I feel like Donestre

I do have some weird fascination with monsters; I still throw a glance at my wardrobe to make sure that there is no Boogieman before going to sleep. 

The Boogieman found on the Madrid Fashion Week 2009 catwalk.

 The word ‘Monster’ is believed to come from the Latin monstro meanings ‘to show’, ‘to demonstrate’, the idea being that monsters show outside themselves. Maybe it is because they are meant to be signs that they are so easy to relate to. Despite the almost 1000 year gap between the scribe of Marvels of the East manuscript and me and the fact that the monsters and concerns of 21^st century are different from 1050, I found myself relating to this guy:

Donestre devouring a traveler (bottom right) and crying over the dismembered head (bottom left) from Marvels of the East (Anglo-Saxon, c. 1050)
London, British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius B. v., fol. 83v.

Donestre weeping over the head, Notice the look of pity and guilt.

 Donestre were believed to be multilingual and when travelers came across them they would greet foreigners in their language. Once they gained the travelers trust they devoured their body. And then in a radical display of consciousness they would weep over the disembodied head. 

I find this story touching and right now Donestre can be the symbol of my day, no not because I devoured someone. Well I did devour far to many sweets and now I am sitting surrounded by wrappers stirring in my own guilt. So Donestre can be a symbol of everyone who regrets eating too much too soon.  

Another reason is that I was really looking forward to studying today as I have an awesome book to read, yet after switching on the computer I spent half of the day procrastinating. and now I keep looking at the time, the book and the computer guilty of my laziness. And I know that while its weeks till the exam I will be happily procrastinating ( Donestre devouring the body) once its down to days I will feel guilty and spend the rest of the time until exam blaming myself ( Donestre crying over the head). 

Jenny

Book of the day: Debra H. Strickland, Saracens, Demons and Jews, Princeton, N.J. ; Oxford : Princeton University Press, 2003.