Scorpion - what, if it finds new home on your private balcony?
- Written by Portal Editor
Scorpion - Wildlife on the balcony - the surprise of finding an alive scorpion was splitting our mind about wildlife, because on the balcony, despite all the love for nature, is it that what you really want?
So we were, at first, amazed to see the 8 cm long animal shown in the images - which we found between the timbers of our balcony. Still greater was the surprise of how quick a Scorpion can move when trying to motivate him to "move" for a another home.
Scorpion - supposed to ward off the evil eye - pure mythology?
Scorpions in the cultural history of mankind play a major role for thousands of years. They are usually represented in legends and myths as dangerous, deadly creatures. Scorpion I. is the earliest known king of ancient Egypt, which has chosen, at the beginning of human history, a scorpion as symbol for his power.
Already the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh talked about Scorpion people whose torso has human shape while the lower body has scorpion shape. As the hero Gilgamesh enters the mountain Maschu to ask about such a Scorpion man, he met a Scorpion woman on the path whose "awfulness is enormous, the sight of which is death." Never there has been a man dared to go this route, but Gilgamesh manages to convince the scorpions, so they let him pass.
In Greek mythology, the angry goddess Artemis shows a scorpion, killing the hunter Orion with a stitch. Both are then added together as constellations in the sky. Their enmity continues living there, because you will never see the two constellations at the same time.
Even in the biblical Book of Revelation scorpions occur during the Apocalypse. The fifth book calls forth locusts who is receiving a force, "as scorpions of the earth." (Rev. 9.3 EU). The pain caused by them will be compared with that of a stinging Scorpion (Rev. 9.5 EU), because they have tails with stings like scorpions, and insert to harm people for five months (Rev. 9.10 EU).
But poisonous animal is also found in diverse uses in folks medicine. Megenberg was able to use scorpion ash mixed in wine and oil to rub the sting sites, help to fight the poison of the animal. The "Skorpenoil" was obtained by immersing living scorpions in olive oil and then heating it. This oil should heal various ailments, including sores, colic, gout, and earaches. In Tirol people used the oil even against urinary, against the plague and against bee and wasp stings. The gall of Scorpions was used against eye diseases and skin beautification.
To be compared to the face of a chaste virgin
It conducts its description further by reports of two prickly "animals", of which Aristotle has reported. Among the pigs, the poison only kills black pigs sure if this accelerates to go into the water. In human beings, the scorpion also reaches only hairy parts of the body and never prick in the hollow of hand. Another curiosity Conrad of Megenberg knows to report:
"If you drown a scorpion into oil and spill vinegar upon it in sunlight, it will immediately come back to life. The oil will clog the small holes in its body, the hot humans welding holes and Latin Pori. The vinegar opens the Scorpion´s pores again. "
In German superstition the scorpion is said to fly at night and leave everything it touches dry up. As constellation the animal appeared already in calendar drawings of the Babylonians.
All these mythologies and stories prompted us even with caution and extensive discussions too, but could not really prevent the relocation of the Scorpion. So we were happy in the end, we could harmlessly resettle our guest back into real nature.
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