|
Cockatrice (Dungeons
A cockatrice is a mythical beast, essentially a two-legged dragon, wyvern, or serpent-like creature with a rooster's head. Described by Laurence Breiner as "an ornament in the drama and poetry of the Elizabethans", it was featured prominently in English thought and myth for centuries. They are created by a chicken egg hatched by a toad or snake. Legend Origins The first English mention of the cockatrice was in the 14th-century John Wycliffe translation of the Bible. The word was used for the translation of various Hebrew words for asp and adder in the Book of Isaiah 11, 14 and 59. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' gives a derivation from Old French , from medieval Latin , a translation of the Greek , meaning tracker. The twelfth-century legend was based on a reference in ''Pliny's Natural History'' that the ichneumon lay in wait for the crocodile to open its jaws for the ''trochilus'' bird to enter and pick its teeth clean. An extended description of the by the 15th-centur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nile Crocodile
The Nile crocodile (''Crocodylus niloticus'') is a large crocodilian native to freshwater habitats in Africa, where it is present in 26 countries. It is widely distributed in sub-Saharan Africa, occurring mostly in the eastern, southern, and central regions of the continent, and lives in different types of aquatic environments such as lakes, rivers, swamps and marshlands. It occasionally inhabits deltas, brackish lakes and rarely also saltwater. Its range once stretched from the Nile Delta throughout the Nile River. Lake Turkana in Kenya has one of the largest undisturbed Nile crocodile populations. Generally, the adult male Nile crocodile is between in length and weighs . However, specimens exceeding in length and in weight have been recorded. It is the largest predator in Africa, and may be considered the second-largest extant taxon, extant reptile in the world, after the saltwater crocodile (''Crocodylus porosus'').Wood, G. (1983). ''The Guinness Book of Animal Facts and F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bestiary
A bestiary () is a compendium of beasts. Originating in the ancient world, bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals and even rocks. The natural history and illustration of each beast was usually accompanied by a moral lesson. This reflected the belief that the world itself was the Word of God and that every living thing had its own special meaning. For example, the pelican, which was believed to tear open its breast to bring its young to life with its own blood, was a living representation of Jesus. Thus the bestiary is also a reference to the symbolic language of animals in Western Christian art and literature. History The bestiary — the medieval book of beasts — was among the most popular illuminated texts in northern Europe during the Middle Ages (about 500–1500). Medieval Christians understood every element of the world as a manifestation of God, and bestiaries largely focused on each animal's religious ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Donne
John Donne ( ; 1571 or 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a clergy, cleric in the Church of England. Under Royal Patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's, Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London (1621–1631). He is considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His poetical works are noted for their metaphorical and sensual style and include sonnets, love poems, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs and satires. He is also known for his sermons. Donne's style is characterised by abrupt openings and various paradoxes, ironies and dislocations. These features, along with his frequent dramatic or everyday speech rhythms, his tense syntax and his tough eloquence, were both a reaction against the smoothness of conventional Elizabethan poetry and an adaptation into English of European baroque and mannerist techniques. His early career was marked by poetry ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient History
Ancient history is a time period from the History of writing, beginning of writing and recorded human history through late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the development of Sumerian language, Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history covers all continents inhabited by humans in the period 3000 BCAD 500, ending with the Early Muslim conquests, expansion of Islam in late antiquity. The three-age system periodises ancient history into the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age, with recorded history generally considered to begin with the Bronze Age. The start and end of the three ages vary between world regions. In many regions the Bronze Age is generally considered to begin a few centuries prior to 3000 BC, while the end of the Iron Age varies from the early first millennium BC in some regions to the late first millennium AD in others. During the time period of ancient history, the world population was Exponential growth, e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and surpass the ideas and achievements of classical antiquity. Associated with great social change in most fields and disciplines, including Renaissance art, art, Renaissance architecture, architecture, politics, Renaissance literature, literature, Renaissance exploration, exploration and Science in the Renaissance, science, the Renaissance was first centered in the Republic of Florence, then spread to the Italian Renaissance, rest of Italy and later throughout Europe. The term ''rinascita'' ("rebirth") first appeared in ''Lives of the Artists'' () by Giorgio Vasari, while the corresponding French word was adopted into English as the term for this period during the 1830s. The Renaissance's intellectual basis was founded in its version of Renaiss ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cock Egg
