Rare mountain lion sighting in northern Minnesota; & mysterious big cats

Super rare video of cougar in northern Minnesota

Voyageurs Wolf Project

November 3, 2022

We just got our first video ever of a cougar!! This rare footage was from October 20 and taken in the southern part of the Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem. Fortunately, the footage is super clear so no disputing what kind of kitty this is!

The Minnesota DNR has verified 59 cougar observations in the state since 2004 (~3.4 observations/year…2022 numbers not available yet)—none of which have been in the Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem so far, though several weren’t too far away!

Most wild cougars observed in Minnesota are thought to be transient young males traveling from breeding populations of cougars in the western Dakotas. This is based on evidence (genetics, etc.) from cougars that died or were killed in Minnesota and other midwestern states.

Learn more about the Voyageurs Wolf Project:
Website: http://www.voyageurswolfproject.org

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"He likely emanates from the breeding population in the Black Hills area of South Dakota.  I know the very few catamounts we've officially spotted in WI are from that S.D. location.  About ten years ago a cougar went from South Dakota through Wisconsin all the way to New England (yes, New England!) where he was finally hit by a car and killed.  He was a trooper.  There's a book about him: "Heart of a Lion" by Stolzenburg.   This fella on camera in this video here is probably a distant cousin of that New England puma."

-- Drew Hunkins

 

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Mountain Lion Foundation

Together, we can save America’s lion

 

 

 

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'America's Cat Is on the Comeback'

Michelle LaRue - American Scientist - Nov/Dec 2018

Mountain lions were extirpated in the eastern and midwestern United States after Europeans settled those areas, but now they are returning. Where will they go?

In the summer of 2004, I had just snuck into my cubicle at the back of the office at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) in Madelia after days of traveling around southern Minnesota putting leg bands on geese and searching for collared white-tailed deer that the DNR was tracking.

Coffee in hand, my computer sputtering to life after some inactivity, I learned the news that a mountain lion had been struck by a train—in northern Oklahoma. The location surprised my office mates and me; the large cats were generally known to live in rugged, forested wilderness, not on prairies, and certainly not in Oklahoma.

As it turns out, this poor cat changed my life. The 52-kilogram, 2.5-year-old male mountain lion that met its unfortunate demise on some railroad tracks in Red Rocks, Oklahoma, in late May of 2004 was accompanied by a story—told by the radio collar it just so happened to be wearing. The journey the cat took, according to its radio collar, led me to realize that only weeks before I learned about it, I may have shared the same space with that very cat—on the prairies of Kansas, of all places. In May 2004 I had been on a field ecology trip to finish out my junior year at Minnesota State University, Mankato. I traveled in a van for nearly three weeks with 19 other students and two professors, searching for snakes, skinks, and other wildlife while learning about the grassland ecosystems of the mixed-grass prairies. Mountain lions were the last thing on our minds. I still think about how amazing the possibility is that a mountain lion and I, someone who would end up studying the species’ recolonization of its former habitats, could have been within kilometers of each other in one of the most unlikely of places.

This cat—eventually dubbed the Red Rocks Cat, or at least that’s what I called it—originated in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Its journey of more than 1,100 kilometers represented, at the time, the longest dispersal distance ever recorded for a mountain lion. What’s more, this incident was not the first time a mountain lion had appeared outside the American West. It seemed that something was brewing and that this cat was an important clue. Fourteen months later, I was in the thick of figuring it out. This cat is the reason I have been studying the range expansion of mountain lions for more than a decade.

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Experts Divided Over Mysterious Big Black Cat Spotted In Mississippi

NowYouKnow

A Mississippi man was left scratching his head when he spotted what appears to be a massive black cat walking through a field and even experts can't agree on what he saw.

The strange encounter took place as David Sluder was pulling into a Wendy's restaurant in the city of Hernando and noticed something amiss in the distance.

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The Black Panther Mystery

In the comments section of the above video, there are a lot of tall tales of black panthers in Arkansas, Mississippi, Massachusetts, Missouri, Georgia, Tennessee, California, Michigan, Louisiana, Texas, New Jersey, Kentucky, Vancouver Island, Oklahoma, Illinois, New York, Colorado, Ontario, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Alabama, Mexico, etc. It's interesting how folklore and/or a paranormal phenomena, can "migrate." The old unsolved black panther mystery from the UK seems to have relocated to North America and other locales.

