Bestiary |
Dragon (from the Czech point of view)
For a long time, I didn't know how to deal with dragons. I mean, not that I want to confront them like St. George (who basically did nothing but pray and the dragon just gave up), but the dragon is a creature so generic that it would make a book. Two. Three. And maybe even six sequels and a couple of spin-offs. But I finally thought of one solution.
A dragon, as most know, is a winged creature, often multi-headed, fiery (but frequently dwelling in water, as you will learn), symbolizing evil and doing evil, that many heroes and cowards had to fight in old times. Among the most famous dragons are Fafnir from the Siegfried tale, the British and French dragons, not to mention the ancient ones. But there are also a fair number of dragons in my homeland. These are the ones we're going to look at.
Czech dracology holds two fundamental views on the origin of dragons. The more general one is the evolution from a snake, which after some time grows legs. This transitional form is called a Smok. And when the Smok is equipped with wings, it becomes a dragon. The Prašivec, for example, undergoes a similar evolution.
The most famous Czech dragon is the one from Trutnov. It was a cowardly creature, to say the least, feeding on corpses that it stole from a cemetery founded by a certain coal miner named Trut. The coal miner unmasked the mysterious thief with the help of ravens (okay, it was a thrush in The Hobbit, but ravens also played a significant role in that story on the side of ligh... dwarves). Trut, with the help of the villagers, barricaded the dragon in a cave with thick logs and then set them on fire. He exterminated the dragon, earned himself the title of squire, and founded the city. He donated the dragon's stuffed corpse to the city of Brno.
However, it could have been different with the dragon of Brno, because another dragon resided in Lišeň. This one was more courageous, but ended up like many of its kind throughout Europe, being fed by an ox hide stuffed with quicklime. I don't know why the dragon, who otherwise demands a maiden of royal birth and unmasks the fraud, doesn't recognize that it's not chewing flesh, but it works. This Brno dragon, of course, after a hearty lunch, drank and kicked the bucket.
So did the dragon from Budyně. It lived in the Ohře River and once, instead of the child it usually ate, swallowed a stuffed calf. And the same appetites had the dragon of Jince, or so the story goes. This monster was infamous for bringing bad luck to the buildings on whose roof it sat to rest.
There is no doubt that dragons often dwell in water. A few of them lived in the lake above Velke Karlovice in the Vsetín region, where they also hatched.
The fiery melanese (i.e. black) form of the dragon also occurred in Bohemia and Moravia. It appeared at the Drahotuš castle near Lipník nad Bečvou, the fire dragon also flew to Dřevíč. Several times it set the castle on fire and killed cattle. It was later destroyed by magic. Similarly, in nearby Hředle, a fire dragon flying from the top of Džbán was damaging. It was killed by a brave forester, of course using magic. The Hředle dragon whistled, which always warned the villagers before its arrival. According to Martin Stejskal, this and some other similar legends have their roots in the ancient invasions of the Lutsanes into the Bohemian territories. It was not the Lutsanes who whistled then, but the border patrols.
There were many similar fire dragons in the Příbram region. One of them flew also near Nový Knín from the Holčovka mountain, another took up residence in a deep pit behind Náklo near Olomouc. It moved away when the pit disappeared. A similarly fiery trail in the air was probably left behind by a not-very-large dragon from the Škvorec castle. It lived in the chimney and flew over the gardens. Another one flew out of the former fortress in Drahobudice.
A dragon, living in Běloves near Náchod, got involved in an almost fairytale story. He got a taste of the princess of Náchod and if it wasn't for the brave guy named Jiřík (George), it could have turned out horribly. The dragon was born in Náchod and raised by a doctor from a lizard that he fed with human blood. The adult monster disappeared for some time, supposedly to Moravia, but in the evening a strange whistling was heard. Not expecting its own destruction, the dragon returned and began to decimate the population. Eventually, the princess was saved – and the rest of the story can be found in any similar tale.
A more interesting and not so well-trodden tale was a story about the dragon on its back the daughter of the lord of Landek flew away from the Black Prince's prison. Father killed his daughter's vehicle and threw the golden key his descendant had brought from her prison into the Odra River to free his daughter from the curse.
It was in Smečno in Kladno that the black dragon with the golden crown lived. It lost its life at the same time when its ornament was stolen by a brave young lady. The dragon was petrified and the crown was replaced by a castle in Smečno.
