T. A. Shippey points out that it's a sort of reaction to the
> > > bit in _Macbeth_ where Macbeth "cannot be killed by man of
> > > woman born," but it turns out Macduff was "from his mother's
> > > womb untimely ripp'd,"* and for purposes of the prophecy that
> > > counts as not "born."
>
> > What about Siegfried, whose one weak point is betrayed by a woman?
>
> You mean his stupidity? Very handsome and very strong and very *stupid*,
> as Anna Russell said.
And she didn't make that stuff up.
--
Will in New Haven
David Johnston
DeLaney) wrote:
>Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.com> wrote:
>>Brenda Clough <clo...@erols.com> said:
>>> Drak Bibliophile wrote:
>>>> but a woman did.
>>>> This is really a fantasy theme but I thought somebody here might know
>>>> who first used this idea.
>>>> Tolkien used it in The Return Of The King but was he the first?
>>>> I'd accept the idea that a 'curse was unstopable by a man but a woman
>>>> stopped it' as being the same theme.
>>>
>>> Oh, it's very old. You have seen MULAN? It is based on a very old
>>> Chinese legend.
>>
>>It may be that the earliest recorded version of it is the Hindu legend
>>of Mahishasura, who was magicked by Brahma so that he could not be
>>killed by man or god. He was killed by his wife, who was empowered by
>>the gods' female attributes.
>
>On a related subject,
>
>"Indra swore to the demon Namuci that he would slay him neither by day nor by
> night, neither with staff nor with bow, neither with the palm of the hand nor
> with the fist, neither with the wet nor with the dry. But he killed him in the
> morning twilight by sprinkling over him the foam of the sea."
> -- Sir James George Frazer
>
>Dave "ObSF: Well, if you don't know that one I'll give hints" DeLaney
Actually it works better with "suffocated him with fire extinguisher
foam".
Dorothy J Heydt
NO THEY DIDN'T. A Caesarian was generally done either when
the mother was already dead or when somebody -- the father,
e.g. --has made the decision to save the child by killing the
mother.
>
>And of course, Tolkien also did the Birnham Wood thing.
I mentioned that....
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
an accurate prophecy and it sounds pretty dire for you, so you contrive
a way for it to come to pass so that "your entrails shall spew forth into
a demon's pottage" or whatever is survivable.
I recall Vance toyed with it in one of the Cugel stories where Cugel is
cursed to "lose your heart's desire" and so sets off to do something he
never cared about before (and when he actually does start to care about
it considers switching his heart's desire to "the mastery of animal
husbandry").
It's also one of the foundations of Offut & Lyon's (excellent and long
out of print) Tiana Highrider trilogy.
I'm pretty sure that a run in Marvel's "Thor" involved Odin trying to
work the same trick to make Ragnarok survivable and I know there must
be many other cases that are slipping my mind right now.
Ted
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
Mike Schilling
So did Lloyd Alexander in The High King.
Derek Lyons
>In one of Turtledove's Fox series, the villain claims he is going to win
>because there is a prophecy that no one will know where his grave will
>be. Said villain burns to ashes which scatter in the wind.
The prohesies concerning Ishido are similiarly fulfilled at the end of
Shogun.
D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.
http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/
-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL
Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
news:a9KdnQNLuPvg1g_X...@giganews.com:
>
> "Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
> news:KouKB...@kithrup.com...
>> In article <Xns9C708B62065...@69.16.186.50>,
>> Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
>>>news:KouG7...@kithrup.com:
>>>
>>>> It's a linguistic pun.
>>>
>>>Which Tolkein was quite fond of, and fairly good at. LotR is
>>>full of them.
>>
>> Indeed. But if I tried to list all of them, we'd be here
>> till the cows came home, and T. A. Shippey did it better.
>
> A few examples?
>
A dragon named Smog? (Spelled different, of course, but how else
would you pronounce it?)
The sticky fingered, greedy Sacksville-Bagginses, generally
referred to as the S(o)Bs?
The dimwitted cousin Halfast? (Move the syllable break to the right
one letter.)
And those are just the ones that are single language. Most of them
are at least two, and often three language puns. I suspect there's
a lot of them them only Tolkein himself got.
--
Terry Austin
"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek
Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.
David DeLaney
Yep, fairly directly: Indra -> Ardneh, Namuci -> Ekuman, and there's probably
one or two more I'm not remembering.
