The Serpent Sword

In The Quest of the Holy Grail, a uniquely alchemical tale, the sword is seen as a fiery serpent. It is the sword of King David, made by the wise Solomon (Sol Om On) with a pommel stone of all the colors of the earth, with two rib hilts, one made from the fish of the Euphrates and the other the serpent.

It is said to resemble the sword of Arthur, which itself is said to be serpentine in the Dream of Rhonabwy. When Arthurs sword is drawn it was said that two flames of fire burst out of the jaws of the two serpents, and so wonderful was the sword that it was hard for anyone to gaze at it. It is necessary for Arthur to maintain ownership of the sword, whether it is the sword from the stone or Excalibur, as it ensures his victory and his life. Malory indicates again the brightness of the sword and its fiery aspect, writing: but it was so bright in his enemies eyes, that it gave light like thirty torches. But the sword in the stone does not last long and the Lady of the L ake gives Arthur his Excalibur, and also a serpent scabbard, which ensures eternal life. Malory states quite clearly for whiles ye have the scabbard upon you, ye shall never lose no blood, be ye never so sore wounded; therefore keep well the scabbard always with you. It is only when Arthurs half sister Morgan le Fay steals the scabbard and replaces it that Arthur becomes susceptible to the deadly blows of Mordred. The once prized sword is then returned to the water, the home of the Lady of the Lake the serpent spirit.

There is a remarkable resemblance between the tales of Arthurs sword and an unsuspecting Chinese legend. A hero from the 6th century BC named Wu Tzu-hsu threw his sword into a river It shot forth like a spirit-glow, sparkling brightly as it thrice sank and thrice came to the surface with a great gush and then hovered above the water. The god of the river . . . heard the swords roar . . . he rolled in the waters in a great and frothing frenzy . . . Dragon s raced along the waves and leaped out of the water. The river god held the sword in his hand and, frightened, told Wu Tzu-hsu to take it back. (Mair 1983, 141 and 286.) This story, related in the 8th century AD simply cannot differ from Malorys tale of the sword. In China there were tales of great swords such as Dragon Spring and others still that leap into the waters surrounded by dragons, which churn up the water. Wu Tzu-hsus sword is also called Dragon Spring.

But is there any archaeological evidence for the existence of a real sword or swords, which, were seen as serpents? Well we just so happened to find such evidence in the Catalogue of The Fourteenth Park Lane Arms Fair. Lee A Jones authored a fascinating article entitled, The Serpent in the Sword: Pattern-welding in Early Medieval Swords, which immediately made the hairs on the back of our necks tingle. (see http://www.viKingsword.com/serpent.html) Error! Unknown switch argument.

The sword first appear ed around 4000 years ago and immediately became the pre-eminent weapon, preferred by the warrior class. Recent metallurgical studies have shown how the complex piled structures or layers improved the sword from as early as 500 BC. Little wonder that the smithy was an important part of legend and folklore, as the skill implied in the making of these swords is substantial. Several rods are welded together down the length of the blade, joining the various levels of metal together. Heated and then pounded into shape, this sword making was an awesome task. Smaller rods that were carburized (improved carbon) were introduced to increase the hardness. This formed steel, an alloy of iron with small amounts of carbon, which was introduced into the edges of the blade as it was stronger and more effective.

Through the 5th to 10th centuries AD sword smiths actually managed to manipulate this piled structure to create wonderful designs within the blade. The method remained virtually unchanged even into the 20th century as can be seen with the daggers of the Nazis, who utilized it extensively.

The patterns (seen above) are seen from the varying degrees of trace elements within the different rods, showing alternating shades. The rods are invariably twisted down the shaft, forming a spiral effect. These twisted swords are seen as early as the 1st century BC in the La Tene period, although more effectively used from the 3rd and 5th centuries the very early period of Arthur. Cassiodorus was a secretary of Theodoric and in 520 AD he wrote to a northern Germanic tribe regarding a gift of words praising their skills, especially the shadows and colors seen in the blades, which he likened to tiny snakes. In the 10th century Kormaks Saga says concerning the sword Skofnung: a covering goes with it and thou shall leave it quiet; the sun must not shine on the upper guard, nor shall thou comest to the fighting place, sit alone, and there draw it. Hold up the b lade and blow on it; then a small snake will creep from under the guard; incline the blade and make it easier for it to creep back under the guard. It is the considered opinion of some scientists that this implies that the dew would reveal the pattern of the serpent upon the sword, giving the impression that a serpent is emerging from the sheath.