The dragon from the Třemšín Hill, which no one could get rid of, was again sent to history by a certain housewife who carried her husband's lunch into the forest. Whether the monster wanted to eat the lunch or her, it met with fierce resistance. The woman plunged her sickle deep into the dragon's head and the monster bled to death.
Dračí skála (Dragon Rock) near Jablonec nad Nisou used to be the home of the monster, who apparently knew Ancient Greece classic stories because it demanded several human sacrifices every year. These were drawn by lot, and then the dragon ate them – until the day an inconspicuous man with a staff stood before him. One incantation – and the dragon was dead. In nearby Liberec, there was a pickier monster. It took only one victim a year, for which it left the vicinity and rampaged elsewhere, but it had to be a young girl. Even the dragon of Zlín did not hunt at home, it flew to Vizovice and Slovakia, from where it returned to the hole where it lived in the hills, very stuffed.
People often talk about great treasures in connection with dragons. Unfortunately, Czech dragons were not so wealthy. With a few exceptions. At Rýzmberk near Kdyně, a dragon guards a treasure. But it is not a dragon by origin, but a knight cursed by it. Another dragon, quite rich and quite giving, lived near Nový Jičín. If you meet a dragon in those parts, don't be shy to turn your back on it and stick your butt out at it. It's rude, but the dragon will reward you with gold coins. Two dragons also guard the treasure on Palánek Hill near Bučovice.
Sometimes a dragon can, even unintentionally, save lives, like the one that descended into the Macocha abyss every night to refresh itself by licking a healing stone. It was on its back that the highwayman named Obešlík, who had been punished by being thrown into that abyss, was set free. He did not repay his rescuer in any way, later throwing him a calf full of lime. It is said that it was the dragon from Líšeň that flew to Macocha.
I can give you the exact address of the Prague Dragon - 647/b Štupartská Street. But beware, at night, it flies from this house in the Lesser Town, where the devils used to have a pub to St. James Church.
Czech dragons or Czech sources are scarce on the number of heads. In Žákava near Plzeň lived a seven-headed dragon.
Interesting – especially for the night watcher – was the dragon from Dobešov near Nový Jičín. It changed shape, so neither description matched the other. Sometimes it looked like a winged snake, sometimes like a column of fire...
In the Obřany castle near Bystřice pod Hostýnem lived a dragon named Čmoch. Big, with a golden crown and silver wings. The local bandit, Gargulák, helped the people to get rid of the terror of the region.
And that's all for now.
Illustration: Friedrich-Johann-Justin-Bertuch, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
3.1.2024 (2.11.2002)
Hailstorms and who is to blame
On Monday, the sky unexpectedly attacked me. I was hit by a drumbeat of hail. And it occurred to me, naturally, to look for the culprit.
The prosaic fact that hail forms due to strong air currents in which turbulence carries, often at speeds of up to a hundred kilometers per hour, ice crystals to which subcooled ice droplets stick, did not help me. Still, I detected several suspects. Further investigations continue, and I'll bring you the two local (i.e. Czech) suspicious.
At first, Dušičky (Souls).
They're close relatives of the Chmurniki and the Zduhaczi. They act as a freight forwarding company, hauling heavy cumulonimbus storm clouds across the sky. It's a heavy load, so it's no wonder they drop it sometimes and somewhere, occasionally they choose their own destination. Volunteers are hard to come by for such arduous labor; according to some, probably more original sources, the Dušičky are souls of suicidal, like the South Polish Planetniki. Another version of their origin places them among the fallen angels who did not hit the earth and become devils. They remained suspended in the air, living out their hell there.
As exiled dissenters, they dislike their former family and so bear the sound of church bells uncomfortably. That's why the bells were rung for the storms. In the pre-Franklin-Diviš (or pre-lightning rod) era, this magical practice cost the lives of many bell ringers. Therefore, Emperor Joseph II. banned it by a special decree.
The Rozobabel is the second suspect. A giant, perhaps bald, hauling hail in a huge sack. He's dumping his load in selected places. As an anthropomorphic demon, he can come for a visit after a proper incantation. When he leaves, the door closes behind him by itself.
Monday's case, however, looks like an early ad acta. In addition to the above, hailstones have been worn by devils as part of their mischievous activities, as well as by weather-controlling witches.
