Custodian of the 12 days???

[Gothick]

Well, the way I remember it is that the slaughtered 9 were gypsies Petofi had killed over the years.

Wasn't there dialogue where Magda said Count Petofi had been cured of being a werewolf by a gypsy witch and then refused to pay for the cure?  And in revenge, his hand, in which all his magical powers was concentrated, was chopped off.

I remember the Count reminiscing about how he slaughtered his pet unicorn one night when the moon was full.  It was one of the very few times he ever appeared to show something akin to a human emotion.

Anyhow, I think the 9 gypsies were slaughtered over a period of years.  There's a scene I do recall quite clearly where he was gloating to Aristede about that.

Gothick

[Bob_the_Bartender]

Hey gang,

Gee, all this talk of the Romanov family and the gypsies has me wondering if Magda is distantly related to that renowned Russian cavalry officer of the 19th century, Col. Dimitri Arganov?

Col. Arganov, as we all know, is the first cousin of Cpl. Randolph T. Agarn of "F-Troop" fame.  The colonel hailed from Minsk, which is just a ruble's throw from Pinsk.

Maybe Magda and Sandor spent summers with the colonel while journeying through Mother Russia?  And, the colonel's daughter, little Maria Agarnov-Ouspensaya, achieved stardom later in life, portraying Bela Lugosi's gypsy mother in the Universal film classic, "The Wolf Man," thus validating a Dark Shadows "six degrees of separation."

Just don't get me started about the connection between Dr. Julia Hoffman and Dr. Zhivago.

Hey, who wants a nice shot of Slolichnaya?

Bob the Bartender

[Philippe Cordier]

Vlad thanks i could use them right now it was -2 degrees
this am when i went out to clean off my car!
Give me back the and those 90 degree days

Jennifer --

Here's the charm to be recited to protect against your fingers freezing. Unfortunately, the more I thought about this, the more problems seemed to crop up. I thought about contacting Happybat to check both the Finnish words and the translation, but it sounds like you need help now!

My mom translated some of the words but there is no workable Finnish-English dictionary online to assist ... and another problem is that many of the vowels should have umlauts over them, which changes both the pronunciation, meaning, and spelling ... and I can't do umlauts here (umlauts are those two "dots" that some languages use over some vowels some of the time!) For example, the word for "don't" is ala -- and both "a's" should have umlauts above them, meaning that the "ahh" sound is drawn out!

Oh, and finally, I don't know for sure if the charm works in English ... you may need to take a stab at trying it in Finnish -- just remember that the accent always falls on the first syllable of every word ... (for example, the capital of Finland is HEL-sink-i, not Hel-SINK-i, despite the way newscasters pronounce it.)


Pakkanen, puhirin poika,
Ala kylmaa kynsiain,
Ala kynsiain palele --
Palele ves pajuja,
Kylma koivun konkaleita!

[translation:

"Jack Frost, son of the wind,
Don't chill my fingers,
Don't freeze my fingertips --
Freeze the water willows,
Chill the birch chunks!"]


This is the sort of traditional charm that my grandmother remembered when she was growing up.

[jennifer]

Jennifer --

Here's the charm to be recited to protect against your fingers freezing.

Wow thanks i'm going to try it It seems to be "warming up" here and of course if i didn't misplace my gloves every 5 minutes( I have a real problem with hats, gloves and boots i just hate them!) but i printed it
and the way this winter is going i'll need it(esp after shoveling!)
thanks
take care
jennifer

[Philippe Cordier]

If that doesn't work, you could always try the hot toddy recipe -- I'm not sure now which thread that's in!