Friday 13th
Sep. 13th, 2024 12:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootBro complaining about tax levels, something like 60% for him right now. I suggest he move to a tax haven, in fact I think we should do the same, except for me it must be hot and it cannot be some boring place like Monaco. Scotland is lovely but right now the UK feels strangely tense. So many folk are unhappy, angry even. I just wish I could take a chair outside, sit in intense sunshine and fall asleep. Maybe that's age and/or healing. What I do know is that on some level I am not unhappy at all. Russ washed my hair this morning and I feel a bit less skanky, helps a huge amount. Sometimes I freak but generally I feel a positive sense building in my body all the time. It's nice.
Still, Friday 13th! This date has never meant anything to me. A friend of mine blogs about the Heron-Allen cursed amethyst here http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2024/09/occult-london-natural-history-museum.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawFRBuFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHXrCKcZ8DWIh7ECY-A3Rrwepmy9wZ6bUmm4FEFSIvpwxoA7HwoWadaiSgA_aem_bxpE1TK-5M3MO-ifbLpULA
But I will indulge myself by retelling the story for the day. Try to imagine me with a monocle and pith helmet sitting next to an enormous fire, with maybe just a touch of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cwyq3XWeHE
Back during the 1850s India rebellion the cursed amethyst was stolen out of the temple to Indra at Kanpur, and brought back to Blighty by a Colonel Ferris who promptly lost health and wealth together. His son inherited the stone, encountered attendant disasters, and thoughtfully gave it to a friend. Said friend committed suicide and left it back to Colonel Ferris' son. It appears to have rattled around a bit and ended up in the ownership of Edward Heron-Allen in the 1890s, who went through enough subsequent misfortune to gift the amethyst to a singer who lost her voice and perhaps unsurprisingly gave it back to poor Edward. He threw it in the Regents Canal, where it was dredged up and somehow got to a dealer who returned it to him. He described it as “accursed and [...] stained with blood” locked it away in a vault and after his death left it to the Natural History Museum with a message recommending that it be cast into the sea.
My thoughts?
1) I wonder if this story is a source for the 1911 Poem The Green Eye of the Little Yellow Idol by J Milton Hayes.
2) This is the second time I have found potential connections between the sky god Indra and curses. It's odd though, when I was in Kathmandu (far away from 'Mad Carew') he was considered to be a somewhat mischievous deity with a penchant for pornography, which is why so many of the temples had lintels and roofs adorned with sexual imagery; apparently he wouldn't strike a house covered with images that titillated him. Maybe the roots of Indra would be an interesting study.
3) Apparently this is the theme behind the story in All The Light We Cannot See, which I received as a gift and have still not started reading.
4) It's obvious that the way to get rid of the curse is to take the gem back to Indra's temple at Kanpur. Except there are several temples in Kanpur and the specifics of which one housed the stone are not mentioned, so it's not just a case of dashing up to the front, hurling the jewel in and racing off. Still, if Kanpur's hot, I'll do it.
Still, Friday 13th! This date has never meant anything to me. A friend of mine blogs about the Heron-Allen cursed amethyst here http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2024/09/occult-london-natural-history-museum.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawFRBuFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHXrCKcZ8DWIh7ECY-A3Rrwepmy9wZ6bUmm4FEFSIvpwxoA7HwoWadaiSgA_aem_bxpE1TK-5M3MO-ifbLpULA
But I will indulge myself by retelling the story for the day. Try to imagine me with a monocle and pith helmet sitting next to an enormous fire, with maybe just a touch of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cwyq3XWeHE
Back during the 1850s India rebellion the cursed amethyst was stolen out of the temple to Indra at Kanpur, and brought back to Blighty by a Colonel Ferris who promptly lost health and wealth together. His son inherited the stone, encountered attendant disasters, and thoughtfully gave it to a friend. Said friend committed suicide and left it back to Colonel Ferris' son. It appears to have rattled around a bit and ended up in the ownership of Edward Heron-Allen in the 1890s, who went through enough subsequent misfortune to gift the amethyst to a singer who lost her voice and perhaps unsurprisingly gave it back to poor Edward. He threw it in the Regents Canal, where it was dredged up and somehow got to a dealer who returned it to him. He described it as “accursed and [...] stained with blood” locked it away in a vault and after his death left it to the Natural History Museum with a message recommending that it be cast into the sea.
My thoughts?
1) I wonder if this story is a source for the 1911 Poem The Green Eye of the Little Yellow Idol by J Milton Hayes.
2) This is the second time I have found potential connections between the sky god Indra and curses. It's odd though, when I was in Kathmandu (far away from 'Mad Carew') he was considered to be a somewhat mischievous deity with a penchant for pornography, which is why so many of the temples had lintels and roofs adorned with sexual imagery; apparently he wouldn't strike a house covered with images that titillated him. Maybe the roots of Indra would be an interesting study.
3) Apparently this is the theme behind the story in All The Light We Cannot See, which I received as a gift and have still not started reading.
4) It's obvious that the way to get rid of the curse is to take the gem back to Indra's temple at Kanpur. Except there are several temples in Kanpur and the specifics of which one housed the stone are not mentioned, so it's not just a case of dashing up to the front, hurling the jewel in and racing off. Still, if Kanpur's hot, I'll do it.
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Date: 2024-09-13 02:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-13 02:49 pm (UTC)Thank you. I hope you are OK, you have been on my mind recently.
Lots of love X