Mountain lions never are black. Jaguars, found in Mexico and occasionally crossing over into the Southwest, can be black just like African leopards (panthers). However, jaguars are much more massive than the big cat in the above video. Lynxes, which can get up to 65 lbs, are Canadian and would never be found in Mississippi. Bobcats can be black, but clearly the above creature was much bigger than a bobcat. An escaped panther?

Actually the above animal was simply a mountain lion with light brown fur. Through a quirk of light and shadow, the very pointed top of a tree cast a thin but direct shadow onto that mountain lion from the late afternoon sun. At the end of the video, the lion begins to emerge and is seen as brown. The following images reflect how, even in direct sunlight, a dark shadow can coalesce around this big cat....

 

 

 

 

This isn't to say that there isn't a great mystery to the long standing black panther mystery in the UK, where there is no chance that that many sightings can be from "escaped black panthers." Below, a large black panther spotted last year in Wales....

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'Mystery as ‘puma’ spotted in Welsh hills and ‘black panther’ snapped in Oxfordshire'

 

 

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A video recorded on a cell phone southeast of Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada on October 22....

Canadian black lynx sighting video 

 

 

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MonsterQuest: Mysterious Big Black Cat (S1, E7) | Full Episode

The UnXplained Zone

Mountain lions do occasionally attack humans, and when they do it makes headlines across the country. However, it has been reported that people are seeing something else--attacks by large black cats in Season 1, Episode 7.

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Native woman with a mountain lion

From daniel-eskridge.pixels.com

Woman with Mountain Lion by Daniel Eskridge

Leannda Culver

861 followers

 

 

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The Military Cult of Mithras 2

Bloomberg Builds Temple To Roman God Mithras

The Alex Jones Channel

Alex Jones and an Infowars Caller discuss Bloomberg's move to build their new London facility on an ancient archaeological site formerly dedicated to the Roman God Mithras.


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Mithraism

The Roman cult of Mithras

Mithraeum

I don't agree--intrinsically speaking--that the construction of a Temple of Mithras is at all a bad thing. However, all too often it's by the wrong people and for the wrong reasons. For example, recently images of the Indian goddess Kali were flashed upon the Empire State Building (Bizarre Images of "Satan" Appear on Empire State Building); while newly discovered Viking artifacts apparently are to be destroyed in Sweden (Globalist Usurpers in Sweden Destroy Priceless Viking Artifacts). To the global elite crowd, almost any powerful deity can be "Satan," often despite clear evidence to the contrary.

Mithraeum in Latium, Italy

I could not really confirm that the Viking artifacts were slated for destruction based on the links which were provided at that link. It's sounds so insane to the point of disbelief. It's curious within this elitist politic the god Odin (or other Teutonic gods and traditions) is devalued, while other European gods are not (the Satanically-projected gods Cernunnos, Apolyon, Pan, Diana, etc.). They don't see any of these gods or traditions as having a thing to do with any particular folk. Other than the people and politics, I wouldn't mind visiting one of the temples to Ba'el (actually the Phoenician god "EL") which are being erected in big cities around the country. I don't see it as "Satanic" from either a Christian, Islamic, or "cult of Saturn" perspective. It was a highly historically-influential ancient Phoenician/Saturnian cult, and that's all.

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'Romeo and Juliet' theme by Nino Rota

Nino Rota - Romeo And Juliet (1968) Theme

oldmoviemusic

One of the most classic and memorable romantic themes of any film, Franco Zefferelli's Romeo and Juliet score, composed by Nino Rota, reflects the tragic passion of the famous story it portrays.

When youths Romeo Montigue and Juliet Capulet first meet it is a bond that cannot be broken, love at first sight. However, with the blood feud between their families still as strong as ever, it is teh most famous romance of all time destined for tragic doom.

