BECAUSE OF THIS WE SHOULD ALL GO TO POLAND.
Like Alex mentioned, we both went to Poland this summer. We lived in Krakow, a city that absolutly IS this class–for so many reasons.
I did some wikipedia research and guess what. “Krakow” derived from Krakus, the legendary founder of the city who built his castle on Wawel (pronounched “Vavel”) Hill ON TOP OF A DRAGON LAIR. This dragon was named Smok Wawelski and he ate virgins for dinner. Here is a site that explains the written origins of the legend.
http://www.cyfronet.pl/waweln/en/index.php?op=11,1,5
[We heard the version where the sly cobbler is involved but the king doesn't let the cobbler marry his daughter, even though he promised that whoever killed the dragon could.]
But the best part is the origin of the king’s name. “Krakus” is sometimes attributed to “Krakula” [sounds like "Dracula" to me. . .just saying] a pre-slavic word meaning judge’s staff, or a preslavic word “Krak” meaning Oak, a sacred tree most often associated with the concept of genealogy.
GENEALOGY=FATHER. hehehehe
JUDGE’S STAFF=RULE OF THE FATHER [?]. hehehehe
DRAGON=something important. I don’t really know but we talk about them a lot.
Also, this year is the anniversary of the offical charter of the city in 1257 done by the Magdeburg Law. I got to see that charter all written out an official. This is when historians date the start of the city. We were celebrating the 750th anniversary. Never mind that the city had actually been there since the 900s.
Also, Krakow experienced a few Tartar invasions and subsequent sackings of the city. This made me think off all our talk about the ear. Legend also has it that when a trumpeter was sounding the alarm from the tower of the church because he saw the tartars coming, he was shot in the neck with an arrow and his warning ended in a high shreiking kind of note. Today, every hour on the hour a man plays a little ditty from the church tower that ends on a high note.
also, the Jagiellonian Univeristy [the best in Poland and where a certain fellow named Copernicus went] has a library with over 4 million volumes which is refered to as the “principle academic asset” [by wikipedia at least]. The two books/manuscripts/whatever you want to call them that Wikipedia choses to mention are “Copernicus’ De Revolutions” and “Bathasar Behem codex.”
CODEX. hehehe.
okay that is all I can think of right now.
November 1st, 2007 at 11:58 am
Looks we’ve got some budding magical thinkers in this class. I love the connection between Krakula and Dracula, oh and of course the eating of virgins. A judge’s staff is obviously the instrument par-excellence of the symbolic — a tool used in court that is shaped like a phallus, and of course a staff us what Moses turned into a snake to demonstrate to Pharoah how Jewish magic works.
Dr.B.