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Gnomes
A gnome () is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and widely adopted by authors, including those of modern fantasy literature. They are typically depicted as small humanoids who live underground. Gnome characteristics are reinterpreted to suit various storytellers and artists. Paracelsus's gnome is recognized to have derived from the German miners' legend about or , the "metallurgical or mineralogical demon", according to Georg Agricola (1530), also called (literal Latinization of ''Bergmännlein'', "mountain manikin") by Agriocola in a later work (1549), and described by other names such as (sing. ; Latinization of German ). Agricola recorded that, according to the legends of that profession, these mining spirits acted as miming and laughing pranksters who sometimes threw pebbles at miners, but could also reward them by depositing a rich vein of silver ore. Paracelsus also called h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Garden Gnome
Garden gnomes () are lawn ornament figurines of small humanoid creatures based on the mythological creature and diminutive spirit which occur in Renaissance magic and alchemy, known as gnomes. They also draw on the German folklore of the Dwarf (folklore), dwarf. Traditionally, the garden figurines depict male dwarfs wearing red pointy hats. Typically, gnomes stand between . Originating as a decoration for the wealthy in Europe, garden gnomes are now prevalent in gardens and lawns throughout the Western world, among all social classes. They are regarded by some as kitsch. History Ancient predecessors In ancient Rome, small stone statues depicting the Greco-Roman fertility god Priapus, also a protector of beehives, flocks, and vineyards, were frequently placed in Roman gardens. Gnomes as magical creatures were first described during the Renaissance period by Swiss alchemist Paracelsus as "diminutive figures two spans in height who did not like to mix with humans". During this per ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elemental
An elemental is a mythic supernatural being that is described in occult and alchemy, alchemical works from around the time of the European Renaissance, and particularly elaborated in the 16th century works of Paracelsus. According to Paracelsus and his subsequent followers, there are four categories of elementals, which are gnomes, undine (alchemy), undines, sylphs, and salamanders in folklore and legend, salamanders. These correspond to the four Empedoclean elements of antiquity: earth (classical element), earth, water (classical element), water, air (classical element), air, and fire (classical element), fire, respectively. Terms employed for beings associated with alchemical elements vary by source and gloss. History The Paracelsian concept of elementals draws from several much older traditions in mythology and religion. Common threads can be found in folklore, animism, and anthropomorphism. Examples of creatures such as the Pygmy (Greek mythology), Pygmy were taken from Gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Renaissance Magic
Renaissance magic was a resurgence in Hermeticism and Neoplatonic varieties of the magical arts which arose along with Renaissance humanism in the 15th and 16th centuries CE. During the Renaissance period, magic and occult practices underwent significant changes that reflected shifts in cultural, intellectual, and religious perspectives. C. S. Lewis, in his work on English literature, highlighted the transformation in how magic was perceived and portrayed. In medieval stories, magic had a fantastical and fairy-like quality, while in the Renaissance, it became more complex and tied to the idea of hidden knowledge that could be explored through books and rituals. This change is evident in the works of authors like Spenser, Marlowe, Chapman, and Shakespeare, who treated magic as a serious and potentially dangerous pursuit. Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, a scholar, physician, and astrologer, popularized the Hermetic and Cabalistic magic of Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paracelsus
Paracelsus (; ; 1493 – 24 September 1541), born Theophrastus von Hohenheim (full name Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim), was a Swiss physician, alchemist, lay theologian, and philosopher of the German Renaissance. He was a pioneer in several aspects of the "Medical Renaissance, medical revolution" of the Renaissance, emphasizing the value of observation in combination with received wisdom. He is credited as the "father of toxicology". Paracelsus also had a substantial influence as a prophet or diviner, his "Prognostications" being studied by Rosicrucians in the 17th century. Paracelsianism is the early modern medical movement inspired by the study of his works. Biography Paracelsus was born in Einsiedeln, a village close to the Etzel Pass in Einsiedeln, canton of Schwyz, Schwyz. He was born in a house next to a bridge across the Sihl river. His father Wilhelm (d. 1534) was a chemist and physician, an illegitimate descendant of the Duchy of Swabia, S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophical Research Society
The Philosophical Research Society (PRS) is an American nonprofit organization founded in 1934, by Manly P. Hall, to promote the study of the world's wisdom literature, philosophy, comparative religion, mysticism and metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of .... PRS is located at 3910 Los Feliz Blvd in Los Angeles. Hall believed the accumulated wisdom of mankind is the birthright of every individual and founded the facility to serve the general public to this end. As of 2024, its president is John Pillsbury, who replaced the third president Greg Salyer, PhD in 2022. Dennis Bartok is the current executive director. Salyer was a graduate of Emory University's Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts. Following Mr. Hall's death in 1990, Obadiah Harris, Ph.D. served ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first edition in 1884, traces the historical development of the English language, providing a comprehensive resource to scholars and academic researchers, and provides ongoing descriptions of English language usage in its variations around the world. In 1857, work first began on the dictionary, though the first edition was not published until 1884. It began to be published in unbound Serial (literature), fascicles as work continued on the project, under the name of ''A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles; Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by The Philological Society''. In 1895, the title ''The Oxford English Dictionary'' was first used unofficially on the covers of the series, and in 1928 the full dictionary was republished in 10 b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linguistic Reconstruction
