Some babies are born with cauls, a thin membrane covering the newborn’s head, allegedly a sure sign that a child has been blessed (or cursed, depending upon one’s orientation) with second sight, defined as clairvoyance and extensive psychic power, the sixth sense. Not only does the caul confer power, the caul itself is perceived as being magically charged with power and is traditionally preserved as an amulet. Once upon a time ancient Roman midwives sold cauls as spiritual supplies. Allegedly their best market was the Forum where attorneys paid top dollar.
Attorneys are advised to wear cauls over their chests during legal proceedings to enhance chances of victory.
(from The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells by Judika Illes)
My family loves that old time religion (serious Freewill Baptists on my dad’s side and holy-rollin’, tongues-speakin’ Pentecostals on mama’s) but that doesn’t mean they don’t indulge in good, creepy, magical stories and traditions well outside the realm of Christianity. Most of their cautionary tales revolve around pregnancy and reproduction for some reason, and my favorite by far is what they call markin’.
Pregnant women, according to both my mamaws, have special powers. They wouldn’t phrase it that way, it sounds too pagan, but that’s essentially what they mean. For example, if a pregnant woman becomes obsessed with something, if she loves it too much or reacts to it with any emotion too strong while she’s pregnant, she can mark her baby to have features or characteristics that reflect the impact that object, person, idea, etc. made on her.
I have two examples from my family.
First, my great-aunt Eleanor who married my mamaw’s brother Ron, moved with all the family to Chicago for work in the 60s. While there, she and my aunt Beatrice visited a zoo. Eleanor, who was pregnant, became obsessed with the pitiful plight of the monkeys at the zoo and would visit them often. She’d get so sad about how sad THEY were that she’d just cry and cry. When my cousin Chris was born, one of his arms was covered from shoulder to elbow in a patch of thick, dark, furry skin. It was a huge, unsightly birthmark, and to hear them tell it, the doctors were amazed at how thick the mark was when they tried to remove it. Mamaw says this is a testament to how obsessed Eleanor was with the monkeys, that she marked Chris so strong and deeply.
The second story is from mamaw herself. When she was pregnant with my dad she’d spend hours in her father-in-law’s wild strawberry patch. She loved those strawberries, had to have some everyday if she could. She said she distinctly remembers laying in the field where they grew, eating the sweet berries, and rubbing absently at a place behind her right ear. When my dad was born, he had a perfectly formed, small strawberry right behind his right ear, in the spot she clearly remembered favoring herself.
Do you know of similar tales/folk traditions? Have you heard of markin’? Please share!
To cut the mortises along the back rails, I screwed some curved cauls to my mort… To chop the mortises alongside the again rails, I screwed some curved cauls to my mortiser fence and clamp. I aligned the centerline of every mortise to a centerline I marked on the cauls to chop the mortises.
A Song A Day: @caulsband- 'Épée' #music #newmusic #ASongADay
Now for a little but of modern prog… step forward Cauls! Cauls’ latest track ‘Épée’ is taken from their forthcoming album Recherché, which is out on 16th December 2016. The band site many influences from The Mars Volta to Radiohead and although there may be elements hidden in the tracks, Épée sounds like Sigur Rós and Explosions in the Sky thrown into a rog blender. The band say that their lyrics…
If there’s one thing you need in a woodshop, it’s more clamps. There are bar clamps, pipe clamps, spring clamps, and trigger clamps, but for one task in the workshop, no clamp does the job just right. Gluing up panels – a few wide pieces of wood joined on edge – either requires more clamps than you have or cauls, devices that press down on the boards vertically while the clamps press the board together horizontally. [Andrew Klein] has just invented a new type of clamp for this task, proving once again that not all problems are solved, and there’s still …read more
#Caul, #Cauls, #Clamp, #Clamps, #ToolHacks, #Tools, #Woodworking
