latin comes through once again
so it's been a while since my last little nugget of joy from latin. oh, and there have been a few, but this one was worth posting. okay, so where talking about roman marriages in class today, and my teacher (who's interested in ancient magic), told us about a certain symbol that was a big part of the wedding procession and household. and what is this symbol, well, shape you may ask? a penis, of course.
apparently, according to the teach, stone penises where 'erected' at the crosswroads from the bride to the grooms home, in order to ward off the wraith of the gods or something like that. and in the household, there was a statue of a 3 foot imp with a 2 foot, erect penis, that was supposed to ward off the evil demons that might have tried to invade that house. how was that going to ward anything off? i dunno. sheer impressivness?
and then romans would were penis shaped amulets in order to ward off evil things, such as the evil eye. essentially, in their mind, the penis would basically stab the evil eye, rendering it's power useless.
so anywho, long story short, my latin teacher went off on a 10 minute tangent about penises that i thought i should share with the rest of the world, or the lj community at the very least. your welcome.
apparently, according to the teach, stone penises where 'erected' at the crosswroads from the bride to the grooms home, in order to ward off the wraith of the gods or something like that. and in the household, there was a statue of a 3 foot imp with a 2 foot, erect penis, that was supposed to ward off the evil demons that might have tried to invade that house. how was that going to ward anything off? i dunno. sheer impressivness?
and then romans would were penis shaped amulets in order to ward off evil things, such as the evil eye. essentially, in their mind, the penis would basically stab the evil eye, rendering it's power useless.
so anywho, long story short, my latin teacher went off on a 10 minute tangent about penises that i thought i should share with the rest of the world, or the lj community at the very least. your welcome.