Dave
David DeLaney
<snap> <snap> <snap>
cryptoguy
> In article <3PCdnSmBc522OQ_XnZ2dnUVZ_vBi4...@giganews.com>,
> Louann Miller <louan...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> >djhe...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
> >news:KouJv...@kithrup.com:
>
> >> T. A. Shippey points out that it's a sort of reaction to the
> >> bit in _Macbeth_ where Macbeth "cannot be killed by man of
> >> woman born," but it turns out Macduff was "from his mother's
> >> womb untimely ripp'd,"* and for purposes of the prophecy that
> >> counts as not "born."
>
> >> *By some impatient obstetrician, as Richard Armour put it;
> >> more likely Mrs. Macduff senior died in childbirth and the
> >> infant was saved by quick&dirty emergency surgery. Cf.
> >> Julius Caesar.
>
> >Mothers did not normally survive caesarians before anesthetics and
> >asepsis, did they? Antibiotics were a big help, too.
>
> NO THEY DIDN'T. A Caesarian was generally done either when
> the mother was already dead or when somebody -- the father,
> e.g. --has made the decision to save the child by killing the
> mother.
Wikipedia suggests that the first recorded 'successful' (ie, both
parties survived) CS is only in the 16th century.
BTW, Julius Caesar was born in the normal way, and his mother
survived. It was his namesake that was 'untimely ripped'.
pt
Dorothy J Heydt
Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
>"Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1...@comcast.net> wrote in
>news:a9KdnQNLuPvg1g_X...@giganews.com:
>
>>
>> "Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
>> news:KouKB...@kithrup.com...
>>> In article <Xns9C708B62065...@69.16.186.50>,
>>> Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
>>>>news:KouG7...@kithrup.com:
>>>>
>>>>> It's a linguistic pun.
>>>>
>>>>Which Tolkein was quite fond of, and fairly good at. LotR is
>>>>full of them.
>>>
>>> Indeed. But if I tried to list all of them, we'd be here
>>> till the cows came home, and T. A. Shippey did it better.
>>
>> A few examples?
>>
>A dragon named Smog? (Spelled different, of course, but how else
>would you pronounce it?)
Smowg, with the same diphthong as "down".
Actually, that's the past participle of OE _smugian,_ "to
burrow."
>
>The sticky fingered, greedy Sackville-Bagginses, generally
>referred to as the S(o)Bs?
I've never seen that abbreviation before, actually. Frodo
abbreviates them "the S-Bs." The Bagginses are the masters
of Bag End, with Lobelia's branch of the family thinking that
that was vulgar English and translated it into "cul-de-sac",
which is French for "bottom of the bag," but is NOT what the
French call such a dead-end street; they call it an _impasse._
Also, "baggins" is a dialect word for a snack, something all
proper Hobbits are always interested in.
>
>The dimwitted cousin Halfast? (Move the syllable break to the right
>one letter.)
I really don't think that's what Tolkien had in mind.
Remember that if the phrase occurs in British English at all,
it would be "half-arsed." Halfast < "half-fast," in other
words, very slow. Compare Samwise, "half-wise, simple."
>
>And those are just the ones that are single language. Most of them
>are at least two, and often three language puns. I suspect there's
>a lot of them them only Tolkein himself got.
Undoubtedly. But if you've studied some Old English a lot of
them become clearer.
(Note also that all the names in Rohan are in Old English,
but not in the Old Wessex we study the most [because most of
the surviving texts are in it]. They're in Old Mercian, the
dialect spoken in the Kingdom of Mercia (or, the Mark) north
of Wessex. We don't have many texts in that dialect, but
enough that Tolkien could run the sound-changes on any word
he wanted to use. (In one of his letters, in a disgruntled
mood, he said "I shall soon refuse to speak any language but
Old Mercian." He could have done it, too.)
Andrew Woode
> In article <slrnh94e1p.l6h....@gatekeeper.vic.com>,
> d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) wrote:
>
> > On a related subject,
>
> > "Indra swore to the demon Namuci that he would slay him neither by day nor by
> > night, neither with staff nor with bow, neither with the palm of the hand
> > nor
> > with the fist, neither with the wet nor with the dry. But he killed him in
> > the
> > morning twilight by sprinkling over him the foam of the sea."
