192 quotes found
"'Twas on the sixth of June, about the hour Of half-past six—perhaps still nearer seven— When Julia sate within as pretty a bower As e'er held houri in that heathenish heaven Described by Mahomet, and Anacreon Moore, To whom the lyre and laurels have been given, With all the trophies of triumphant song— He won them well, and may he wear them long!"
"What pictures to the taster rise, Of Dervish or of Almeh dances! Of Eblis, or of Paradise, Set all aglow with Houri glances!"
"He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri's knees, His turban that is woven of the sunset and the seas."
"Thy wife or thy daughter, that Eastern houri that thou lockest under thy arm as thou wouldst thy treasure-casket?"
"Then the lady took the cup, and drank it off to her sisters' health, and they ceased not drinking (the Porter being in the midst of them), and dancing and laughing and reciting verses and singing ballads and ritornellos. All this time the Porter was carrying on with them, kissing, toying, biting, handling, groping, fingering; whilst one thrust a dainty morsel in his mouth, and another slapped him; and this cuffed his cheeks, and that threw sweet flowers at him; and he was in the very paradise of pleasure, as though he were sitting in the seventh sphere among the Houris of Heaven."
"The blessed Verse 56 treats of the six Blessing – chaste spouses in Paradise. The blessed Verse is saying that there shall be women in those palaces in Paradise who restraining their glances solely look at their husbands and love no one but them and no jinni or man has ever touched them. Thus, they shall be virgin and undefiled in any respect.It is narrated on the authority of Abudhar Ghaffari that the woman in Paradise shall say unto her husband:"By the Glory of my Lord! I find nothing better than you in Paradise. Praise be to God Almighty Who married me unto you.""
"It is true that simple-minded religious men have conceived their goal as a state of continued existence beyond the grave filled with all happy things and experiences. But plainly such happy things and experiences were no more than symbolic, and the happy heavens containing such things have the character of myth. To the human mind, fast fettered by the limits of its poor imagination, they stand for and represent the goal. One cannot conceive the inconceivable. So in place of it one puts whatever one can imagine of delight; wine and houris if one's imagination is limited to these; love, kindness, sweetness of spiritual living if one is of a less materialistic temper. But were these existences and delights, material or spiritual, to be actually found and enjoyed as present, they would be condemned by the saint along with all earthly joys. For they would have upon them the curse, the darkness, the disease, of all existent things, of all that is this or that. This is why we cannot conceive of any particular pleasure, happiness, joy, which would not cloy – which to be quite frank – would not in the end be boring."
"Lucy's sign is a Chinese dragon. Oh, oh, she's got luck The rhythm of life is the force of habit Oh, oh, the rhythm of life."
"If the lion and dragon fight, they will both die."
"A poet can write about a man slaying a dragon, but not about a man pushing a button that releases a bomb."
"Fairy tales do not give a child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon."
"The age of chivalry is past. … Bores have succeeded to dragons, and I have shivered too many lances in vain ever to hope for their extirpation."
"Conquer the demon of jealousy, that dragon which slays love under the pretence of keeping it alive."
"Luckdragons are among the strangest animals in Fantastica. They bear no resemblance to ordinary dragons, which look like loathsome snakes and live in deep caves, diffusing a noxious stench and guarding some real or imaginary treasure. Such spawn of chaos are usually wicked or ill-tempered, they have batlike wings with which they can rise clumsily and noisily into the air, and they spew fire and smoke. Luckdragons are creatures of air, warmth, and pure joy. Despite their great size, they are as light as a summer cloud, and consequently need no wings for flying. They swim in the air of heaven as fish swim in water. Seen from the earth, they look like slow lightning flashes. The most amazing thing about them is their song. Their voice sounds like the golden note of a large bell, and when they speak softly the bell seems to be ringing in the distance. Anyone who has heard this sound will remember it as long as he lives and tell his grandchildren about it."
"What I create is not from this world, because the people who need my help suffer from afflictions that science cannot treat."
"And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him."
"We are a restless breed, we dragons, never really satisfied; we love change for its own sake."
"I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?"
"O to be a dragon, a symbol of the power of Heaven — of silkworm size or immense; at times invisible. Felicitous phenomenon!"
"It's a metaphor of human bloody existence, a dragon. And if that wasn't bad enough, it's also a bloody great hot flying thing."
"I'm an outlaw, not a hero. I never intended to rescue you. We're our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves."
"Advance our standards, set upon our foes Our ancient world of courage fair St. George Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons."
"Come not between the dragon, and his wrath."
"No sooner had Jesus knocked over the dragon of superstition then Paul boldly set it on its legs again in the name of Jesus."
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him."
"Never laugh at live dragons."
"I desired dragons with a profound desire. Of course, I in my timid body did not wish to have them in the neighbourhood, intruding into my relatively safe world, in which it was, for instance, possible to read stories in peace of mind, free from fear. But the world that contained even the imagination of Fбfnir was richer and more beautiful, at whatever cost of peril."
"In this time it happed that there was at Rome a dragon in a pit, which every day slew with his breath more than three hundred men. Then came the bishops of the idols unto the emperor and said unto him: O thou most holy emperor, sith the time that thou hast received Christian faith the dragon which is in yonder fosse or pit slayeth every day with his breath more than three hundred men. Then sent the emperor for S. Silvester and asked counsel of him of this matter. S. Silvester answered that by the might of God he promised to make him cease of his hurt and blessure of this people. Then S. Silvester put himself to prayer, and S. Peter appeared to him and said: "Go surely to the dragon and the two priests that be with thee take in thy company, and when thou shalt come to him thou shalt say to him in this manner: Our Lord Jesus Christ which was born of the Virgin Mary, crucified, buried and arose, and now sitteth on the right side of the Father, this is he that shall come to deem and judge the living and the dead, I commend thee Sathanas that thou abide him in this place till he come. Then thou shalt bind his mouth with a thread, and seal it with thy seal , wherein is the imprint of the cross. Then thou and the two priests shall come to me whole and safe, and such bread as I shall make ready for you ye shall eat."
