Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,Foul’d by these rebel powers that thee array,Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? Why so large cost, having so short a lease,Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body’s…
Author: Justin Durand
Hindu Lore
In India swans appear both as the hamsa and as apsaras. Brahma’s consort Saraswati, goddess of wisdom, learning, and music, is also depicted riding on a swan (hamsa), as is Varuna, god of the sky and rain. The Hamsa In Hindu lore, the hamsa (a pair of divine birds) can be either swans or geese. The two…
Swanström
The Svanströms were soldiers, crofters and tailors in and around Gärdserum and Ukna in the county of Kalmar in Småland, Sweden. The earliest known ancestor of the family is Petter Jönsson Cavat, an infantry soldier who was taken prisoner by the Prussians at the Battle of Demmin and never returned to Sweden. He was probably…
Hauri Families in Bern
A Conrad Hauri (Chuondradus dictus Hovri) was mentioned on 8 February 1282 as owing 9 shillings annually for his land at Steffisburg, when Werner von Steffisburg leased certain lands to Kloster Interlaken. The dues he owed for his lands are in line with amounts throughout the region for larger peasant holdings and there is nothing…
Lazarite Connection
A Conrad Hauri or Conrad Horn (Chuondradus dictus Hornus), a Knight of the Order of Saint Lazarus, lived at the order’s house at Gfenn in Dübendorf, now a suburb of Zürich. He was named in a charter dated 13 April 1272, when the order sold the church at Meiringen in the Bernese Oberland to Kloster…