Starring: Olivia Hussey, Leonard Whiting
Directed by: Franco Zefferelli
Composer: Nino Rota

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I haven't seen where the 1968 British-Italian film 'Romeo and Juliet' has been aired on TV for many years. It was a very popular movie and was aired often throughout the 70s and 80s. Especially memorable was Argentine-American actress Olivia Hussey who played Juliet. Milanese born Nino Rota composed the music and Mantuan born Danilo Donati won an Academy Award for Best Costume Design.

Nino Rota

Giovanni "Nino" Rota (3 December 1911 – 10 April 1979) was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor and academic who is best known for his film scores, notably for the films of Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti. He also composed the music for two of Franco Zeffirelli's Shakespeare films, and for the first two films of Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather trilogy, receiving the Academy Award for Best Original Score for The Godfather Part II (1974).

During his long career Rota was an extraordinarily prolific composer, especially of music for the cinema. He wrote more than 150 scores for Italian and international productions from the 1930s until his death in 1979—an average of three scores each year over a 46-year period, and in his most productive period from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s he wrote as many as ten scores every year, and sometimes more, with a remarkable thirteen film scores to his credit in 1954.

Alongside this great body of film work, he composed ten operas, five ballets and dozens of other orchestral, choral and chamber works, the best known being his string concerto. He also composed the music for many theatre productions by Visconti, Zeffirelli and Eduardo De Filippo as well as maintaining a long teaching career at the Liceo Musicale in Bari, Italy, where he was the director for almost 30 years.




Romeo and Juliet (1968 film)

Romeo and Juliet is a 1968 British-Italian romance film based on the tragic play of the same name (1591–1595) by William Shakespeare.

The film was directed and co-written by Franco Zeffirelli, and stars Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey. It won Academy Awards for Best Cinematography (Pasqualino De Santis) and Best Costume Design (Danilo Donati); it was also nominated for Best Director and Best Picture, making it the last Shakespearean film to be nominated for Best Picture to date. Sir Laurence Olivier spoke the film's prologue and epilogue and reportedly dubbed the voice of the Italian actor playing Lord Montague, but was not credited in the film.

Being the most financially successful film adaptation of a Shakespeare play at the time of its release, it was popular among teenagers partly because it was the first film to use actors who were close to the age of the characters from the original play. Several critics also welcomed the film enthusiastically.

Danilo Donati

Danilo Donati (April 6, 1926 - December 1, 2001) was an Italian costume designer and production designer. He won the Academy Award for Costume Design twice: the first time for his work in Romeo and Juliet (1968), the second time for his work in Fellini's Casanova (1976). In addition, he received numerous David di Donatello and Nastro d'Argento awards for his costume and production designs in various films.

Among the film directors with whom Donati had worked were Federico Fellini and Pier Paolo Pasolini.







A time for us Romeo and Juliet 1968

stumblingChaos







Nino Rota - Music for the films of Federico Fellini

Bazarov

Nino Rota (December 3, 1911 - April 10, 1979) was an Italian composer. He is particularly remembered for his work on film scores, especially The Godfather series and a number of films by Federico Fellini.

Rota was born into a musical family in Milan, and studied at the conservatory there under Ildebrando Pizzetti. Later, the conductor Arturo Toscanini encouraged him to go to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to study. This he did, where he worked under Fritz Reiner, amongst others. He later returned to Milan, where he wrote a thesis on the renaissance composer Gioseffo Zarlino.

Rota at age 12

Rota wrote his first film score in 1944 for Zaza, a film directed by Renato Castellani. He later met the director Federico Fellini while the latter was working on his first film, Lo Sceicco Bianco. The two collaborated on many occasions, with Rota’s score for 8 1/2 often cited as one of the main factors which makes the film more cohesive.

His score for Fellini’s Juliet of the Spirits (1965) included a collaboration with Eugene Walter on the song, “Go Milk the Moon” (cut from the final version of the film), and they teamed again for the song “What Is Youth,” part of Rota’s score for Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet.

All pieces performed by The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.