A yolkless egg is a small egg with no yolk, sometimes produced by a pullet that has only just started laying. These eggs are common and usually pose no harm. The eggs can also be called fart eggs, cock eggs, fairy eggs, dwarf eggs, and witch eggs. The name wind eggs is also sometimes used, but this term more often refers to eggs without a shell, or with a soft shell, and less often to eggs that are rotten or unfertilized.Oxford Universal Dictionary Cause A yolkless egg is most often a pullet's first egg, produced before her laying mechanism is fully ready. In a mature hen, a yolkless egg is unlikely, but can occur if a bit of reproductive tissue breaks away, stimulating the egg-producing glands to treat it as a yolk and wrap it in albumen, membranes and a shell as it travels through the egg tube. In cases of an egg that contains a small particle of grayish tissue instead of a yolk, this is what has occurred. This type of egg occurs in many varieties of fowl, including chickens ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ibis
The ibis () (collective plural ibises; classical plurals ibides and ibes) are a group of long-legged wading birds in the family Threskiornithidae that inhabit wetlands, forests and plains. "Ibis" derives from the Latin and Ancient Greek word for this group of birds. It also occurs in the scientific name of the western cattle egret (''Ardea ibis'') mistakenly identified in 1757 as being the sacred ibis. Description Ibises all have long, downcurved bills, and usually feed as a group, probing mud for food items, usually crustaceans. They are monogamous and highly territorial while nesting and feeding. Most nest in trees, often with spoonbills or herons. All extant species are capable of Flying and gliding animals, flight, but two extinct genera were flightless, namely the kiwi-like ''Apteribis'' in the Hawaiian Islands, and the peculiar ''Xenicibis xympithecus, Xenicibis'' in Jamaica. The word ''ibis'' comes from Latin ''ibis'' from Ancient Greek, Greek ἶβις ''ibis'' from Egy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Egypt
Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northern coast of Egypt, the north, the Gaza Strip of Palestine and Israel to Egypt–Israel barrier, the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to Egypt–Sudan border, the south, and Libya to Egypt–Libya border, the west; the Gulf of Aqaba in the northeast separates Egypt from Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Cairo is the capital, list of cities and towns in Egypt, largest city, and leading cultural center, while Alexandria is the second-largest city and an important hub of industry and tourism. With over 109 million inhabitants, Egypt is the List of African countries by population, third-most populous country in Africa and List of countries and dependencies by population, 15th-most populated in the world. Egypt has one of the longest histories o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Trevisa
350px, John Trevisa (or John of Trevisa; ; fl. 1342–1402 AD) was a Cornish writer and professional translator. Trevisa was born at Trevessa in the parish of St Enoder in mid-Cornwall, in Britain and was a native Cornish speaker. He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, and became Vicar of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, chaplain to the 5th Lord Berkeley, and Canon of Westbury on Trym. He translated into English for his patron the Latin '' Polychronicon'' of Ranulf Higden, adding remarks of his own, and prefacing it with a '' Dialogue on Translation between a Lord and a Clerk''. He likewise made various other translations, including Bartholomaeus Anglicus' ''On the Properties of Things'' ''(De Proprietatibus Rerum)'', a medieval forerunner of the encyclopedia. It seems likely that he was the translator of the Bible into Cornish, a language, which until recently, was thought not to have possessed a bible translation. A fellow of The Queen's College, Oxford, from 1372 to 13 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bartholomeus Anglicus
Bartholomaeus Anglicus (before 1203–1272), also known as Bartholomew the Englishman and Berthelet, was an early 13th-century scholasticism, Scholastic of Paris, a member of the Franciscan order. He was the author of the compendium ''De proprietatibus rerum'' ("On the Properties of Things"), dated c.1240, an early forerunner of the encyclopedia and a widely cited book in the Middle Ages. Bartholomew also held senior positions within the church and was appointed Bishop of Łuków in what is now Poland, although he was not consecrated to that position. Early life Little is known of Bartholomew's early life. He is believed to have been born around the turn of the 13th century to unknown parents. The first record of him was in 1224 in Paris as a teacher, although he is also believed to have studied at Oxford University. Encyclopedia The work ''De proprietatibus rerum'' was written at the school of Magdeburg in Saxony, Saxonia and intended for the use of students and the general ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toad
Toad (also known as a hoptoad) is a common name for certain frogs, especially of the family Bufonidae, that are characterized by dry, leathery skin, short legs, and large bumps covering the parotoid glands. In popular culture (folk taxonomy), toads are distinguished from frogs by their drier, rougher skin and association with more terrestrial habitats. However, this distinction does not align precisely with scientific taxonomy. List of toad families In scientific taxonomy, toads include the true toads (Bufonidae) and various other terrestrial or warty-skinned frogs. Non-bufonid "toads" can be found in the families: * Bombinatoridae ( fire-bellied toads and jungle toads) * Calyptocephalellidae ( helmeted water toad and false toads) * Discoglossidae ( midwife toads) * Myobatrachidae (Australian toadlets) * Pelobatidae ( European spadefoot toad) * Rhinophrynidae ( burrowing toads) * Scaphiopodidae ( American spadefoot toads) * Microhylidae ( narrowmouth toads) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