In East Bohemia, three iron giants, or four men with iron rods, once operated on the Kozákov hill. The giants froze one of Kozákov's wells with their icy breath, crushed the ice, and then scattered it around.
I only took into account the domestic meteorological boogeymen. With the advancing globalization, it could very well happen that South Bohemia was visited by an alien being, for example, Uawhatu from New Zealand, Basque Eate, Maju or Mari, or Peruvian Ccoa
But more about them some other time.
9.1.2024 (9.11.2002)
Vadleany
If you become a shepherd in the Hungarian Puszta, you can encounter a lot of things. For example, a naked girl whose long hair flows down to the ground. The moment she starts seducing you, you can be sure that you have met a Vadleany, a forest demon. Such encounters are always dangerous and pernicious, of course; think of the Bohemian woodland faeries, the Surinamese azeman, or the Scottish Baobhan Sith. With so many known cases, it is a wonder that Czech, Scottish, Hungarian, and other young men have not learned their lesson.
9.1.2024 (24.11.2002)
Szépasszony
Like previous, this being is a seductive girl, a female demon with long hair. A girl dressed in white for a change. To succumb to her is to dance in a storm or a hailstorm. Watch out at noon, she's at her strongest.
It's not wise to step into a circle trodden in the grass, it may be this lady's dance floor.
As it seems, in Hungary this fairy takes care of many resorts; noon reveals the demon of time, circles the creature of the field, dancing in the storm the spirit of the air. However, since I do not speak Hungarian, the Encyclopedia Mythica remains the only source of information, which in this case is scant on words.
9.1.2024 (24.11.2002)
Liderc
While in the Czechia a black hen's egg, carried in the armpit, turns out to be a Plivník, in Hungary it is a Liderc - but the egg must be the first one that the hen lays. And the hatched little devil (it really looks like that, including the hoof on one leg, but sometimes it remains in chicken form) tries to help, just like its other relatives. He will grant any wish and wants to grant any wish. Therein lies the danger. For this tireless workaholic demands to be constantly occupied. And it's hard to get rid of a leader. He has to be given a task he can't do. Then he'll disappear or burst into a rage.
9.1.2024 (24.11.2002)
Tau
The evil spirit and father of the seven monsters, as the South American Guarani tell of him. Tau himself was created by the supreme god Tupá together with Angatupyry, the representative of Good. They both care for the human soul as guides to the world and life. A more or less conventional concept.
The benevolent Angatupyry interfered most with Tau's existence when the villain attempted to take the beautiful Kerana. He pandered to her, disguised of course as a handsome young man, for seven days before finally deciding to kidnap the Indian. But before the crime could be committed, Angatupyry took on Tau. After a seven-day, seven-night duel, the evil principle lost and was banished from Earth by the god of war. Period. A semicolon, actually. Because Tau, as is the way of evil, returned and kidnapped Kerana anyway. He raped her or married her, or neither, or both, they're myths, and they take different forms. The Beauty and the Demon Lord couple then sired seven offspring who filled the mythical space of Guaraní. Monsters who were cursed at birth and who inspire fear, terror, and respect, but they weren't just black and white evil and harmful. Some of them established themselves as protectors (a little of the uncompromising terror is always appropriate for such a function.) For example, such parrot-headed serpents as Mbói Tu'ĩ guard water and aquatic animals, while his brother Moñái took a liking to the fields and Kurupi became a representative of sex and fertility. The youngest Luison, on the other hand, is the Lord of Death and Ao Ao is simply a giant man-eating monster. The eldest Teju Jagua, half dog and half lizard, rules the caves, and the middle (i.e., fourth of the seven) Jasy Jatere has become the god and protector of an important part of the day, the lunch break known as siesta.
The image, showing Keran's abduction: by Patty P (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
12.1.2024 (19.5.2013)
Bílá paní (The White Lady) and other Czech ladies in color
Bílá paní is the most famous specter of the female sex. Also the most abundant. You can find her in various places over Europe, the promised land for ladies in white is England, for example. But we prefer to stay at home (which means in Czechia). As interesting as the White Lady of Balvenie Castle is, most of us recall Perchta of Rožmberk.
In a long white dress, the White Lady of Rožmberk walked the corridors of the family mansions of Krumlov or Jindřichův Hradec, revealing future things. If someone was to be married, if an offspring was expected, she wore white gloves; if she was to foretell misfortune, she wore black gloves.