Track List:

1. Toby Dammit (0:00)
2. The White Sheik (3:38)
3. Juliet of the Spirits (6:26)
4. 8 1/2 (13:48)
5. I Vitelloni (19:02)
6. Il Bidone (22:05)
7. The Nights of Cabiria (26:56)
8. Boccaccio ’70 (33:06)
9. Satyricon (34:35)
10. The Clowns (37:41)
11. Roma (42:04)
12. Amarcord (45:57)
13. Casanova (51:09)
14. La Dolce Vita (54:37)
15. Prova D’Orchestra (1:01:49)
16. La Strada (1:05:53)

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Temples to the ancient Phoenician-Canaanite god Ba'el to be constructed in New York, London, and all over the world

Baal

Baal; properly Baʿal; Phoenician; was a title and honorific meaning "lord" in the Northwest Semitic languages spoken in the Levant during antiquity. From its use among people, it came to be applied to gods. Scholars previously associated the theonym with solar cults and with a variety of unrelated patron deities, but inscriptions have shown that the name Baʿal was particularly associated with the storm and fertility god Hadad and his local manifestations. The Hebrew Scriptures, compiled and curated over a span of centuries, include early use of the term in reference to their God Yahweh, generic use in reference to various Levantine deities, and finally pointed application towards Hadad, who was decried as a false god. This use was taken over into Christianity and Islam, sometimes under the opprobrious form Beelzebub.

Ba'el is usually associated with the Phoenician god "El" and the planet Saturn. The "Cult of Saturn" has been covered here before. This reminds of many similar projects where nobody seems to really take credit. It just happens, all in the name of large, global, nameless, faceless institutions. I don't have a problem with it, but why not a few temples to other ancient traditions. Maybe to Freya, Poseidon, or some some African or Native American god. No, they're just totally fixated on what they believe is "Saturn/Satan." That's why they have so many loud and gaudy displays at every big event they can bring it to. If it was more of a mutual agreement to construct a temple of El, maybe a lot of people could feel a connection to it. Of course, the Christians don't like it. I just don't like the elitist mentality behind it, just as with the Georgia Guidestones. The Bohemian Club's 45-foot stone owl at Bohemian Grove is based on the god Moloch. There were sacrifices of  babies to Ba'el and to Moloch, which are very conflated deities from ancient Phoenicia-Canaan. So often there's the sound of "el" in the mix somewhere: "ow-el," "Ba-el," or "Mo-el-ech."

There are many videos on YouTube regarding El, Baal, Molech, or even the video 'Dark Secrets Inside Bohemian Grove." What it all boils down to is the god El, the planet Saturn, and what they call "The Golden Age" when Saturn was a star in our northern sky five or ten thousand years ago. It's a highly important and lost part of our history, and I respect it, but I don't respect what these people have done in recent history. They don't have any more claim to what I guess one could call "the age of Saturn" than anyone else in the world. I have respect for the history and spiritual traditions of the Phoenician Priesthood; however I can do without the 'Rocky Horror Picture Show'/Miley Cyrus/Caitlyn Jenner culture that these plutocrats are putting together. They believe that this culture was marked by bisexual orgies and the general relevant themes that they promote so much today.




Temple of Baal to Be Erected in NYC, London, and Hundreds of Other Cities

TRUTHstreammedia

This is happening next month. This is really happening.

Sorry for the technical difficulties and no, I'm not laughing at this like it's funny. The laughing you hear is the kind of nervous laughter of doom that happens when you walk down a dark alley at night and realize you aren't alone, it's actually filled with starving zombie clowns and giant talking spiders.

Sources
http://nypost.com/2015/12/29/3-d-printing-to-bring-syrian-arch-destroyed-by-isis-back-to-life/
http://digitalarchaeology.org.uk/
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/april-2016-the-temple-of-baal-will-be-erected-in-times-square-in-new-york-city

Truthstream Can Be Found Here:
Website: http://TruthstreamMedia.com
FB: http://Facebook.com/TruthstreamMedia
Twitter: @TruthstreamNews
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/bbxcWX




Saturn is Baal/Bael

Tim Hayes

Saturn has also been worshipped as Baal, the Caananite storm god. "Baal is often represented by the symbol of the bull. Since only priests were allowed to utter his divine name, Hadad, Ba‛al was commonly used. Prior to the discovery of the Ugaritic texts it was sometimes thought that there were various and quite-separate gods called Baal. However, it is now generally accepted that there was one great Canaanite storm-and-fertility deity Baal-Hadad, and local manifestations of this one god." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baal The one god is better known as Saturn/Kronos/El,

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Sun Moon abstractions I

Full Sun Moon

Tuesday's full moon will be a "strong sun moon," where the sun and moon will be at their closest point of each other this year. I think that only by truly being outdoors, mostly likely on a trail or at a more remote location, can one truly feel the energetic interaction occurring. It's not a must for one to be there at night, but the twilight period can often be just as special. Some great locations are accessible and safe late in the day, but not after dark.