This inclusion of the serpent in the blade was eventually replaced with iron inlaid letters and symbols, and Christian phrases such as In Nomine Domini (In the name of the Lord). The remarkable archaeological fact of serpents appearing in the designs of 5th century swords links perfectly with the time of Arthur. As the Pendragon or Head/Chief Dragon Lord he would certainly have been seen with such a device and in the stories mentioned above there are textual links in the legend.

About the Author

Philip Gardiner is the author of the best selling The Serpent Grail, The Shining Ones, and Gnosis: The Secret of Solomons Temple Revealed. He does talks, lectures, has his own radio show and does tours across the world via www.powerplaces.com

Philip has a degree in marketing and 9 diplomas ranging from etymology to holistic medicine. He is hosting the Philip Gardiners Forbidden Knowledge Conference UK (FKCUK) in July 2006.

www.philipgardiner.net
www.gardinerosborn.com

Author:: Philip Gardiner
Keywords:: St Teilo,roman culture,Antiquity,Kings,Nomine Domini,Templar,holy grail,philip gardiner,arthur's swo
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Overworked and Underpaid!

Lest we feel we are overworked and underpaid, here is a gem from 1892:

This notice was found in the ruins of a London office building. It was dated 1852.

1. This firm has reduced the hours of work, and the clerical staff will now only have to be present between the hours of 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. weekdays.

2. Clothing must be of a sober nature. The clerical staff will not disport themselves in raiment of bright colors, nor will they wear hose unless in good repair.

3. Overshoes and topcoats may not be worn in the office, but neck scarves and headwear may be worn in inclement weather.

4. A stove is provided for the benefit of the clerical staff. Coal and wood must be kept in the locker. It is recommended that each member of the clerical staff bring four pounds of coal each day during the cold weather.

5. No member of the clerical staff may leave the room without permission from the supervisor.

6. No talking is allowed during business hou rs.

7. The craving for tobacco, wine, or spirits is a human weakness, and as such is forbidden to all members of the clerical staff.

8. Now that the hours of business have been drastically reduced, the partaking of food is allowed between 11:30 and noon, but work will not on any account cease.

9. Members of the clerical staff will provide their own pens. A new sharpener is available on application to the supervisor.

10. The supervisor will nominate a senior clerk to be responsible for the cleanliness of the main office and the private office. All boys and juniors will report to him 40 minutes before prayers and will remain after closing hours for similar work. Brushes, brooms, scrubber, and soap are provided by the owners.

11. The owners recognize the generosity of the new labor laws, but will expect a great rise in output of work to compensate for these near Utopian conditions.

Anonymous

Author:: Patricia Nordman
Keywords:: 18 00 employment,early american workers,pioneer worker,Careers
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Bad Day at Grover's Mill

In 1938 Orson Welles produced a version of War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells (no relation), for an American radio station. His company, Mercury Theater, had already dramatised several books, such as The Count of Monte Christo and Dracula, but now Welles decided on a new approach.

At this time radio was still a new and powerful medium. The big radio networks such as CBS and NBC had only been going for about ten years. These were nervous, jumpy times. Storm clouds were gathering over Europe, as Churchill put it. Britain was less than a year away from the most desperate fight for survival in its long history, and most Americans felt that sooner or later they would be involved, too.

