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Vegetable Lamb Of Tartary
The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary (Latin: ''Agnus scythicus'' or ''Planta Tartarica Barometz'') is a legendary zoophyte of Central Asia, once believed to grow sheep as its fruit. It was believed the sheep were connected to the plant by an umbilical cord and grazed the land around the plant. When all accessible foliage was gone, both the plant and sheep died. Underlying the legend is the cotton plant, which was unknown in Northern Europe before the Norman conquest of Sicily. Characteristics Thomas Browne's ''Pseudodoxia Epidemica'' named it as the ''Boramez''. In Ephraim Chambers' '' Cyclopædia'', Agnus scythicus was described as a kind of zoophyte, said to grow in Tartary, resembling the figure and structure of a lamb. It was also called ''Agnus Vegetabilis'', ''Agnus Tartaricus'' and bore the reported endonyms of ''Borometz'', ''Borametz'' and ''Boranetz''. In his book, ''The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary'' (1887), Henry Lee describes the legendary lamb as believed to be both a t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vegetable Lamb Of Tartary
The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary (Latin: ''Agnus scythicus'' or ''Planta Tartarica Barometz'') is a legendary zoophyte of Central Asia, once believed to grow sheep as its fruit. It was believed the sheep were connected to the plant by an umbilical cord and grazed the land around the plant. When all accessible foliage was gone, both the plant and sheep died. Underlying the legend is the cotton plant, which was unknown in Northern Europe before the Norman conquest of Sicily. Characteristics Thomas Browne's ''Pseudodoxia Epidemica'' named it as the ''Boramez''. In Ephraim Chambers' '' Cyclopædia'', Agnus scythicus was described as a kind of zoophyte, said to grow in Tartary, resembling the figure and structure of a lamb. It was also called ''Agnus Vegetabilis'', ''Agnus Tartaricus'' and bore the reported endonyms of ''Borometz'', ''Borametz'' and ''Boranetz''. In his book, ''The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary'' (1887), Henry Lee describes the legendary lamb as believed to be both a t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endonym
An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, or linguistic community in question; it is their self-designated name for themselves, their homeland, or their language. An exonym (from Greek: , 'outer' + , 'name'; also known as xenonym) is an established, ''non-native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used only outside that particular place, group, or linguistic community. Exonyms exist not only for historico-geographical reasons but also in consideration of difficulties when pronouncing foreign words. For instance, is the endonym for the country that is also known by the exonym ''Germany'' in English, in Spanish and in French. Naming and etymology The terms ''autonym'', ''endonym'', ''exonym'' and '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Travels Of Sir John Mandeville
Sir John Mandeville is the supposed author of ''The Travels of Sir John Mandeville'', a travel memoir which first circulated between 1357 and 1371. The earliest-surviving text is in French. By aid of translations into many other languages, the work acquired extraordinary popularity. Despite the extremely unreliable and often fantastical nature of the travels it describes, it was used as a work of reference: Christopher Columbus, for example, was heavily influenced by both this work and Marco Polo's earlier '' Travels''. Identity of the author In his preface, the compiler calls himself a knight, and states that he was born and bred in England, in the town of St Albans. Although the book is real, it is widely believed that "Sir John Mandeville" himself was not. Common theories point to a Frenchman by the name of Jehan à la Barbe. Other possibilities are discussed below. Some recent scholars have suggested that ''The Travels of Sir John Mandeville'' was most likely written ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sea Silk
Sea silk is an extremely fine, rare, and valuable fabric that is made from the long silky filaments or byssus secreted by a gland in the foot of pen shells (in particular ''Pinna nobilis''). The byssus is used by the clam to attach itself to the sea bed. Sea silk was produced in the Mediterranean region from the large marine bivalve mollusc ''Pinna nobilis'' until early in the 20th century. The animal, whose shell is sometimes almost a metre long, adheres itself pointed end down to rocks in the intertidal zone using a tuft of very strong thin fibres. These byssi or filaments (which can be six centimetres long) are spun and, when treated with lemon juice, turn a golden colour, which never fades. The cloth produced from these filaments can be woven even more finely than silk, and is extremely light and warm; it was said that a pair of women's gloves made from the fabric could fit into half a walnut shell and a pair of stockings in a snuffbox.In ''Spirals in Time,'' Scales p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gustav Schlegel
