The Norse God Odin has two ravens - one called Huginn and the other Muginn, they were kind if like scouting out the world for him brining him back tidbits of gossip and what not. ( i.e. was Freya's hair REALLY blonde?!)

They would leave at sunrise and return at dusk and perch on his shoulder whilst imparting their juicy stuff.

Translated into English Huginn means 'thought' and Munin 'memory'. An old Norse text contains the following verse:

'The whole world wide, every day,
fly Hugin and Munin;
I worry lest Hugin should fall in flight,
yet more I fear for Munin.'

One of Odin's titles was 'God of the Ravens' and his daughters the Valkyres were often thought to assume the form of the Raven.

Ravens are also imbuded with powers of omen and foresight, and a sa guide for the dead...hence the association with Valkyres I suppose....

Sorry for the overload.

I get so irrate when it is early in the morning and nobody is posting messages - why can't other people slack during the week and then do massive panic 'grand gestures' before supervisions? The we could ALL keep each other company at 3am

Refresh, refresh, refresh, refresh *ibid.*

I spend my time painting my nails whilst flipping through the Harvey Nics' homepage on my computer. I'm only in academia for the money....

Anybody else?



Seriously, I have had 4 hours sleep in the last 48 preparing for my monthly supervision and making sure I have done what will get me through. They terrify me.

Sue - I love all members of the Corvid family, especially the Nordic mythology surrounding them!

I shall now combine my two loves - Swedish and corvids:

Skatan = Magpie

Kråka = Crow

I went to see Tosca last week, and it was great apart from the rather unconvincing plummet at the end! Boooo!

My posts are riddled with typos:

Film - should be 'field'

Masks - should be Masques

So yeah. Sorry, no help.

I'm not sure. There is an arcane (yet fascinating) arguement in the film of Baroque and Restoration theatre as to whether the masques of Stuart England involved living bears. I think it can be reasonably suggested that since these plays were shown on the banks of the Thames by the bear pits - spectators would have expected to see live animals. There were a number of polar bear cubs in the London bear pits - and they are believed to have literally pulled the boy Prince Rupert along in a sleigh for a number of courtly masks. Other think actors in bear skins were more likely - for safety reasons. But I think that such people forget that specatators at bear pits were regularly mauled or killed. Indeed during the Commonwealth some of the London pits were pulled down opn this premise. Although obviously strong Calvinist inspired Puritanism didn't like such fun on a Sunday anyway...

Can I be horribly pretentious and go for 'Crime and Punishment' shortly followed by 'The Artist of the Floating World'?

...as for non-fiction.....hmmmmmm........I really don't know...I read so many academic 'factual' i.e. interperative monographs....actually I did read a wonderful paper on Polar Bears on the Stuart stage...that was fabulous.

I'm sure I just saw a mouse scutter through the computer cluster!

Maybe it is just my sleep deprived vision.

Petting animals is so much easier, fun and cute than theorising about them!

I imagine my life being glamorously split between London, Stockholm and Berlin - an endless montage of research trips, sabbaticals and weekend breaks.

I plan to drag the boyfriend around Sweden for a bit...show him where we'll raise the barnen (lol)

But I'll be carrying on with my thesis - tis expected of us!

The stressed out cat makes me laugh! Though I would never resort to swearing!

Just had an email from the byf....he organised a meeting with a German Defastenist artist completely in German over his phone - I'm so proud *swells in pride*

Kind of motivates me to achieve something - like say that thesis structure hanging over my head...

I'm coming over all needy and pathetic today! I am moving house in the next two weeks (have still to find somewhere - will view flat tmrw), my boyfriend is in Germnay for two months and I have to finish my thesis structure (with detailed chapter content ) for tmrw

Eek!

Hej!

Nope...I haven't been to Sweden since Göteborg 3 weeks ago (I went to see the Melodifestivalen heat)...but yes, I had mastered ordering drinks there, coffee and museum tickets...so horray! I watched MF last night on SVT's live web stream.....it was so cool...huddled with a cluster of fellow swedophiles.....sigh....

I had 'Vågar du, Vågar jag' down as doing better then it did!

bakfull (Swedish: hungover)

Melodifestivalen is over - and I'm washing the face paint off, and still feeling sick after scoffing brownies with swedish flag icing...

...now it is off to finish my thesis structure for tmrw...

*vomit*