- She is coming, mum…
In Norwegian folklore Pesta was the evil personification of the Black Plague. She was an old, ugly woman, dressed in black and she went from cottages to castles, to farms and small cabins, everywhere. If she used the rake, someone could survive. If she used the broom, everyone was going to die.
Norway lost 2/3 of its population, 80 % of the nobility perished. The survivors lived all over the country, often isolated in narrow valleys. The population was small and did not recover to a normal level until the potato was introduced 150 years ago.
Norway lost its indepence and was ruled by Denmark until 1814, and by Sweden until 1905. The poor, defiant, isolated and independent peasant was the seed for the very typical egalitarian Norwegian who lives in this frozen land of the North up to this day.
Drawing by Theodor Kittelsen, 1896
(via wednesdaysnecropolis)
The Black 01
When the world goes post-apocalyptic this is how I hope we all dress.
I would so wear all of this.
(via morticians-flame)
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KUBLA KHAN - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And ‘mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ‘twould win me
That with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
[insert literary reference]: Why Do Men Keep Putting Me in the Girlfriend-Zone?
You know how it is, right, ladies? You know a guy for a while. You hang out with him. You do fun things with him—play video games, watch movies, go hiking, go to concerts. You invite him to your parties. You listen to his problems. You do all this because you think he wants to be your friend.
But…




