Ormulum

“ Him thar, lit. 'it needs him,' i. e. he need, he must. For thar, ed. 1532 has dare, which Tyrwhitt rightly corrects to thar, which occurs again in D. 329, 336, 1365, and H. 352. It is common enough in early authors; the full form is tharf, as in Owl and Nightingale, 803 (or 180) , Moral Ode (Jesus MS.) , 44; spelt tharrf, Ormulum, 12886; therf, Ancren Riwle, p. 192; darf, Floris and Blancheflur, 315; derf, O. Eng. Homilies, ed. ”

“ Benedict, in Latin, 7th cent. (4118) ; Collectis Canonum Hibernensium, 9th cent. (4119) ; Anglo-Saxon homilies, 11th cent. (5210, 5134-6) .
13. Fairfax and Dodsworth (1673; 114 vols.; v, vi, vii) .
14. Junius (1678; 121 vols.; v) .
The Ormulum, the original MS. of the first English religious poem after the Conquest, abt. 1315 (5113) ; Cædmon, see p. 44 (5123) .
15. Marshall (1685; 159 vols.; x.) .
16. Barlow (1691; 54 vols.; i, ii, vi, etc.) .
17. Pococke (1692; 420 vols.; x, Arabic, etc.) .
Edrisi’s Geography in Arabic, with maps (5737) .
18. Huntington (1693; 646 vols.; x, Arabic, etc.) . ”

“ Eternity created fire and water. From these Ormusd (Auramazda) , the good spirit, took his origin. He was brilliant as the light, pure and good. After having, in the course of 12000 years, created heaven, paradise and the stars, he became aware of the existence of an evil spirit, Ahriman (Angramainjus) , black, unclean, malicious and emitting an evil odor. Ormusd determined on his destruction, and a fierce strife began, in which Ormusd was the victor, and the evil spirit lay 3000 years unconscious from the effects of terror. ”

“ Imagine an object resembling the backs of antediluvian monsters, mastodons or elephants, lying in the shade of a great mass of sheltering foliage. Heavy folds in the grey rind denote a growing limb, a rounded shoulder, a gigantic head half concealed. These are the tremendous roots of the ombu, whose delight it is to issue forth from the soil in the form of astonishing animated objects. When by foot and stick you have ascertained that these living shapes are in reality mummified within a thick bark, you turn your attention to the trunk itself and find it hollow, with a crumbling surface. ”

“ The ormer adheres to the rocks like the limpet tribe, but is seldom seen above low water-mark, like the limpet, who loves to be exposed to the sun and air twice a day.
The flesh of the ormer, when grilled, is something like a veal cutlet cooked in a fishy frying-pan, and I cannot say I was greatly enraptured with the uncommon univalve. ”

“ The wise benevolence of Ormusd formed man capable of virtue, and abundantly provided his fair habitation with the materials of happiness. By his vigilant providence, the motion of the planets, the order of the seasons, and the temperate mixture of the elements are preserved. ”

“ But one day I ate a lavender berry—as the Ork did—and immediately I grew so small that I was scarcely two inches high. It was a very unpleasant condition and like the Ork I became frightened. I could not walk very well nor very far, for every lump of earth in my way seemed a mountain, every blade of grass a tree and every grain of sand a rocky boulder. For several days I stumbled around in an agony of fear. Once a tree toad nearly gobbled me up, and if I ran out from the shelter of the bushes the gulls and cormorants swooped down upon me. ”

“ Again, I have shown (2nd series) that a parallel variation is displayed by the genus Orbiculina, whose ordinarily helical plan of growth has caused M. D'Orbigny to range it among his Helicostègues, notwithstanding that in fully developed specimens its mode of growth is not unfrequently cyclical. The occasional exchange in this type of one plan of increase for the other, at an advanced period of life, is a fact of very high interest; for when an Orbiculina has undergone this change, the outer or cyclical portion of its disk can in no way be distinguished from that of Orbitolites ”

“ The Ogrum, creatures of the dawn world, in spite of their planes and their poison gas, had no real knowledge of science, of the laws of cause and effect. The Ogrum thought that they could assure the return of the warming and life-giving sun by offering a living sacrifice to this bubbling lava!
If their reasoning was erroneous and false, it was nonetheless hideous and real for all that. For they would certainly offer in sacrifice, here, every man taken from the Idaho, unless they were prevented by force. ”