Americans were becoming used to dramatic stories unfolding on the radio. In 1932 came the first live broadcast from an actual war zone, when a reporter brought the sounds of a real battle from Spain into peoples homes. Then there was the mystery of aviator Charles Lindberghs kidnapped bab y son, which dragged on for several months. To this day there are some unanswered question connected to this case. In 1937 there was the fatal crash of the airship Hindenberg, described by Herbert Morrison, of Chicago station WLS, in a recording put out the next day. Oh, the flames, four or five hundred feet in the sky, its a terrible crash, ladies and gentlemen. The smoke and the flames now and the frame is crashing to the ground, not quite the mooring post. Oh, the humanity and all the passengers, he says, before breaking off for a few minutes, overwhelmed by the horror of it.

It was at this edgy time that Orson Welles hit the airwaves of America with his new production. Welles had updated the story from its cosy late-Victorian English setting to contemporary New Jersey, and he presented it as a series of increasingly apocalyptic news reports. Listeners settling down to what they thought was a program of dance music suddenly heard it interrupted by a report of severa l explosions of incandescent gas on the planet Mars, followed, after a few more minutes of music, by an interview with a professor at Princeton Observatory, assuring everyone that there was nothing to worry about.

From here the story gets wilder, as reports start to come in of a Martian invasion in full swing. The Martians had landed, for reasons best known to themselves (and Welles), at the sleepy rural hamlet of Grovers Mill, and were deploying in the direction of New York City, spreading death and destruction as they advanced. The realistic effect was enhanced by the use of genuine place names along the route.

The result was more startling than anyone, including Orson, could have predicted. As it happened, about half the audience tuned in late that night, and so missed the brief introduction, explaining that it was only a radio play that they were listening to. Thousands of people panicked. The roads became blocked with people and cars. Some people hid in cell ars, some wrapped their heads in wet towels to escape the poisonous gas, some grabbed their guns, declaring they were going to help defend Grovers Mill.

The public services were swamped. A man phoned the Bronx Police Headquarters and told the cop on the desk, Theyre bombing New Jersey! How do you know? enquired patrolman Morrison. I heard it on the radio. Then I went to the roof and I could see the smoke from the bombs!

It would be a cheap response to laugh at the unsophisticated reaction of those Americans, nearly seventy years ago, as they confused Science fiction with reality, but in those anxious days, who knew what might be possible? Afterwards, Welles claimed it had not been his intention to cause mass panic, and there is no reason to disbelieve him. All the same, he must have known he w as tapping into a well-established fantasy.

The fascination with off-world activities goes back a long way if you think of the Greek gods as the first space travellers, and Icarus was an early fatality when he flew too close to the sun with his wax and feather wings, after having been warned against it by his father, Daedalus. As we all know, the wax melted and he fell into the sea...

Science fiction in its modern form began with Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. In From the Earth to the Moon, which was written as a kind of travelogue, Verne has his space capsule with its three man crew, fired at the moon from a cannon. This story influenced most of the original space pioneers. Although not as highly educated as H.G wells, he used real engineering analysis to arrive at the design of his cannon and m anned moon projectile, and at the time of the Apollo missions it was recognised that he made a number of correct engineering predictions.

Sci-fi literature really took off in the 50s and 60s. C.S.Lewis wrote his Interplanetary trilogy in 1953; Voyage to Venus, That Hideous Strength and Out of the Silent Planet. These had a strong Christian and moral theme. Lewis, originally from Ireland, moved to England and eventually became an Oxford don, so its understandable that his fiction was a bit shaky on the Science. But he was an exception. Many sci-fi writers of the time were either scientists, engineers or mathematicians, sometimes all three. Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov (I, Robot) and Arthur C. Clarke are just three of many that come to mind. Ray Bradbury is in a class by himself, for his beautifully crafted, poetic images of lost and crumbling civilizations on the Red Planet.

Today there is less distance between Science fiction and Science than there used to be. Arthur C. Clarke is so well respected in scientific circles that he has had several craters named after him on the moon. Many of Clarkes ideas have been used by space engineers. For example, in 1963 he wrote a story called Windjammer, or The Wind from the Sun, in which space vehicles had enormously wide sails, made of extremely thin material. The idea was that they were propelled between the planets by solar winds, or pressure from the sun. The acceleration rate woul d be small, but a craft would eventually attain speeds close to the speed of light, using no fuel at all.