She retired after the death of the last Vitkovic, Petr Vok, but she returned several times. For example, during the World War II to the Rožmberk Castle, where she scared the girls from the Nazi Bund deutscher Mädeln.
There were many other white ladies, mostly victims of the curse. They came from various social backgrounds, a maid in Beroun, the ghost of Zuzanka Vojířovna in Soběslav, the wife of the local master in Klobouky. But there were also original ghosts, probably from pagan times when white was the color of death.
In German legends, we find a white lady raising her offspring, who is called Bertha. Of course, she used to scare naughty children too. It is only a step from her to the South German Bertha, the Italian Befana, or the Czech Ježibaba, but we will ignore this kinship, at least for the time being. What is important is that from Bertha and Berchta there is a clear path to the former pagan goddesses.
The White Lady of Rožmberk is therefore, it seems, a revenant much older and nobler than we think.
Černá paní (The Black Lady) is usually a cursed female. There was one in České Budějovice, another in Prague...
Mostly these ladies were in black for the same reason as the white ladies in white, because Christianity brought with it, among other things, a change in burial color. Black is more respectable, and none of these ladies I had the opportunity to meet were haunting the water, the battlements, or the long corridors where the moonlight shines through the high windows, but in the deep woods or city streets. And all of them were haunted for a good reason – because of their less-than-honorable and honest way of life. So it seems like they might be more fun.
Černá panna (The Black Maiden) of Ostrý Castle is actually a white lady in disguise, a suicide who threw herself into the Ploučnice River. As the White Lady, she appears on the shore, as the Black Maiden, beckoning for a divining rod to be thrown from the castle into the river. Then jump after it, which will give one magical power.
However, the Black maiden is lurking in the water at that moment and is about to drown the adept of the magical art.
Jasanová paní (The Ash Lady).
Because a man once put a spell on her in an ash tree, the Lady of the Jug Castle became not the White Lady, but the Lady of the Ash Tree. The aforementioned castle near Rakovník is also haunted.
Režná paní. She used to be a proud and heartless rich woman who got her fortune thanks to a witch. She advised her to sow flax... and so on, just like the Little Mole. She shouldn't have made pants with pockets, but a shirt. She never took it off. Like many others like her, she moved landmarks, but while such criminals became men of fire, our lady became the Režná paní, going from landmark to landmark and sighing. Where? In Dobrá Voda near Světlá nad Sázavou.
Ohnivá panna (The Fire Maiden). The fiery maiden became the vain daughter of the lord of the castle in Bystřice pod Hostýnem. Because she was also a miser, today she guards the treasures there, holding the key in her mouth.
Měděná panna and Modrá dívka (The Copper Maiden and the Blue Girl)
The Copper Maiden makes her home, as it were, in Měděnec near Klášterec nad Ohří. And she is cursed to Měděná Hůrka (Copper Hill), where she guards the treasures.
The girl in blue could keep her company. She once drowned herself out of unlucky love and now, in a blue dress and white veil, sits every Friday night at the Black Pond marsh near Měděnec.
12.1.2024 (16.11.2002)
Pontianak
A Malayan female vampire who hunts in an interesting way – only her head goes after prey. Which can be an interesting picture. Unfortunately, it's also the last one the observer will enjoy.
(1.12.2002)
Langsoir
The ghost of a Malaysian woman who died in childbirth. She attacks her victims with long claws. Like many of her relatives, the langsoir can take on the form of an animal. While European vampires like to pose as wolves (the popularity of bats came later), this species of Malayan vampire metamorphoses into an owl.
17.1.2024 (1.12.2002)
Hathor
Let's move from Malaysia to Egypt. This time I invite you to visit a high-ranking being, one of the most important goddesses there.
Hathor is best known as the sacred cow, nurse to the god Horus, and the benevolent goddess. This is not entirely true, the reality is, as it happens, much more complex. Hathor is an ancient, pre-dynastic deity.
Her name is interpreted as the House of Horus, or Heaven, but also as the Beginning. She looked mostly as you see her in the picture, sometimes with a cow's head instead of a human one. Or she looked like a cow – then her belly represented the sky. She was originally the embodiment of heaven, the Sun Mother. Her worship spread along with that of Horus, and as an Upper Egyptian goddess, she had the most famous temple in Dendera at the time. She gradually transformed into a goddess of beauty and goodness, so that the Greeks compared her to Aphrodite. In earlier times, however, she was not only a cow, but also a hippopotamus, lioness, falcon, or cobra.
