tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post3676367509043732332..comments2024-03-28T18:32:05.933-04:00Comments on bensozia: Fern FlowersJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-28387904545990903752021-05-21T05:12:11.731-04:002021-05-21T05:12:11.731-04:00Oh yes, I remember hearing the stories about fern ...Oh yes, I remember hearing the stories about fern flowers when I was a child :D In one version a boy found a flower and was to gain good luck, on the condition that he could not share it with anyone else. The boy lived then in wealth, lonely and unhappy life, and finally had it enough and returned to his village, only to find out his parents and friends are long dead.<br /><br />https://naszabydgoszcz.pl/content/uploads/2020/09/Kwiat-paproci-1024x512.jpg<br /><br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3kRn7gDu7U<br /><br />Quite similar motive to a fairy tale of golden duck, who was granting wealth on the condition, that first you would have to spent a fortune in one day, but only on yourself, without sharing it with anyone else.szopenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02234132446740838968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-67831956473337144612021-05-17T14:42:13.234-04:002021-05-17T14:42:13.234-04:00Some thoughts.
Weird things that defy expectation...Some thoughts.<br /><br />Weird things that defy expectations predictably end up in folklore and myth. A classic example is odd coloration in animals (albinism, leucism, etc) - they're unexpected, and therefor they seem special, magical, etc.<br /><br />Such magical things predictably end up interpreted in opposite ways - to continue with the example of oddly colored animals, they might be seen by some people as holy / benevolent / good luck and simultaneously seen by others as evil / malicious / bad luck. Even within a particular tradition, something which is ordinarily good can in certain circumstances be bad, and vice versa. Additionally, specific contextual details and even a person's intent can often result in reversals of fortune.<br /><br />For example, spilling salt has traditionally been seen as bad luck (understandably so, since salt has historically been fairly valuable) but that bad luck can then ostensibly be countered by throwing salt over your shoulder - despite the end result being the same, and valuable salt going to waste in both cases.<br /><br />Another example, this time of a reversal in the other direction, is horseshoes: traditionally considered good luck to hang on your wall - unless you mount them "upside down", in which case they become bad luck, often with the justification that the good luck spills out of them if the "opening" of the shoe points towards the ground. Compare to finding a coin on the ground (obvious good fortune, as it is valuable), but upon bending to pick it up seeing that it is lying face down, and therefor picking it up would be bad luck.<br /><br />As for the association of ferns with lightning, I posit that what may seem to many like a strange connection to make between two apparently unrelated things becomes far more explicable when you consider the phenomenon of lightning burns - survivors of lightning strikes (both direct and indirect hits) frequently exhibit distinctive fractal scar patterns which bear a powerful resemblance to ferns. Given that roughly 90% of people in the modern day survive lighting strikes, even if we halved the survival rate to account for a lack of modern medicine in ancient times, that would still leave a decent number of people walking around with striking visual markers of having been touched by the divine / magical power of lightning.<br /><br />Additionally, while opposite interpretations of whether ferns attract or repel lightning can be explained well enough by the human tendency described above, there may in fact be certain scientific correlations between those extremes as well.<br /><br />Ferns grow readily in moist, shady forests - but they also grow in cracks and crevices in rocks, and those two kinds of terrain offer not only very different frequencies of lightning strikes, but also very different levels of danger from said lightning. It's far safer in a storm to be in a dense forest than above the treeline on an exposed rock face - and that's where you're most likely to find ferns, thus lending credence to the idea that ferns "repel" lightning. But then there are the ferns which grow within and around exposed stones which rise above the surrounding terrain - and there the presence of the fern seems to "attract" the lightning, when in actually it is the stone itself that does so by it's height.G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.com