Old-time religion
Oct. 5th, 2003 02:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quislibetI went to look something up in the Oxford Classical Dictionary and, as often happens in any sort of dictionary, really, I got sidetracked for a bit. (You know, in that way of "Hey, I'm not even looking up a word that begins with 'M,' but did you know 'Marionettenregierung' is the German word for 'puppet government'?")
Anyway.
I provide you with a bit of reading-fruit:
Bouphonia The annual 'ox-slaying' at the Athenian festival of the Dipolieia. During this rite an ox was killed, the sacrificer fled, and the sacrificial knife was cast into the sea after being tried for murder. The slain ox was stuffed and yoked to a plough. -- (OCD, 3rd. ed., 1996, p. 258)
Neat.
I think "Bouphonia" would make a nice name for a cattleman's daughter.
Note also the potential for a neologized adjective "buphonic" = "cow-slaying" (especially in a ritual sense). (Not "cow-voiced" -- we're talking phonos [FONOS], "murder," not phônê [FWNH], "voice." But admittedly the distinction between omicron and omega doesn't come through; perhaps for clarity one should, in the end, use a word derived from -kteino ["buctonic"?] or just stick to a Latin-derived equivalent "bovicidal.")
Anyway.
I provide you with a bit of reading-fruit:
Bouphonia The annual 'ox-slaying' at the Athenian festival of the Dipolieia. During this rite an ox was killed, the sacrificer fled, and the sacrificial knife was cast into the sea after being tried for murder. The slain ox was stuffed and yoked to a plough. -- (OCD, 3rd. ed., 1996, p. 258)
Neat.
I think "Bouphonia" would make a nice name for a cattleman's daughter.
Note also the potential for a neologized adjective "buphonic" = "cow-slaying" (especially in a ritual sense). (Not "cow-voiced" -- we're talking phonos [FONOS], "murder," not phônê [FWNH], "voice." But admittedly the distinction between omicron and omega doesn't come through; perhaps for clarity one should, in the end, use a word derived from -kteino ["buctonic"?] or just stick to a Latin-derived equivalent "bovicidal.")
