Madam How and Lady Why Notes: Ch. 6

Ch. 6 The True Fairy-Tale

*Lapland: a region in northern Finland and Sweden. The indigenous people of this area are known today as the Sami.

*P. 121 “…at the mouth of the Lena and other Siberian rivers…” This very detailed PDF gives historical and geographical information on the River Lena. I never heard of this river before I read MHLW, but it is one of Asia’s major waterways, located in the Russian Federation. Its delta system is the largest in the world.

http://profpaulcutter.com/PDF/Historical%20writings/Siberian_River.pdf

*P. 121 Kingsley discusses various land bridges that existed before the Ice Age, as well as now-extinct animals that crossed into the northern hemisphere. The Ice Age idea has always been rather hazy to me, so I like to refer back to Answers in Genesis. This web page also deals with the propagation and extinction of woolly mammoths:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/where-does-ice-age-fit

*P. 122 “…the land was sinking…” This statement and its opposite is asserted several times in the book—the land was rising, the land was sinking. What does Kingsley mean? In the chapter on volcanoes, the land rises because of the addition of volcanic matter. Where earthquakes are concerned, tectonic shifts cause rising and sinking. This is called “uplift” and “subsidence”. In this chapter, could he mean the press of ice sheets on land caused it to sink? When the ice sheets melted, perhaps there was a gradual release of the land. Also, erosion would cause sinking as well as rising because of gravel and sand redistribution. Also, rising sea levels (such as in a global warming or a global flood) would cause an illusion of sinking land. Hmm. There is so much to consider when pondering the causes of geological change. I could not find satisfying links for this question, but here are a couple of somewhat unsatisfying ones.

*A global warming article from 2009:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/6226537/England-is-sinking-while-Scotland-rises-above-sea-levels-according-to-new-study.html

*“…mountains and valleys during the Flood were not the same height as they are today.” -Answers in Genesis (you may wish to refer to Ch. 5 for a reminder about the differing viewpoints of Uniformitarianism and Catastrophism)

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2009/07/06/did-noah-need-oxygen

*P. 122 “And it grew wondrous cold…” poetry from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

*P. 124 The arrival of man in England, France and Germany. “Perhaps they came into that icy land for fear of stronger and cleverer people than themselves; for we have no proof, my child, none at all, that they were the first men that trod this earth.”

*P. 125 Kingsley wonders at the difference between the wit of man and the wit of apes. I love that part.

*Interesting archeological find (article published June 2011) at an ongoing dig site indicates very early human occupation of the Caucasus Mountains, which are between Europe and Asia. This mountain range is the location of Mount Ararat.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=13774778

*Kent’s Hole is in Torquay, Devonshire (SW England)

*brecchia: rock composed of fine fragments embedded in sand or clay (Merriam-Webster)

*Cave etchings:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn977-ancient-cave-etchings-reveal-unusual-figures.html

*P. 128 “…[prehistoric man] had the same wonderful and mysterious human nature as you…”

*P. 129 Kingsley puts forth his “fairy” theory, that the “little people” were actual people smaller and weaker than the Picts and Scots and Gauls, and were driven underground.

*The story of Corineus and Gogmagog, as told by John Milton:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/prwe004.htm

*P. 131 Neanderthal Man: The Neanderthal is a valley in Germany between Dusseldorf and Eberfeld. The famous Neanderthal Man, a prehistoric hominid skeleton, was found there. There are several theories regarding Neanderthals, some of which belie Kingsley’s description! Kingsley published MHLW in 1869. Neanderthal Man was discovered in the 1850s:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2003/0217neandertal.asp

*P. 132 “Truth is stranger than fiction.”

*P. 134 “That you might wonder all your life long, God put you into this wondrous world.” In the final pages of the chapter, Kingsley encourages the young reader to marvel at the true stories of nature-- they seem like fairy tales, but are much deeper and stranger than stories devised by man. I am willing to wade through the dated science in this book for passages like this one-- passages that give us a beautiful way of thinking—a philosophy-- of science.