"Trolls, it is said, were bred by Melkor because he desired a race as powerful as the giant Ents, the Tree-herds."
"Assume good faith. This is so easier said than done ;/ But for real, assume good faith. When someone asks a question and you think they are trolling, it’s entirely possible they are not. (Maybe they are 15 years old, or their English is imperfect, or they have an impairment of some kind.) Even if they are trolling: there will always be onlookers who don’t know it, and who, whatever the provocation, will recoil if you are curt or unkind. Trolling also gives you an opportunity to equip onlookers with reasonable arguments that they can go on to use themselves."
"The folk belief … is that lightning seeks out trolls and giants, perhaps a reflection the giant-slaying of Thor in Old Norse mythology. Many informants have told collectors that the reason the giants or trolls are no longer populous is the accuracy and efficiency of the lightning strokes."
"Senator Stampingston: Gentlemen, it's clear that we're in a universally precarious situation. Dethklok has summoned a troll. General Crozier: That's impossible, there's no such thing as trolls. Senator Stampingston: Then how do you explain the dead unicorns?"
"They were trolls. Obviously trolls. Even Bilbo, in spite of his sheltered life, could see that: from the great heavy faces of them, and their size, and the shape of their legs, not to mention their language, which was not drawing-room fashion at all, at all."
"Trolls are slow in the uptake, and mighty suspicious about anything new to them."
"Trolls simply detest the very sight of dwarves (uncooked)."
"Trolls do not build."
"'Now is the time!' cried Gandalf. 'Let us go, before the troll returns!'"
"Trolls are only counterfeits, made by the Enemy in the Great Darkness, in mockery of Ents, as Orcs were of Elves."
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"
"Science seeks to explain everything—but maybe we don't want everything explained. We don't want all the magic to go out of life. We want to remain connected to the secret parts of our inner beings, to the ancient mysteries, and to the most distant outposts of the universe. We want to believe. And as long as we do, the fairies will remain."
"Up the airy mountain, Down the rushy glen, We daren't go a-hunting For fear of little men; Wee folk, good folk, Trooping all together, Green jacket, red cap, And white owl's feather!"
"It is frightfully difficult to know much about the fairies, and almost the only thing known for certain is that there are fairies wherever there are children."
"When you were a bird you knew the fairies pretty well, and you remember a good deal about them in your babyhood, which it is a great pity you can't write down, for gradually you forget, and I have heard of children who declared that they had never once seen a fairy. Very likely if they said this in the Kensington Gardens, they were standing looking at a fairy all the time. The reason they were cheated was that she pretended to be something else. This is one of their best tricks."
"Do you believe in fairies? If you believe clap your hands."
"When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a million pieces, and they all went skipping about. That was the beginning of fairies."
"Whenever a child says "I don't believe in fairies" there's a little fairy somewhere that falls right down dead."
"FAIRY, n. A creature, variously fashioned and endowed, that formerly inhabited the meadows and forests. It was nocturnal in its habits, and somewhat addicted to dancing and the theft of children. The fairies are now believed by naturalists to be extinct, though a clergyman of the Church of England saw three near Colchester as lately as 1855, while passing through a park after dining with the lord of the manor. The sight greatly staggered him, and he was so affected that his account of it was incoherent."
"Bright Eyes, Light Eyes! Daughter of a Fay! I had not been a married wife a twelvemonth and a day, I had not nursed my little one a month upon my knee, When down among the blue bell banks rose elfins three times three: They griped me by the raven hair, I could not cry for fear, They put a hempen rope around my waist and dragged me here; They made me sit and give thee suck as mortal mothers can, Bright Eyes, Light Eyes! strange and weak and wan!"
"This is not the considered dogma of schoolmen or of sages in council, but the whirring utterance of a poet, and it is with some such answer that we must affirm our belief in the fairy world. For this belief […] is so inconsiderable that it will never harden into a creed; so tiny and humble a thing that the wise of this world have never tried to preserve it as a talisman or to use it as an artificial symbol of contention. So that it has been left from the beginning to grow free like the daisies, and children from the morning of time have woven it into happy coronals and into flower-chains."
"Faeries lead us astray to show us the way."
"There are fairies at the bottom of our garden! It's not so very, very far away; You pass the gardener's shed and you just keep straight ahead— I do so hope they've really come to stay.[…]The King is very proud and very handsome, The Queen—now can you guess who that could be (She's a little girl all day, but at night she steals away)? Well—it's ME!"
"Then take me on your knee, mother; And listen, mother of mine. A hundred fairies danced last night, And the harpers they were nine."
"Nothing can be truer than fairy wisdom. It is as true as sunbeams."
"Most nature-spirits dislike and avoid mankind, and we cannot wonder at it. To them man appears a ravaging demon, destroying and spoiling wherever he goes... He wantonly kills, often with awful tortures, all the beautiful creatures that they love to watch; he cuts down the trees, he tramples the grass, he plucks the flowers and casts them carelessly aside to die; he replaces all the lovely wild life of nature with his hideous bricks and mortar, and the fragrance of the flowers with the mephitic vapours of his chemicals and the all polluting smoke of his factories. Can we think it strange that the fairies should regard us with horror, and shrink away from us as we shrink from a poisonous reptile? p. 143"
"Nicht die Kinder bloss speist man mit Märchen ab."