I read some time ago that the Russians had taken up the challenge and were building a space ship based on Clarkes idea. As I write, this vehicle has just failed to launch, due to the failure of the initial rocket stage, not the space wings themselves, but such is the interest in Clarkes concept, that there are programs being prepared in the US, Japan and Europe.

Another of Arthur C. Clarkes ideas was that of a tower stretching into space, as a kind of docking point for space ships. This idea is also receiving serious consideration.

NASAs business-like approach to the exploration of space from the 60s on has taken some of the mystery away from local space travel and has affected the popularity of sci-fi literature. The emphasis has shifted to films. Again Arthur C. Clarke showed the way with the classic 2001. Since then weve had Star Wars, Close Encounte rs, E.T., Alien, Independence Day, and of course, Star Trek. I should also mention Contact, the book and film by Carl Sagan, a scientist and writer who left us way too soon. He was largely responsible for NASAs search program for extra-terrestrial radio signals. And now, just to come full circle, we have a re-make of War of the Worlds...

Seventy years on, its true that we couldnt be fooled by Welles radio play, but technology is moving at such a pace that we are not really sure anymore, what is possible and what is not. Anti-matter, anti-gravity, charm particles, alien abduction, bring it on the truth is out there. Personally, I wont be surprised when they discover a way to travel faster than the speed of light. Warp factor two, Mr. Sulu, and straight on til morning.

James Donaldson Collins

James Donaldson Collins is an artist and writer. He lives in the Highlands of Scotland with his wife, daughter and three dogs. His interests are conservation, histo ry, Science fiction, chess and snooker. He also claims to play guitar like a ringing a bell.

Author:: Donaldson Collins
Keywords:: Science-fiction,Science,orson welles
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Richard Price and the Art of Turning Novels into Films

Richard Price is one of our premier novelists. Since his publication of his first novel in the mid 1970's entitled The Wanderers, he has given readers masterpieces of the urban genre, inspired by his Bronx upbringing and his commitment to the realities and the eccentricities of the American landscape, its rages, dislocations, furies, and yearnings. His other Novels include Clockers (made into a movie), Freedomland (currently in production and starring Samuel L. Jackson as Lorenzo Council and Julianne Moore as Brenda Martin and directed by Joe Roth).

His most recent novel is Samaritan, another ethical urban masterpiece. An online review may be found at Salon.com. Again, Price does not shurk the responsibilities of an American novelist to deal with the problems, psyche and absurdities of our times.

Richard Price's Screenplays include Clockers, Sea of Love, Ransom, the Color of Money, and Shaft, among others. He is a National Book critics Award nominee and Academy Award Nominee. He has written for the New York Times and Esquire.

Any novelist seeking to write for film should read his Novels. Also read his Films. They are both very teachable for any class in scriptwriting and/or novel writing. His interviews in which he discusses Novels and Films can be found online at Salon.com and at the Randomhouse website devoted to his novel Freedomland.

Turning Novels into Films or Films into Novels? Think Richard Price.

Susan Shaw is a freelance writing of web content, including the subjects of film, business, and science. Susan Shaw manages the following film-oriented website, Film Financing, http://www.filmfinancing.myeweb.com and has an online bookstore.

Author:: Susan Shaw
Keywords:: Richard Price, Novels, Films, Screenplays
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Barbara Willis a Glen Luken's Protege is Rediscovered

Barbara Willis was born in Bakersfield, California on June 29, 1917. She began her art career by studying with potter Laura Andreson and trained with the master, Glen Lukens at UCLA in the late 1930's. In 1942, Barbara opened her first studio Pottery. With the shortage of domestic products due to World War II, Barbara then went from studio to production potter. Barbara's unique glazing technique, vibrant colors and imitation wood designs were sought after by the large store chains such as Neiman Marcus, Lord & Taylor of New York, Gump's, & Macy's to name a few....including the White House. The popularity of her work lasted until the mid 1950's when art Pottery interest declined due to the increase in imports after the war. Barbara closed her Pottery and moved on to her next business venture.

