St Hugh of Lincoln is often depicted with a swan, because he was friends with a swan. The swan would follow Hugh around, eat from his hand, and reputedly attacked people who threatened his saintly human BFF. For this reason, the best pictures of St Hugh are the ones where the swan looks like it’s about to fuck you up. Like, massively.
MESS WITH ST HUGH AND HIS SWAN WILL END YOU.
HEY NOW THIS IS EXCELLENT CONTENT
Are… are we not going to mention the tiny Jesus/angels/whatever they are in his cups? Anyone? No? Okay.
Excellent question! (and one I often get when posting older printed items)
It’s actually not an f, it’s an ſ or
“long s”. The ‘long s’ was used alongside the ‘round s’ (the modern lower case s) until the early 19th century, and is one of several letter forms and “ligatures” which have fallen out of use in modern English.
Generally speaking the long s was used at the beginning and in the middle of words, and as the first s when two s’s occurred in a row. You very rarely see a long s used at the end of a word.
In its printed form the long s does look very much like an f, but either doesn’t have have a cross bar, or only has it on one side. Or at least it’s supposed to, but very often printers would just use the two interchangeably which can get very confusing.
Here’s a printed style long s in the word “Congress” from the beginning of the Bill of Rights…
In its common handwritten form the long s is much more “loopy” and easier to distinguish.
Here are two handwritten long s’s from the Declaration of Independence.
You can see how when two s’s are used together the first one is “long” and the second one is “round”.
I found the whole long s thing weird and impractical UNTIL I actually tried writing a document in 18th century style cursive and suddenly the skies opened up and it made perfect sense. The long s is SO much easier to write than our modern round s, especially when there are two s’s in a row.
I, who am an old fogey who still writes in cursive, will fully admit that the long s has inadvertently ended up sneaking its way into my daily handwriting, especially when I’m taking notes.
The long s can be confusing when you first start out reading old books and documents, but if you keep at it I promise you will get to a point where you don’t even consciously notice it anymore.
oxford was built and operational as a college before the rise of the mayans and cleopatra lived in a time nearer to pizza hut’s invention than to the pyramids being built
I need a noncomprehensive history book that covers Known World History in time periods, like “in this century, all this shit was happening concurrently” and not just all spread out so I have to piece it together like some unpaid uneducated scholar
More fun facts about ancient Celtic marriage laws: There were no laws against interclass or interracial marriage, no laws against open homosexual relationships (although they weren’t considered ‘marriages’ since the definition of a marriage was ‘couple with child’), no requirement for women to take their husband’s names or give up their property, but comedians couldn’t get married
It’s Adam and Eve not Adam Sandler and Eve
I want to expound upon “comedians couldn’t get married” thing because it’s actually really interesting.
Satire was respected in Ancient Ireland. It was thought to have great power, enough to physically maim the subject one was making jokes about. Satirists could bring down kings with a witty enough insult. That was actually their original function. When the king didn’t do right by his people, a bard was supposed to compose a poem so scathing it would raise welts on the king’s skin to oust him (it was illegal for a “blemished” king to rule.) Unwarranted satire was considered a form of assault.
So what it boils down to is ancient Celts being like “These people are too dangerous to reproduce. DO NOT TRUST THEM WITH CHILDREN. EVER.”