"It is for fear of the grown-up, or at least out of respect towards them, that a chapter must be given to fairies. If the children do not care very much for fairies, they must be made to care. "Who is to care if they do not? Who is to be properly childlike if they are not?""
"It may well be doubted whether children are generally credulous.{…] For children do not believe in fairies a jot. I have just asked my youngest daughter whether she believed in them, and she said "Of course not—only I liked the stories." Fiction to children is fiction and not fact."
"The pretty game of calling on the children of the audience of "Peter Pan" to declare their faith in fairies seemed to me disastrous—a game of men and women at the expense of children, a cumbersome frolic at best and an artificial, a tyrannous use of the adult sense of sentimental humour against the helpless. I could with better conscience use my superior physical strength upon them than exploit them for love of my own condescension. (And yet Sir J. Barrie has written the most adorable "pretending" story ever written about a child.)No, children love a fairy story not because they think it true, but because they think it untrue, and because it makes no fraudulent appeal to their excellent good sense. That sense they are delighted to put aside while they "pretend." That is their own word.[…] "Let's pretend," not "Let's believe." Their mother does not put "Let's pretend" into the child's mouth; she finds it there. Without it there is no play. But the pretending is always drama and never deception or self-deception."
"I took it for a faery vision Of some gay creatures of the element, That in the colours of the rainbow live, And play i' th' plighted clouds."
"Or fairy elves, Whose midnight revels by a forest side Or fountain, some belated peasant sees, Or dreams he sees, while overhead the Moon Sits arbitress, and nearer to the Earth Wheels her pale course; they, on their mirth and dance Intent, with jocund music charm his ear; At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds."
"The dances ended, all the fairy train For pinks and daisies search'd the flow'ry plain."
"This is the fairy-land; O spite of spites! We talk with goblins, owls and sprites."
"Fairies, black, grey, green, and white, You moonshine revellers, and shades of night."
"They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die: I'll wink and couch: no man their works must eye."
"Set your heart at rest: The fairyland buys not the child of me."
"In silence sad, Trip we after night's shade: We the globe can compass soon. Swifter than the wand'ring moon."
"O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate-stone On the forefinger of an alderman."
"Where the bee sucks, there suck I; In a cowslip's bell I lie; There I couch when owls do cry. On the bat's back I do fly."
"Her berth was of the wombe of morning dew And her conception of the joyous prime."
"But light as any wind that blows So fleetly did she stir, The flower, she touch'd on, dipt and rose, And turned to look at her."
"The weakness of the attack lies in its lack of discrimination. It is possible that psychic surgery is a hoax, that plants cannot really read our minds, that Kirlian photography (photographing the "life-aura" of living creatures) may depend on some simple electrical phenomenon. But to lump all of these together as if they were all on the same level of improbability shows a certain lack of discernment. The same applies to the list of "hoaxes." Rhine's careful research into extrasensory perception at Duke University is generally conceded to be serious and sincere, even by people who think his test conditions were too loose. The famous fairy photographs are quite probably a hoax, but no one has ever produced an atom of proof either way, and until someone does, no one can be quite as confident as the editors of Time seem to be. And Ted Serios has never at any time been exposed as a fraud — although obviously he might be. We see here a phenomena that we shall encounter again in relation to Geller: that when a scientist or a "rationalist" sets himself up as the defender of reason, he often treats logic with a disrespect that makes one wonder what side he is on."
"To aid your toils, to scatter death, Swift, as the sheeted lightning's force, When the keen north-wind's freezing breath Spreads desolation in its course, My soul within this icy sea, Fulfils her fearful destiny. Thro' Time's long ages I shall wait To lead the victims to their fate; With callous heart, to hidden rocks decoy, And lure, in seraph-strains, unpitying, to destroy."
"O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note, To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears."
"Since once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, That the rude sea grew civil at her song: And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, To hear the sea-maid's music."
"Who would be A mermaid fair, Singing alone, Combing her hair Under the sea, In a golden curl With a comb of pearl, On a throne? I would be a mermaid fair; I would sing to myself the whole of the day; With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair; And still as I comb I would sing and say, "Who is it loves me? who loves not me?""
"Slow sail'd the weary mariners and saw, Betwixt the green brink and the running foam, Sweet faces, rounded arms, and bosoms prest To little harps of gold; and while they mused Whispering to each other half in fear, Shrill music reach'd them on the middle sea."
"A mermaid found a swimming lad Picked him for her own, Pressed her body to his body, Laughed; and plunging down Forgot in cruel happiness That even lovers drown."
"I must be a mermaid... I have no fear of depths, and a great fear of shallow living."
"I think every little girl's dream is to be a mermaid or to see a mermaid. [When I was younger] I would go to the beach and cover myself in the sand. People from different cultures and centuries have the same idea of what mermaids are... so that's maybe a cool thing to think about."
"Today's mermaids are fun-loving and friendly. The frightening, destroyer sirens of the past have been ousted in favor of pleasure-seeking playmates. Their youthful abandon, grace and sense of freedom invite us to lighten up. They remind us to enjoy life and glide through the waters of life, rather than struggling. Perhaps these bathing beauties are just what we need now to help us escape from the stress of the modern world and our anxiety about the future."
