"Jacques DeMolay, thou art avenged!"

Funniest headline I've seen for a while:

Dried squash holds headless French king's blood, study finds

The article also has at least one choice line:

Two years ago, analysis of DNA taken from blood traces found inside the ornate vegetable revealed a likely match for someone of Louis' description, including his blue eyes.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-12-dried-headless-french-king-blood.html#jCp

Two years ago, analysis of DNA taken from blood traces found inside the ornate vegetable revealed a likely match for someone of Louis' description, including his blue eyes.

The title of the post is a quote said to have been uttered by an unknown man who jumped onto the scaffold and held aloft the freshly de-bodied head of Louis XVI.  It is a reference to the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, killed by French King Philippe le Bel after the latter had dissolved the Knights, covetous of their lands and riches.  (previous post)

In killing the king, vengeance was accomplished.  Freemasons draw upon Templar Lore heavily in their rights and appendant bodies.  Indeed, the Masonic body for young men is called DeMolay International.

In one picture I've seen of the gourd, it is inscribed with the image of Revolutionary leaders Camille Desmoulins, Georges-Jacques Danton and Jean-Paul Marat, all three Freemasons.  Freemasons were deeply involved in the French Revolution, some writers going as far to claim they orchestrated it for their own ends.  Michael Hoffman and Michael Shelby Downard have written an elaborate essay (King-Kill 33) claiming that the killing of the king is in fact a Masonic ritual, enacted on the masses; in their essay, they focus on the killing not of Louis, but on JFK, Catholic King of Camelot.  Great fiction, I urge you to read it...beware of the link though, there's some serious font and background-color crimes going on there.

This is a highly resonant story, by LoS standards.  That is why I link to it here!

I just wonder if the blood in the gourd ever liquifies for useful seances of Hemamancy?

Two years ago, analysis of DNA taken from blood traces found inside the ornate vegetable revealed a likely match for someone of Louis' description, including his blue eyes.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-12-dried-headless-french-king-blood.html#jCp

Weenie roast

Lay where you're laying, don't make a sound

I know they're watching, they're watching
All the commotion, the kiddie like play
Has people talking, talking

You, your sex is on fire

--Kings of Leon: "Sex on Fire"

Sheeyit! Them wimmins is gone plum loco I tellya!

But seriously folks, when we posted about some modern furies a few days ago we never suspected that there were so many other cases of genital arson in recent history.

February 28, 2007. A Montréal woman was sentenced to four years in prison for pouring fondue fuel on her boyfriend's penis and torching it, while he slept.

The man later died of unrelated causes; in the incident he suffered 3rd degree burns and serious psychological trauma.

Attacker Andrée René got four years of prison, mandatory counseling and a court order to stay away from guns and combustibles for ten years. She was 44 years old at the time of sentencing.

August 22, 2007. This couple was divorced, but the high cost of apartments kept them roommates for three years. Apparently fed up with her philandering ex, our frustrated Muscovite set her ex's penis on fire as he sat in front of the TV. Naked. He'd been drinking vodka and fallen asleep.

Police made no predictions about his recovery. Perpetrator "Anna" was 41 years old at the time of her arrest.

December 8, 2008. "I just wanted to burn his penis so it belongs to me and no one else, I didn't mean this to happen." So stated the tad jealous Rajini Narayan, an Australian woman who poured a flammable liquid over her husband's crotch as he slept and then set it alight. Understandably shocked awake, the poor bastard knocked over the bottle of whatever product it was and caused the fire to spread, burning himself more in the process.

The man later died and Narayan was charged on January 6, 2009 with murder, arson and three counts of endangering a life (her kids were in the house it seems). She's also being ordered to have counseling. She was 44 years old at the time of her arrest.

* * * * * * * *

So. There is a lesson to be learned here. If you are a philanderer or even thinking about philandering--and your wife is of a certain age--don't leave anything easily flammable in the house. Hide the spirits, the fondue fuel, sterno cans, lighter fluid, gasoline, whatever! Throw away the candles the matches the tinderbox! Hell, don't watch TV naked, don't hug a friend and whatever you do, for God's sake man, don't go to sleep!!

There is no castration fear

Hell hath no fury

If fury is a blind rage, and a fury is a woman, does that make woman a blind rage?

According to Wikipedia:

In Greek mythology the Erinyes (Ἐρινύες, pl. of Ἐρίνυς Erinys; lit. "the angry ones") or Eumenides (Εὐμενίδες, pl. of Εὐμενής; lit. "the gracious ones") or Furies in Roman mythology were female, chthonic deities of vengeance or supernatural personifications of the anger of the dead.

....

When the Titan Cronus castrated his father Uranus and threw his genitalia into the sea, the Erinyes emerged from the drops of blood, while Aphrodite was born from the seafoam.

Furthermore:

The Erinyes are particularly known for the persecution of Orestes for the murder of his mother, Clytemnestra.

Cases in point

Glue Stick. July 30. One philanderer found himself held at gunpoint as his wife, two of his mistresses and a sister superglued his penis to his stomach. They had lured them there with a simple ruse in order to exact their revenge....and he found himself in a rather sticky situation.

Flaming Sambuca. August 6. A Greek woman is being hailed as a hero after pouring sambuca on a Englishman's genitals and setting them alight.

By some accounts our drunken limey chose the wrong woman at whom to shake his dick and make sexual advances towards. In Greece, it would seem, revenge is a dish best served hot.

What fellow wouldn't shudder at such a pair of stories? It's not a John Bobbitt de-dicking, but it's still not fun to think about; and if the Copycat Effect is a real phenomenon, we can only warn badly-behaved men to reconsider their ways.

The poetic resonance

This all took place in the Electra bar on the isle of Crete.

Electra is the sister of the aforementioned Orestes, who murdered his mother and her lover to avenge his father's murder. Although the legend is usually about Orestes' revenge and subsequent flight from the avenging Furies, Electra is often depicted as an accomplice. Both Sophocles and Eurip ides named their theatrical version of events after her and she not Orestes is the central character. Indeed, in Euripides' version, when Orestes hesitates to commit matricide, it's Electra who goads him on. She and her brother kill Clytemnestra by making her deep throat a sword.

The so-called "Electra Complex" developed by Freud and given a name by Jung, is said to develop when a young girl discovers she has no penis and becomes sexually attracted to her father, thinking he will impregnate her. He links this to "penis envy" wherein the young girl blames her mother for her "castration." Eventually this resentment goes away when it's trumped by the girl's fear of losing her mother's love. The mother is then internalized and the cycle starts all over again.

But these Electra myths, resonant in their themes of revenge, symbolic castration and death by phallus, are more important as a trigger to evoke the Furies, those vengeful woman who in some versions of the Orestes story transform from vengeful bloodthirsty Erinyes into merciful Eumenides, symbolizing the "good side" of justice. Wikipedia again:

Nonetheless, many scholars believe that when they were originally referred to as the Eumenides, it was not to reference their good sides but as a euphemism to avoid the wrath that would ensue from calling them by their true name.

So remember that the next time you feel like calling a fury, er--a woman--a bitch; just say "yes, dear" instead.

Yeah, sorry; cheap joke. Especially when just a day before the nut roast a turdling by the name George Sodini charged into a health club and killed 3 woman and injured nine others before turning the gun on himself, mainly because he couldn't get laid.

War of the sexes indeed....