Cufic is a term derived from the town of Cufa or Kufa in the pashalic of Bagdad, and applied to a certain class of Arabic written characters. The Cufic characters were the written characters of the Arabian alphabet in use from about the 6th century of the Christian era until about the llth. They are said to have been invented at Cufa, and were in use at the time of the composition of the Koran. They were succeeded by the Neskhi characters, which are still in use. Under the name of Cufic coins are comprehended the ancient coins of the Mohammedan princes, which have been found in modern times to be important for illustrating the history of the East. They, are of gold (dinar), silver (dirhem), and brass (fals), but the silver coins are most frequent, and numbers of them have been discovered on the shores of the Baltic, and in the central provinces of European Russia. Research Cufic
The Danewerk or Dannevirke, was an ancient wall of about from 30 to 40 feet high and of an equal thickness extending along the southern frontier of Schleswig for nearly 10 miles, from the North Sea to the Baltic. It was constructed in the middle of the 10th century and repaired in 1850, but was captured by the Austrians and Prussians in the Schleswig-Holstein war of 1864 and soon after destroyed. Research Danewerk
The bullhead or Miller's Thumb (Cottus gobio) is a small freshwaterfish, about 10 cm long with a large broad head, and sharp spines on the gill covers. The armed bull-head is the Aspidophorus europoeus, found in the Baltic and northern seas; the six-horned bull-head (Cottus hexacornis) is a North American species. In America this name is given to a species of Pimelodus, called also Oat-fish and Horned-pout. Research Bullhead
The Cod (Gadus) is a genus of fish of the family Gadidae. They are found in the Atlantic and Baltic. Cod are distinguished by the following characters: A smooth, rectangular, or fusiform body, covered with small soft scales; ventrals attached beneath the throat; gills large, seven-rayed, and opening laterally; a small beard at the tip of the lower jaw; generally two or three dorsal fins, one or two anal, and one distinct caudal fin.
The most interesting species is the common or Bank cod (Gadus morrhua). Though once found plentifully on the coasts of other northern regions, as Britain, Scandinavia, and Iceland, a stretch of sea near the coast of Newfoundland is the favourite annual resort of formerly countless multitudes of cod, which visit the Grand Banks to feed upon the crustaceous and molluscous animals abundant in such situations, and thus attract fleets of fishermen - by the end of the 20th century the number of cod was so severely depleted by industrial fishing that fears grew that the ocd might become extinct.
Cod has long been recognised as a good food stuff and the oil extracted by heat and pressure from the liver is of great medicinal value, and contributes considerably to the high economic value of the cod. The cod is enormously prolific, the ovaries of each female containing more than 9,000,000 of eggs; but the numbers are kept down by a host of enemies. The spawning season, on the banks of Newfoundland, begins about the month of March and terminates in June; The cod takes from three to four years to reach maturity and achieves an average length of around one meter, and a weight between 30 and 50 lbs, though sometimes formerly cod were caught weighing three times this. The colour is a yellowish-gray on the back, spotted with yellowish and brown; the belly white or reddish, with golden spots in young individuals. Research Cod
The Gute sheep is the most primitive breed in the collection of breeds that make up the Swedish Landrace breed group. These breeds belong to the North European Short Tailed Breeds and are related to such breeds as the Finnsheep, Romanov, Spelsau, Shetland, Faroe, Orkney and Icelandicsheep. Landrace sheep on the island of Gotland in the Baltic sea were little affected by the importation to Sweden of several long tailed foreign breeds during the 18th and 19th century. The native sheep had a coarse wool of several colours. The vast majority of the rams were horned while females could be either horned or hornless. Few sheep were truly polled, i.e. having depressions on the head at the horn sites. Before 1911 four-horned animals existed. Around 1920 selection among the pure Gotland landrace started, to produce sheep, that were polled in both sexes, with a curly coat and of a uniform grey colour of a decided shade. This selection eventually resulted in the modern Swedish Pelt (sometimes referred to as Gotland Pelt). The Swedish name of that breed
is Palsfar.
After a couple of decades only a few horned sheep with the original type of wool were left. Around 1930 Edward Graelert founded a flock of horned sheep, collected mainly from the north of Gotland. After some years four others, Nils Dahlbeck, Carl Fries, Konrad Hellsing and Arvid Ohlsson also became involved with preserving horned sheep. In 1940 probably less than 20 adult sheep existed in horned flocks on Gotland. In the beginning of the breed a few more horned animals were bought in from polled flocks.
The numbers of Gute sheep have steadily increased and numbers in 1996 were around 4500 ewes and 500 rams in 450 flocks in Sweden with some flocks in Denmark and Germany as well. The most common colour is grey. Dark grey animals have black legs and head while light grey ones also have white and tan hair on these parts of the body. Grey sheep have light hair around the eyes and muzzle. Black sheep occur but it is not certain if these are true black or just very dark grey.
