[nebmia]

so apparently in 815 CE there was a common belief that sky pirates sailed ships in the clouds and (working in collaberation with frankish weather wizards) stole all the crops that got damaged in storms and took them back to the cloud realm of magonia.

And this was apparently a common enough belief that an archbishop felt the need to write a treatise to debunk it and insist that only god controls the weather, which is the only reason we know about it.

there are three important points to take from this, i think

1. This is great inspiration for your next dnd game
2. Tropes that might seem relatively modern (like airship pirates) can often actually go WAY back
3. The stuff your average medieval christian actually believed in will often have very little resemblance to christianity. And thats before you even get to the proper heretics.
   
   EDIT: people keep asking for the source and its now been added multiple times in different reblog chains. I should have put it in the original post but i am a fool: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/Agobard-OnHailandThunder.asp

[shinychimera]

You know, the more I encounter "people believed" things like this, and the more I try to look at them without the "myth of progress" lens (of we are more sophisticated than the people of history/people of other nations) -- the more these "beliefs" look like tumblr shitposts.

I just imagine folks standing in the middle of a wrecked field, knowing half a year's work has gone to waste and the winter's going to be hard, sighing and saying, "darn you, sky pirate Goncharov, why you have to be like this?" And everyone laughs a little. And next storm someone repeats the joke, and embellishes it a bit, and so on and so on. You might tell it to your kids with a straight face but pretty much everyone's in on the joke, and I just imagine the incredulous stifled laughter in the pews when they realize the archbishop is actually taking this stupid shit seriously.

[findingfeather]

The archbishop and half your neighbours who either aren’t in on the joke or - WORRYINGLY- you thought were in on the home but are now insisting it’s not a joke and you don’t feel gaslit because that terminology won’t be invented for another half millennium but if it did you would.

You know, like on tumblr/the internet.

[english-history-trip]