Gustaaf Schlegel (30 September 184015 October 1903) was a Dutch sinologist and field naturalist. E. Bruce Brooks (9 June 2004)Gustaaf Schlegel, Sinology, University of Massachusetts Amherst, retrieved 17 September 2011 Life and career Gustaaf Schlegel was born on 30 September 1840 in Oegstgeest. The son of Hermann Schlegel—a native of Saxony who had moved to the Netherlands in 1827 to work at the natural history museum of Leiden and became its second director—Gustaaf begun to study Chinese at the age of 9 with Leiden japanologist J. J. Hoffmann initially, it seems, without the knowledge of his parents. originally published in ''Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland 3'' (Biographical Dictionary of the Netherlands 3), The Hague, 1989 Gustaaf made his first trip to China in 1857 in order to collect bird specimens, but his notoriety as naturalist was overshadowed by that of Robert Swinhoe who completed much field work in China ahead of Schlegel. In 1861, after having learned t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barnacle Goose
The barnacle goose (''Branta leucopsis'') is a species of goose that belongs to the genus '' Branta'' of black geese, which contains species with largely black plumage, distinguishing them from the grey ''Anser'' species. Despite its superficial similarity to the brant goose, genetic analysis has shown it is an eastern derivative of the cackling goose lineage. Taxonomy and naming The barnacle goose was first classified taxonomically by Johann Matthäus Bechstein in 1803. ''Branta'' is a Latinised form of Old Norse ''Brandgás'', "burnt (black) goose" and the specific epithet is from the Ancient Greek ''leukos'' "white", and ''opsis'' "faced". The barnacle goose and the similar brant goose were previously considered one species, and were formerly believed to spawn from the goose barnacle. This gave rise to the English name of the barnacle goose and the scientific name of the brant. It is sometimes claimed that the word comes from a Celtic word for "limpet", but the sense-histor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barnacle Tree
One version of the myth about the barnacle (''Branta leucopsis'') and brant (''Branta bernicla'') geese is that these geese emerge fully-formed from goose barnacles (''Cirripedia''). There are other myths about how the barnacle goose breeds. The basis of all the myths is that the bird, ''Branta leucopsis'', emerges and grows from matter other than bird eggs. There are many sources to the myth. The etymology of the term "barnacle" suggests Latin, Old English and French roots. There are few references in pre-Christian books and manuscripts – some Roman or Greek. The main vector for the myth into modern times was monastic manuscripts and in particular the Bestiary. The myth owes its long standing popularity to an early ignorance of the migration patterns of geese. Early medieval discussions of the nature of living organisms were often based on myths or genuine ignorance of what is now known about phenomena such as bird migration. It was not until the late 19th century that bird mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Odoric Of Pordenone
Odoric of Pordenone, OFM (1286–1331), also known as Odorico Mattiussi/Mattiuzzi, Odoricus of Friuli or Orderic of Pordenone, was an Italian late-medieval Franciscan friar and missionary explorer. He traveled through India, the Greater Sunda Islands, and China, where he spent three years in Beijing. After his death, he became an object of popular devotion and was beatified in 1755. Odoric wrote a narrative of his travels, which has been preserved in Latin, French, and Italian manuscripts. It includes accurate descriptions of Asian social and religious customs. His account was an important source for the account of John Mandeville. Many of the incredible reports in Mandeville have proven to be garbled versions of Odoric's eyewitness descriptions. Life Odoric was born at Villanova, a hamlet now belonging to the town of Pordenone in Friuli, in or about 1286. He came from the Italian family of the Mattiussi, one of the families in charge of defending the town of Pordenone in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jewish Folklore
Jewish folklore are legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales, stories, tall tales, and customs that are the traditions of Judaism. Folktales are characterized by the presence of unusual personages, by the sudden transformation of men into beasts and vice versa, or by other unnatural incidents. A number of aggadic stories bear folktale characteristics, especially those relating to Og, King of Bashan, which have the same exaggerations as have the ''lügenmärchen'' of modern German folktales. Middle Ages There is considerable evidence of Jewish people bringing and helping the spread of Eastern folktales in Europe.Joseph Jacobs.Folk-Tales entry. In: ''The Jewish Encyclopedia''. Vol. 5. New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls company, 1902. pp. 427-428. Besides these tales from foreign sources, Jews either collected or composed others which were told throughout the European ghettos, and were collected in Yiddish in the "Maasebücher". Numbers of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
