Never Tickle Sleeping Dragons

For Valentine's Day, copies of "Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them" and "Quiddich Through the Ages" were brought by owl post to our house. They are not only very good reference books, they're hilarious.

In Dumbledore's forward to "Fantastic Beasts," he assures the muggle population that the creatures depicted in the book are merely imaginary... and then for the Wizarding world's benefit, declares:

Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus.

Kennan and I remembered that Draco is "dragon" or "serpent" (a definite commentary on the character of the same name) and properly guessed that dormiens would be something about sleeping (from the word "dormant"). I found nunquam after a bit of internet searching, but titillandus took quite a while to discover. It's funny to imagine serious looking ancient Romans, in togas, having conversations that would involve use of the word "tickle." Ah, the way we've romanticized the past.

I also came across something else Latin and bizarre while looking for the aforementioned Valentine's Day present. "Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis"--- a complete Latin translation of the first book. It's wild. You can also get it in Ancient Greek. I've been wanting to learn Greek for awhile now, to be able to read the New Testament in the original Greek (and I guess I need to learn Hebrew, too). So here's just one more, though not as important, reason to do so!

The things you can find on the internet these days. What's next? Random people writing about their lives for the world to read? Surely not. As Margaret Thatcher once said long ago, regarding the possibility of a female Prime Minister (paraphrased): "It will never happen in my lifetime."

Nunquam narro nunquam.
Never say never!