"No matter what, I suspect that the unicorn will always be with us. He might retreat deep into the forest in order to escape all the hoopla surrounding him today, and we may have to look harder and be more sincere in the future if we want to find him. But we'll continue searching for this Holy Grail of the animal world just as we have for millennia, and, ultimately, I believe that we'll find his glory deep within ourselves."
"I suppose I could not understand it if women had simply forgotten unicorns or if they had changed so that they loved all unicorns now and tried to save them when they saw them. But not to see them at all, to feel them and sense something else — what do they look like to one another, then? A beast? What do trees look like to them, or houses, or real horses, or their own children?"
"Quests may not simply be abandoned; prophecies may not be left to rot like unpicked fruit; unicorns may go unrescued for a very long time, but not forever. The happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story."
"I am the only Unicorn there is? The Last? … That cannot be. Why would I be the last? What do men know? Because they have seen no unicorns for a while does not mean we have all vanished. We do not vanish. … There has never been a time without unicorns. We live forever! We are as old as the sky, old as the moon! We can be hunted, trapped; we can even be killed if we leave our forests, but we do not vanish. … Am I truly the last?"
"The Unicorn Sonata … tells us that our true home is often right around the corner, if we'd only open our eyes — and our ears — to find it."
"A Chinese prose writer has observed that the unicorn, because of its own anomaly, will pass unnoticed. Our eyes see what they are accustomed to seeing."
"It is universally held that the unicorn is a supernatural being and of auspicious omen; so say the odes, the annals, the biographies of worthies, and other texts whose authority is unimpeachable. Even village women and children know that the unicorn is a lucky sign. But this animal does not figure among the barnyard animals, it is not always easy to come across, it does not lend itself to zoological classification. Nor is it like the horse or bull, the wolf or deer. In such circumstances we may be face to face with a unicorn and not know for sure that we are. We know that a certain animal with a mane is a horse and that a certain animal with horns is a bull. We do not know what the unicorn looks like."
"I don't want to talk about the texts or the class. We can do that another time. I just want to know the last time you saw a unicorn and do you still believe in primeval forests."
"Billy lowered his head and ran, headlong, at the unicorn, as if he were about to butt it with his forehead. The unicorn lowered its head also, and Billy the Innkeeper met his unfortunate end."
"She had a unicorn to protect her. Now I have the unicorn's head, and I will bring it back with me, for it's long enough since we had fresh ground unicorn's horn in our arts."
"Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee? Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labour to him? Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy barn?"
"I agree that clouds often look like other things — fish and unicorns and men on horseback — but they are really only clouds. Even when the lightning flashes inside them we say they are only clouds and turn our attention to the next meal, the next pain, the next breath, the next page. This is how we go on."
"If even one Unicorn walks the Earth my power is not complete."
"You know what they call a unicorn without a horn? A freaking horse."
"When a pony does a good deed, he gets a horn and he becomes a unicorn and poops out cotton candy until he forgets he’s magical and then his horn falls off. Black unicorns become zebras."
"I'm also a unicorn. Maybe a bi-corn. Either way, I'm starting to believe in my own magic."
"I think for many young girls, there's a fantasy that someday you will be recognized as the secretly beautiful, magical thing that you are. The unicorn will be attracted to something ineffable about you, secret from the rest of the world."
"Logic, I should maintain, must no more admit a unicorn than zoology can; for logic is concerned with the real world just as truly as zoology, though with its more abstract and general features."
"Now I will believe That there are unicorns; that in Arabia There is one tree, the phoenix' throne, one phoenix At this hour reigning there."
"Once upon a sunny morning a man who sat in a breakfast nook looked up from his scrambled eggs to see a white unicorn with a golden horn quietly cropping the roses in the garden. The man went up to the bedroom where his wife was still asleep and woke her. "There's a unicorn in the garden," he said. "Eating roses." She opened one unfriendly eye and looked at him. "The unicorn is a mythical beast," she said, and turned her back on him. The man walked slowly downstairs and out into the garden. The unicorn was still there; he was now browsing among the tulips."
"If you herald some turn in our fortunes, if you bring us some measure of grace — thanks, unicorn … And even if you do not, thanks for the brightness of your company at a dark time."
"A bizarrerie of fires, cunabulum of light, it moved with a deft, almost dainty deliberation, phasing into and out of existence like a storm-shot piece of evening; or perhaps the darkness between the flares was more akin to its truest nature — swirl of black ashes assembled in prancing cadence to the lowing note of desert wind down the arroyo behind buildings as empty yet filled as the pages of unread books or stillnesses between the notes of a song."
"It is no shame to lose to me, mortal. Even among mythical creatures there are very few who can give a unicorn a good game."
"Here sits the Unicorn In captivity; His bright invulnerability Captive at last"
"Here sits the Unicorn In captivity, Yet free."
"He could leap the corral, If he rose To his full height; He could splinter the fencing light, With three blows Of his porcelain hoofs in flight — If he chose. He could shatter his prison wall, Could escape them all — If he rose, If he chose."
"Here sits the Unicorn; The wounds in his side Still bleed"
"Dream wounds, dream ties Do not bind him there In a kingdom where He is unaware Of his wounds, of his snare."
"Here sits the Unicorn; Leashed by a chain of gold To the pomegranate tree. So light a chain to hold So fierce a beast; Delicate as a cross at rest On a maiden's breast. He could snap the golden chain With one toss of his mane, If he chose to move, If he chose to prove His liberty. But he does not choose What choice would lose. He stays, the Unicorn, In captivity."
