medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Bill East <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> In Ralph Merrifield's The Archaeology of Ritual and Magic, he has a whole
chapter on the practice of enclosing old shoes, dead chickens and other odd
things in cavities in the chimneys of English houses
> I have, I suspect, a number of dead pigeons in the cavity of my
chimney, but I don't think there would be any any religious motive for
their being there! One might put meat in the cavity of a chimney for the
obvious purpose of smoking it. I don't know if people tried to preserve
chickens in this way, before the arrival of fridges. As to shoes, could
someone have been trying to dry them out after getting them soaking wet?
assuming you are not being uncharacteristically leviteous, O.O., Merrifield's
book --despite its somewhat curious and easily misunderstood title-- is a
quite serious work by a professional archaeologist, something of the
culmination of a career's work.
well worth a look.
to the point here, these shoes and things found in curious places are far too
common to have been "accidents" and are surely the result of deliberate --if
not comprehensible-- human action.
best from here,
christopher
"What about the older ones [Indians] ?"
"Well, we can't seem to cure them of the idea that our Everyday Life is only
an Illusion, behind which is the Reality of Dreams"
--Werner Herzog's "Fitzcarraldo"
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0083946
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