'Twins of Evil'

'Twins of Evil' was a 1971 vampire horror Hammer Film from the UK, starring Peter Cushing and the beautiful English-Maltese Collinson sisters. The sisters play the roles of Maria and Frieda, recently orphaned identical twin teenage girls, move from Venice to Karnstein in Central Europe to live with their uncle Gustav Weil. Weil is a stern puritan and leader of the fanatical witch-hunting 'Brotherhood'. Both twins resent their uncle's sternness and one of them, Frieda, looks for a way to escape. Resenting her uncle, she becomes fascinated by the local Count Karnstein, who has the reputation of being "a wicked man."

I saw this movie on our local Creature Features in the Bay Area when I was very young. This was an earnestly acted and produced film; and one which captured an alluring, superstitious, and wonderfully dark Middle Ages German/Central European countryside. I watched the full movie (above) some weeks back, and it was everything I remembered it to be.

Northern Lights

An aurora is a natural light display in the sky (from the Latin word aurora, "sunrise" or the Roman goddess of dawn), predominantly seen in the high latitude (Arctic and Antarctic) regions.

Spectacular images of auroras from the Lake Superior region can be viewed on the following link at LakeSuperiorPhoto.com. These images are amazing. They feel like a connection between worlds.


Mr Crowley

'Mr Crowley' by Ozzy Osbourne, somewhat like 'Immigrant Song' by Led Zeppelin, is a good song that references an earth-based/magical tradition. In the case of 'Mr Crowley', a tribute to Aleister Crowley (Western Ceremonial Magic); as opposed to 'Immigrant Song' which is a tribute to Norse-Germanic migration and Heathen tradition.

I have mixed feelings about Aleister Crowley, but I don't think that he was misrepresented as with Guido von List. He usually made himself quite clear as far as it relates to criticism of him. I do, however, think that there is malevolent magic which can be leaned from his works; such as 'The Book of the Law'. I wouldn't recommend it, but it's real.

Thelema is a religion based on a philosophical law of the same name, adopted as a central tenet by some religious organizations. The law of Thelema is "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the law, love under will."

The law of Thelema could probably be interpreted in different ways. I think it's fairly clear though. One interesting occultic aspect of the symbol of Thelema is that it utilizes a unicursal hexagram with an inverted five-petaled flower at the center. This inverted hexagram is basically the same symbol as the Saturnian hexagram ("Star of David"); and the inverted (upside down) five-petaled flower is basically the same as any five-pointed vehmic star (pentagram). The Saturnian hexagram always goes hand-in-hand with the pentagram... as with the Talisman of Saturn. I know this for certain, however I can only speculate what I have heard and read from researchers that Satanists "invert symbols" to reflect the negative.

In other words, the Saturnian cults were not innately "evil," or no more so than any of the other Saturnian or Sun cults (Christianity) of the ancient world. Examples of this type of inverted symbol are the unicursal hexagram, an upside down cross, and an inverted pentagram. We do need to be careful, as some Christians have said that the Norse Life Rune is a "broken cross," as if to suggest that it is an explicitly "anti-Christian" symbol, even though it's older than the Christian cross by tens of thousands of years.






Top 20 religions in the United States

Interesting statistics. I'm sure that the Wicca/Pagan/Druid category is vastly under counted, with many solitary practitioners. I would guess that the 307,000 number is about half of what it really is; and out of about 600,000, maybe 50,000 are even remotely folk-pagan.


Count of Saint Germain

The following is a full twenty minute episode of 'In Search of' from the 1970s, entitled 'The Immortal Count of Saint Germain'. Apparently many of his time believed him to be hundreds of years old. There have been many mysterious figures like this in history, such as Edward M. House... and Mr. Crowley.





