"The Persian MâR-Nâmeh Or, the Book for Taking Omens from Snakes" (1892)

71 pointsposted 5 days ago
by Thevet

17 Comments

shervinafshar

3 days ago

> How, one should rightly ask, could a khrafstar like the snake possibly be associated with good fortune?

For a while a running joke in Persian Wikipedia community was to call software "bugs", _khrafstar_s.

sfRattan

3 days ago

The use of "bug" for engineering defect (a use that predates software by around a century) shares Middle English etymology with bugbear and bugaboo, both of which relate to evil spirits/creatures and annoyances. Khrafstar is not unreasonable as a translation.

Razengan

3 days ago

I wish there were more games based on Persian lore.

Like how Al-Qadim was an Arabian-themed setting for D&D.

pazimzadeh

2 days ago

Or just more movies about the Persians, where they’re not evil etc..

brunorsini

2 days ago

Go straight to the source, Iranian cinema is awesome and widely available.

An easy starter is last year's "It Was Just an Accident", which was nominated for a couple of Oscars. It goes from being hilarious to offering a deep reflection on vengeance vs reparation.

Kiarostami and Farhadi are also two great directors to explore.

pazimzadeh

2 days ago

I kinda meant about ancient persia, like a Ben Gurion or other epic but about persia.

but yeah iranian cinema is good. surpringly self-aware sometimes, like the 2004 movie Marmulak (The Lizard)

aa-jv

2 days ago

This is excellent advice - do you have any more recommendations? I'd really love to dig deeper into this branch of cinema, it seems an opportunity for quite some cultural enlightenment.

mohsen1

2 days ago

wow i totally missed "It Was Just an Accident". Have to watch asap.

user

2 days ago

[deleted]

PetitPrince

2 days ago

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a very solid metroidvania that nails the cultural aspect. There's even a well produced farsi dub!

lofaszvanitt

2 days ago

D&D is dead.

Razengan

2 days ago

DD&D?

Luckily the local temple has a discount on resurrections

georgefrowny

2 days ago

Just another reminder of the absolutely massive public benefit that the Internet Archive represents.

Just wish they'd make the metadata crowd-sourced, maybe a tie-up with Wikidata.

user

2 days ago

[deleted]