"Yet look again — His horn is free, Rising above chain, fence, and tree, Free hymn of love; His horn Bursts from his tranquil brow Like a comet born; Cleaves like a galley's prow Into seas untorn; Springs like a lily, white From the Earth below; Spirals, a bird in flight To a longed-for height; Or a fountain bright, Spurting to light Of early morn — O luminous horn!"
"Here sits the Unicorn — In captivity? In repose."
"Forgotten the strife; Now the need to kill Has died like fire, And the need to love Has replaced desire"
"Quiet, the Unicorn, In contemplation stilled, With acceptance filled; Quiet, save for his horn; Alive in his horn; Horizontally, In captivity; Perpendicularly, Free."
"Isildur was marching north along the east banks of the River, and near the Gladden Fields he was waylaid by the Orcs of the Mountains, and almost all his folk were slain. He leaped into the waters, but the Ring slipped from his finger as he swam, and then the Orcs saw him and killed him with arrows."
"Those who pass the gates of Barad-dûr do not return. But I would not lead you into Moria if there were no hope of coming out again. If there are Orcs there, it may prove ill for us, that is true. But most of the Orcs of the Misty Mountains were scattered or destroyed in the Battle of Five Armies. The Eagles report that Orcs are gathering again from afar; but there is a hope that Moria is still free."
"There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world."
"Orcs will often pursue foes for many leagues into the plain, if they have a fallen captain to avenge."
"You must dig swift and deep, if you wish to hide from Orcs."
"Orcs were as keen as hounds on a scent, it was said, but they could also climb."
"It was dark, but not too dark for the night-eyes of Orcs."
"Orcs travel fast."
"Enemies of the Orcs are likely to be our friends."
"'Surely even Orcs must pause on the march?' said Gimli. 'Seldom will Orcs journey in the open under the sun, yet these have done so,' said Legolas. 'Certainly they will not rest by night.'"
"'The Orcs have run before us, as if the very whips of Sauron were behind them.'"
"'Who are you, and what are you doing in this land?' said the Rider, using the Common Speech of the West, in manner and tone like to the speech of Boromir, Man of Gondor. 'I am called Strider,' answered Aragorn. 'I came out of the North. I am hunting Orcs.' The Rider leaped from his horse. Giving his spear to another who rode up and dismounted at his side, he drew his sword and stood face to face with Aragorn, surveying him keenly, and not without wonder. At length he spoke again. 'At first I thought that you yourselves were Orcs,' he said; 'but now I see that it is not so. Indeed you know little of Orcs, if you go hunting them in this fashion. They were swift and well-armed, and they were many. You would have changed from hunters to prey, if ever you had overtaken them.'"
"Let the Orcs come as thick as summer-moths round a candle!"
"Orcs came with axes and cut down my trees."
"The Orcs are in the Deep!"
"At last Aragorn stood above the great gates, heedless of the darts of the enemy. As he looked forth he saw the eastern sky grow pale. Then he raised his empty hand, palm outward in token of parley. The Orcs yelled and jeered. 'Come down! Come down!' they cried. 'If you wish to speak to us, come down! Bring out your king! We are the fighting Uruk-hai. We will fetch him from his hole, if he does not come. Bring out your skulking king!' 'The king stays or comes at his own will,' said Aragorn. 'Then what are you doing here?' they answered. 'Why do you look out? Do you wish to see the greatness of our army? We are the fighting Uruk-hai.' 'I looked out to see the dawn,' said Aragorn. 'What of the dawn?' they jeered. 'We are the Uruk-hai: we do not stop the fight for night or day, for fair weather or for storm. We come to kill, by sun or moon. What of the dawn?' 'None knows what the new day shall bring him,' said Aragorn. 'Get you gone, ere it turn to your evil.' 'Get down or we will shoot you from the wall,' they cried. 'This is no parley. You have nothing to say.' 'I still have this to say,' answered Aragorn. 'No enemy has yet taken the Hornburg. Depart, or not one of you will be spared. Not one will be left alive to take back tidings to the North. You do not know your peril.' So great a power and royalty was revealed in Aragorn, as he stood there alone above the ruined gates before the host of his enemies, that many of the wild men paused, and looked back over their shoulders to the valley, and some looked doubtfully at the sky. But the Orcs laughed with loud voices; and a hail of darts and arrows whistled over the wall, as Aragorn leaped down. There arose a roar and a blast of fire. The archway of the gate above which he had stood a moment before crumbled and crashed in smoke and dust. The barricade was scattered as if by a thunderbolt. Aragorn ran to the king's tower. But even as the gate fell, and the Orcs about it yelled, preparing to charge, a murmur arose behind them, like a wind in the distance, and it grew to a clamour of many voices crying strange news in the dawn. The Orcs upon the Rock, hearing the rumour of dismay, wavered and looked back. And then, sudden and terrible, from the tower above, the sound of the great horn of Helm rang out."
"The Orcs reeled and screamed and cast aside both sword and spear. Like a black smoke driven by a mounting wind they fled. Wailing they passed under the waiting shadow of the trees; and from that shadow none ever came again."
"'What has become of the miserable Orcs?' said Legolas. 'That, I think, no one will ever know,' said Gandalf."
"'I wonder when we'll find water again?' said Sam. 'But I suppose even over there they drink? Orcs drink, don't they?' 'Yes, they drink,' said Frodo. 'But do not let us speak of that. Such drink is not for us.'"
"The inclination to believe in the fantastic may strike some as a failure in logic, or gullibility, but it’s really a gift. A world that might have Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster is clearly superior to one that definitely does not."