> > -- Sir James George Frazer
>
> > Dave "ObSF: Well, if you don't know that one I'll give hints" DeLaney
>
> Err... Sounds REAL familiar, in a "seems like I've read that somewhere
> before..." fashion. After a bit of thought, are you connecting to
> Saberhagen's Empire of The East? (and/or the rest of the tales that lead
> into/follow up on the "The Xth Book of Swords"/"The Xth Book of Lost
> Swords: <Swordname>'s Story" set?)
>
The highly specific methods of killing reminded me of the demise of
Llew Llaw Gyffes in
'Math vab Mathonwy', one of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi in Welsh
tradition.
Quote here from the Lady Charlotte Guest translation at
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Mabinogion/Math_the_son_of_Mathonwy
(I can post the Middle Welsh
if anyone is interested).
"That night Llew Llaw Gyffes returned to his home. And the day they
spent in discourse, and minstrelsy, and feasting. And at night they
went to rest, and he spoke to Blodeuwedd once, and he spoke to her a
second time. But, for all this, he could not get from her one word.
"What aileth thee?" said he, "art thou well?" "I was thinking," said
she, "of that which thou didst never think of concerning me; for I was
sorrowful as to thy death, lest thou shouldst go sooner than I."
"Heaven reward thy care for me," said he, "but until Heaven take me I
shall not easily be slain" "For the sake of Heaven, and for mine, show
me how thou mightest be slain. My memory in guarding is better than
thine." "I will tell thee gladly," said he. "Not easily can I be
slain, except by a wound. And the spear wherewith I am struck must be
a year in the forming. And nothing must be done towards it except
during the sacrifice on Sundays." "Is this certain?" asked she. "It is
in truth," he answered. "And I cannot be slain within a house, nor
without. I cannot be slain on horseback nor on foot." "Verily," said
she, "in what manner then canst thou be slain?" "I will tell thee,"
said he. "By making a bath for me by the side of a river, and by
putting a roof over the cauldron, and thatching it well and tightly,
and bringing a buck, and putting it beside the cauldron. Then if I
place one foot on the buck's back, and the other on the edge of the
cauldron, whosoever strikes me thus will cause my death." "Well," said
she, "I thank Heaven that it will be easy to avoid this." "
Unfortunately Blodeuwedd is in fact plotting his death, and gets to
work on the
details! Unlike the other examples though, Llew is fully aware of what
the rules are
in advance - though he is still tricked into staging a 'demo' which
turns into the
real thing.
(The classic modern retelling of these works is of course by
Evangeline Walton;
this particular story turns into her book _The Island of the Mighty_
aka _The
Virgin and the Swine_)
Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
> In article <Xns9C71674577A...@69.16.186.50>,
> Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>"Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1...@comcast.net> wrote in
>>news:a9KdnQNLuPvg1g_X...@giganews.com:
>>
>>>
>>> "Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
>>> news:KouKB...@kithrup.com...
>>>> In article <Xns9C708B62065...@69.16.186.50>,
>>>> Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
>>>>>news:KouG7...@kithrup.com:
>>>>>
>>>>>> It's a linguistic pun.
>>>>>
>>>>>Which Tolkein was quite fond of, and fairly good at. LotR is
>>>>>full of them.
>>>>
>>>> Indeed. But if I tried to list all of them, we'd be here
>>>> till the cows came home, and T. A. Shippey did it better.
>>>
>>> A few examples?
>>>
>>A dragon named Smog? (Spelled different, of course, but how else
>>would you pronounce it?)
>
> Smowg, with the same diphthong as "down".
>
> Actually, that's the past participle of OE _smugian,_ "to
> burrow."
Yeah, I'll be most of his readers thought that as they read it.
>>
>>The sticky fingered, greedy Sackville-Bagginses, generally
>>referred to as the S(o)Bs?
>
> I've never seen that abbreviation before, actually. Frodo
> abbreviates them "the S-Bs."
I added in the "o" to make it a little more clear, yes.
> The Bagginses are the masters
> of Bag End, with Lobelia's branch of the family thinking that
> that was vulgar English and translated it into "cul-de-sac",
> which is French for "bottom of the bag," but is NOT what the
> French call such a dead-end street; they call it an _impasse._
> Also, "baggins" is a dialect word for a snack, something all
> proper Hobbits are always interested in.