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History of Ticinese in London

Swiss-Italian emigrations to London
 
From swissinfovideos YouTube channel
 
Peter Barber, historian and head of the British Library's maps collection in London, gave me a brief introduction to the history of Swiss-Italian emigrations to Britain. He showed me some places where the most famous immigrants, Carlo Gatti and his nephews Augosto and Stephanie Gatti, made their fortunes.
 
(swissinfo, Michele Andina)


John Maria Gatti (Wikipedia)

Sir John Maria Emilio Gatti (13 August 1872 – 14 September 1929) was an Anglo-Swiss theatre manager, restaurateur and businessman who was also a promininent Conservative politician in London local government.

Born as Joannes Maria Aemilius in Dongio, in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland, he was the eldest son of the entrepreneur Agostino Gatti. The Gatti family had built up a large family business in Westminster, including the Adelphi and Vaudeville Theatres, a string of cafe-restaurants and the Charing Cross and Strand Electricity Supply Corporation Ltd, which supplied power to most of the West End of London.

Gatti was educated at Stonyhurst College and St John's College, Oxford, before being called to the bar at the Inner Temple. He married Lily Mary Lloyd in 1897 and they had seven children. In the same year his father died, and he took over the family businesses along with his younger brother Rocco Joseph Stefano Gatti.

His business interests, in particular the construction of electricity infrastructure, led him to become interested in the local government of the capital. In 1903 he was elected to Westminster City Council as a representative of the Charing Cross ward. He was a member of the Conservative-backed majority Moderate Party on the council, and was elected Mayor of Westminster for 1911–1912.

In 1908 he was a founding member of the Society of West End Theatre Managers. In 1919–1920 he was chairman of the society, and was involved in negotiating a standard theatrical contract for West End performers.

In 1918 Gatti was co-opted onto the London County Council as a Municipal Reform Party councillor for the Strand division. When elections resumed after World War I, he was elected a councillor for the Westminster Abbey division, holding the seat until his death. Gatti was short-listed to be Official Conservative candidate for the Westminster Abbey by-election in 1924, but lost out to Otho Nicholson who won the poll.

He served as chairman of the county council's finance committee for six years, and was chairman of the county council in 1927–1928. At the end of his term as chairman he received a knighthood.

Sir John Gatti died suddenly at Littleton Golf Club in September 1929 aged 57.

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"The Hammer of the Gods"

The hit song 'Immigrant song', by the former English hard rock band Led Zeppelin, was one of the few times that there has been a genuine mention of European paganism in mainstream music over the last fifty years. Odinism, in particular, has held a very ambiguous position in the English-speaking world. In 1970, when the song was released, the Christian ethic was much stronger. This was especially true in the United States. Some Christians considered it malevolent "devilish heresy," while other Christians thought of it as mere benign "cultural myth." It was a powerful song, which could be interpreted in slightly different ways.

From the Wikipedia page for "Immigrant Song":

The song begins with a distinctive, wailing cry from vocalist Robert Plant and is built around a repeating, staccato Jimmy Page/John Paul Jones/John Bonham riff in the key of F# minor. There is a very faint count-off at the beginning of the track with lots of hiss which appears on the album version, but is trimmed from the single version. The hiss is feedback from an echo unit.

"Immigrant Song" was written during Led Zeppelin's tour of Iceland, Bath and Germany in mid-1970. The opening date of this tour took place in Reykjavík, Iceland, which inspired Plant to write the song. As he explained:

We weren't being pompous ... We did come from the land of the ice and snow. We were guests of the Icelandic Government on a cultural mission. We were invited to play a concert in Reykjavik and the day before we arrived all the civil servants went on strike and the gig was going to be cancelled. The university prepared a concert hall for us and it was phenomenal. The response from the kids was remarkable and we had a great time. "Immigrant Song" was about that trip and it was the opening track on the album that was intended to be incredibly different.

Just six days after Led Zeppelin's appearance in Reykjavik, the band performed the song for the first time on stage during the Bath Festival.