"It defies all logic that there is a population of these things sufficient to keep them going. What it takes to maintain any species, especially a long-lived species, is you gotta have a breeding population. That requires a substantial number, spread out over a fairly wide area where they can find sufficient food and shelter to keep hidden from all the investigators"
"Bigfoot was interviewed on The Patty Winters Show this morning and to my shock I found him surprisingly articulate and charming."
"Nearly twice the size of an ordinary grizzly, Bigfoot for years has levied his tribute of prime steers and no one has been found brave enough or clever enough to catch or kill him. With a single blow of his giant paw he kills the largest and best animal he can find and he usually takes the pick of a herd. He makes a single meal of the animal, and it is usually a meal that would provide a camp full of men for a week, and disappears, never to return to that locality again that season."
"The only candidate I'd allow to play my music would be Bigfoot, and unless we're talking about foraging for squirrels, he's notoriously apolitical."
"I think Bigfoot is blurry, that's the problem. It's not the photographer's fault. Bigfoot is blurry, and that's extra scary to me. There's a large, out-of-focus monster roaming the countryside. Run, he's fuzzy, get out of here."
"At Bald Rock, 60 miles from Fresno, John Rose killed a grizzly bear which had been roaming about that region for nearly 15 years and was called "Bigfoot" by miners in that vicinity. It is estimated that he has killed 1,000 sheep in his time and has had many fights with Chinese sheep herders. He carried scars to show it, for when he was cut open seven bullets were found in his carcass. They had been fired into him in past years. He was killed in a canyon and could not be got out, but those who saw him estimated his weight at 2,000 pounds. His hide was a good load for two men to carry out. - San Fransisco Chronicle."
"You've probably heard the rumors before now. Everyone without the clearance level to know better wants to get their dig in. "Did you hear Sasquatch is an SCP? Are we gonna capture and contain Batboy next?" Yes. SCP-1000 is Bigfoot. I'm sure you've snickered. Don't worry. Contrary to rumors, we don't actually assign you to "Keter duty" for finding something humorous. You think Bigfoot is funny because we want you to think Bigfoot is funny. We've bankrolled Hollywood comedies and farcical documentaries, paid off men in gorilla suits, perpetrated hoaxes with bear prints and goat fur, bribed and brainwashed cartoonists to get especially silly depictions on children's television. Even the term "Bigfoot" comes from us, planted in the media in 1958, a term people would find even harder to take seriously than "Sasquatch"."
"WEREWOLF, n. A wolf that was once, or is sometimes, a man. All werewolves are of evil disposition, having assumed a bestial form to gratify a beastial appetite, but some, transformed by sorcery, are as humane as is consistent with an acquired taste for human flesh."
"Some Bavarian peasants having caught a wolf one evening, tied it to a post by the tail and went to bed. The next morning nothing was there! Greatly perplexed, they consulted the local priest, who told them that their captive was undoubtedly a werewolf and had resumed its human for during the night. "The next time that you take a wolf," the good man said, "see that you chain it by the leg, and in the morning you will find a Lutheran.""
"The silhouette was named for Etienne de Silhouette, the notoriously stingy finance minister for Louis XV, who ironically was himself incapable of casting a shadow, due to lycanthropy."
"A domesticated girl that's all you ask of me Darling it is no joke, this is lycanthropy Moon's awake now, with eyes wide open My body is craving, so feed the hungry."
"I'm going to repay you for betraying me; I'm going to give that brain of yours a new home in the skull of the Frankenstein monster. As for you Strauss, I'm going to give you the brain of the wolfman so that all your waking hours will be spent in untold agony awaiting the full of the moon... which will change you into a werewolf."
"He's the hairy-handed gent, who ran amok in Kent. Lately he's been overheard in Mayfair. You better stay away from him! He'll rip your lungs out, Jim! Huh, I'd like to meet his tailor."
"I saw a werewolf drinking a piña colada at Trader Vic's! His hair was perfect."
"GNOME, n.In North-European mythology, a dwarfish imp inhabiting the interior parts of the earth and having special custody of mineral treasures. Bjorsen, who died in 1765, says gnomes were common enough in the southern parts of Sweden in his boyhood, and he frequently saw them scampering on the hills in the evening twilight. Ludwig Binkerhoof saw three as recently as 1792, in the Black Forest, and Sneddeker avers that in 1803 they drove a party of miners out of a Silesian mine. Basing our computations upon data supplied by these statements, we find that the gnomes were probably extinct as early as 1764."
"Life is a magic garden. With wondrous softly shining flowers, but between the flowers there are the little gnomes, they frighten me so much, they stand on their heads, and the worst is, they call out to me that I should also stand on my head, every once in a while I try, and I die of embarrassment; but sometimes the gnomes shout that I am doing very well, and that I'm indeed a real gnome myself after all. But on no account I will ever fall for that."
"Do I see crowds of men hastening to extinguish a fire? I see not merely uncouth garbs, and fantastic, flickering lights, of lurid hue, like a trampling troop of gnomes—but straightway my mind is filled with thoughts about mutual helpfulness, human sympathy, the common bond of brotherhood, and the mysteriously deep foundations on which society rests; or rather, on which it now reels and totters."
"Just where the breath of life his nostrils drew, A charge of snuff the wily virgin threw; The gnomes direct, to every atom just, The pungent grains of titillating dust, Sudden, with starting tears each eye o'erflows, And the high dome re-echoes to his nose."
