Author: Nathan

If you’ve read the Irish myth of the Tain Bo Cuailnge, the epic story of Cuchulainn, you might be familiar with the character Finnabair (sometimes spelled Findabair, apparently). Throughout the story, Finnabair keeps being used as a lure by her mother Medb, queen of Connaught, to get horny men to do various stupid and/or dangerous things – like fighting Cuchulainn in single combat. In the translation I’ve read, by Thomas Kinsella, Finnabair apparently dies of shame after she sleeps with an Ulsterman named Rochad, thereby ruining her virginity and pissing off seven kings of Munster whom her mother had promised her to in exchange for their help. (Probably with her “own thighs” as a bonus.) A fight ensues, during which 700 men die, and Finnabair apparently blames herself for their death and collapses on the spot.

In any case, at the end of the story, we read that there are seven years of peace, and Finnabair “stays with Cuchulainn.” I’m wondering how she can stay with Cuchulainn after she’s dead? Does Cuchulainn have a necro thing going? Or is it, as my girlfriend suggests, that “dying of shame” is a euphemism for “fainting of embarassment” – in which case, why do we hear no more about Finnabair for the remainder of the Tain? Unfortunately, I can’t read Gaelic, so I can’t go back through the original sources, but if any Celtic scholars happen to read this, I’d be grateful for a comment with your opinion on this matter.

I might add that the Thomas Kinsella translation is a great one; it’s very easy to read, while not feeling “dumbed down.” In addition, it is abstractly illustrated with brush drawings by Louis de Brocquy that are quite amazing. If you’re interested in the story of Cuchulainn, I’d recommend this book.

I don’t usually like to do the meta-link thing, but here is one that is worthwhile

From the article:

Men deciphered female voices using the auditory part of the brain that processes music, while male voices engaged a simpler mechanism, [a Sheffield university study] said. [Emphasis mine.]

So apparently, it really is more difficult to hear women if you’re a guy. It’s really not that I’m not listening!

Recently I’ve been reading a few books on Celtic mythology, including Rees’ Celtic Heritage and Peter Ellis’ A [not so] Brief History of the Druids, and one thing that was touched on at least briefly in both books was the importance of various numbers in the Celtic worldview. For instance, five and nine supposedly referenced the concept of “unity,” especially in Ireland.

Having just read that, I happened to walk by a billboard for Coke’s Dasani water today. I can’t remember the exact wording, but it was something like “5 steps for purification. 1 thirst-quenching drink.” Or something about as inane. In any case, it occurred to me that I can’t really think of many great examples of modern numerical symbolism, apart from the incredibly annoying “9-11 / 7-7” craze that’s going around right now. While that’s certainly symbolism, it’s not really the same thing as 5 representing the unity of your nation, or 7 representing the sacred. I realize that the latter is around in religion still, but I’m trying to think of a distinctly modern example and failing.

It seems to me that on the whole, modern society deals with numbers largely in terms of quantity and not symbolism. More is better, unless it’s price, in which case less is better. Perhaps I’m oversimplifying, but I feel that it’s a sad thing that numbers have been so completely colonized by science that they’ve lost mythological meaning for the most part.

If you can think of examples of “modern” number mythology, please comment on this post. I’d be interested to see what people come up with.

Cass and I took a walk down to Yonge/Dundas square yesterday, hoping to check out the Street Festival a little. So what do I have to say about it?

Wow, how insanely disorganized! I completely didn’t expect it to be so badly done. We had hoped to see some of the street musicians and acrobats, but as soon as each event started, the crowds just closed into a ring around each acrobat or flamethrower or juggler so tightly that it was impossible to see anything at all.

Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration; I saw what must have been an acrobat’s foot sticking up in the air, and once a hula-hoop tossed up, and I could see heat waves from the flame throwers, but no live actual flame. And I think I saw the top of a sand castle that someone was building – at least, I think it was a castle. Maybe it was a sand townhouse…I couldn’t really get close enough to tell.

You’d think that people in Toronto have never heard of stages. That’s what they’re designed for, to give everyone a chance to see. I guess the few hundred people out of the thousands there who were lucky enough to see anything might have enjoyed it. For me, just a big waste of time.

We’re going to try it again today at a different site, but I don’t really have my hopes up. Maybe I’ll be proved wrong.:-)

In one of those great ironies of life, apparently at approximately the time that I was writing the post below dealing with fire, an apartment at the top floor of my building actually caught on fire. Fortunately, it was contained and the only damage was apparently to the originating unit and some smoke damage on that floor.

Does this mean that I’ll see a fox later today?

I’m a big fan of the Firefox web browser, but lately I noticed something strange. Under Windows, if I click a scroll wheel button on a tab, it will close the tab. If I click a link, it opens a link in a new window.

Under Linux, when I click a link it opens in a new window. However, if I click the scroll wheel on a tab to close it, it does a Google “I’m Feeling Lucky” search on the words in the tab title, or indeed on any word or phrase highlighted in the page. That’s actually pretty annoying. Has anyone encountered this before and do you know how to turn it off?