Tag: blood

“I want you to know, all of you, that we stand on holy ground,” he continued. “Many years ago, in this very place fewer than two hundred warriors led by Arthur, Dux Bellorum of Britain, met the massed warbands of Saecsen, Jute, and Picti under the leadership of the wily marauder Baldulf. Though greatly outnumbered, the valiant British not only stood against the foemen, but also put a far superior enemy to flight. The cost was fearful. When the battle was over fewer than eighty Britons remained standing.

“The blood of the defenders hallowed this ground, and out of recognition for the sacrifice of those brave dead, Arthur gave this land to one of his battlechiefs with the expressed stipulation that it should be held in perpetuity for the defense and support of the sovereignty of Britain. The link forged that day long ago has held fast; the chain remains unbroken—to this day and to this hour. Through the many storms and gales of adversity, the ducal fiefdom of Morven has remained steadfast and loyal—not to the temporal monarchy, which is all too often invested in weak and fallible men—but to something higher and purer: the True Sovereignty of Britain.

— Avalon: the Return of King Arthur, Chapter 22

Jack Burton:

That is not water.

Egg Shen:

Black Blood of the Earth.

Jack Burton:

You mean oil?

Egg Shen:

I mean Black Blood of the Earth!

— “Big Trouble in Little China” (1986)

Something a mega-dungeon should have. 😀

Ritual sacrifice is the most clear-cut instance of violence made sacred. When the victim is nonhuman, the central act of violence is essentially a familiar and understandable one: the slaughter of animals for food. The fact that the simple act of butchery has so often been sacralized hints at a sinister side to the deities so honored and is suggestive, as we shall see, of an anxiety far older than either religion or war, and possibly central to both.

Few religions today openly practice blood sacrifice…. But contemporary historians of religion remind us of what religious practitioners often prefer to ignore or forget: that blood sacrifice is not just “a” religious ritual; it is the central ritual of the religions of all ancient and traditional civilizations. For thousands of years, the core religious ritual from the highlands of the Andes to the valley of the Ganges was the act of sacrificial killing. The temple that housed the altar, or the raised platform or stone circle that constituted a holy place, was also an abattoir….

“Animal sacrifice…was an all-pervasive reality in the ancient world.” Hebrew sacrificial ritual resembled that of the Greeks, which in turn resembled that of the Egyptians and Phoenicians, the Babylonians and Persians, the Etruscans, and the Romans. The names of the gods who were the recipients of the sacrifices varied from culture to culture, but the main elements of the ritual were everywhere recognizable and familiar to the ancients: the procession, the climactic throat-slitting or beheading, the butchering, the examination of entrails, the ritual uses of the fresh blood, the burning or cooking of the remains.

— Blood Rites, pp. 23, 28

Emphases mine.

The rise of knighthood did not produce a submissive, nonviolent peasantry in [Medieval] Europe. Habits of bloodshed were deep-seated, perennially fed by the fact that Europeans raised both pigs and cattle in considerable numbers but had to slaughter all but a small breeding stock each autumn for lack of sufficient winter fodder. Other agricultural regimes, e.g., among the rice-growing farmers of China and India, did not involve annual slaughter of large animals. By contrast, Europeans living north of the Alps learned to take such bloodshed as a normal part of the routine of the year. This may have had a good deal to do with their remarkable readiness to shed human blood and think nothing of it.

— The Pursuit of Power, p. 64

Although the origin and significance of sacrifice has long been a matter of debate, the essential element in the institution clearly is centred in the offering of a sacred victim for the purpose of establishing beneficial relations between a source of spiritual strength and those in need of such strength. This relationship may be one of communion, when strength is imparted to man or to a deity and a bond of union is effected with the beneficent powers who either participate in a communal meal, or become the actual sacrifice by a process of identification. Conversely, it may be one whereby a human weakness, error or transgression is held to be "covered", "wiped out", neutralized or carried away by a piacular offering. From these primary considerations secondary motives have arisen, such as the notion of securing the favour of an offended god by offerings which are in the nature of fines rather than of efficacious oblations, made either in kind or money, as in the later Hebrew ritual. Honorific free-will or thank-offerings also have been made in grateful recognition of the mercies and blessings received. Thus, the first-fruits of the crops and the firstlings of man and beast, and many other gift sacrifices, have been conceived more in the nature of honoraria, sometimes not far removed from bribes, on the utilitarian do-ut-des principle—"I give that thou mayest give".

The fundamental conception of the institution of sacrifice seems to have been the giving of life to promote and preserve life, and to maintain a vital relationship between the worshipper and the object of worship in order to gain free communication between the natural and the transcendent orders. When [Edward] B. Tylor enunciated his "gift theory" of the origin of sacrifice in terms of offerings to secure the favour or minimize the hostility of supernatural beings he forgot that the word dare, employed in Ovid’s maxim, do-ut-des, contains the implication of placing oneself in relation to, and participating in, a second person by an instrumental agent which is part of oneself. As [Gerardus] van der Leeuw has pointed out, "to give is to convey something of oneself to the strange being, so that a firm bond may be forged." Thus, a victim is first consecrated to the service of the altar and so identified with both the offerers and the recipient of the oblation. It is then killed in order that its life-giving blood may be poured out sacrificially to establish a "blood covenant" between them. The gift is the inherent vital principle and the ritual shedding of blood is the giving rather than the taking of life, death being merely incidental in the process of liberation….

— The Nature and Function of Priesthood, pp. 145-46

Emphasis mine.