Her most common nicknames are the Eye of Ra, which punishes blasphemers, the Great One Who Comes, the Mistress of the Spirits (which she became in later times when her cult spread throughout Egypt), the One Who Loves Silence, the Mistress of the Vezet, the Mother of the Gods, who prepares mansions.
As the Eye of Ra, Hathor appeared in the form of the punishing Sekhmet, the bloodthirsty lion-headed goddess, to whom beer used to be sacrificed because, when drunk, she forgot Ra's former command to exterminate mankind. Although Sekhmet craved human blood, she was widely worshipped by the Egyptians because, in addition to her warlike attribute, she cured diseases, especially the plague.
Hathor is one of the earliest divine creatures found around the Nile. Her attributes can be recognized in the later goddesses Bastet, Neith, and Nut.
Hathor na ilustraci: Jeff Dahl [GFDL or CC BY-SA 4.0], from Wikimedia Commons
17.1.2024 (7.12.2002)
Bastet
The cat goddess is another well-known creature of Egyptian religion. Usually depicted with a cat's head, the cat was dedicated to her and considered a sacred animal. Finds of mummified pets confirm this.
As already noted, Bastet is actually the goddess Hathor in feline form. However, she was also a sun deity until the first Greeks came to Egypt, and for a long time, she had nothing to do with the creature Felis silvestris, her animals being the larger and rougher feline beasts, the wild sand cat or the lioness directly. It was only after the domestication of cats, which took place some six to four thousand years ago, that the sun goddess Bastet took this less dangerous animal as her own.
She was not alone; the great god Ra (again a solar deity) was also sometimes called the Great Cat Ra, and in his battle with the serpent Apophis, he is sometimes depicted as a cat.
We met the lion goddess last week, though. She is Sekhmet, the vengeful form of Hathor. For Bastet used to be the eye of the god Ra as well, and in the depths of time we would find several local goddesses, former Great Mothers, who gradually merged into the form of one, only to later create their own identity. Bastet and Sachmet complemented each other in their role as avengers, their local cults were apparently sufficiently and similarly strong.
Bastet's divine career was also toyed with by the Greeks. Under their influence, the cat goddess changed the astronomical body and became the Egyptian double of the Greek Artemis, i.e. the goddess of the Moon. And because Artemis had a brother, Apollo, she was also adopted into the royal family of Osiris and Isis as the sister of Horus.
Bastet had the largest shrine in the city of Bubastis in the eastern Nile Delta. The popularity of the cat goddess is evidenced, for example, in the writings of Herodotus. Another ancient author, Diodorus, describes the execution of a Roman who committed the cardinal sin of killing a cat.
Bastet in the illustration: Gunawan Kartapranata [CC BY-SA 3.0], from Wikimedia Commons
17.1.2024 (14.12.2002)
Nut, Seb and Shu - Sky, Earth and Air
Nut, the Sky, is another reflection of the cult of Hathor. She was depicted as a naked lady, dark and full of stars, leaning on her brother Seb (also Geb or Keb, no other names are involved, just the evolution of language and translations), the Earth. In order to endure in her uncomfortable position, she is supported by her father Shu, Air. (At other times, however, the sky is painted as a cow, the original Hathor.)
17.1.2024 (14.12.2002)
Baba Yaga
As fairytale-like as this crone may seem, she truly belongs to the depths of pagan mythology. Although she lived in the forest, in the familiar hut on a chicken leg, she belonged to the air element. She was the personification of the storm, usually using jet propulsion to fly - she flew in an iron fire mortar, sweeping her tracks with a broom. She sometimes exchanged this vehicle for seven-mile boots, a flying carpet (acknowledging the Turkish-Arabic influences on the culture of the Eastern Slavs).
Both Western and Eastern Slavs describe her as an ugly hag, disheveled, long-nosed and long-bearded, adorned with iron teeth. It is a wonder that she started a family with such an appearance - she had sons. Who their father was is uncertain, but since her descendants are fire dragons, he was probably not just an ordinary dad.