>>
>>The dimwitted cousin Halfast? (Move the syllable break to the
>>right one letter.)
>
> I really don't think that's what Tolkien had in mind.
Really?
> Remember that if the phrase occurs in British English at all,
> it would be "half-arsed." Halfast < "half-fast," in other
> words, very slow. Compare Samwise, "half-wise, simple."
Remember that Tolkein studied a lot more languages than just
English English. And made his puns in pretty much all of them.
>>
>>And those are just the ones that are single language. Most of
>>them are at least two, and often three language puns. I suspect
>>there's a lot of them them only Tolkein himself got.
>
> Undoubtedly. But if you've studied some Old English a lot of
> them become clearer.
I don't doubt that in the least. The ones I've noticed are
entertaining enough.
>
> (Note also that all the names in Rohan are in Old English,
> but not in the Old Wessex we study the most [because most of
> the surviving texts are in it]. They're in Old Mercian, the
> dialect spoken in the Kingdom of Mercia (or, the Mark) north
> of Wessex. We don't have many texts in that dialect, but
> enough that Tolkien could run the sound-changes on any word
> he wanted to use. (In one of his letters, in a disgruntled
> mood, he said "I shall soon refuse to speak any language but
> Old Mercian." He could have done it, too.)
>
And it only would have caused his reputation to grow. 'Prolly would
have made his students that much crankier, though.
Don Bruder
d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) wrote:
Yeah, the names, anyway, but unless I'm scrambling them together, I seem
to recall that by the time it was all over, it was pretty well obvious
that "Ardneh's world" and the world of the Swords set are one and the
same, separated only by an unspecified span of time (with "Empire..."
and those tales being "the early days", and the Swords tales taking
place some long period of time afterward, with the mythology "mangled"
by forgotten and misremembered details. The emperor, the demons that
were the blasts of atomic weapons contained by some sort of magic at the
moment of detonation and somehow given something resembling sentience,
Draffut's "lake of life", "Ardneh2" on the moon base acting as a backup
for the original Ardneh computer - The whole shebang fits together *WAY*
too neat to not be the same world.
>
> Yep, fairly directly: Indra -> Ardneh, Namuci -> Ekuman, and there's probably
> one or two more I'm not remembering.
>
> Dave
--
Kurt Busiek
> Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.com> wrote:
>> Brenda Clough <clo...@erols.com> said:
>>> Drak Bibliophile wrote:
>>>> but a woman did.
>>>> This is really a fantasy theme but I thought somebody here might know
>>>> who first used this idea.
>>>> Tolkien used it in The Return Of The King but was he the first?
>>>> I'd accept the idea that a 'curse was unstopable by a man but a woman
>>>> stopped it' as being the same theme.
>>>
>>> Oh, it's very old. You have seen MULAN? It is based on a very old
>>> Chinese legend.
>>
>> It may be that the earliest recorded version of it is the Hindu legend
>> of Mahishasura, who was magicked by Brahma so that he could not be
>> killed by man or god. He was killed by his wife, who was empowered by
>> the gods' female attributes.
>
> On a related subject,
>
> "Indra swore to the demon Namuci that he would slay him neither by day nor by
> night, neither with staff nor with bow, neither with the palm of the hand nor
> with the fist, neither with the wet nor with the dry. But he killed him in the
> morning twilight by sprinkling over him the foam of the sea."
> -- Sir James George Frazer
Yeah, there are a lot of "loopholes in the prophecy" legends; I was
limiting it to "no man can kill him but a woman does" because that was
specifically what the OP was asking for.
kdb
--
Visit http://www.busiek.com -- for all your Busiek needs!
Drak Bibliophile
--
Paul Howard (Alias Drak Bibliophile), AIM id DrakeBookLover
*
Sometimes The Dragon Wins! [Polite Dragon Smile]
*
Robert Bannister
> In article <7fe70pF...@mid.individual.net>,>>> In article <DJgkm.525$5c6...@nwrddc02.gnilink.net>,
>>> Brenda Clough <clo...@erols.com> wrote:
>>>> Drak Bibliophile wrote:
>>>>> but a woman did.
>>>>>
>>>>> This is really a fantasy theme but I thought somebody here might know
>>>>> who first used this idea.
>>>>>
>>>>> Tolkien used it in The Return Of The King but was he the first?
