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Liis
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Re: Ideas from the Front Page

Post by Liis »

Jo UK wrote:It would be very interesting to know of similar experiences in other countries. Do the developers always win?
There must be many stories to be told about that. Offhand I think I know of two cases when they did not.

But just for Midsummer eve, something different: glow-worms (main page article HERE
There is this fascinating UK site about them. It seems that glow-worm counts have been made, and there are even glow-worm safaris.
Has anyone seen real live glow-worms? (Sadly, I haven't). Where, what kind of nature?
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Post by alice44 »

Jo UK wrote:It would be very interesting to know of similar experiences in other countries. Do the developers always win? How is it managed, around the world? What results? What costs in human and animal disturbance?

Can members contribute to this topic, to help us understand the processes involved, good or bad?
This discussion made me think about a mining operation that is probably about to start here. I do not know much about it, but I got really nervous when a development lawyer (not for this project just someone willing to be a spokesman) said they are digging a pit moving sand sorting it and replacing. There is NOTHING to this, nothing can go wrong. This undervaluing of the complexity of natural systems just seems to be begging for something to go wrong. That the hydrology of a place is not based just on the amount of dirt in the pit, but the kinds of soil deposits and layers.

Despite the analytical power of computers, somehow our ability to DO things exceeds ourwillingness to analyze things.
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Post by Jo UK »

Liis wrote: There must be many stories to be told about that. Offhand I think I know of two cases when they did not.

But just for Midsummer eve, something different: glow-worms (main page article HERE
There is this fascinating UK site about them. It seems that glow-worm counts have been made, and there are even glow-worm safaris.
Has anyone seen real live glow-worms? (Sadly, I haven't). Where, what kind of nature?
Yes, I have seen glow worms, and If I took the trouble to drive 2 miles westward right now I should be able to see them at a place called Farley Mount and around there. It is a protected natural park area, where people ride horses, walk dogs, have picnics and barbecues (make appointment with parks department first)

It is a forested and slightly hilly downland. Favourite spot to get your car stolen too!!
I don't know if you can see what I see, but here
http://www.multimap.com/maps/#map=51.06 ... terAddress, Town or Postcode|Winchester
is West Wood and Farley Mount Country Park.
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Post by Liis »

Were there many glow-worms when you saw them?

About developers: on the UK glow-worm site http://www.glowworms.org.uk/ a sad little passage tells about many glow-worm sites having been "improved", if not worse then prettified to parks. But also a hopeful story about work on a footpath across a glow-worm site, where the local nature conservation officer stopped work and saved the rest of the glow-worms (about 20 of them).
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Post by Jo UK »

How many glow worms?

Certainly, too many to count - there were little dots of light all over the sloping ground - like a meadow, covered with wild flowers and grasses as it sloped towards the wooded area.
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Post by Jo UK »

How many members will go in search of Odin's grave? There is to be an expedition to examine the site on the island of Osmussaar
I'd like to read anyone's account of it! :2thumbsup:
Tiit Randla will be there, too.

http://www.looduskalender.ee/en/node/7719
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Post by Liis »

Jo UK wrote:How many members will go in search of Odin's grave? There is to be an expedition to examine the site on the island of Osmussaar
I'd like to read anyone's account of it! :2thumbsup:
Tiit Randla will be there, too.

http://www.looduskalender.ee/en/node/7719
It sounds wonderful!
Yes, please, members or organisers, an account of the expedition for all of us who can't join it.
Black storks, by the way, have also been called Odinsvala in Sweden - Oden's swallow.

How come that Scandinavian god Odin was buried in Estonia? He did die in the final Götterdämmerung or Ragnarök of the old asa world and gods (a fantastic story BTW, slaughter, battles, blood, fire, poison, beasts, earthquakes ...). But Estonia is hardly ever mentioned in the Norse mythology - or is it?
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Post by Liis »

About Rein Maran's film, Keeper of Seven Powers (translation of Helen Arusoo's interview with RM HERE):

has anyone a link to an audio with traditional old Estonian regilaul (runic songs), please?

I only found regi laul-inspired music yesterday. And loads of literature about this music, but no samples. Why runic songs btw? The rune system of writing wasn't used in old Estonian culture?
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Post by Jo UK »

Liis, I have a vague memory of watching/listening to a Runic singer on an Estonian internet TV program. It must have been a year or more ago. I think Juta may know something of this subject - I will send her a link to this topic.

A male singer and a child. Perhaps it was a national occasion - February. No, it was more likely to have been a song festival.
July, then? (I did say it was a vague memory!)
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Post by visitor »

Liis wrote: has anyone a link to an audio with traditional old Estonian regilaul (runic songs), please?

I only found regi laul-inspired music yesterday. And loads of literature about this music, but no samples. Why runic songs btw? The rune system of writing wasn't used in old Estonian culture?
This is Estonian "regilaul" - seems pretty close to original - http://etv.err.ee/index.php?0557212

It is translated to be runic song, but I'm not sure... :puzzled:
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Post by juta »

Unfortunately i couldn´t find much audio too and only what was close to it is what Visitor posted.
Liis, have you seen this, authentic samples found and recorded in different regions:

http://www.folklore.ee/Berta/laulud.php
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Post by Liis »

Thank you for the links, all!
Let's hope Rein Maran's film will be on ETV and on Internet (or failing that, hopefully on the Looduseõhtud/Nature Nights this autumn).