Baba Yaga, as everyone knows, was not only hideous but hideously dangerous. For she fed on human flesh, building a fence around her bizarre mansion from the bones of her victims. Not only did it serve the function of a macabre architectural element, it is a safety zone, because Baba Yaga is possessed a number of interesting magical objects, from a petrifying magic wand to living and dead water.
When she later lost her job as the storm, which began to be catered for by the Christian staffing agency Hell with its demons, she gratefully accepted the post of pedagogical boogeyman. In doing so, she used her cannibalistic credentials, changed her name to Ježibaba in Czech lands, and eventually moved into a gingerbread house and fairy tales.
25.1.2024 (22.12.2002)
Black Annis
Slavs have Baba Yaga, English and Scots have Black Annis. It does not seem to be an aerial creature, she lives in the marshes (Scotland) or in a cave in the Dane Hills in Leicester. This hag has iron teeth too, she also used them to dig her cave. Nor do they differ in their gastronomic tastes. Black Annis, who you can recognize by her blue cheeks, has the same taste for human - mostly baby - flesh. She doesn't build a fence of bones, but she decorates the walls of her cave with the skin of her victims. He throws the bones in front of the cave.
As we can see, she met the same fate of a pedagogical ghost in time, but originally she may have been a forgotten goddess of pagan times. Which one? Perhaps you'll find out as you read on.
25.1.2024 (22.12.2002)
Cailleach Bheur
The Blue Old Woman of the Scottish Highlands is the personification of Winter. She is born every All Hallows Eve (All Hallows Eve, hence the now so popular Haloween, the last night of October, once the Celtic New Year or Samhain). It returns to the ground, in the form of a stone, or to the realm of the dead, on another pre-Christian holiday - the Celtic Beltine, or the night from the last of April to the first of May. Alternatively, she turns into a young girl, here the Triple Goddess emerges from the depths of time in the classical form of Maiden - Mother - Crone.
Cailleach Bheur is privy to holly and furzebush, she is not known to eat children, but she may have more in common with the previous being than blue cheeks. Indeed, it is likely that the midwife Black Annis was once a British goddess, or rather the third form of the Mother Goddess, the embodiment of winter and death.
25.1.2024 (22.12.2002)
Obayifo
It is referred to as an Ashanti vampire (which subsequently came from West Africa to Jamaica with the slaves), but more accurately it is a demon, or independent mind, parasitic on the host. Understandably human. People possessed by this vampire soul are said to be characterized by an enormous appetite, an avoidant, volatile gaze, as well as nocturnal luminescence of the armpits and the posterior excretory orifice.
However dangerous they are considered, the Obayifas are also credited with a positive relationship with the environment and their contributions to the protection of the rainforest, particularly by scaring European settlers.
25.1.2024 (17.4.2016)
Njuzu
In the waters of the lake in which the Njuzu dwell in their cozy cave, soap should not be used when washing or washing, it pollutes the water. But how do you know the home of this common-shaped water maiden, the fish-tailed girl from Zimbabwe? Perhaps by the white linen, she dries in the morning in the trees by the shore. And why look for hidden pools at all?
Because this African water fairy is dedicated to the herbalists and healers the Bantu Shona call n'anga. That person - who may not even be aware of his or her abilities - will one day disappear beneath the surface, often for the usual folkloric unit of time, a year. (Note to relatives: don't mourn, the body might wash ashore truly dead). During that time, however, the apprentice is trained in a relevant field in another world, and since part of the training includes the art of crossing between worlds, he will return to open his healing practice.
25.1.2024 (17.4.2016)
Munuane
Wherever there are fish in the Orinoco River, Munuane the Fish Lord can be found. At least in the places where the Guahibo Indians live and hunt, who are responsible for this interesting demon.
Not very intelligent but large, toothless, covered in grey hair, and armed with a bow and arrow, he rides a raft through the stream, luring victims by his mere presence. As an archer he is excellent, never missing his target, which he makes a target of fishermen fishing across the water. He turns hunters into prey in his role as protector of aquatic fauna, but combines the useful with the pleasurable, as Munuane considers humans as meat fit for the table.
He is virtually bulletproof, but like many, he has his Achilles´ heel: aim below the knees, my friends, it will finish him off. He has one of the causes of the adjective interesting in the first paragraph, namely his eyes.
25.1.2024 (24.4.2016)
