All-Joking, All-Drunken Synod of Fools and Jesters
Peter the Great founded a drinking club when he was a young man. Because he was tsar, he took it too far.
Category: Religion & belief
Ghost murder
If you kill someone because you think they’re a ghost, is it murder or manslaughter? Or self-defence?
Ghost marriage
In France, China, and Sudan you can marry a ghost.
Bishop of the moon
According to 1917 Roman Catholic canon law, any newly discovered territory fell under the jurisdiction of the bishop of the “port of departure.” So, after the 1969 moon landing, was the Bishop of Orlando also the Bishop of the Moon?
Inquisition vs. Last Supper
In 1573 the Renaissance artist Paolo Veronese painted a Last Supper that included drunken Germans, dogs, parrots, and dwarfs. He liked it, but the Inquisition had other ideas.
Night thoughts
Existential and spiritual crises seem to appear in the middle of the night – at least, according to various Catholic saints, poets, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sparklehorse and Danger Mouse they do.
Elf ring
Ever see a set of mushrooms growing in a near-perfect circle? Or an arc of dead or dark grass on a green field? Folklore calls it the elf ring or fairy ring, but it actually has a very reasonable biological explanation.
Bridge to Sri Lanka
Up until the 15th century, you could apparently walk from India to Sri Lanka. Rama’s Bridge is a short chain of limestone islands and shoals with a very fraught religious and political history.
Lebanese confessionalism
In Lebanon, political leadership and representation are officially divided up according to religious affiliation. This system, confessionalism, is supposed to encourage peace and cooperation between disparate faiths.
Weather prediction by saint
July 15 is Saint Swithun’s Day. Legend has it that, if it rains today, we’re in for forty more days of bad weather. It’s like Groundhog Day, but instead of a whistlepig there’s a saint who was buried outdoors.
Rooster egg
A tiny yolkless egg shows up in your henhouse. Today, we know this to be a chicken’s first training egg. In the 12th century? It came from a rooster, and you better throw it over your house or it will be born a monster.
Blood type personality
Everyone in Japan knows that people with Type AB blood are creative, intelligent, and untrustworthy. Wait, what?
One hundred
It’s my 100th post! Read on for a grab-bag of 100-related topics, including the death of the last apostle, the 100th asteroid, 100-handed gods, and the Germanic “long” hundred.
The Japanese tomb of Jesus
News flash: Jesus Christ didn’t die on the cross; instead, he fled to Siberia and then on to Japan. Don’t believe me? Well, go visit the Tomb of Jesus in Shingō, talk to some of his descendants, and then tell them they’re wrong.
The biblical nameless
What was Noah’s wife’s name? Cain and Abel’s sisters? The sisters / cousins of Jesus? The bible doesn’t tell us, but traditions and later works suggest names for the biblical nameless.
The earliest book of the Bible
In most editions of the Christian Bible, Genesis comes first. But it was almost certainly not the first book of the Bible to be completed.
The Generalist Academy 