Celebration of the Winter Solstice or the Roman "Festival of Lights" is far older than our celebration of Christmas and many of the traditions were incorporated into Our Christmas. Actually, most of our Christmas traditions are borrowed from far older pagan celebrations.
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| Getafix, the Druid Priest |
The Druids celebrated the Solstice and also brought us the mistletoe tradition. Which brings to mind the famous Druid Priest Getafix. Ah, yes, Asterix the Gaul, the world's favorite comic book character after perhaps only Mickey Mouse. A French cartoon drawn by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, Asterix has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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| Asterix, Obelix and Dogmatix |
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| Vitalstatistix |
Other Gaulish characters include the blacksmith Fulliautomatix, the fishmonger Unhygenix and his wife Bacteria, the bard Cacophonix, the Roman spy Doubbleosix and on it goes. I can't forget the Egyptian Ptennisnet.
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| Cacaphonix |
Happy Winter Solstice Day.
The saddest thing is precisely that libraries are selling off their collections bit by bit, especially community libraries, which means nobody is reading these books any more. If it ain't a movie, it ain't. We may be the last generation to truly love and cherish books, Al!
ReplyDeleteI doubt it. You should see my kids' libraries. Reading is still pretty popular. The e-book is catching on, though I doubt I will ever use it.
ReplyDeleteThe comics were pretty worn and needed to be replaced. Whether they did or not, I don't know.
Libraries are one good use of our tax money in Canada. I only wish they got more of it.
HAPPY SOLSTICE!! :)
ReplyDeleteThe library here, thankfully, is going strong - expanding, actually! - and I am so pleased. My kids are learning to love the place as much as I do.
Your librarian daughter will keep her e-book and library rants to herself, but suffice it to say that we are none of us afraid that books are going the way of the dodo bird. Never fear!
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