Gregorius

Oh. That was a sweet ending. I just finished (the day before the exam) the epic in verses "Gregorius, the good sinner" by Hartman von Aue. It's from the Middle Ages, and the best you would expect is that it was interesting, right? But it was entertaining, and actually the philosophy behind it was not at all very unenlightened or strange. And it's touching to read a text from hundreds of years ago that finishes with a plea from the author that you pray for his soul so he may see you in heaven. I have to say, this text was the most convincing argument for becoming a Christian that I've ever read.

It was also a big damn soap opera. King dies, prince and princess commit incest, baby is put onto a boat and sent out on the sea, baby is found by monks and raised, incest-child decides to become knight, returns to home country, defeats evil knight, marries mother. Then a servant girl catches him reading the letter he has from his mother, tells her lady, the lady confronts her husband-son and they both realize they're related. He leaves to become a hermit and lives seventeen years on a rock, because some mean fisherman said he should, shackled him there and threw the key into the sea.

Then the pope dies and some cardinals have a dream about a saint living on a rock and go and find him. The night they rest at the fisherman's hut, the fisher serves them a big fish, and voila! The key is inside the fish. They free the poor hermit Gregorius and he becomes the best pope ever. One day his mother comes to him to confess, but doesn't recognize the pope as her husband and child. He mocks her kindly for a while and then reveals the truth and they live happily ever after (chastely, I presume, because by then they're both old and ugly.) The thing is that this story is told in such a way that it is touching despite its oddness. Reading thousands of verses in Middle High German shouldn't be this much fun!

Gregorius

Oh. That was a sweet ending. I just finished (the day before the exam) the epic in verses "Gregorius, the good sinner" by Hartman von Aue. It's from the Middle Ages, and the best you would expect is that it was interesting, right? But it was entertaining, and actually the philosophy behind it was not at all very unenlightened or strange. And it's touching to read a text from hundreds of years ago that finishes with a plea from the author that you pray for his soul so he may see you in heaven. I have to say, this text was the most convincing argument for becoming a Christian that I've ever read.

It was also a big damn soap opera. King dies, prince and princess commit incest, baby is put onto a boat and sent out on the sea, baby is found by monks and raised, incest-child decides to become knight, returns to home country, defeats evil knight, marries mother. Then a servant girl catches him reading the letter he has from his mother, tells her lady, the lady confronts her husband-son and they both realize they're related. He leaves to become a hermit and lives seventeen years on a rock, because some mean fisherman said he should, shackled him there and threw the key into the sea.

Then the pope dies and some cardinals have a dream about a saint living on a rock and go and find him. The night they rest at the fisherman's hut, the fisher serves them a big fish, and voila! The key is inside the fish. They free the poor hermit Gregorius and he becomes the best pope ever. One day his mother comes to him to confess, but doesn't recognize the pope as her husband and child. He mocks her kindly for a while and then reveals the truth and they live happily ever after (chastely, I presume, because by then they're both old and ugly.) The thing is that this story is told in such a way that it is touching despite its oddness. Reading thousands of verses in Middle High German shouldn't be this much fun!

(no subject)

Oh, this one sounds good. Answers may take a while, depending on when I find time.

Name Those Characters!

1) Make a list of 10 characters.
2) Assign each character a number.
3)Without telling anyone who's on the list or the character's assigned number, get questions from your flist about what they'd like to know about them. IE: "If 3 and 4 were trapped in a cave together with only a blanket and a toothpick, what would they do?" (The more random the better!)
4) Post the answers and who was who on the list.

Hint: It's an all-villain list. Well, I guess some of the names are of debatable evilness. But some are pure and unadulterated evil. Also, there are six men, 2-3 women and one androgynous entity (but probably the latter is the least well known of all of them.) And they're from several of my fandoms, past and current.

(no subject)

Oh, this one sounds good. Answers may take a while, depending on when I find time.

Name Those Characters!

1) Make a list of 10 characters.
2) Assign each character a number.
3)Without telling anyone who's on the list or the character's assigned number, get questions from your flist about what they'd like to know about them. IE: "If 3 and 4 were trapped in a cave together with only a blanket and a toothpick, what would they do?" (The more random the better!)
4) Post the answers and who was who on the list.

Hint: It's an all-villain list. Well, I guess some of the names are of debatable evilness. But some are pure and unadulterated evil. Also, there are six men, 2-3 women and one androgynous entity (but probably the latter is the least well known of all of them.) And they're from several of my fandoms, past and current.