one less stout of Guiness to enjoy, if you "know" what I mean.

Is that that interesting tasting stuff that looks like bilge water? I had never had it until over the holidays!

Today it sounded like Quentin said "ARshdon."  Makes it difficult to do a search on this word to see if it could be a real place ... Ozchden?  Arzhdon?  There are so many possibilities.

The hand of Count Petofi has "powers that were granted in the Forest of Oshden." ... Any ideas how the DS writers might have come up with this idea of powers being granted to a cut-off hand, if that's what Magda meant by this?

I had completely forgotten that I had some notes on this that may answer my own question; I discovered them among some papers last night ...

Although the story "The Monkey's Paw" by W. W. [need to check the last name -- but please note, the story in question is NOT by Guy de Maupassant!] is often cited as being the inspiration for the hand of Count Petofi, I tend not to think that's it.  For one thing, there's a big difference between a monkey's paw and a human hand.

A more interesting possibility is the Hand of Glory.  I believe that this is a concept from European pagan times -- it's a severed hand invested with magical powers.

There is a Hand of Glory on display somewhere in Yorkshire. It is supposed to be the hand of an executed criminal that was cut off and thereby has occult powers.

Perhaps there's no one single "source" that sparked the DS writers' imagination, or it could be an old movie that I don't know about.

In a discussion regarding the Head of Judah Zachary, Luciaphil informed us that the inspiration for the head came from an old B-movie, "The Thing That Couldn't Die."  After seeing the movie, I would agree that that seems to be the direct "source" for the head of JZ, in that it's a severed head that controls people with its powers.  On the other hand, severed heads that continue to live and talk are common in many world mythologies (including Norse).  One might ask what the inspiration was for the writers of "The Thing That Couldn't Die" ... I think it was a short story, but then how did THAT writer come up with the idea?

Perhaps these are more or less archetypes that recurr in stories and legends.

I know a warming trend is now sweeping the country, but here's another Hot Toddy Recipe ... This one is from Castlebee.  Let's just call it ...

"Castlebee's 1795 Collinwood Hot Toddy."

Place a sugar cube in a punch cup and pour (nearly) boiling water to fill cup 2/3 full.

add 2 oz. (1/4 cup) brandy

Stir and decorate with a slice of lemon

Sprinkle nutmeg on top


.........................................


P.S.  BTW, I went by that house last night, the one I wrote about at the start of this thread ... and there's a Realtor's sign ... the house is for sale!

Thank you -- I will check out the forum guidelines. I don't post anywhere else; my sole purpose for wishing to print out things is for my own personal reference. I sometimes like to re-read posts/threads when I'm at home (where I don't have a computer); also, some people's ideas are worth saving in my DS reference files (stored on top of my bookcase!)

The hand of Count Petofi has "powers that were granted in the Forest of Oshden."

Any ideas how the DS writers might have come up with this idea of powers being granted to a cut-off hand, if that's what Magda meant by this?

And also the idea of the "Forest of Oshden" itself -- where did the writers come up with that? (I'm spelling "Oshden" the way it sounds to me.) The only thing I could think of last time this ran was that the name sounded a little like Shakespeare's the Forest of Arden in "As You Like It."

It seems a lot of things relating to Count Petofi were never fully explained.

Thanks for the valuable information, doombuggy.

The tempo of Josette's theme is rather swift-paced in the recent music box -- sprightly rather than haunting. I found that slightly disappointing, but I know that music box themes offer do vary somewhat from the original.  Interesting to know that the original replica played the music slower.  That was just the type of info I was looking for.

*****

BTW, I hope no one took offense at my comment about the long-absent mfmdpt -- it was meant in jest ... I do miss his comments as I view him as the greatest living repository of DS knowledge!

Gosh, gee, thanks, guys!

I just knew someone had to have some of the information I was interested in.  I didn't stop to think of the efforts involved in tracking it down/retrieving it, etc., though.

So it was Barnabas' music box, given to him by Josette, hmmm ...

I'd still be curious, if anyone has one of the old music boxes, how it compares with one of the knew ones.  Going by the picture in the ad, the 1970 version was actually quite different -- though I'd heard that the more recent version was supposed to be identical.

$4.95, hmmm ...

It was posted in the Members' Archive by mfmdpt from the old AOL DSO Files section.

Wonder whatever happened to that old curmudgeon!



BTW, and I know this is probably a question/comment for another area of this forum, but I do so wish it were possible to print out from this board.  Anything you print out is BLANK!!