>>>>>
>>>>> I'd accept the idea that a 'curse was unstopable by a man but a woman
>>>>> stopped it' as being the same theme.
>>>>>
>>>> Oh, it's very old. You have seen MULAN? It is based on a very old
>>>> Chinese legend.
>>> woman and a nonhuman together, who killed the Witch-King.
>>>
>>> bit in _Macbeth_ where Macbeth "cannot be killed by man of
>>> woman born," but it turns out Macduff was "from his mother's
>>> womb untimely ripp'd,"* and for purposes of the prophecy that
>>> counts as not "born."
>
> never mentioned who was going to be able, or unable, to kill
> him, (I don't *think*), I don't think it counts.
> Particularly since Siegfried wasn't *killed* by a woman.
I realised the lack of prediction part immediately after posting. Still,
one can blame the woman even if she didn't actually do the deed. Few of
the female characters in the Nibelungenlied are very nice.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
I forgot to add: almost none of the male characters are nice either.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
>>
> A dragon named Smog? (Spelled different, of course, but how else
> would you pronounce it?)
The difference between "Don" and "dawn", but if you are American, your
dialect might not have that difference.
--
Rob Bannister
Mark Reichert
> > Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> >>>>> but a woman did.
> >>>>> This is really a fantasy theme but I thought somebody here might
> >>>>> know who first used this idea.
> >>>>> Tolkien used it in The Return Of The King but was he the first?
> >>>>> I'd accept the idea that a 'curse was unstopable by a man but a
> >>>>> woman stopped it' as being the same theme.
>
> >>>> Oh, it's very old. You have seen MULAN? It is based on a very old
> >>>> Chinese legend.
> >>> of Mahishasura, who was magicked by Brahma so that he could not be
> >>> killed by man or god. He was killed by his wife, who was empowered by
> >>> the gods' female attributes.
> >> prophesied that no one could kill the enemy, and the Captain of the
> >> Nautilus shot him dead.
>
> > You probably had in the back of your brain somewhere the
> > scene in the Odyssey where Polyphemus complains that Noman
> > has blinded him, and the others reply, "Then it is the work
> > of the gods, and we dare not interfere."
>
> Actually, it derived from my old superhero joke about the most powerful
> trio of heroes in the world: Nobody, No-one, and Nothing.
And the ultimate mischief maker: Not-me.
Derek Lyons
>Wikipedia suggests that the first recorded 'successful' (ie, both
>parties survived) CS is only in the 16th century.
Probably mostly luck - when did they become routinely survivable?
Robert Carnegie
wrote:
> "Kurt Busiek" <k...@busiek.com> wrote in message
>
> news:h6v5bp$7l4$2...@solani.org...
> On 2009-08-23 20:48:32 -0700, d...@gatekeeper.vic.com
> (David DeLaney) said:
>
Any transvestites? Oh, well, Eowyn again, she was dressed as a man.
Must now put Annie Lennox of The Eurhythmics in that video right out
of my mind. All right, how about a controversial young athlete from
South Africa?
Will in New Haven
And they are mostly his aunts.
Will in New Haven
> Robert Bannister wrote:
> > Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
Who could be nice with all that _noise_ all around you?
Dorothy J Heydt
Nitpick: are we talking about the Nibelungenlied, which is
just a text (though it may have been recited or sung at some
stage in its history), or the Ring operas, which are sung, or
_Siegfrieds Tod_ and _Kriemhilds Rache_, which are *silent*
movies fergoshsake?
Dorothy J Heydt
Well, so far they have her mother, her father, and her birth
certificate to say she's female. And she hasn't killed
anybody.
Robert Carnegie
> In article <f5a4ce48-5f9e-4a68-86da-2a772edd4...@c34g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>,
They may be silent but they're silent /in German/ :-)
Will in New Haven
> In article <f5a4ce48-5f9e-4a68-86da-2a772edd4...@c34g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>,
I am talking about the Wagner.
Robert Carnegie
I've just had an un-original thought (Google tells me):
<http://operachic.typepad.com/opera_chic/2009/03/i-see-siegfried-very-
much-as-bertie-wooster-the-ring-according-to-norman-lebrecht.html>
A podceast or stream that I actually haven't listened to (if it's
still on) - but wow.
Mike Schilling
>> I realised the lack of prediction part immediately after posting.
