27 Thursday Oct 2016
Mīmarōn af mäner ðē hōponing wāri in ðē westra ligið enði fana ðē sēo kumið
(“Remember, of men the true hope in the west lieth and from the sea cometh.”)
–Johannes fon Oschenforð’s Ðē Krīg af Athalstēnos (as found in an undated paraphrase of a manuscript commentary on the work and thence reconstructed)
21 Saturday Nov 2015
It’s been a while since I’ve posted an excerpt from my novel-in-process Tower of Ivory, so I thought I’d give you, my readers, a chance to read the first paragraphs, in which our hero, John Lorran, arrives at the INA, the eponymous white tower:
It was at that time that the tide of darkness was first turned back, a time of heroes and saints, of legends. The greatest of these legends begins far in the north of the world, where a young man struggles for the fulfillment of his great destiny and the fate of the world itself… (Catholic Encyclopedia 117th Edition)
The waves crashed forlornly against a bare rocky isle in the North Atlantic. Well, at least against what should have been a bare isle, if the fate of the world had been different. For clearly visible against the sky was a lofty white tower. In fact, standing on the deck of the approaching transport, the tower became visible long before the island.
Such was the view of a fifteen year old boy whose brown hair was the same color as his intelligent eyes with which he viewed for the first time this lonely section of the northern ocean. A look of caution was plain on his face as his thoughts turned toward home and all he knew…
30 Thursday Jul 2015
Posted in The World of THE WAR FOR CHRISTENDOM
Tags
Austria, Cardinal Seldon, Holy Roman Empire, Imperial History, Medieval, Prophecy, Sacretemporal
Going through my copy of Cardinal Seldon’s important and monumental work, Imperial History, I came across two very interesting full color illustrations. Both are texts in the form of stylized Sacretemporal (Medieval) Manuscripts, and both inscriptions are in Old High German. The inclusion of these illustrations in color suggests that the book was very expensive to print, though no records of the productions costs of this book can be found.
The first is the Sacretemporal (medieval) text of the Prophecy of Six Crowns (my translation of which can be found here), compiled from various chronicles into a single text. The text is found in the chapter entitled The Rise of the House of Austria, and underneath the text is a pseudo-heraldic symbol representing the Prophecy:
The second illustration contains the original Old German text of the enigmatic poem, Wolves with the hair of Ermine, which is (like the other text) followed by a series of pseudo-heraldic symbols, representing the first ,second, and fifth verses of poem, which is found in the chapter entitled The Fall of Rome:
The translation on the facing page reads:
Wolves with the hair of Ermine
Crows that are crowned as Kings
Though these things be many as vermin
ONE shall outlast these things
In the mountains an EAGLE shall rise
The Flag of the Desert shall burn
Renewed forever shall be old allies
And the KNIGHT TWICE CROWNED shall return
Surprisingly, no translation is given for the third stanza, which I can only assume is the lost stanza beginning A Sword shall be his token, in which case it is extremely interesting that no translation is given, as no complete version of the stanza is known to exist. It is also noteworthy that these verses are referenced as being attributed to a certain Blessed Heinrich Arnhold von Heiligwaldenstein, though no other records or mentions of this personage can be found.
05 Friday Jun 2015
Posted in The World of THE WAR FOR CHRISTENDOM
Tags
christendom, History, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Empire, Politics, Reichsidee, Statism, The War for Christendom, Tower of Ivory, UN
“The cross on the flag,” and here he pointed to the symbol which represented the United Nations, the governing body of a majority of the civilized world, a government with the power to control the earth, “has been twisted out of shape into a circle, the sign of a devouring self-absorption, and the laurel that surrounds it is the faded glory of this world-”- Tower of Ivory Chapter I-Coming Soon!
The conflict presented in The War for Christendom is not only a physical war, but an ideological conflict and in a sense a symbolic conflict. It is a war between two Crosses, and there is a world of difference between the two.
The first Cross is the Twisted Cross, the cross bent into a shape not its own, it is the divinization of the State as the supreme good, an absolute Statism. In The War for Christendom, this worship of the state is the philosophy of a future United Nations, what the present UN could become, for the dangerous tendency is present.
In contrast to this Statism is the old Holy Empire governed by the Reichsidee, the idea of an International Law based on the Catholic principle of subsidiarity and the Common Good. The common man and the nation to which he belongs are protected by a Higher Authority, while he himself defends this Authority; truly symbolized by the Cross, for the Cross is made of two parts, each supporting the other, of Authority and Liberty each in its proper place; in a word, Freedom within the Law.