“ We watched them through the thick crystal panes, swimming down the wind with great rapidity, moving by means of their locomotive tube, pursuing fish and mollusks, eating the little ones, eaten by the big ones, and tossing about in indescribable confusion the ten arms that nature has placed on their heads like a crest of pneumatic serpents. The Nautilus, in spite of its speed, sailed for several hours in the midst of these animals, and it nets brought in an enormous quantity, among which I recognized the nine species that D'Orbigny classed for the Pacific. ”

“ Orm and Aslog stood for some time dubious, and looked on with a certain degree of awe, but at last, overcome by hunger, they took up the food and ate. When they had satisfied their appetites, and still in the last beams of the setting sun, which now streamed over the island far and wide, discovered no human being, they gave way to weariness, and laid themselves in the beds to which they had been so long strangers. ”

“ The light from the deck brought out dazzling scintillations from a beach composed of gigantic crystal pebbles as large as ostrich eggs. On the beach and grouped thickly all about our hull, swarmed a legion of creatures which—
Well, they were the brood of Orcon. They were the creatures who had given Ludwig Leider refuge and allied themselves with him in his attempt to make trouble for Earth. And they were half-bird, half-human! Their faces, bodies, arms, and legs were human. ”

“ The gigantic limbs were freed from their petrifaction, the hair rolled down over the shoulders, the eyes began to glow once more with life. As if awaking from the sleep of death, the giant rose, seized the hand of the stately lady whose loving embrace had called him back to life, and they both turned towards the house, whither the dwarfs accompanied them with flaming torches and heart-enthralling melody. The ground seemed to tremble beneath the tread of the giants. Soon they reached the house-door. Then Orm shut the shutter,269 and groped his way back to where his wife sat beside the chimney. ”

“ The striking headland of the Great Orme as well as Little Orme’s Head is composed of carboniferous limestone, containing corals and large Productus shells. A narrow strip of the same formation runs along the Menai Straits for several miles south of the tubular bridge. At the southern extremity of the limestone a small patch of coal measures is found. ”

“ Hours later Craig stood on the side of a mountain looking down at an incredible scene. Guru, by devious paths known only to the dawn man, had guided them here. Below them lay the city of the Ogrum.
The city was located on the edge of a huge, circular bay that had apparently at some time in the remote past been the crater of a large volcano. To the east where the walls of the volcano had crumbled down was a vast swamp, a favorite feeding ground for the dinosaurs. Hundreds of the great beasts could be heard screaming and fighting in the swamp. ”

“ From that day Arne received the surname Ormgrass (literally Wormgrass, Fern) , and his farm was called the Ormgrass farm. And the name has clung to his descendants until this day. Somehow, since the death of Ulf, the family had never been well liked, and in their proud seclusion, up under the eternal ice-fields, they sought their neighbors even less than they were themselves sought. They were indeed a remarkably handsome race, of a light build, with well-knit frames, and with a touch of that wild grace which makes a beast of prey seem beautiful and dangerous. ”

“ Obermaier (25) has given careful study to the vicissitudes of cave life in Mousterian times. Long before these caves were inhabited by man, they served as lairs or refuges for the cave-bear [Pg 212] and cave-hyæna, as well as for many birds of prey. For example, the cave of Echenoz-la-Moline, on the upper waters of the Saône, contained the remains of over eight hundred skeletons of the cave-bear, and no doubt it cost the Neanderthals many a hard-fought battle before the beasts were driven out and man possessed himself of the grotto. Fire may have been the means employed. ”

“ For, as has just been shown, a longer continuance of the helical mode of growth in which Orbitolites often commences, would really produce an Orbiculina, with its centre so invested by successive whorls as to form a vertical linear axis; and we find this axis in Orbiculina, sometimes equalling in length the diameter of the spire, so that this organism at an early stage of its growth may be nearly spheroidal. ”

