Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Cloud Dispelling

This passage reminded us of Kenton Knepper's delightful instruction on cloud busting in his Wonder Words program:

"Sorcerers, being lords of weather and wind, are called 'cloud-dispellers' (oblako-progonniki) and 'cloud-preservers' (oblako-chraniteliniki). For a sorcerer, therefore, invested with such power, it was a simple matter, by means of a magic word, to make the wind veer in any desired direction, to throw dust into the air, and cause the wind to carry dust to any person he chose, so that the victim 'might become crooked, wrinkled, be blown asunder and desiccated." —James Hastings, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics Part 6, 1908, p. 466

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