My garden life

A couple of weeks ago we were lucky to get a garden from our neighbour!
That's why we dug the ground on a small place so that we could plant there. We are not experienced in gardening _at all_ :D but it was curious to give it a try. Now the potatoes, beans and some herbs already germinated and I also transplanted basil, melissa and mint from the pots in the garden. Hehe! And they are doing well there! Now I'm waiting for two sorts of celery and three sorts of onion to germinate. I also have flowers in my garden just for decoration ^_____^

 

Postcards news

So here are my latest postcards got in tags ^______^
Well it is really better to join the tags than to take part in the official postcrossing where you get wish-list cards only occasionally!

Indian sweet dish

It took me really long to cope with my first cooking experience with the Indian kitchen :D
But as I got the next letter from my Indian pen-friend, I thought the time has come - I'll do it!
The recipe came also from my pen-friend (Thank you Aparna! ^____^)

This is gajar ka halva from carrots, milk and nuts (actually there are more ingredients). I tried it warm and cold, and I love both :)

P.S. And I know, the book about Indian mythology fits very nice in the picture! :)

Postcards weekly

In the recent days I got not so many postcards and still here they are:

I got my first card from the Phillipines but there were no stamps :( It is such a pity... Only a stempel that the porto is paid..

Some cross-stitch

 I finally succeeded to find frames for my sweet couples which I stitched 3 years ago... Even with glass! :) Pls, enjoy!

And my Alpin Backpack-Deer. It was a New Year present for my husband and he aso had to wait for a frame till today. Though he has no glass I think the frame is just perfect! :) And I really loved the canvas, it looks so vintage ^____^

The two last postcrossing weeks

In the last two weeks I got really many card, which are just great and even up to my wish-list!! ^____^

Etymology of some women's names in German

I decided to take only names of the Germanic origin.

The first name which interested me was Irmhild. This name is finds its origin in Old High German (Althochdeutsch) and represents a compound of two roots: -irm- ("big", "great", "enormous", "mighty", "powerful") and -hild- ("fight", "battle"). In OHG -ermin-/-irmin- and -hiltja respectively. Thereby the name means "a great/mighty fighter".

With the first root as a component there are two more name which are actually even less spread as Irmhild nowadays. These are Irmgard and Irmtraud.

Let's take Irmgard. The root -gard- is an ancient predecessor of two modern words: "garden" and "guard" and its main meaning in OHG was "protection". So the name itself means "a great/mighty protector". On the Wikipedia I found an interesting piece of information about this name. From the mid 1910s till mid 1930s Irmgard belonged to the top ten of the most popular girls' names in Germany but since the late 1950s you can hardly hear this name in German-speaking countries.

Irmtraud has as its second component -traud-. In OHG is was "trûen", "trûwen" with the meaning "believe", "hope", "trust" (this one is still closely reated to the OHG root). The name's meaning is thus "a big/enormous hope".

As we've already taken the root -hild-, I can't but mention the legendary valkyrie Brunhild from the Nebelungs' Song! There are really many variations of writing this name, depending of the time it was used and the country of origin: Brynhild, Brynhildr, Brunhilda, Brünhild, Brünhilde etc. Speaking about the saga character we can't forget a real historic prototype the Visigothic Merovingian princess Brunhildis. But from the 8th up to the 10th century in the German-speaking area the i in the second syllable of the name Brunhildis influenced the u in the first one so that it took the so called umlaut (u --> ü), it got to Brünhildis.

"Brynhild" (1897) by Gaston Bussière

Brynhild & Buðli, a Faroese stamp

In the OHG the first component was brunia with the meaning "breast plate". As Brynhild was a warrior I think here is meant a part of armour. It's difficult to give the whole meaning of the name, but I believe it is like "a leader of the battle". But I may be wrong.

"Kriemhild's Accusation" (1879) by Emil Lauffer

In the Song of the Nibelungs Brynhild's malicious antagonist was Kriemhild. Her other name in the Völsungasaga was Gudrun. But now we take only the name with -hild. The other variants are Krimhild, Kriemhilde and the older one Grimhild. In the OGH grim- means "mask". So she was "one fighting behind the mask", as we know she wanted to get Sigurd by all means even deceiving him.

For my research I used Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Behind the name.

8 wichtige Momente

Erstens: Wolfram von Eschenbach läßt den Namen des Gralssuchers und Gralskönig Parzival »Schneid' mitten durch« (Percavel: Schneid' gut) bedeuten. Das altprovenzalische Wort Trencavel besagt dasselbe. Wolfram von Eschenbach hat den Carcassonner Vizegrafen Raimund-Roger Trencavel als Parzival besungen!

Zweitens: Trencavels Mutter hieß Adelaide. Sie ist das Vorbild für Wolframs Herzeloyde gewesen. Denn Adelaide war, bevor sie Raimund-Rogers Vater die Hand zum Ehebund reichte, von dem Aragonierkönig Alfonse le Chaste, Alfons dem Keuschen, umworben worden. Dieser König le Chaste muß für Wolframs »König Kastis«, dem verstorbenen Verlobten Herzeloydes, Vorbild gewesen sein!

Drittens: Adelaide und ihr Sohn waren der Ketzerei ergeben. Sie lehnten das Kreuz als Heilszeichen ab. Der Gral war, diese Erkenntnis habe ich gewonnen, das ketzerische Glaubenssymbol! Er ist, wie Wolfram von Eschenbach mehrmals sagt, von Reinen auf Erden gelassen worden. Damit hat er die Katharer gemeint, denn Katharer heißt verdeutscht Reine!

