sludgeeel's New Writeups

Vohu Manah (person)

2003-10-21T08:12:44Z

This spirit, one of the seven Amesha Spentas, was the personification of wisdom. The name literally means "good sense." Bulls, cows, oxen, and other animals were used to represent Vohu Manah on earth. It was a fairly important part of the mythology, if statuary counts for anything. The University of Chicago Oriental Institute has in its gallery a colossal stone bull's head (which you can see at http://www.oi.uchicago.edu/OI/MUS/HIGH/OIM_A24065_72dpi.html, although it doesn't give you a very good idea of the real size of this thing) taken from the entrance to the king's throne room at Persepolis, as well as other similar but smaller statuary from the same site.

In the Zoroastrian belief system, Vohu Manah's chief duty was wrestling his foe, the Daeva Aka Manah, whose name meant "bad sense" or "evil thoughts," for control over the hearts of men. This battle apparently was…

Comoros (place)

2002-10-19T20:31:26Z

It is thought that Malayo-Polynesian islanders had outposts in the Comoros as early as the 700's C.E. Later influxes by Arab traders made the Comoros into a group of rival Islamic sultanates, unified only by Islam. The name "Comoros" comes from an Arabic word, kamar or kumr, which means moon, although this name was applied to Madagascar before the Comoros islands themselves acquired it. At least two separate legends tell of Arab and Persian kingdoms being established in the Comoros, the former by two Arab families after Solomon's death and the latter at some point during the 11th century C.E. by a great Persian king. Bantu farmers from the mainland (probably around Mozambique) began to settle the islands by the fourteenth century, encountering the first group of Malay o-Polynesian colonists on the island of Nzwani and then moving on to establish settlements on Njazidja. These groups accepted Islam not too long thereafter from Arab traders with whom they had contact.

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Weighing in (idea)

2002-09-11T06:38:58Z

Author's note: I once read that politics and poetry aren't meant to mix, but it's tough to write a personal poem of any substance when 85% of your time is spent on the couch. Anyhow, e2 has enough opinionated folks that I'm sure somebody will delete this if it's bullshit, and I promise I won't whine if that winds up being the case. All I ask is that you read it twice before voting.

Weighing in
A year later, and still the answers that have been dragged from our rubble are limp, bleeding, and unsatisfactory.
Our priest-king makes holy sounds, dancing futile figure eights around the corpses, refusing to let us roll the stone back in front of the ruined cave.
A rabble in the back softly whispers, "What the fuck are we doing?"
But is quickly and furtively shushed as everyone admires the baby emperor's new clothes.
He used to be a vicious little caterpillar, gutting the fibrous stalks of all-too-willing ancient plants, but since that…

Sraosa (person)

2002-08-27T17:55:23Z

Sraosa, whose name means "listening" or "harkening", was the messenger god of the Achaemenid Persian empire. He served the supreme god, Ahura Mazda, as part of the latter's personal retinue, the Amesha Spentas. He was well-known as an embodiment of obedience in this capacity. This meant that Sraosa's arch-enemy was one of the seven Daevas (there was one Daeva, sort of a second-in-command evil spirit, for each of the seven Amesha Spentas, who were the second-in-command good spirits), namely Aesma Daeva. The rooster and his crowing were sacred to Sraosa, as was the 17th day of any given month. Probably related to his fondness for roosters was one of his other duties, dispelling the darkness and wiping away the stars at dawn. He also rode around in a chariot pulled by four reddish horses, and was kind of the cleancut, athletic go-getter type.

One of Sraosa's other duties was to conduct the souls of the dead to the afterlife, in which capacity he was aided by another sky…

Virabhadra (person)

2002-07-30T18:01:09Z

Shiva created this monster during his quarrel with Daksha, after hearing that his wife Sati had died. Shiva was so saddened by her death that he tore out his hair in grief. The hair then became Virabhadra, whom Shiva then commanded to destroy Daksha. Having done this, Shiva reabsorbed Virabhadra to become Hare, the ravisher. Based on an illustration found at http://www.exoticindiaart.com/product/PB56/ Virabhadra had four arms and wore both a lot of gold and a handlebar mustache. Other than the four arms and the fact that everything above the shoulders appears to be on fire, the monster looks almost human. Of course, calling Virabhadra a monster is a bit misleading, since he doesn't appear to be a monster in the sense that, say, your standard Hydra or Chimaera would be. He is often pictured conferring grace on one or another lesser divinity or mortal and has a really nice temple in Lepakshi, a substantial change from the tearing-around-the-countryside-eating-virgins type monsters we tend…

Brogla (person)

2002-07-10T18:43:25Z

Brogla is an Australian aboriginal spirit of dancing. She appears to have been made into such a spirit by the whirlwinds, which the aborigines considered to be nature's dancers.

Brogla is also a dancing bird featured on the Queensland Coat of Arms since 1977 and which is the official bird emblem of Queensland as of 1986. The bird is mostly gray, except for a red head and neck and black wingtips. The bird is a member of the crane family, and its body structure shows it.

The brogla bird had a hand in creating the sun. During the time when there was no sun and humans hunted by the perpetual light of the moon, she and the emu were one day arguing over who had the best offspring. The emu was fairly hard-headed and the frustrated brogla decided to steal the emu's egg. She threw the egg into the sky and it smashed open on some sticks, whereupon the yolk burst into flames and lit the whole planet. The people in the sky saw this and decided that the whole light…