Have a good Wednesday, guys. It’s a beautiful way to study ancestral traditions. Then again, every day is!

For whatsoever reason, the Black Sea looks unusually like a quarry.

Nyx was goddess of the night of the primordial gods (protogenoi) who emerged as the dawn of creation.

She was a child of Khaos (Chaos, Air), and marrying with Erebos (Darkness) she produced Aither (Aether, Light) and Hemera (Day). She spawned a brood of dark spirits including the three Fates, Sleep, Death, Strife and Pain.

Nyx was an ancient deity usually envisaged as the very substance of the night; a veil of dark mists drawn across the sky to obscure the light of Aether, the shining blue of the heavens.

UFO's of old; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WjrnUsrbA0

The fur coats are coming (6 December) Knecht Ruprecht

The St. Nicholas custom of putting a boot in front of the door to receive all kinds of gifts from the saint is widespread. Less well known is the tradition of setting boats: Here, no boot is placed in front of the door, but a small ship is made and floated, in which St. Nicholas may place the gifts. Can a connection be made here to the carnivalesque carrus navalis ("ship's cart")?

Nicholas of Myra is not a pagan figure, but an ancient missionary who lived around the year 300 and had the consecrated tree of the Roman Diana felled. However, anyone who can be traced back to pre-Christian ideas is the slave of this church saint, the dreaded servant Ruprecht (also called Pelzpercht or Pelzbock), wrapped in fur and straw: "But he has only been degraded to a servant and a buffoon to the church. Originally, like the fur market, it was a high holy god, namely, as his name Ruprecht, Hruodperaht, that is, splendour of glory, suggests, none other than the radiant, glorious, mighty father of the gods Wuotan".

Jacob Grimm points out that in the 16th and 17th centuries Knecht Ruprecht was still imagined as a "merry fool", and Wilhelm Mannhardt recalls "that St. Niklas, Knecht Ruprecht, Pelzmärte, etc. appear hung with bells" and function as "vegetation demons": "In German and English carnival customs, too, the person representing the stalk-shaped demon of grain carries a bell on his back. I therefore conclude that the bell or bell belong to the original representation of the spirit of growth'. It is no coincidence that St. Nicholas parades are strongly reminiscent of carnival processions: especially in the Alpine region, the saint is accompanied by a number of frightening and diabolical figures. Masked with goatskin and horns , they - servants, Krampuses and Klausen - follow St. Nicholas, which is why this day is also called "Krampus Day". ©Thomas Höffgen [translated]