>> Still, one can blame the woman even if she didn't actually do the
>> deed. Few of the female characters in the Nibelungenlied are very
>> nice.
>
> And they are mostly his aunts.
And Aunts aren't Gentlemen.
Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
news:7fgpcbF...@mid.individual.net:
Which is to say, Tolkein made his puns multilingual. As noted before.
Dorothy J Heydt
>news:7fgpcbF...@mid.individual.net:
>
>> Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy wrote:
>>
>>>>
>>> A dragon named Smog? (Spelled different, of course, but how
>>> else would you pronounce it?)
>>
>> The difference between "Don" and "dawn", but if you are
>> American, your dialect might not have that difference.
No, more like the difference between Don and 'down.'
Although Smaug, as Shippey points out, talks more like a man
of the twentieth century than anybody except Saruman.
Matthew Malthouse
Heydt) wrote:
> >If Eowyn and the Witch-King had been pedants like the herb-master
> >of Minas Tirith, the dialogue might have gone more like this:
> >
> >"You fool, no living man may harm me."
> >
> >"_Distinguo_, Sir, I am not _vir_ but _femina._ Prepare to die."
> >
> >"Excuse me, your Westron is so imprecise. I did not mean _vir_, I
> >meant _homo_."
> >
> >"Ah, point taken! In that case, permit me to point out that
> >Meriadoc, who is not _homo_ but _dimidiulus,_ a Halfling, has
> >just introduced an Arnorian blade into your knee."
Oh, tears of laughter!
Matthew
--
Mail to this account goes to the bit bucket.
In the unlikely event you want to mail me replace usenet with my name
Sean O'Hara
declared:
> >>
>> T. A. Shippey points out that it's a sort of reaction to the
>> bit in _Macbeth_ where Macbeth "cannot be killed by man of
>> woman born," but it turns out Macduff was "from his mother's
>> womb untimely ripp'd,"* and for purposes of the prophecy that
>> counts as not "born."
>
> What about Siegfried, whose one weak point is betrayed by a woman?
>
A) Hagen does the actual killing, not Kriemhild.
B) There's no prophesy involved. Siegfried just suffered from the
same incomplete-invulnerability problem as Achilles.
--
Sean O'Hara <http://www.diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com>
New audio book: As Long as You Wish by John O'Keefe
<http://librivox.org/short-science-fiction-collection-010/>
plausible prose man
<tausti...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Robert Bannister <robb...@bigpond.com> wrote innews:7fgpcbF...@mid.individual.net:
>
> > Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy wrote:
>
> >> A dragon named Smog? (Spelled different, of course, but how
> >> else would you pronounce it?)
>
> > The difference between "Don" and "dawn", but if you are
> > American, your dialect might not have that difference.
>
> Which is to say, Tolkein made his puns multilingual.
I am reminded of Robert Anton Wilson's rule of fives, you will find
the connections to the 17 and 23 patterns everywhere, if you look hard
enough.
Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
news:53c3e027-2c14-4a70...@18g2000yqa.googlegroups.c
om:
> On Aug 25, 12:31�pm, Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
> <tausti...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Robert Bannister <robb...@bigpond.com> wrote
>> innews:7fgpcbF2gjd4fU5@mid.i
> ndividual.net:
>>
>> > Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy wrote:
>>
>> >> A dragon named Smog? (Spelled different, of course, but how
>> >> else would you pronounce it?)
>>
>> > The difference between "Don" and "dawn", but if you are
>> > American, your dialect might not have that difference.
>>
>> Which is to say, Tolkein made his puns multilingual.
>
> I am reminded of Robert Anton Wilson's rule of fives, you will
> find
> the connections to the 17 and 23 patterns everywhere, if you
> look hard enough.
>
This isn't obscure knowledge, son. Really. Do you have *any* idea
what Tolkein did for a living? Apparently not.
Dorothy J Heydt
>news:53c3e027-2c14-4a70...@18g2000yqa.googlegroups.c
>om:
>
>> On Aug 25, 12:31�pm, Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
>> <tausti...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Robert Bannister <robb...@bigpond.com> wrote
>>> innews:7fgpcbF2gjd4fU5@mid.i
>> ndividual.net:
>>>
>>> > Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy wrote:
>>>
>>> >> A dragon named Smog? (Spelled different, of course, but how
>>> >> else would you pronounce it?)