In 1994, Barbara Willis found a piece of her vintage Pottery at a flea market. During a conversation with the seller, she passed on her phone number. A few weeks later, an avid c ollector of her vintage works called her to explain that she is a California Art Pottery legend! Barbara was encouraged to begin a new line of Pottery and, this Barbara Willis, Terrene Pottery was reborn! Barbara utilizes a different approach in the making of her contemporary line. She hand presses each piece, using one of three types of clay. Barbara uses a unique one-fire glazing process. Each piece is definitely one of a kind!

What a gracious woman! I had the opportunity to meet Barbara Willis, in person, at the Los Angeles Pottery Show on January 29, 2005. In anticipation of meeting and talking with her, I took along my book Barbara Willis - Classic California Modernism, by Jack Chipman and asked her if she would be kind enough to sign it for me. She signed it To Alice, Warm Regards - Barbara Willis - 1/29/04. I later noticed that she had inadvertently dated it 2004 instead of 2005. Like most of us, we write the previous year's date until we are used to the new yea r. I certainly did not mind the incorrect date. I was overjoyed that I was conversing with her and expressing my admiration for her work directly in person.

I speak of Barbara Willis with much enthusiasm because of many reasons. First and foremost, I love her Pottery - not only her vintage work, but her contemporary work as well. Here's a woman, in her late 80's, who currently has her creative juices in motion, working right out of her home in Malibu Beach letting herself be known again to the Pottery world after a thirty-seven year absence to clay. I, like many others, am very appreciative of her work and share in the joy of her return as she quickly is being recognized as an important American ceramist!

You will find pieces of her vintage and contemporary works in the shopping gallery at AccessoryHut.com as well as some hand made Pottery gift items such as necklaces, paperweights, and ring holders. I am also proud to announce that Barbara Willis is the Featured Artist for the Grand Opening of the gallery.

If you would like to learn more about the life and works of Barbara Willis, the above mentioned book is a great read! The author, Jack Chipman, had the opportunity to interview her for his book and during the process they became good friends and he is now a student of hers. A lucky man!

Alice Krueser is the owner of http://www.AccessoryHut.com, an online art gallery that promotes the arts and its Directory of Artists to the design industry as well as the general public. The gallery's slogan: Home Decor with Yesterday's & Today's Artists in Mind

Author:: Alice Krueser
Keywords:: home decor,decorative art,art history,Pottery,art gallery,interior design,studio Pottery,Decorate
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Spindoctoring

The keltoi or pre-Hellenic people including the Bards had a well-developed educational system that started with logical learning of things children love to do. In addition we now know that the development of the human brain in childhood makes it easiest to learn languages rather than math and other things this system intuited or knew. So the Minstrels and jesters arts, with their performances and study of Rhetoric made a lot of common sense.

Common Sense is not common in much of the education system which has existed during the times of religious and Empire-oriented structures since the end of the Druidic Universities with the Roman Empire which has grown in influence every time it has supposedly collapsed or fallen. Gibbon wrote eloquently for his Masonic brethren like Hume. He tells us the R oman Empire did not fall when the Goths or Vandals invaded and that it was in 1493 with the fall of the Byzantine Court that the Roman Empire ended. When Julius took control of power from the Senate and made it an Empire that answered to one main Caesar (Kaiser and Czar) this clearly made it possible for fewer people to share in the booty.

But it was the work of Constantine that really accelerated the grab of power by the few. The Equestrian class were no mere farmers as the likes of the De Medici or Bauers (Rothschild Benjaminites) would have us believe. They were the elite power-brokers and they had secret spying ventures and a monopoly on usury. In Rome they rented out state-owned land to farmers who were only allowed to earn a limited amount of money. Constantine never became a Christian but he made Christianity the new overlord. This Holy Roman Empire never had to pass assets to the people and it even took over the institutions of charity. Needless to say the inst itutions of education became increasingly controlled and manipulated as the Dark Ages and Sins and Demons initiatives were developed. Eventually people were told the only thing they should or even could study was the Bible. In other Abrahamic religious lands that developed Islam it was the Koran or other dogma that Caliph Omar, who was involved in the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, said must be studied. So the world has grown and people have become ever more institutionalized.