"Note that nobody reads every post in linux-kernel. In fact, nobody who expects to have time left over to actually do any real kernel work will read even half. Except Alan Cox, but he's actually not human, but about a thousand gnomes working in under-ground caves in Swansea. None of the individual gnomes read all the postings either, they just work together really well."
"When I was a child, I used to think that rabbits were gnomes, and that if I held my breath and stayed quite still, I should see the fairy queen."
"The great sea is held together by Jörmungand, the serpent who surrounds it with his gigantic body and who holds his tail in his mouth to complete the circle, and thus stops the waves from forming. One day, the god Thor, son of the earth, was fishing in the serpent sea, using an ox's head as bait. Jörmungand reared up, and the waves hit the shores as he twisted and writhed like a fury. They were equally strong, the serpent and the god in that furious struggle. The sea boiled around them, but then the hook was removed and the snake slithered free and quickly sank beneath the waves again. And soon the sea was calm again as if nothing had disturbed it. (Vikings)"
"Midgardsormen, the world serpent, will leap out of the ocean, raising the tides and submerging the land. The wolf, giant Fenrir, will break his invisible chains. [...] Thor will kill the serpent, but will die from its poison. (Vikings)"
"And the serpent sank into the sea. Thor threw the hammer after him, and some say he cut off his head at the bottom, but I think I must tell you truly that the serpent of Miðgarðr still lives and lies in the ocean."
"Then the ocean will roll over the lands, because the serpent Miðgarðr will be seized by the fury of the giants and will reach the land. [...] Miðgarðr's serpent will breathe so much poison that it will splash all the air and water, and it will be really scary, and it will stand by the wolf's side."
"One can say that one has not seen a frightening sight if one has not been able to see how Thor pierced the serpent with his eyes and how the serpent stared back at him from below and spat venom."
"Fenrir shall with impious tooth Slay the sire of rolling years: Vithar shall avenge his fall, And, struggling with the shaggy wolf, Shall cleave his cold and gory jaw."
"The basilisk serpent also has the same power [as the catoblepas]. It is a native of the province of Cyrenaica, not more than twelve inches long, and adorned with a bright white marking on the head like a sort of diadem. It routs all snakes with its hiss, and does not move its body forward in manifold coils like the other snakes but advancing with its middle raised high. It kills bushes not only by its touch but also by its breath, scorches up grass and bursts rocks. Its effect on other animals is disastrous: it is believed that once one was killed with a spear by a man on horseback and the infection rising through the spear killed not only the rider but also the horse. Yet to a creature so marvellous as this – indeed kings have often wished to see a specimen when safely dead – the venom of weasels is fatal: so fixed is the decree of nature that nothing shall be without its match. They throw the basilisks into weasels' holes, which are easily known by the foulness of the ground, and the weasels kill them by their stench and die themselves at the same time, and nature's battle is accomplished."
"Wherever you see or hear a Jew teaching, do not think otherwise than that you are hearing a poisonous Basiliskus who with his face poisons and kills people."
"I’ll slay more gazers than the basilisk;"
"O, no, no, no! 'tis true. Here, take this too; [Gives the ring] It is a basilisk unto mine eye, Kills me to look on't."
"Gloucester: Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine. Lady Anne: Would they were basilisks, to strike thee dead!"
"The basilisk his nature takes from thee, Who for my life in secret wait dost lie, And to my heart sendst poison from thine eye: Thus do I feel the pain, the cause, yet cannot see."
"Man may escape from Rope and Gun; Nay, some have out liv'd the Doctor's Pill; Who takes a Woman must be undone, That Basilisk is sure to kill."
"The smiling infant in his hand shall take The crested basilisk, and speckled snake; Pleased, the green lustre of the scales survey, And, with their forked tongue, shall innocently play."
"See how she rears her head, And rolls about her dreadful eyes, To drive all virtue out, or look it dead! 'Twas sure this basilisk sent Temple thence ..."
"As Zadig was traversing a verdant Meadow, he perceiv'd several young Female Syrians, intent on searching for something very curious, that lay conceal'd, as they imagin'd, in the Grass. He took the Freedom to approach one of them, and ask her, in the most courteous Manner, if he might have the Honour to assist her in her Researches. Have a care, said she. What we are hunting after, Sir, is an Animal, that will not suffer itself to be touch'd by a Man. 'Tis somewhat surprizing, said Zadig. May I be so bold, pray, as to ask you what you are in Pursuit after, that shuns the Touch of any Thing but the Hands of the Fair Sex. 'Tis, Sir, said she, the Basilisk: A Basilisk, Madam, said he! And pray, if you will be so good as to inform me, with what View, are you searching after a Creature so very difficult to be met with? 'Tis, Sir, said she, for our Lord and Master Ogul, whose Castle, you see, situate on the River-side, at the Bottom of the Meadow. We are all his Vassals. Ogul, you must know, is in a very bad State of Health, and his first Physician has order'd him, as a Specific, to eat a Basilisk, boil'd in Rose water: And as that Animal is very hard to be catch'd, and will suffer nothing to approach it, but one of our Sex, our dying Sovereign Ogul has promis'd to honour her, that shall be so happy as to catch it for him, so far as to make her his Consort. The Case, being thus circumstantiated, Sir, I hope you will not interrupt me any longer, lest my Rivals here in the Field should happen to circumvent me.Zadig withdrew, and left the Syrian Ladies in Quest of their imaginary Booty, in order to pursue his intended Journey."