>>>
>>> > The difference between "Don" and "dawn", but if you are
>>> > American, your dialect might not have that difference.
>>>
>>> Which is to say, Tolkein made his puns multilingual.
>>
>> I am reminded of Robert Anton Wilson's rule of fives, you will
>> find
>> the connections to the 17 and 23 patterns everywhere, if you
>> look hard enough.
>>
>This isn't obscure knowledge, son. Really. Do you have *any* idea
>what Tolkein did for a living? Apparently not.
s/Tolkein/Tolkien/g
As to the 17 and 23 thing, I know of two instances of 17,
namely, in the politics of Siena (in which seventeen
districts vie twice a year in an elaborate horse race) and
the Dragaera stories of Steven Brust. Name me some instances
of 23? Both numbers are primes, of course, and you'll find
them both in their proper place in Agatha's bedroom.
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20030217
Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
news:KoyC7...@kithrup.com:
> In article <Xns9C7293D77E8...@69.16.186.7>,
> Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>plausible prose man <George...@aol.com> wrote in
>>news:53c3e027-2c14-4a70...@18g2000yqa.googlegroups
>>.c om:
>>
>>> On Aug 25, 12:31�pm, Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
>>> <tausti...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Robert Bannister <robb...@bigpond.com> wrote
>>>> innews:7fgpcbF2gjd4fU5@mid.i
>>> ndividual.net:
>>>>
>>>> > Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy wrote:
>>>>
>>>> >> A dragon named Smog? (Spelled different, of course, but
>>>> >> how else would you pronounce it?)
>>>>
>>>> > The difference between "Don" and "dawn", but if you are
>>>> > American, your dialect might not have that difference.
>>>>
>>>> Which is to say, Tolkein made his puns multilingual.
>>>
>>> I am reminded of Robert Anton Wilson's rule of fives, you
>>> will find
>>> the connections to the 17 and 23 patterns everywhere, if you
>>> look hard enough.
>>>
>>This isn't obscure knowledge, son. Really. Do you have *any*
>>idea what Tolkein did for a living? Apparently not.
>
> s/Tolkein/Tolkien/g
Yeah, whatever.
>
> As to the 17 and 23 thing, I know of two instances of 17,
> namely, in the politics of Siena (in which seventeen
> districts vie twice a year in an elaborate horse race) and
> the Dragaera stories of Steven Brust. Name me some instances
> of 23? Both numbers are primes, of course, and you'll find
> them both in their proper place in Agatha's bedroom.
I don't follow the conspiracy theory wingnut numerologists, but I
did get a lecture once from a math professor about how 23 is the
perfect number. It's a prime number. Each digit is a prime number.
The sum of the digits is a prime number. The difference of the
digits is, well, I guess 1 isn't a prime number, but it should be.
He went on for about ten minutes about how perfect a number 23 is.
Mike Schilling
> I don't follow the conspiracy theory wingnut numerologists, but I
> did get a lecture once from a math professor about how 23 is the
> perfect number.
If he thought 23 is a perfect number, he's not much of a mathematician.
Consider 6, on the other hand.. 1 * 2 * 3 = 1 + 2 + 3 = 6. *That's* a
perfect number.
Will in New Haven
wrote:
Two is the perfect number. My proof that all numbers are two will
follow if there is any interest. It is probably best if there is no
interest.
Robert Bannister
I was talking about the medieval German poem/saga, but, apart from the
noise, I suppose it isn't important.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
> In article <Xns9C7260D4BAC...@69.16.186.50>,
> Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Robert Bannister <rob...@bigpond.com> wrote in
>> news:7fgpcbF...@mid.individual.net:
>>
>>> Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy wrote:
>>>
>>>> A dragon named Smog? (Spelled different, of course, but how
>>>> else would you pronounce it?)
>>> The difference between "Don" and "dawn", but if you are
>>> American, your dialect might not have that difference.
>
> No, more like the difference between Don and 'down.'
Does Tolkien give a suggestion about how the name is pronounced? I
always assumed that the "au" was an "aw" sound, though with English
spelling, that's too helpful since I've heard people pronounce "law"
like "lah".
>
> Although Smaug, as Shippey points out, talks more like a man
> of the twentieth century than anybody except Saruman.
>
> Dorothy J. Heydt
> Vallejo, California
> djheydt at hotmail dot com
> Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the hotmail edress.
