ragbag: the holy trinity of doorway deities i’ve spent the past week babysitting my nephew in a treehouse that we made and he’s napping on some soggy wood shavings right now so i thought i would take a quick break and tell you about an odd passage of st. augustine’s city of god that we just read. in it, augustine discusses how the early romans believed that not 1, not 2, but 3 separate deities presided over doors. he says:  …but these people have set three gods, Forculus to the doors, Cardea to the hinge, Limentinus to the threshold. Thus Forculus could not at the same time take care also of the hinge and the threshold. therefore: if your hinges are squeaky, pray to the goddess cardea. if you get a splinter in your foot as you walk into a room, curse limentinus. and when you peer through a peephole to see who is knocking at your door, you are gazing through the cosmic fabric of forculus. __ speaking of hyper-specialised deities, it is worth noting that augustine himself is the patron saint of brewers and printers (the two noblest professions) and is invoked against sore eyes. other forgotten gods: the god of hot wet doo doo. the bulls-conjoined-at-the-penis god.  creepy roman door picture from here.

ragbag:

the holy trinity of doorway deities

i’ve spent the past week babysitting my nephew in a treehouse that we made and he’s napping on some soggy wood shavings right now so i thought i would take a quick break and tell you about an odd passage of st. augustine’s city of god that we just read. in it, augustine discusses how the early romans believed that not 1, not 2, but 3 separate deities presided over doors. he says: 

…but these people have set three gods, Forculus to the doors, Cardea to the hinge, Limentinus to the threshold. Thus Forculus could not at the same time take care also of the hinge and the threshold.

therefore: if your hinges are squeaky, pray to the goddess cardea. if you get a splinter in your foot as you walk into a room, curse limentinus. and when you peer through a peephole to see who is knocking at your door, you are gazing through the cosmic fabric of forculus.

__

speaking of hyper-specialised deities, it is worth noting that augustine himself is the patron saint of brewers and printers (the two noblest professions) and is invoked against sore eyes.

other forgotten gods: the god of hot wet doo doo. the bulls-conjoined-at-the-penis god. 

creepy roman door picture from here.