Unconventional Uses for Everyday Items

[shanmonster]

First of all, from The Aeneid comes a funny little story of a warrior escaping with his infant daughter. He is determined to save her life. A ravening army is at his back, and in front of him is a fast and treacherous river. He's afraid the baby will drown if he crosses the river with her in his arms, so he thinks for a while before coming up with a solution.

He lashes the infant to his spear.

Aha, I think. He's going to wade across the river with the baby held overhead like a pennant.

But no, I'm very wrong. I'm not thinking like a hero.

Heroes hurl baby-clad spears across the river.

I can't help but wonder how healthy such a baby would remain. I'd suspect the damage sustained upon impact to be considerable, but this kid was a real trooper. She was consecrated to Diana and grew up to be a warrior, of course. And because it was the trendy thing for lady warriors, she ran around with one breast uncovered while she fought (so much for D&D maille bikinis, hmm?). After slaying many, many, MANY warrior dudes, she finally got skewered beneath her bare breast by a spear and died in battle.

There was no mention of a baby being attached to the spear which slew her.

.....

And then, I read this gem from Things I Learn From My Patients:

"If you have vaginal vault prolapse, it is a good idea to put a potato up your vagina to prevent the walls from collapsing. After you've left the potato in there long enough that it begins to sprout, take yourself into the local ER and exclaim, 'There's a tree coming outta my virginy!'"

Comments

[chrysippvs.livejournal.com]

Her name was Camilla and the guy that killed her was killed himself because he didn't deserve to actually do her in.

We also read that she could run across the tops of wheat fields without bending the stalks...

[zombienought.livejournal.com]

Woo! Wire fu!

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

She was very fancy, indeed.

And of course her killer died. They all did, whether they deserved it or not. The deaths read something like the reverse of the begats section of the Old Testament, don't they? It's all rather numbing. I'm presented with death after death after death, with rarely any backstory behind the fatalities. They quickly become statistics rather than individual characters.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Homer is even worse. They say that Helen's was the face that launched a thousand ships. And, by God, every one of them is named in the Iliad, along with its full crew listing!

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

The story runs that the Amazons had their right breasts cut off so it would not interfere with them drawing the bow.

I wouldn't want my sweater cow slapped by a bowstring, either.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

That's in some stories. In others, they don't bother with mastectomies.

[f00dave.livejournal.com]

Sweater cow? ... ... I don't know whether to laugh, cry, or scream!

[zombienought.livejournal.com]

"I got a case o' the Vines!"

[threemilechild.livejournal.com]

So in the Shanmonster household, spears are everyday items?

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Maybe not spears, but I have a variety of other weapons: staves, swords, knives, etc.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

FanTAStic. Presumably the heroic infant was clinging on with preternatural strength to prevent nasty slippage.

This reminds me for some reason of the story of the Irish hero Cuchulainn, who had a spear that was fated to kill several kings. On the occasion of his death, various people demanded this spear off him so they could kill him with it and become supremely famous. Each time they'd send some bard to demand it (because you can't refuse a bard), who would threaten to write meeen!satirical stories about him/his family/everyone he liked even slightly. Cuchulainn, understandably grumpy in the knowledge of his forthcoming demise, would grudgingly give these bards his spear, which they received through the forehead. Each time it passed through nine other people's foreheads as well till it got picked up by whoever was planning to use it. They only actually got him on the third try, topping his horse and his charioteer first. And then after he was actually dead, his corpse chopped off his killer's hand.

They knew how to go down fighting in those days, my yes.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

They don't make heroes like they used to.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

In the version I read, the guy had two babies and one hungry wolf, and there was a little dinghy just big enough for the warrior to row one of them across at a time...

[f00dave.livejournal.com]

Bwaahahahaa!

[petechons.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of good Greek female warrior stories. The life story of Atalanta is pretty interesting (everyone knows abotu her footrace, but there's lots of other good stuff in there. Iphis is a pretty strange story, but s/he barely qualifies as female ;)

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree. But in this instance, I'm reading a Roman story....