> Kithrup is getting too damn much spam, even with the sysop's filters.
--
Rob Bannister
Wes Struebing
One *could* pronounce it Smowg (as in ouch!)...
Dorothy J Heydt
Dorothy J Heydt
Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
news:h71s46$1h3$1...@news.eternal-september.org:
Given that he was an actual professor of mathematics, I'm inclined to
take his word for it. Given that we also got a lecture on negative
slope ties, and spent half a class deriving a formula by which we
could determine if a particular method of cutting up a pizza could be
used to arrive at *any* final number of pieces (it could, once x was
over the minimum number), I am also inclined to believe that he was,
perhaps, not entirely serious. (And if he was, it was the only time
in two semesters.) Hell of a good teacher, once you got past the
essay tests. (Short word problem, and several sheets of blank paper,
which *might* be enough. Show you work.)
--
Terry Austin
Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole. - David
Bilek
Yeah, I had Terry confused with Hannibal Lecter. - Mike Schilling
Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
> In article <j629955mu4giap4ip...@4ax.com>,
> Wes Struebing <str...@carpedementem.org> wrote:
>>On Tue, 25 Aug 2009 08:25:47 +0800, Robert Bannister
>><rob...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy wrote:
>>>
>>>>>
>>>> A dragon named Smog? (Spelled different, of course, but how
>>>> else would you pronounce it?)
>>>
>>>The difference between "Don" and "dawn", but if you are
>>>American, your dialect might not have that difference.
>>
>>One *could* pronounce it Smowg (as in ouch!)...
>
> That's how it's pronounced. As in down.
Any idea if that was true 70 or 80 years ago?
Rebecca Rice
I have to say that I found the list of professionals
involved in the investigation of her gender to be a bit odd.
The list includes things like a gynecologist,
endriconologist, geneticist, a whole bunch of other
specialists, and a psychologist. I'm trying to figure out
what that last one is supposed to add to the
investigation... "do you FEEL like a female?"
Although (and sorta on-topic), it did make me wonder about
how you define gender. If someone is born XY, but feels
female, and undergoes gender reassignment surgery and starts
a new life as a woman, would they be able to compete in
women's sports? And, with all the Defense of Marriage acts
around, if they wanted to get married, would they have to
marry a male (which would be the opposite phenotype), or a
woman (who would be the opposite genotype)? And what about
the rare hermaphrodites and chimeras, and the XXY's and XXX's?
Rebecca
Mike Schilling
"Perfect number" is a tem of art in number theory. It means a
positive integer that's the sum of its factors (including 1, not
including itself.) Examples include 6, 28, 496, etc. (In fact any
number 2**(n-1) * ((2**n)-1) if ((2**n)-1) is prime. It's an open
question of all perfect numbers fit into this pattern.)
Mike Schilling
> In article <h71s46$1h3$1...@news.eternal-september.org>,
> Mike Schilling <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy wrote:
>>> I don't follow the conspiracy theory wingnut numerologists, but I
>>> did get a lecture once from a math professor about how 23 is the
>>> perfect number.
>>
>> If he thought 23 is a perfect number, he's not much of a
>> mathematician.
>>
>> Consider 6, on the other hand.. 1 * 2 * 3 = 1 + 2 + 3 = 6.
>> *That's*
>> a perfect number.
>
> And don't get Dante started on 9.
If I did, there would be hell to pay?
Wayne Throop
: Although (and sorta on-topic), it did make me wonder about
: female, and undergoes gender reassignment surgery and starts
: a new life as a woman, would they be able to compete in
: women's sports?
I vhad aguely supposed that was done in tennis. But that's only from a
memory from 20 or more years back, when I was visiting relatives in New
York, and we happened upon somebody playing tennis at some court or other,
and said person was pointed out to me as being a Famous Personage in
tennis, having had gender reassignment, and there was much controversy
over whether now-she could compete in sports. My vague memory was that
she could, that any advantage growing up drenched in testosterone and
androgens was transient. But a) I could be misremembering, or b) I may
have been misinformed, since this was just a casual conversation while
hiking around NYC back in the day. And it does seem like a long time
ago for them to have decided in favor of allowing it, I suppose, I guess.
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Dorothy J Heydt
No, but you'd find yourself sitting around listening to a lot
of poetry. In Italian.