#meraud

I did not need another DnD character but IN MY DEFENSE there was that post floating around about a swan maiden/selkie pair reluctantly falling in love so like...I solved the problem* of Odile getting a girlfriend.

This is Meraud, a selkie fisherwoman-turned-sea-sorcerer. She specializes in water magic and transmutation, which, if anyone remembers the bits of Odile’s backstory I’ve mentioned here, is going to be a recipe for trouble. Our swan lady does not like people who use transformation magic, and Meraud does not like people who threaten her with pointy sticks. I’m sure they’ll get along great!

Méraud Bonaire: Now up for Pre-Order

Grand amateur de montres depuis des années, Stijn (le fondateur) a décidé de mettre sa passion au service de l’industrie en créant sa propre marque: Méraud. Un projet personnel démarré en décembre 2016 afin de laisser libre cours à sa passion.

Nous vivons actuellement une période voyant apparaître une multitudes de marques sur les sites de crowdfunding et beaucoup n’en valent pas la peine… Mais parfois des marques se démarquent comme Baltic ou Schaffen et maintenant Meraud avec sa Bonaire.

-NDLR: à la rédaction de cette article le projet est déjà largement financé après seulement 24H, le lien kickstarter est en fin d’article-

Qui est Meraud ?

Méraud Watch Co. a été fondé par Stijn Busschaert, collectionneur de montres vintage et l’un des membres dirigeants du Belgium Watch Club. Grand amateur de montres depuis des années et fin connaisseur des différentes nuances du vintage, il a conçu Méraud en y apportant toute sa connaissance de passionné avec pour but d’offrir les montres d’inspiration vintage de haute qualité, à un prix abordable et produit par les standards d’ingénierie moderne.

Le nom Méraud provient du mot « émeraude », qui symbolise un objet précieux. Bonaire est une île des Caraïbes, connue comme étant « le paradis des plongeurs ».

*Brugh, the ancient Sidhe word for the homes of the fairies, is usually translated as castle or mansion, but in fact means the interior of a barrow or hollow hill.

**Stokesey summoned Col Tom Blue to his house in Exeter. When the fairy refused for the third time to serve him, Stokesey made himself invisible and followed Col Tom Blue out of the town. Col Tom Blue walked along a fairy road and soon arrived in a place that was not England. There was a low brown hill by a pool of still water. In answer to Col Tom Blue’s command a door opened in the hillside and he went inside. Stokesey went after him.

In the centre of the hill Stokesey found an enchanted hall where everyone was dancing. He waited until one of the dancers came close. Then he rolled a magic apple towards her and she picked it up. Naturally it was the best and most beautiful apple in all the worlds that ever were. As soon as the fairy woman had eaten it, she desired nothing so much as another one just the same. She looked around, but saw no one. “Who sent me that apple?” she asked. “The East Wind,” whispered Stokesey. On the next night Stokesey again followed Col Tom Blue inside the hill. He watched the dancers and again he rolled an apple towards the woman. When she asked who had sent it to her, he replied that it was the East Wind. On the third night he kept the apple in his hand. The fairy woman left the other dancers and looked round. “East Wind! East Wind!” she whispered. “Where is my apple?” “Tell me where Col Tom Blue sleeps,” whispered Stokesey, “and I will give you the apple.” So she told him: deep in the ground, on the northernmost edge of the brugh.

On the following nights Stokesey impersonated the West Wind, the North Wind and the South Wind and he used his apples to persuade other inhabitants of the mound to give him information about Col Tom Blue. From a shepherd he learnt what animals guarded Col Tom Blue while he slept--a wild she-pig and an even wilder he-goat. From Col Tom Blue’s nurse he learnt what Col Tom Blue held in his hand while he slept--a very particular and important pebble. And from a kitchen-boy he learnt what three words Col Tom Blue said every morning upon waking.

In this way Stokesey learnt enough to gain power over Col Tom Blue. But before he could use his new knowledge, Col Tom Blue came to him and said he had reconsidered: he believed he would like to serve Stokesey after all.

*The meaning was perhaps a little more than this. As early as the twelfth century it was recognized that priests and magicians are in some sense rivals. Both believe that the universe is inhabited by a wide variety of supernatural beings and subject to to supernatural forces. Both believe that these beings can be petitioned through spells or prayers and so be persuaded to help or hinder mankind. In many ways the two cosmologies are remarkably similar, but priests and magicians draw very different conclusions from this understanding.

Magicians are chiefly interested in the usefulness of these supernatural beings; they wish to know under what circumstances and by what means angels, demons and fairies can be brought to lend their aid in magical practices. For their purposes it is almost irrelevant the the first class of beings is divinely good, the second infernally wicked and the third morally suspect. Priests on the other hand are scarcely interested in any thing else.

In mediaeval England attempts to reconcile the two cosmologies were doomed to failure. The Church was quick to identify a whole host of different heresies of which an unsuspecting magician might be guilty. The Meraudian Heresy has already been mentioned.

Alexander of Whitby (1230s?-1302) taught that the universe is like a tapestry only parts of which are visible to us at a time. After we are dead we will see the whole and then it will be clear to us how the different parts relate to each other. Alexander was forced to issue a retraction of his thesis and priests were henceforth on the lookout for the Whitbyian Heresy. Even the humblest of village magicians was obliged to become a cunning politician if he or she wished to avoid accusations of heresy.