Viertens: Wolfram von Eschenbach nennt den Gralskönig Anfortas, dessen Leiden Parzival beendet, einen »guotman« und »guoten man«. Es wurden die Katharer von ihren Anhängern und Förderern als Gutmänner oder Bonshommes geehrt…!

Luzifers Hofgesind. Eine Reise zu den guten Geistern Europas.

Download Mike Oldfield The Song Of The Sun for free from pleer.com

Aus der Provence in deutsches Land
Ward uns die rechte Mär gesandt:
Da Luzifer zur Höll’ entschwand
Mit seiner Schar, der Mensch entstand.
Bedenkt, was Luzifer errang
Mitsamt den Kampfgenossen sein!
Sie waren unschuldsvoll und rein…

by Wolfram von Eschenbach

Rarely I've started my favourite book again. It fascinated me for the first time in 2009, I enjoyed reading the book (in Russian) while travelling to Germany. I fell in love with the style and content at first sight! And already somewhere in the middle of the journey it occured to me that I have to make his journey, too. The idea has been settled in my head and I couldn't get it out of my mind. You know sometimes it disappeared for a while but after a while it turned up again, like reminding me about forgetting something very important! Of course, I can't say now if I succeed in making my idea come true, but I deciced to start with refreshing my memories and rereading the work with inspired my restless heart. Now I'm happy that I can read in German!

By the way the book's name in the original is in the title. In English it's name is "Lucifer's Court". Don't be frightened about its name :) It has nothing to do with satanists or something like that. The book is a kind of diary that was taken during a journey through Europe following the path of Graal. It tells us the author's version about what the St. Graal is, where it came from and where it may be kept now. In accordance to that the author tells us many middle-aged stories dealing with this sacred subject. This journey really took place, it's now a fiction. And what is especially interesting for me is linguistic links in the text. I love that ^_____^

And a passage from the book (sorry I have only the German version..)

Today it reads about Percival the Author's knight:

Der Herausgeber meiner »Parzival«-Ausgabe meint, Wolframs Gralsburg müsse in den Pyrenäen liegen. Ortsangaben, wie Aragon und Katelangen (Katalonien), mögen ihn zu dieser Meinung veranlaßt haben. Die Pyrenäenbauern haben also nicht unrecht, wenn sie ihre Ruine Montségur die Burg des Saint-Graal sein lassen. Und der Schnee, durch den der Gralssucher Parzival sein Roß traben lassen mußte, um endlich zur Burg des Heils zu gelangen, kann sehr wohl Pyrenäenschnee gewesen sein. Der Name Munsalvatsche, den Wolfram als einziger der Gralsburg gab, bedeutet, wie viele annehmen, Wildenberg.

Weekly postcrossing

This week I got 4 beautiful cards (one of them with a Russian postcrossing stamp!)
I like all of them, but fairly speaking the little mole is my favourite ^____^

We have such bad weather that I can't even go walking to the nearest forest :( Hope it'll be better tomorrow! Now I'm almost ready with the endless household issues (I only have to wash the dishes for now!) and can enjoy my spare time :)

Have a nice weekend!

Flea market

Guten Abend! :)

At the weekend we were on a flea market here in a neigbour town. We were actually to sell there, but I always (or almost always) can't go away without buying smth for myself ^_____^ This time you can see my catch in the pics: 5 small pearl chains with Hematite, a Fluorite (or Amethyst) bracelet, a lampwork bracelet, an interesting biju-chain with big glass-beads, a damaged chain with ehm.. bone-beads and a tooth >___<, some small cabochons and just stones in a vintage cardboard-box (the box itself is rather shabby but I like it), a sweet ceramic cup and 4 handmade and signed pictures (1 is damaged..)

All the stones and beads I'm going to use in hand-made. We'll see what comes! ;)

Hej! Det är Snusmumrik.

I stitched at the weekend. Not much... And I haven't even finished the pattern, but here he is, Snusmumtik ^_____^ I love it - to stitch not on canvas.. I think that any work looks better on it and a kind of authentically <3

Have a nice week!

A few words about everything

Today I was going to ride a bicycle nearby in the area, making photos of beautiful flowers and watching animals and birds in binoculars.. but the weather is so dull.. ah, and I also wanted to plant a few herbs.. heh. Today is not the best day for alls my plans!

This week I got only totally beautiful cards by the postcrossing exchange :) It warms my heart a little.

And today (or tomorrow) I send my first card with embroidery elements in official postcrossing. The woman writes that she loves handicrafts as well, so I thought she may like my small appendix to the card :D Her it is:

Since last week I'm into languages again! :) Now it's Swedish, better speak it is again Swedish! I startet learning it in the 11th form at school, but I was such a lazybones, that I have never brought it up to a decent level.. Soo, maybe now ^___^ By the way I'm doing it with www.duolingo.com Swedish from English. I'm already on the level 7 there.. I find the course rather good but not without

some disadvantages as e.g. too many repetitions, too little vocabulary and some stupid English wording. But it's still nice for me and I'm going on everyday a little. What's good on the course - it reminds you to revise some material you weren't really good at, and I should say it helps ^_____^ 

Hej! Jag har en katt. Hon är svart och vitt. Jag tycker om henne! <3

Jag tycker om djur och fåglar.

Jag är vegetarian. Vegetarianer äter inte kött. Jag är mot kött!
Det finns en särskild vegetarisk meny. 

Easter handmade

Some Easter handmade from me this weekend :)
One of the greeting cards is already sent out in an envelope!
And the bunny on the towel should get a neighbour riding a carrot (if I get it, because all the half-cross-stitches made me really crazy!)