![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A word which gets its spelling from here and its pronunciation from there.
This is what the Tough Guide says on the subject: GEAS is the word for the Rules governing PANCELTIC TOURS. On normal PANCELTIC Tours it is something magically laid on you that you must do or not do. This can be a nuisance, because the Geas takes no account of the feelings you may have about whatever is laid on you. For instance, you can be under a Geas to marry the next person you see with violet eyes, or to kill every third red-haired man, or to visit every COUNTRY on the MAP, and you will do those things. You may weep and curse, but do them you will.
Well-stated.
Geas (geasissies?) are hilariously random, and circumstances will force you to break them or else what's the point of introducing them to the story in the first place? Cú Chulainn was under a geas not to eat dog meat. The internet disagrees on whether he was also on a geas not to refuse an offer of food or if that was just generally accepted as bad manners, but anyway he eventually was put in a position where he had to accept the dog meat and died soon after. Conaire Mór had a whole host of them, starting with "don't accept pillaging" and then moving on to such bizarre restrictions as "don't follow three red men into the house of a red man." He seems to have broken the first one for simply ages without anything bad happening (to him, I mean), but once he fixed that fate conspired to make him break all the others at once, like ripping apart a string of beads, and then he died too.
But the absolute weirdest one, hands down, has got to be Math fab Mathonwy, who had to keep his feet in the lap of a virgin (seems like any old virgin would do) when not at war.
The logistics of this boggle the mind. Was this a 24/7 dealio, or were they able to take bathroom and nap breaks? How exactly do you govern a kingdom when sitting with your feet in some girl's lap? Probably best not to ponder too deeply. I'm certain that nothing modern writers have attempted has come close to the full strangeness of the originals.
************
For Suffragists, Swimming and Voting Often Went Hand-in-Hand
The Strange Reason Why It's Illegal to Take Nighttime Photos of the Eiffel Tower
Inside the Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers
In the 1960s, Vancouver’s historic downtown was at risk of being razed for modern road projects – only for an extraordinary protest movement to turn the tide, helping transform it into one of North America’s most ‘liveable’ cities.
Hundreds of Catholic women priests are quietly leading their own progressive parishes — despite denouncements from the Vatican.
Mapping Puerto Rico's Hurricane Migration With Mobile Phone Data
A Simple Way to Improve a Billion Lives: Eyeglasses
When Chavistas and 'Escuálidos' bang the drums of peace
Can A Cocktail Of Vitamins And Steroids Cure A Major Killer In Hospitals?
How Riders Won the Fight for Better Buses in New York City
How to save the failing nuclear power plants that generate half of America’s clean electricity
The Owl Thieves of Sweden
Save Lives With Smarter, Slower Streets—Not Self-Driving Cars
How the Booze Lobby Has Helped Kill a Law That Would Save 1,800 Lives Every Year
Donald Trump is reportedly furious that the US can’t shut down the border
How to Organize a Prison Strike
Iraq's Looming Election Has ISIS Spooked
Missing Mexicans’ Case Shines Light on Military’s Role in Drug War
Monsoon threat looms for Rohingya camps
DR Congo's Kasai crisis: 400,000 children face starvation
This is what the Tough Guide says on the subject: GEAS is the word for the Rules governing PANCELTIC TOURS. On normal PANCELTIC Tours it is something magically laid on you that you must do or not do. This can be a nuisance, because the Geas takes no account of the feelings you may have about whatever is laid on you. For instance, you can be under a Geas to marry the next person you see with violet eyes, or to kill every third red-haired man, or to visit every COUNTRY on the MAP, and you will do those things. You may weep and curse, but do them you will.
Well-stated.
Geas (geasissies?) are hilariously random, and circumstances will force you to break them or else what's the point of introducing them to the story in the first place? Cú Chulainn was under a geas not to eat dog meat. The internet disagrees on whether he was also on a geas not to refuse an offer of food or if that was just generally accepted as bad manners, but anyway he eventually was put in a position where he had to accept the dog meat and died soon after. Conaire Mór had a whole host of them, starting with "don't accept pillaging" and then moving on to such bizarre restrictions as "don't follow three red men into the house of a red man." He seems to have broken the first one for simply ages without anything bad happening (to him, I mean), but once he fixed that fate conspired to make him break all the others at once, like ripping apart a string of beads, and then he died too.
But the absolute weirdest one, hands down, has got to be Math fab Mathonwy, who had to keep his feet in the lap of a virgin (seems like any old virgin would do) when not at war.
The logistics of this boggle the mind. Was this a 24/7 dealio, or were they able to take bathroom and nap breaks? How exactly do you govern a kingdom when sitting with your feet in some girl's lap? Probably best not to ponder too deeply. I'm certain that nothing modern writers have attempted has come close to the full strangeness of the originals.
For Suffragists, Swimming and Voting Often Went Hand-in-Hand
The Strange Reason Why It's Illegal to Take Nighttime Photos of the Eiffel Tower
Inside the Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers
In the 1960s, Vancouver’s historic downtown was at risk of being razed for modern road projects – only for an extraordinary protest movement to turn the tide, helping transform it into one of North America’s most ‘liveable’ cities.
Hundreds of Catholic women priests are quietly leading their own progressive parishes — despite denouncements from the Vatican.
Mapping Puerto Rico's Hurricane Migration With Mobile Phone Data
A Simple Way to Improve a Billion Lives: Eyeglasses
When Chavistas and 'Escuálidos' bang the drums of peace
Can A Cocktail Of Vitamins And Steroids Cure A Major Killer In Hospitals?
How Riders Won the Fight for Better Buses in New York City
How to save the failing nuclear power plants that generate half of America’s clean electricity
The Owl Thieves of Sweden
Save Lives With Smarter, Slower Streets—Not Self-Driving Cars
How the Booze Lobby Has Helped Kill a Law That Would Save 1,800 Lives Every Year
Donald Trump is reportedly furious that the US can’t shut down the border
How to Organize a Prison Strike
Iraq's Looming Election Has ISIS Spooked
Missing Mexicans’ Case Shines Light on Military’s Role in Drug War
Monsoon threat looms for Rohingya camps
DR Congo's Kasai crisis: 400,000 children face starvation