“ He acclimatized himself to Burma. His body grew attuned to the strange rhythms of the tropical seasons. Every year from February to May the sun glared in the sky like an angry god, then suddenly the monsoon blew westward, first in sharp squalls, then in a heavy ceaseless downpour that drenched everything until neither one's clothes, one's bed nor even one's food ever seemed to be dry. It was still hot, with a stuffy, vaporous heat. The lower jungle paths turned into morasses, and the paddy-fields were wastes of stagnant water with a stale, mousy smell. Books and boots were mildewed. ”

“ The light of the sun never penetrates here. There are no moons and no stars reflected in the bosom of Omean. The phosphorescent light you now see pervading this great subterranean vault emanates from the rocks that form its dome; it is always thus upon Omean, just as the billows are always as you see them—rolling, ever rolling over a windless sea. ”

“ The World of the Terrans is far away from the World of People, as we have always told you. When the Great Spirit made it He gave it only an Always-Same, and no Sky Fire. Since there was no Sky Fire, there was no place to put a Place of the Gone Ones, so the Great Spirit made the Terrans so that they would not die, but live forever in their own bodies. The Oomphel-Mother for the World of the Terrans the Great Spirit hid in a cave under a great mountain. ”

“ A very remarkable point which has led to great confusion in the study of the Foraminifera, is the fact that the shell on which we base our characters of classification, may vary very much, even within the same individual. Thus in the genus Orbitolites the first few chambers of the shell have the character of a Milioline, in Orbiculina of a Peneroplis. ”

“ After nearly two months in the extreme south of Florida I have turned my face northward, and here I am at Ormond, fair Ormond-on-the-Halifax. No more bewildering jungles of nameless West Indian trees and climbers, no more cocoanut palms, no more acres of wild morning-glory vines. It gave me a start of pleasurable surprise when, somewhere on this side of Palm Beach, I do not remember where, I saw from the car window a stately sweet-gum tree all freshly green. ”

“ ORMUS, ORMUZ, n.p. Properly Hurmuz or Hurmūz, a famous maritime city and minor kingdom near the mouth of the Persian Gulf. The original place of the city was on the northern shore of the Gulf, some 30 miles east of the site of Bandar Abbās or Gombroon (q.v.) ; but about A.D. 1300, apparently to escape from Tartar raids, it was transferred to the small island of Gerūn or Jerūn, which may be identified with the Organa of Nearchus, about 12 m. westward, and five miles from the shore, and this was the seat of the kingdom when first visited and attacked by the Portuguese under Alboquerque in 1506. ”

“ In the Cattleya house are some fine healthy plants of all the best species and varieties thriving admirably. Mr. Bergman gives his plants plenty of light, which causes them to look somewhat yellow, but he gets his bulbs ripened off well, and flowers them in greater profusion. Passing from here to the new Odontoglossum house we find a grand collection of these favourite Orchids. These plants are grown very largely here, as cut Orchids are in great request. ”

“ Place an Odontoglossum beside a rose, and what a distorted unholy thing it looks!"
"Unholy?" laughed Myra.
"Unholy,—yes!—they are products of feverish swamps and deathly jungles. I hate orchids. The atmosphere of an orchid-house cannot possibly be clean and healthy. One might as well spend one's time in a bacteriological laboratory!" ”

“ Ormuzd created, first, the heavens and the earth; second, the firmament; third, the seas and waters; fourth, the sun, moon, and stars; fifth, birds, reptiles, quadrupeds, &c.; sixth, man. The Persians and Chaldeans have also a story of a deluge, in which Xisuthra, being warned in a dream, built an ark, in which he saved himself, his wife and daughter, and the pilot, and a pair of every species of animals, reptiles, and birds. After the rain had ceased, he sent out a pigeon, which, finding no resting place, came back to the ark. ”

“ Woe to us, woe! the thunders have spoken,
The first of the mystical seals hath been broken.
II.
Through the cleft thunder-cloud the weird coursers are rushing—
Their hoofs will strike deep in the hearts they are crushing;
And the crown'd and the proud of the old kingly races
Fall down at the vision, like stars from their places:
Oremus! Oremus! The pale earth is heark'ning;
Already the spirit-steeds round us are dark'ning.
III.
With crown and with bow, on his white steed immortal,
The Angel of Wrath passes first through the portal ”