The connection with runes (runic songs) is still puzzling, runes are very absent from ancient Estonian culture, and curiously enough, on Estonian territory, although the vikings might be expected to have left some memorials. I have asked around but it seems that there are no rune stone or rune rock carving finds. Or are there?

The use of runes as magic and spell-binding signs, is also typically Scandinavian and Germanic.

Maybe something can be explained by the Odin's grave search expedition!

Meanwhile, mulleins, or Aaron's rod, are just beginnng to flower around Stockholm, very impressive too. Hmmm - it is called üheksavägine, the nine-powered one, in Estonian but "keeper of seven powers" in film's English title?
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Post by leonia »

At first many thanks to Liis for all your translations: without your relentless work we would'nt be able to do the German translations. When I was too curious to know an artikel I sometimes tried to translate from Estonian directly to German with Google aid but it was useless. The result was only an idea of what was the topic of the article!

I found this thread only by accident, but may add something to the discussion on regilaulud. These seeme to be an archaic kind of songs as I know them from balkan shepherd-singers as well as from Sardinia or Friesland at the Netherland/German border, where some of those relicts are still known. They have a hypnotic power although they sound strange to our ears.

When I did the translation I searched for the right German word for those songs and I found "Runenlieder" (runic songs). The articles I found about those refered to the Finnish epos Kaalevala.

It would be interesting to know when the CD will be available.
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Post by Liis »

Hello, Leonia :wave:
- agree, Google Translate is not very good to/from Estonian, putting it politely. Sadly, it doen't seem to be learning either. It is supposed to do so; people contribute "Better translations", hoping for it, but no.
Let's sincerely hope no manuals are ever GT translated.

About the "runic songs":
One of my guesses too was that Lönnroth, Kalevala etc would have something to do with the concept, because of the period (19th century): searching for roots, national romanticism, also a yearning to be part of Scandinavia.

Maybe it was simpler. A Finnish word for poem is - runo (and rune is actually riimu in Finnish). The songs are quite correctly called "runosånger" , = poetic songs, in Swedish. In translation to English, the rune, runes, runic association took over. And if asked on the street, most Swedish-speakers too would probably say that runosång has to do with runes ...

It may, too :mrgreen: :does anyone know the origins of Finnish runo and Swedish (German etc) runa, runor?

Back to Looduskalender & nature: the list of the plants in the film will be interesting!
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Post by leonia »

Hello Liis, :wave:
an etymological dictionary (Grimm's Wörterbuch) says that "rune" (in old nordisc "rûna") has a lot of meanings:
secret, arcanum, secret talks, signs of the germanic cipher and magic characters.
So what we know as "runes" are only the written signs but not the mystic meaning of the word known in ancient times. There is the german verbum "raunen" (to moan, murmur etc.) from the same origine, which shows the way we have to take to understand: it was the secret of the shamans who could read the runes, who made oracles with rune sticks, that were unknown to normal people. So I understand regilaulud as uttering an incantation.
I hope my translation of the german terms is understandable . . . :dunno:
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Post by Liis »

Thank you, Leonia -
and perfectly understandable, all.
The remaining question would be whether Finnish runo=poem, song has the same origin as the Scandinavian/German rune.
Finnish is after all a quite different language. There is the possibility that the words have evolved independent of each other, and from different roots. Strange things happen in languages!
Finnish runo seems however really to be a word borrowed from the Scandinavian runa, rune.

And now we just have to wait for a chance to see Rein Maran's film!
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Post by leonia »

Dear Liis,
I found these pages during my research on regilaulud:
http://www.einst.ee/culture/I_MMIII/sarv.html
http://www.folk.ee/kultuurilaegas/en/aa ... 8Runo-Song
I think it is not difficult to suggest falling in trance with such monotone melodies moaning incantations.
Besides Estonian and Finnish beeing finno-ugrian languages there may have existed a cultural interchange even in ancient times. Maybe travelling minstrels brought the word "runo" to Estonia, but the way of singing like that (regilaulud) was probabliy usual then also elsewhere.
I have several audio cassetts with shepherd's singing from southern Europe from the middle of the last century: one wouldn't suspect such an archaic sound. But people who never had a lesson in musical concorde (? right word?) don't sing in major or minor thirds. Or take the original songs from Bulgaria, today used in adapted and arranged versions by the famous Bulgarian choir (Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares).
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Post by Liis »

PS. about mulleins (Verbascum):
The old stands often remain long into next summer where they grow. The plant and leaves are so dry and densely hairy that not even sheep like to eat them - so another name is Adam's flannel :innocent: !
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Post by Liis »

leonia wrote:------
I found these pages during my research on regilaulud:
http://www.einst.ee/culture/I_MMIII/sarv.html
http://www.folk.ee/kultuurilaegas/en/aa ... 8Runo-Song
-------
Besides Estonian and Finnish beeing finno-ugrian languages there may have existed a cultural interchange even in ancient times. Maybe travelling minstrels brought the word "runo" to Estonia, but the way of singing like that (regilaulud) was probabliy usual then also elsewhere.
-------
Thank you! This is so interesting that we will probably go on for a long time!
But all kinds of new things from LK front page come too - so please follow the music discussion to Arvi's Estonian music ... topic - and join the discussion there.
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Post by Liis »

Who has bats around?

Estonia is having the European bat night - bat week rather - quite early, for most others it is in August.

I rather like them, but only see a few at a time.
A friend had a colony of about 300 in the attic in his countryhouse. He said that was too many, and turned them out.
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