Fasting Against God

Several weeks ago I discovered Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog, which describes its content as "the outlandish, the anomalous, and the curious from the last five thousand years."  As expected, it has quite a bit of "TYWK"-type material, so some of you may want to bookmark it.  Here's are some sample excerpts from a post today:

The story recorded in the Tripartite Life of St Patrick claims that the saint went to Croagh Patrick in County Mayo. There he climbed to the top, sat down and told a passing angel that he would not leave the mountain ‘till I am dead or until all my requests are granted’...

Fasting  is typically a religious act; an individual deprives themselves of food to concentrate the mind better on God. However, in ancient Ireland, fasting was not only religious. It also had another purpose. The ancient Irish law books, of which several survive, explain that a person could fast against a man who had injured him in some way and who was of a higher social rank.

The wronged individual went to the wrong-doers house and sat outside from dawn to dusk refusing to eat. By so doing he brought bad luck or ‘pollution’ to his opponent. The one fasted against then had two options. He could either admit his wrong and redress it – the fasting would stop and social harmony would be restored. Or he could counter fast to ward off the curse.

It is an extraordinary custom. Not least because it can be paralleled in ancient, medieval and, indeed, modern India and probably dates back to early Indo-European beliefs, beliefs that have survived at the two ends of the Indo-European continuum...

God, we learn, has, faced with His servant’s fasting, given way and the angel offers Patrick concessions... that those who sing Patrick’s hymn will be saved from torture, and, the promise that has already been mentioned; namely that when the end of the world comes Patrick, not God, will judge the Irish. 

There's more at the link, and many other choice morsels at the blog.

Congratulations to Not Exactly Rocket Science

Ed Yong's accessible-to-the-intelligent-lay-person science blog has been named "Research Blog of the Year."  And his blog has now moved under the umbrella of Discover Magazine.   I've cited his blog on numerous occasions, but I encourage those of you with science interests to bookmark and visit the site on a regular basis because I can't begin to highlight all the good stuff there.

Moqo-Moqo: a Recommended Blog

Most of the blogs I have recommended have been "accumulators," typically without a single theme.  Moqo-Moqo is also an accumulator - of photographs.  I particularly like the fact that Moqo-Moqo is themed to the biological diversity of the natural world.   In recent years he/she seems to have added a bit of commentary or identification of the subject, but for the most part the emphasis is on the visual image.

Another reason I'm offering a recommendation is that unlike many (?most) other photoaccumulators, this one makes a reasonable effort to give credit to the source of the photo, either via text or via a link embedded in the photo.  Sometimes, as with the indigo bunting above, the link goes to the photo itself; other times (and less optimally) it goes to a Flickr photostream's front page or to another accumulator.  But at least the effort and courtesy is made.

Whenever TYWKIWDBI starts becoming dreary from a run of posts about business, politics, ethics, crime etc, I can always lighten the mood with some nature photos from Moqo-Moqo.  If you like that subject matter, give it a browse at the link.