The song's lyrics are written from the perspective of Vikings rowing west from Scandinavia in search of new lands. The lyrics make explicit reference to Viking conquests and the Old Norse religion (Fight the horde, sing and cry, Valhalla, I am coming!). In a 1970 radio interview, Plant jokingly recalled:

We went to Iceland, and it made you think of Vikings and big ships... and John Bonham's stomach... and bang, there it was - Immigrant Song!

First pressings of the US single of the song have a quote from Aleister Crowley inscribed in dead wax by the run-out groove: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."

One of the lines from the song became part of Led Zeppelin lore. The line, "The hammer of the gods/will drive our ships to new lands" prompted some people to start referring to Led Zeppelin's sound as the "Hammer of the Gods." The phrase was used as the title of Stephen Davis' biography of the band, Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga. The lyrics also did much to inspire the classic heavy metal myth, of mighty Viking-esque figures on an adventure, themes which have been adopted in the look and music of bands from Iron Maiden to Manowar.

'Immigrant Song' lyrics:

Ah, ah,

We come from the land of the ice and snow,

From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow.

The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands,

To fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming!

On we sweep with threshing oar, Our only goal will be the western shore.

Ah, ah,

We come from the land of the ice and snow,

From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.

How soft your fields so green, can whisper tales of gore,

Of how we calmed the tides of war. We are your overlords.

On we sweep with threshing oar, Our only goal will be the western shore.

So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,

For peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing.

My initial reaction, from listening to it and by the lyrics, is that it hints at aggression. In other words, "conquerors, not immigrants." Right from the get-go they proclaim that they are from a harsh land, that their gods are driving them to new lands to fight and conqueror, and that they expect to enter "Valhalla" in the afterlife for their heroism in battle. Pretty powerful stuff!

Next they proclaim that their "only goal" is the western shore. Although some could envision Leif Erikson's landing in North America, most likely they were referring to the British Isles. Although the later lyrics are, like most songs, ambiguous; they, at the very least, hint of conquest. They describe the new lands as full of goodies, there is violence for a time, and they then triumphantly proclaim: "We are your overlords." Sort of a Viking version of "I came. I saw. I conquered."

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'You, Our Father Odin' by Renée Vivien (1907)

'You, Our Father Odin'

Translated by Richard J. Vaako AOR (Brittany, France)

Published by the Odinic Rite 11/6/11

Winter wind rushes bold and strong
As well as Vikings in their noble wrath
Storm had blown on the age-old pine trees
And floods dashed… Come, my Norse’s Gods!

Your eyes had reflection of the boreal blades
For you abysses are easy trails
And you’re tall and slender like silver pines
O masters of the twin colds and of loyal races!

My Norse Gods daring and golden-blond, awake you
From your long asleep in the highest snows
And make resound your calls on all of the plains
Where at evening’s extended the howling of wolves

Come, my Norse Gods with hardened faces
You, our father Odin – You, Freyja
With fairy hair full of scent – You, valorous Thor
You, headstrong Frigga, and all of you my Valkyries!

Listen to me my Gods, such as clear mornings:
I’m the daughter of your venerable Skalds
From those who stood around tables to sing and praise you
Where Heroes drank the mead of the feasts

Come my mighty Gods because our winter is near
We’ll laugh along with the joyous hurricanes
We’ll cut down the oak spared by years
And mountains will rattle up to their heart of stone

We’ll settle our triumphant feet on the large seas
We’ll gladden along with the dance of the waves
For us – undefined shapes, mists will come to life
And for us will bright the streaks of the lightning be

Seagulls will call toward us and toward the thunder
We’ll bring in the palm of our hands…
Now here we’re hearing the powerful fighters
And the screams of the defeated on pale shore

Here my Gods you’re laughing like you did in olden days
And the eagle is wheeling above his eyrie
We had broke out and loose the hounds of thunder
And the cliffs have recognized our voices

Space will listen to our fierce music
And the outraged heavens will bend under our strain…
Come to me, who is waiting for you, my Norse’s Gods!
I am the daughter of your heroic Skalds…

~ Renée Vivien ~

Renée Vivien, born Pauline Mary Tarn on June 11 of 1877 in London, died November 18 of 1909 in Paris. She was a poetess of the early twentieth century Paris trend.

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I think Renée Vivien proves that a woman can be a lesbian, a cosmopolitan, as well as a person of great wealth, and still have a spiritually folkish heart. She was a native believer to remember.