Semantics and the parsing of words and meaning has achieved heights of ignorance in all the minions who are archetypically inculcated with the power of the words and rituals that they do not grasp the intent of. Spin-doctors and apologists on either side of the Hegelian (Play both ends against the middle) Dialectic owe a lot to Machiavellian techniques and appeals to base human urges. Plato never imagined how far it would go in his top-down hierarchy. Semiotics and the Delphi Technique of the present are aided greatly by other hypnotic tools and mind control but drugs have always been part of the social engineering effort since the elite developed the Cult of Death in Egypt where Peruvian cocaine is forensically found in Egyptian mummies.

Author of many books available at Lulu and World-Mysteries.com

Author:: Robert Baird
Keywords:: Semiotics, Rhetoric, Minstrels, cocaine mummies, religious mind control. the Dark Ages
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Renoir

Art means the whole world to some people. To me it never meant much, until I got to see several paintings. I didnt know the artists name, but the works fascinated me with their colors. Someone told it was Renoir, and I decided to get some of the reproductions for my house and to make some research about his life and art.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir was an artist during the middle 1800's and early 1900's. I have a few copies of his painting around the house and wanted to look further into his style for this study. His early works helped to push what is called Impressionism. The impressionist style of painting is characterized chiefly by c oncentration on the general impression produced by a scene or object and the use of unmixed primary colors and small strokes to simulate actual reflected light. The why he used a blending of colors to blur exact detail, but yet left enough to let the viewer see what he was painting intrigues me.

In one of the copies of his paintings I have in my house you can tell that there is a women looking out into a body of water at a boat with people in yet, yet you cannot see exact detail of what she looks like. He seems to be able to capture the feelings of happiness and peacefulness of the situation, and not go overboard with fine details in that painting. Renoir paintings seem to come from the heart. He had the ability to bring out great details in his work, without having to get to detailed. When he painted kids, he was able to show the innocence of childhood. In the painting called Girls picking flowers in a meadow, which I viewed at the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum, shows two young girls picking and playing with flowers. He used soft colors and blurred the meadow out. The picture makes me think back to childhood and just how carefree I was. My understanding of the world didn't go beyond trying to have fun with friends. That art piece held my attention for quiet a while. I found a happiness inside me that was brought out by the painting. While walking around the art display, I noticed that I kept going back to paintings done by Renoir. His paintings had a way of making smile and I found myself looking back at events in my life that made me smile.

The type of painting that Renoir used is called Impressionism. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Impressionism was a form of art that was developed in France during the mid-1860's. This art form was an attempt to record visual reality in terms of transient effects of light and color. Renoir was one of the front runners in the impressionism movement. The principal Impressionist painters were Claude Monet, Pierre Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Berthe Morisot, Frederic Bazille, and Armand Guillaumin, who worked toget her, influenced each other, and exhibited together independently.

When Renoir was in his early 20's, he attended a Swiss art school in Paris. He began learning about the art style of the old masters. Their style dealt with painting in dark colors. Nobody painted the outdoors at that time and the group of artist I listed above became the first to do so. They first painted pictures of what they saw at a local lake and a nearby forest. The goal of these painting was to catch the impression of the moment. These painters used quick and light brush strokes along with bright contrasting colors to show the effects of light.

Why shouldn't art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in the world. This quote was from Renoir when asked why he paints what he does. I have to say that this quote best sums up my take on the impressionism movement of the late 1800's. If not for Renoir and the other painters of this movement, who knows what art would be like today. They brought color and lasting feelings into the world of art. I now understand why the painting of Renoir caught my eye when passing by them in stores. I can see what he was trying to capture with his use of colors and the scenes he chose to paint.

Mary Anne Winslow is a member of Essay Writing Service cou nselling department team and a dissertation writing consultant. Contact her to get free counselling on custom essay writing.

Author:: Mary Anne Winslow
Keywords:: Renoir,works of Renoir
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