24 Sunday May 2015
Posted in The World of THE WAR FOR CHRISTENDOM
Tags
Cardinal Seldon, christendom, Holy Roman Empire, Imperial History, Modern Times, Prophecy, Western World
The Empire has fallen this year, and with it much of the good of Western Civilization. The Christian order of the World has been struck down. International wars will be endless; commerce and economy will decay; population will decline; countries will lose law, and be separated from the main body of the world.
Governments will fall to the power of the mob; unreason and unnatural behavior will flourish; lies and calumnies will be spread at an alarming rate; the Church will be accused falsely on all sides, and while the guilty will go free, the innocent and those who repent of their sins will be punished.
And so matters will remain… until God sends His Grace.”- Cardinal Seldon’s Imperial History: “The Fall of Rome” (written 1918)
24 Friday Apr 2015
Posted in Christendom, The World of THE WAR FOR CHRISTENDOM
“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” – G.K. Chesterton 
The Crusades are often looked upon now days as an unjust aggression against a peaceful and superior culture. Yet that culture had invaded the Catholic Roman Empire, and had threatened to utterly destroy it. Good Catholic men (each with his wife’s permission, of course) would go forth to fight and more importantly to defend the remnants of true Civilization left to them (see my previous post on The Crusader Count). Now in our Modern Times we are externally more civilized, yet can we today defend the much fewer remnants of true Civilization left to us? Continue reading
15 Wednesday Apr 2015
Posted in The World of THE WAR FOR CHRISTENDOM
Tags
Austria, Cardinal Seldon, christendom, Duroc, History, Holy Roman Empire, House of Hapsburg, Imperial History, Politics, Prophecy, Rare Book, Swinburne, The Line of Hapsburg, The War for Christendom
It is our purpose in setting forth this history to provide the Faithful with a true understanding of the history of Christendom, and with hope for the future. The Empire may lie in ashes, but it was always from the ashes that the Phoenix rose again in glory.- Seldon’s Imperial History, “Preface”.
Scan of the Tittle-page of Cardinal Seldon’s IMPERIAL HISTORY, 1918 English Edition
An important and rare book, Cardinal Seldon’s Imperial History, is one of the few writings which preserves the enigmatic verses:
Wolves with the hair of Ermine
Crows that are crowned as Kings
Though these things be many as vermin
ONE shall outlast these things
In the mountains an EAGLE shall rise
The Flag of the Desert shall burn
Renewed forever shall be old allies
And the Knight Twice Crowned shall return
These verses are found elsewhere in fragmentary forms, the first verse often being misattributed to the revolutionary poet Swinburne (see: Hercule F. Duroc on the History of Heiligwaldenstein), and the second attributed (rightly or wrongly) to Tyrolean folklore. It is rumored that a third verse once existed beginning A SWORD shall be his token, but if this is so, the verse is lost.
12 Sunday Apr 2015
Posted in The World of THE WAR FOR CHRISTENDOM
In the first book of The War for Christendom, Tower of Ivory, the political situation is much different than it is today. Displayed on the map above are the main geopolitical forces, which are listed below: Continue reading
11 Saturday Apr 2015
The InterNational Academy is the United Nations’ advanced officer training facility for cadets in the Conscriptee Program. Located on an uncharted nearly inaccessible rocky isle in the North Atlantic, the main base is a ivory octagonal tower, heavily guarded. The facility’s current commander is a certain Colonel Branden, a high rankly UN official who reports directly to the President of the Security Council, Gen. Tervagan Eisengrimm. Strangely enough, the INA is a point of international tension between the UN and its allies, the Golden Caliphate and the Gòngchǎn Sphere, who press Eisengrimm to disband it.
05 Sunday Apr 2015
The old fairy tale makes the hero a normal human boy; it is his adventures that are startling; they startle him because he is normal.– G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
John Lorran is a fifteen year old boy an inch or so taller than average height, with a slight (but not prominent) elongation of nose and chin, brown hair, and intelligent brown eyes, born in Innsbruck, Tyrol on the fifth of April. Well trained with firearms, he is also an expert swordsman, and excels at horseback-riding. A cautious lad, but a natural leader (though often abstracted in thought), his past is as secret as his real name, which is Sorry (no that’s not his name), but you have to buy the book to find out what his name really is. Do you think I would put spoilers like this on the web?!*.
(*If you really have to know, highlight the blank space in front of the asterisk [but I warn you you’ll regret it])