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Ticinese Union of London

Unione Ticinese di Londra

A Brief History of the Union Ticinese

The Unione Ticinese is one of the oldest Swiss clubs in the United Kingdom. It was founded in February 1874 by Stefano Gatti, a restaurant-owner and entrepreneur whose family had arrived in London from Marogno in the Val di Blenio a few decades earlier. It was a mutual aid society intended to provide care in sickness and company in health to the increasing number of Ticinesi working as waiters, but also as ice men and other professions, usually as emplOscar Gambazzi, Giuseppe Eusebio, Frank de Maria, revised by Peter Barber, Vita Ticinese a Londra : 125 Years of the Unione Ticinese (London: Unione Ticinese, 1999)oyees of more successful Ticinese immigrants in London. Most members came from the Blenio and Leventina valleys.

Subsidised hospital care and sickness pay were provided and almost from the first members had the right to burial in Society graves in Kensal Green and later in East Finchley. After a rocky start, due in large part to political tensions within the colony and inside Ticino itself, the Society flourished. For the first 70 years it was dominated and financially supported by wealthy Ticinese restaurateurs, and notably by the Gatti and later the Meschini families. It centered its activities on the district between Leicester Square and the Euston Road in London where the largest single concentration of Ticinesi was to be found, though there were smaller colonies in almost every resort along the south coast and in the London suburbs. For many decades members usually met at the Schweizerbund in Charlotte Street, though on special occasions banquets were held at the grander Ticinese-run restaurants, such as the Gattis’ Royal Adelaide Gallery , Monico’s on Piccadilly and Pagani’s, which was owned by the Meschini family.

Since 1945 the Society has altered radically. Its main support now comes from the members themselves. Often these are not native-born Ticinesi but friends of Ticino or descendants who want to learn more about the canton from which their ancestors emigrated. The establishment of the National Health Service and the increasing prosperity of members of the Ticinese colony has led to the gradual abandonment of the Society’s legal role as a benevolent society while the geographical dispersal of the Society’s membership throughout the country has inevitably led to a change in the pattern of its activities. Most notably, the Corale or choir, which was a central feature of the Society as late as the 1950s and early 1960s gradually withered away because of the increasing difficulty of organising rehearsals – and finding sufficient members familiar with the old songs. Dining in restaurants has given way to equally excellent meals prepared by the Society’s catering committee.

Over the same period there has been an increase in the number of lectures and outings. A well-attended barbecue in the Sussex countryside in late June has become an annual event. In its efforts to raise the profile of Ticino, the Society has fostered close links with the Museum of London as well as with the Swiss Embassy in London, other Swiss societies in the United Kingdom and governmental and cultural organisations inside Ticino. Its extensive records, particularly those dating from the 1920s, have been deposited with London Metropolitan Archives and are available over the internet as part of the Archives to Archives (a2a) network (http://www.a2a.org.uk/).

Yet in many ways, the Society would still be familiar to its founding members. Several members of today are descendants of founder or early members. The last days of October sees the annual Castagnata, a celebration in roast chestnuts and wine of what was until recently the staple diet of the Ticinesi. In early February the anniversary of the Society’s foundation is commemorated in appropriate style, often combined with a celebration of Carnevale. The Society’s members continue to have the right to burial in one of the Society’s graves in East Finchley. Elderly members receive a panettone around Christmas time when there is an annual gathering at which small children receive gifts from San Nicolao. The Unione Ticinese remains a family-oriented Society which extends a warm welcome to all who want to join, whether Ticinese-born or not.

If you want to learn more about the Society and the community from which it sprung, these books are available from the Unione Ticinese at £7.50 (including postage and packing within the United Kingdom):

Oscar Gambazzi, Giuseppe Eusebio, Frank de Maria, revised by Peter Barber, Vita Ticinese a Londra : 125 Years of the Unione Ticinese (London: Unione Ticinese, 1999).

Peter Barber and Peter Jacomelli, Continental Taste. Ticinese emigrants and their Café-Restaurants in Britain 1847-1987 [Camden History Society Occasional Paper 2] (London, Camden History Society, 1997).
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