For #WyrdWednesday's Japan week: my favorite 🧵 about the Five Great Cherry Blossom Trees.
Starting from Yamataka Jindai Zakura, a Double Weeping Rosebud Cherry (Edohigan) in Hokuto. Believed to be planted by semi-legendary prince Yamato Takeru and is about 1,900 years old. 1/7
One legend says that Nichiren, a famous Buddhist priest and philosopher, once felt pity when seeing the Yamataka Jindai tree in weakened state. He prayed compassionately upon the tree, which grew back into full vigor. 2/7
Usuzumi Zakura is famous for having pink color as buds, white in full bloom, and light grey before falling (Usuzumi: "pale ink"). The ancient tree was planted by Emperor Keitai (450-531) after returning from exile because of persecution. 3/7
Emperor Keitai also made a poem about the tree:
"I will leave this place.
But, on my behalf, I will leave here this cherry tree.
My time here was short, but I hope that this cherry tree,
my replacement, will bloom here for a long time." 4/7
Ishitokaba Zakura is the only one of its kind in the world, a result of crossing between Yamazakura and Edohigan varieties. The result is an 800 year-old tree that blooms in white on the ground of Toko-ji Temple in Saitama every April. 5/7
Kariyado no Gebazakura is an 800 year-old wild cherry tree in Shizuoka. It inspired a poem by shogunate Tokugawa Yoshinobu:
"Alas, does it not only hold horses
But also the beholders' hearts
This wild cherry."
Also inspired a teacup design by Sazen, a Moriyama-based shop. 6/7
Miharu Takizakura, "the waterfall cherry tree of Miharu", was named from pink flowers that spread in all directions like waterfall. Growing in Fukushima, it has withstood great trials, from the 2005 great snowfall to the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, making it a symbol of hope. 7/7
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Letters from Father Christmas originates from Tolkien's tradition of writing illustrated letters to his children every Christmas, from 1920 to 1943, making them look like they come from a figure called "Father Christmas". 1/8
A 🧵for #BookWormSat #Christmas and #Tolkien
Every letter described Father Christmas' adventures in the North Pole, with squiggly handwriting and special stamps and envelopes to make them look real. In this first letter (1920), he reassured John Tolkien that he'd deliver toys to Oxford and drew his house for him. 2/8
Over time, Tolkien added new characters, from Ilbereth the Elf secretary to North Polar Bear and two bear cubs, describing and drawing their shenanigans, like when the bear slipped while carrying a pile of gifts or falling (again!) when fixing the damaged roof. 3/8
Without Christopher Tolkien (21 November 1924 - 16 January 2020), the world of #Tolkien studies and our understanding of his vast expanse of imagination would not have been like now.
A thread of birthday appreciation for #TolkienTrewsday #TolkienTuesday 1/13
📷: Josh Dolgin
Christopher was Tolkien's number one fan, the one who understood his father's work after Tolkien himself. Starting from listening to tales of Bilbo Baggins as a kid, he assisted Tolkien in drawing maps and giving feedback during the 15-year gestation of Lord of the Rings. 2/13
He briefly served in Royal Air Force, but it didn't stop his contribution to Tolkien's writing in LOTR, since his father kept sending him parts of LOTR manuscripts. In 1945, he joined The Inklings literary club following Tolkien, where he read parts of LOTR manuscripts. 3/13
19 fiction books by Palestinian authors: novels, short stories, and folktales.
1. My First and Only Love (2021) by Shahar Khalifeh. Nidal, an elderly exile, recounts the story when the 1948 Nakba scattered her family; a story of love and resistance from the eyes of a young girl.
2. Salt Houses (2017) by Hala Alyan.
A story of four generations of the Yacoubs, a middle-class family in Palestine, beginning in Nablus in 1963. It focuses on migration and the struggle between staying connected with one's traditions and still finding a home in a new country.
3. Minor Detail (2017) by Adania Shibli.
This caused a stir after Frankfurt Book Fair canceled the award ceremony for the author. It depicts tragedies shared by a Bedouin-Palestinian girl in 1949 and a woman from modern-day Ramallah who read the girl's fate in newspaper archive.
Chocolate was once associated with witchcraft in colonial Latin America. Women traditionally prepared chocolate for drink and folk medicine, so there was fear that they practiced witchcraft through chocolate, making them subjects of Inquisition's crackdown.
#FolkloreSunday 1/8
Chocolate was known as the "food of gods" and currency in ancient times. According to legend, Aztec emperor Montezuma II drank gallons of it daily for vitality. Chocolate was also consumed for strength in giving birth and menopause, or staying awake for rituals and revelries. 2/8
Women traditionally prepared chocolate drink and the association carried as the Inquisition purged "heretical practices", including folk medicine. Historian Martha Few said that many testimonies featured chocolate, like those who feared women put potion in their morning cup. 3/8
In Tolkien's works, Faerie is seen as the land of endless beauty and peril. Humility is required here, or disasters strike. The concept is also present in Hutan Larangan ("forbidden forest"), prevalent in various cultures in Indonesia. 1/8
A 🧵for #Tolkien and #FolkloreSunday
In Tolkien's early writing, an explorer, Eriol, was about to enter a tiny magical house called the Cottage of Lost Play. The house asked him to will himself to be as tiny as the "little folk" to enter. We can read it as a test of Eriol's humility. 2/8
🎨: Amani Warrington
One of Tolkien's "fairy poems" showed the consequence of acting with arrogance when you got a chance to enter the Faerie: the unnamed narrator was reduced to a rambling wreck, suffering an indescribable feeling of loss. 3/8
Golden, star-shaped flowers of elanor grew in Tol Eressëa and the forest of Lothlórien, strewn on the mound of Cerin Amroth. In #LOTR , these humble yet bright flowers were associated with brilliant and fair memories. 1/6
A 🧵for #TolkienTrewsday #TolkienTuesday #Tolkien
In a letter to Amy Ronald (16 November 1969), Tolkien described elanor as "a pimpernel (perhaps a little enlarged) growing sun-golden and star-silver ones on the same plant". The multitude of these flowers do give visual impression like golden stars on the ground. 2/6
Elanor evokes memories of the brilliant past, shared between the Elves and the Númenoreans. When the Elves graced the wedding between Erendis and Aldarion the Mariner, the sixth king of Númenor, they came with ships laden with flowers, and wore elanor crowns during the feast. 3/6