Monday, January 21, 2013

Álfaskólinn - Elf School

Álfaskólinn - Elf School | Atlas Obscura

Álfaskólinn - Elf School

Learn about Iceland's hidden folk at this school dedicated to the study of elves

Repositories of Knowledge, Hoaxes and Pseudoscience, Cultures and Civilizations
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Contributors:Oliver Hong
Some Icelanders take their belief in elves very seriously.
For example, road crews in Iceland will sometimes hire folklore experts to determine if certain boulders are homes to elves, and will divert the road around the boulder if it turns out there are little people living within it.
This belief in elves doesn't stop with road workers and superstitious locals either. After escaping a car crash unscathed, a member of the Icelandic Parliament had a 30-ton boulder moved near his home because he believed that the local elves inside the boulder used their magic to save him. While there are many Icelanders who pay no mind to the superstitious elf-talk, there is a higher than average number of citizens that are believers.
With all that said, it's not surprising to see that there's an entire school dedicated learning about these hidden people. Located in the thoroughly modern city of Reykjavik, the school has a full curriculum of study about the 13 types of elves in Iceland. This concentration comes with a set of published textbooks with drawn depictions of these creatures for reference in the classroom, or just in case you encounter one in the wild.
The school studies Iceland's other supernatural flora as well, such as fairies, trolls, dwarves and gnomes, but they mainly focus on elves, because they are the most commonly believed in and "seen".
The school also offers five hour classes for curious travelers, which includes a tour of hidden folk habitats and ends with coffee and pancakes with the school's headmaster. Students receive a diploma at the end of the class, which shows that you were sufficiently educated in the affairs of elves.
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King Alfred's Tower |

King Alfred's Tower | Atlas Obscura

King Alfred's Tower

Gothic tower mentioned in Thomas Hardy poem "The Channel Firing"

Architectural Oddities, Follies and Grottoes
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Contributors:ronin, Nicholas Jackson, Dylan
King Alfred's tower is one of many "follies" built in Britain. Follies are those buildings erected by the upper classes during the heights of British power for the sole purpose of displaying wealth and entertaining friends. This particular folly was built to celebrate a victory by the Saxon, King Alfred, over the Danes in AD 878 and is the legendary site where the King raised his standard prior to the battle.
Built by the Hoare banking family, the triangular tower is constructed from over a million red bricks and stands 50 meters in height. Work on the tower began in 1762 and was completed in 1779 with the addition of a ten foot high statue of King Alfred in an alcove above the entrance.
This tower was mentioned in a poem by the British poet, Thomas Hardy, in his poem entitled “The Channel Firing” written in 1914.
Damage to the tower occurred during World War II when an American plane crashed into it, severely damaging the upper 10 meters of structure. The turret was repaired in 1986 with a helicopter used to lower the new cone onto the tower
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Beazer Garden Maze

Beazer Garden Maze | Atlas Obscura

Beazer Garden Maze

Created by one of England's most prolific labyrinth designers, inspired by Bath city history

Mazes
5
Contributors:Annetta
Alongside the river in Bath near Pulteney Bridge, a small garden labyrinth made of paving stones weaves around a mosiac center.
Although called a maze the design is technically a labyrinth. Unlike a maze, which has a multicursal or branching pattern, a labyrinth has only a unicursal path, a single line woven back and forth in a complex pattern but never branching. Despite the story of Minotaur - in which the labyrinth described would be correctly called a maze - true labyrinths are impossible to get lost in, go in either direction and you eventually reach the place where you began.
The notion and pattern of the labyrinth, shows up throughout world cultures, and often has religious meaning as a path to god, ancestors, or enlightenment. In early Christian cultures, believers are thought to have walked the labyrinths endlessly obtaining an altered mind state as they did so.
The Beazer Garden Maze however, generally does not have monks tripping on spirituality wandering around on it, but rather local children while there parents sit and enjoy the park.
Named for the local construction company who donated the land on which the paver stone labyrinth was built, the labyrinth was designed by deceased diplomat (and perhaps spy), maze designer and "labyrinthologist" Randoll Coate in 1984. Coate designed over 50 mazes in England which are known for their hidden symbolism. Coate, who was also a friend of labyrinth enthusiast Jorge Luis Borges, said labyrinths gave "our world of harsh reality and mindless speed a timeless oasis, a leisurely paradise, the substance of a dream."
The petite labyrinth in Bath is inspired by the city's Georgian architecture, Isambard Kingdom Brunel's railway designs and is centered around a large Roman-inspired
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Jay's Grave

Jay's Grave | Atlas Obscura

Jay's Grave

Shamed woman's final resting place

Memento Mori, Catacombs, Crypts, & Cemeteries
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Contributors:atimian, serflac
From when she was born, Kitty Jay was constantly abused, abandoned and ostracized. Her life was one of torment until she tragically took her own life just before her 20th birthday. Forgotten by those of her own time, her sad legacy is preserved by a single gravestone in Dartmoor, where she has rested alone for 200 years.
Mary Jay was abandoned by her mother in the late 18th century and given up to a local orphanage. She was given the surname J (stylized as Jay) because she was the 10th girl to arrive at the orphanage. Until her teens Mary was content at the orphanage, living and taking care of the younger children, but living in disgrace as a penniless orphan.
When she grew older, she was sent to Canna farms near neighboring Manaton in Dartmoor to earn money. She was employed to work in the house as help, and also in the field as a laborer. At this point in her life, she was given the nickname Kitty, which had become synonymous with promiscuity. Shortly after she arrived at the farm, she was raped by a male farmhand and became pregnant.
Cursed by the locals as a whore, she was forced to leave the farm, as no one would employ such a woman. With nowhere else to turn, she ended her life by hanging herself in one of the local barns. Since she had committed suicide, she was not allowed to be buried on church land. Instead, she was buried at the crossroads of three parishes, none of which would accept and bury her.
Following her death, stories of haunting began immediately, as locals claimed a hooded figure often knelt by the grave in the moonlight. Legend asserts that the spirit of Kitty Jay haunts her grave and Dartmoor. Besides the ghostly happenings around her grave, fresh flowers mysteriously appear on the grave everyday, with no indication of who places them there.
The tales of the supernatural surrounding the grave has drawn visitors for years, hoping to catch a glimpse of Kitty Jay or the spirits that haunt her lonely grave.
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