"Call her Cockatrice and Siren, Basilisk, and all that’s evil, Witch, Hyena, Mermaid, Devil, Ethiop, Wench, and Blackamoor, Monkey, Ape, and twenty more;"
"Be thou like the imperial basilisk, Killing thy foe with unapparent wounds! Gaze on oppression, till at that dread risk, Aghast she pass from the earth’s disk. Fear not, but gaze,—for freemen mightier grow, And slaves more feeble, gazing on their foe."
"Those deserts of immeasurable sand, Whose age-collected fervours scarce allowed A bird to live, a blade of grass to spring, Where the shrill chirp of the green lizard’s love Broke on the sultry silentness alone, Now teem with countless rills and shady woods, Cornfields and pastures and white cottages; And where the startled wilderness beheld A savage conqueror stained in kindred blood, A tigress sating with the flesh of lambs The unnatural famine of her toothless cubs, Whilst shouts and howlings through the desert rang,— Sloping and smooth the daisy-spangled lawn, Offering sweet incense to the sunrise, smiles To see a babe before his mother’s door, Sharing his morning’s meal With the green and golden basilisk That comes to lick his feet."
"For see, my friend goes shaking and white; He eyes me as the basilisk: I have turned, it appears, his day to night, Eclipsing his sun's disk."
"But you can read the Hieroglyphs on the great sandstone obelisks, And you have talked with Basilisks, and you have looked on Hippogriffs."
"Minos frowned frightfully. "I resume," he said. "You have said that it is false that the basilisk is the king of serpents, under the name of cockatrice.""Very reverend sir," said Ursus, "so little did I desire to insult the basilisk that I have given out as certain that it has a man's head.""Be it so," replied Minos, severely; "but you added that Poerius had seen one with the head of a falcon. Can you prove it?""Not easily," said Ursus.Here he had lost a little ground."
"A terrible desire came upon me to rid the world of such a monster. There was no lethal weapon at hand, but I seized a shovel which the workman had been using to fill the cases, and lifting it high, struck, with the edge downward, at the hateful face. But as I did so the head turned, and the eyes fell upon me, with all their blaze of basilisk horror. The sight seemed to paralyze me, and the shovel turned in my hand and glanced from the face, merely making a deep gash above the forehead."
"Too late, the clang of adamantine gongs, Dinned by their drowsy guardians, whose feet Have felt the wasp-like sting of little knives, Embrued with slobber of the basilisk, Or juice of wounded upas."
"Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size, and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken’s egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it."
"Here with a cockatrice’ dead-killing eye He rouseth up himself, and makes a pause; While she, the picture of pure piety, Like a white hind under the gripe’s sharp claws, Pleads in a wilderness where are no laws, To the rough beast that knows no gentle right, Nor aught obeys but his foul appetite."
"O ill-dispersing wind of misery! O my accursed womb, the bed of death! A cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world, Whose unavoided eye is murderous."
"Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but 'Ay,' And that bare vowel 'I' shall poison more Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice."
"... Never threaten with your eyes! They are no cockatrices."
"Three sorts of serpents do resemble thee: That dangerous eye-killing cockatrice, The enchanting siren, which doth so entice, The weeping crocodile—these vile pernicious three."
"Where no sun shines through the live-long day, Because of the blue-wreathed mist, Where the cockatrice creeps her foul egg to lay, And the speckled snake has hissed:"
"And the King said, “Behold and see, that which sprung from the egg of a cock, hatched by the deaf adder. The glance of its eye sufficeth to turn to stone any living thing that standeth before it. Were I but for one instant to loose my spells whereby I hold it in subjection, in that moment would end my life days and thine. So strong in properties of ill is this serpent which the ancient Enemy that dwelleth in darkness hath placed upon this earth, to be a bane unto the children of men, but an instrument of might in the hand of enchanters and sorcerers.”Therewith came forth that offspring of perdition from its hole, strutting erect on its two legs that were the legs of a cock; and a cock’s head it had, with rosy comb and wattles, but the face of it like no fowl’s face of middle-earth but rather a gorgon’s out of Hell. Black shining feathers grew on its neck, but the body of it was the body of a dragon with scales that glittered in the rays of the candles, and a scaly crest stood on its back; and its wings were like bats’ wings, and its tail the tail of an aspick with a sting in the end thereof, and from its beak its forked tongue flickered venomously. And the stature of the thing was a little above a cubit. Now because of the spells of King Gorice whereby he held it ensorcelled it might not cast its baneful glance upon him, nor upon Gro, but it walked back and forth in the candle light, averting its eyes from them. The feathers on its neck were fluffed up with anger and wondrous swiftly twirled its scaly tail, and it hissed ever more fiercely, irked by the bonds of the King’s enchantment; and the breath of it was noisome, and hung in sluggish wreaths about the chamber. So for a while it walked before them, and as it looked sidelong past him Gro beheld the light of its eyes that were as sick moons burning poisonously through a mist of greenish yellow in the dusk of night. And strong loathing seized him, so that his gorge rose to behold the thing, and his brow and the palms of his hands became clammy, and he said, “My Lord the King, I have looked steadfastly on this cockatrice and it affrighteth me no whit, but it is loathly in my sight, so that my gorge riseth because of it,” and with that he fell a-vomiting. And the King commanded that serpent back into its hole, whither it returned, hissing wrathfully."
"“Well, the Heads of the participating schools are always on the panel,” said Hermione, and everyone looked around at her, rather surprised, “because all three of them were injured during the Tournament of 1792, when a cockatrice the champions were supposed to be catching went on the rampage.”"
"And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den."
"Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, because the rod of him that smote thee is broken: for out of the serpent’s root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent."
"They hatch cockatrice’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper."
"For, behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the LORD."
"And the suckling child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’s den."