Melon

Then they labored with his primordial intellect till at last he understood . . .

Primordial intellect. *wheezes with laughter*

I have to start using that. Aw, I feel sad I didn’t get to use this at Harry when I was doing those chapter breakdowns. Maybe I’ll give Draco the opportunity to in a fic, ha ha. ♡

As an aside, this is a story about a king of Tuscany who fathered triplets and believed his sisters who told him the triplets were a cat, a snake, and a stick instead of humans. He imprisoned his wife as a witch and ordered his children to be tossed into the sea. The gardener, who was tasked with the infanticide, took the children in and raised them as his own. The children became gardeners as well and eventually grew a watermelon, which they took to the king, but inside were precious stones instead of seeds to teach the king the lesson that “a melon can produce stones as easily as a woman can give birth to a cat, a stick, and a snake”. In other words, not at all.

Hence the labouring with his “primordial intellect”.

Eryngo

The hapless maid Sappho loved a boatman, a stalwart, handsome fellow, and to compel his love she wore sprigs of eryngo, or sea holly, for it was a faith of that age that whosoever would conceal this upon him and set his mind on the object of his affection would clinch that object to him as with bands of steel. But the boatman was of low tastes, and when she read odes to him he responded with indifference. Sappho could not abide these rebuffs, and ended the pain of them by rejecting the eryngo, singing her death-song on a cliff, and casting herself into the deep.

…..really?

If this is real, this is one of the funniest things I’ve read in a while.

Blackened Teeth

. . . so the egg-plant is used to blacken the teeth of women in Japan, but for a different purpose, for whereas the henna stains are regarded as beautiful, the blackened teeth are a confessed disfigurement. Tradition says that the custom arose from the wish of a handsome young wife to cure her husband of a causeless jealousy. The color is obtained by dropping peel of egg-plant into water that contains a red-hot iron. After applying it to the teeth, they are brushed till they shine like metal.

— Charles Montgomery Skinner: Myths and Legends of Flowers, Trees, Fruits, and Plants

For more than a thousand years, ohaguro — the custom of dyeing one’s teeth black — was an aristocratic fashion. This was accomplished via a special “tea” made from vinegar and oxidized iron filings. This brew was swished around in the mouth to stain the teeth dark black. Ohaguro was begun at an early age, taking many years for the teeth to develop a deep, permanent black color.

— Matthew Meyer: The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons

In times of old, it was customary for women to blacken their teeth as part of their makeup. Called o-haguro (“tooth-blackening”), the Japanese government banned the practice in 1870 as part of a modernization initiative.

— Sekien Toriyama: Japandemonium

For some reason, I remembered fermented tea was used for this? But I wonder if they’re both right or is the other wrong?

Also, aztecs used to blacken their teeth too but they used cochineal. Though, dictionary says that cochineal was a red dye?

I don’t know, you may make of everything what you will~.

Beans

If one reads the records truly, it begat insanity; it caused nightmare; to dream of it meant trouble; even ghosts fled shuddering from the smell of beans.

— Charles Montgomery Skinner: Myths and Legends of Flowers, Trees, Fruits, and Plants

In Japan, there’s a ritual (mame-maki) performed at the beginning of spring, known as setsubun or imbolc in the Gaelic calendar. People would scatter roasted beans in their homes, shouting, “Out with the demons, in with good luck”. Apparently, famous stars and athletes are invited to do this at major shrines and temples.

I was actually supposed to write Izuku and Katsuki doing this in my fic Incandescent Snow. If I ever get that far. *existential dread increases*

Anywho, I guess you’re welcome for that bit of useless trivia, ha ha.

Headless Love

And yes, that is a bad pun.

She would have gladly taken the body home with her, but that was impossible. So she took up the pale-faced head with the closed eyes, kissed the cold lips and shook the earth out of the beautiful curls. “I will at least keep this,” she said. When she had replaced the mold and the dry leaves on the body, she took the head and a little bough of a jasmine-bush growing near the spot where the body was buried, and returned home. Upon reaching her room she took the largest flower-pot she could find, put the head into it, covered it over with mold, and planted therein the jasmine-bough.

— Hans Christian Andersen: The Rose-elf

Unable to shake off the impression of the scene, she fled to the scene of the tragedy, and there, in a space of ground recently disturbed, she came upon Lorenzo, lying as in sleep, for there was a preserving virtue in the soil. She was first for moving the corpse to holy ground, but this would invite discovery, so with a knife she removed the head, and, borrowing “a great and goodly pot,” laid it therein, folded in a fair linen cloth, and covered it with earth.

— Charles M. Skinner: Myths and Legends of Flowers, Trees, Fruits, and Plants

Did this use to be a thing? Because I’m finding this level of devotion very disturbing and macabre, and I’m the kind of girl who watches horror films as comedy.