Linguistic reconstruction is the practice of establishing the features of an unattested ancestor language of one or more given languages. There are two kinds of reconstruction: * Internal reconstruction uses irregularities in a single language to make inferences about an earlier stage of that language – that is, it is based on evidence from that language alone. * Comparative reconstruction, usually referred to just as reconstruction, establishes features of the ancestor of two or more related languages, belonging to the same language family, by means of the comparative method. A language reconstructed in this way is often referred to as a proto-language (the common ancestor of all the languages in a given family). Texts discussing linguistic reconstruction commonly preface reconstructed forms with an asterisk (*) to distinguish them from attested forms. An attested word from which a root in the proto-language is reconstructed is a . More generally, a reflex is the known deriv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Murray Gell-Mann
Murray Gell-Mann (; September 15, 1929 – May 24, 2019) was an American theoretical physicist who played a preeminent role in the development of the theory of elementary particles. Gell-Mann introduced the concept of quarks as the fundamental building blocks of the strongly interacting particles, and the renormalization group as a foundational element of quantum field theory and statistical mechanics. He played key roles in developing the concept of chirality in the theory of the weak interactions and spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in the strong interactions, which controls the physics of the light mesons. In the 1970s he was a co-inventor of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) which explains the confinement of quarks in mesons and baryons and forms a large part of the Standard Model of elementary particles and forces. Murray Gell-Mann received the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles. Life and education Gell-Mann was bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quark
A quark () is a type of elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nucleus, atomic nuclei. All commonly observable matter is composed of up quarks, down quarks and electrons. Owing to a phenomenon known as ''color confinement'', quarks are never found in isolation; they can be found only within hadrons, which include baryons (such as protons and neutrons) and mesons, or in quark–gluon plasmas. There is also the theoretical possibility of #Other_phases_of_quark_matter, more exotic phases of quark matter. For this reason, much of what is known about quarks has been drawn from observations of hadrons. Quarks have various Intrinsic and extrinsic properties, intrinsic physical property, properties, including electric charge, mass, color charge, and Spin (physics), spin. They are the only elementary particles in the Standard Mode ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heinrich Schlitt
Heinrich Schlitt (August 21, 1849 – November 13, 1923) was a German painter and illustrator, known for his fantasy motifs that feature gnomes, Dwarf (folklore), dwarves, and Fairy, faeries. He was one of the in-house artists at the Villeroy & Boch ceramic company in Mettlach, Saarland, and his designs for their beer steins remain popular with collectors to this day. Early life Schlitt was born in Wiesbaden in the Duchy of Nassau, what would now be in the modern day German state of Hesse. His father was a member of the court of the Duchy of Nassau#Dukes, Duke of Nassau, working as a coachman. After the Prussian annexation of the Duchy, Schlitt joined the Dutch military, a choice thought to be the result of the Schlitt family moving to the Netherlands with the rest of the exiled Duchy. Schlitt was a student of Kaspar Kögler at his school in Wiesbaden. In 1875, he continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, Academy of Fine Arts in Munich under Wilhelm Lindenschmit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pygmæi
The Pygmies ( ''Pygmaioi'', from the adjective πυγμαῖος, from the noun πυγμή ''pygmē'' "fist, boxing, distance from elbow to knuckles," from the adverb πύξ ''pyx'' "with the fist") were a tribe of diminutive humans in Greek mythology. Attestations According to the ''Iliad'', they were involved in a constant war with the cranes, which migrated in winter to their homeland on the southern shores of the earth-encircling river Oceanus: According to Aristotle in '' History of Animals'', the story is true: Hesiod wrote that Epaphus, son of Zeus, through his daughters was the ancestor of the "dark Libyans, and high-souled Aethiopians, and the Underground-folk and feeble Pygmies". According to Stephanus of Byzantium, the tribe of Pygmies was descended from Pygmaios, son of Doros, son of Epaphus. One story in Ovid describes the origin of the age-old battle, speaking of a Pygmy Queen named Gerana who offended the goddess Hera with her boasts of superior beau ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nysa, Poland
Nysa ( or ''Neiße'') is a city in southern Poland on the Eastern Neisse ( Polish: ''Nysa Kłodzka'') river, situated in the Opole Voivodeship. With 43,849 inhabitants (2019), it is the capital of Nysa County. It comprises the urban portion of the surrounding Gmina Nysa. Historically the city was part of Upper Silesia. One of the oldest cities in Silesia, most possibly founded in the 10th century, Nysa was historically one of the leading cities in the region, and from 1290 to 1742 the capital of an episcopally-ruled eponymous duchy. In early modern times it became a center of printing and education, place of study of several notable individuals, including King of Poland Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki. In the 19th and 20th centuries it was the location of German-operated prisoner-of-war camps for soldiers of various nationalities, including future leader of France, Charles de Gaulle. Nysa contains several notable heritage sights in Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque styles, mos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