White sheep are seldom pure white, but instead they often have tan patches on the neck and other parts of the body. A few individuals with less common colours have been seen. Almost all non-white sheep have white markings. This can vary from only a small white star on the forehead to a blaze and white tail and white legs. It seems that the light grey sheep have larger white areas than the dark grey ones. Some sheep are piebald.
The wool is coarse, and may be straight or wavy. It is a mixture of fine wool, long coarser hair and kemp fibres. On the neck and along the throat the sheep have long thick mane hair, much more in males than in females. The grey wool is a mixture of white and black fibres, the fine wool is then white and the coarser hair black. In light grey individuals many fibres are tan. In dark grey individuals some of the finer wool is black. The sheep never have wool in the face or on the tip of the tail. Most sheep shed their fleece partly or entirely in the beginning of the summer. Research Gute
The lesser horseshoe-bat (Rhinolophus hipposideros) greatly resembles the Greater Horsehoe-bat but is smaller, with a wing span of about 22 cm. pointed and have a well-developed antitragus very similar to that of the greater horseshoe-bat on a smaller scale, but there are small differences from that species in the details of the form of the nose-leaf. The colour is a rather greyer brown without the yellowish or pinkish shade, and the fur is proportionately longer, silkier and less velvety. The underside tends to be lighter in colour and the fur extends on to the base of the wing membranes. As in the larger species there is a barepatch at the base of the tail on the upper surface. The upper incisors, and the first upper, and the first two lower premolars are very minute. The range extends from Ireland to the Himalayas and north Africa and includes all Europe south of the Baltic. In the British Isles it is common in the south and west from Kent to Cornwall, though scarcer in Sussex and Hampshire.
The lesser horshoe-bat is found throughout Wales and the border counties but not in east Anglia or north of Yorkshire. In Ireland it is confined to the west. The lesser horseshoe-bat is gregarious, the summer colonies occurring in house and church roofs and perhaps in hollow trees. The winter colonies are nearly always in caves, but the species is not then closely gregarious, individuals usually hanging up at some distance from their neighbours. They do not always hang in the roof of the cave and often choose the undersides of projecting points or boulders where they are only a few inches from the ground. The summer colonies show a segregation of the sexes and usually consist mainly of adult females, some immature bats of both sexes, and a few adult males.
The flight is rather fluttering with frequent glides, and usually fairly near to the ground. The food consists of the smaller insects; moths appear to form a large part of the diet. The single young is born in June or July, the breeding season being rather protracted. Hibernation lasts from early October to the beginning of April, but it is frequently interrupted, the bats shifting their quarters within the hibernating cave and perhaps feeding upon the gnats which are usually found in them; but they are not known to come out into the open in the winter. Wherever caves are used by the greater horseshoe-bat for hibernation this species is found too; but because its range in Britain is much wider, it is also found in many caves outside the range of that species. Research Lesser Horseshoe-Bat
The ringed or common seal (Phoca hispida) is the smallest of the pinnipeds. It is distinguished from the Harbour Seal by its smaller size, and prominent grey-white rings on a generally dark grey back in adults. The belly is usually silver coloured and lacking dark markings (though these may be present on pups); brown whiskers, weaker dentition. The inner surface of the mandible concave between the middle post-canine teeth. A short cat-like face. The ringed seal moults on sea ice in late March-July, peaking in June, immature animals moulting earlier than breeding adults. Ringed seals live on ice, on or near the coast, in fiords, lakes and inland seas around the Arctic and Baltic and also far off-shore in the Arctic on polar pack-ice.
Ringed seals feed on small fish, especially Arcticcod and crustaceans and have an average life span of 15 to 20 years. Research Ringed Seal
Absalon or Axel was a Danish prelate and statesman. He was born in 1129 and died in 1201. The foster-brother of Valdemar I, whom he helped to the throne in 1157, he was appointed Bishop of Roskilde in 1158 and elected Archbishop of Lund in 1177. As Chief Minister to Valdemar I, he led an army against the Wends in 1169 and extended Danish territories in the Baltic by capturing Rugen. In 1169 he built a fortress at Havn, around which subsequently developed the city of Copenhagen. In 1184, as Chief Minister to Knut VI he led an expedition that captured Mecklenburg and Pomerania. While Archbishop of Lund, he organised the systematization of Danish ecclesiastical law. Research Absalon
Alexander III was King of Scotland from 1249 to 1286. He succeeded his father, Alexander II when just a boy of eight. In 1251 he married Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry III of England. Like his father, Alexander II, he was eager to bring the Hebrides under his sway, and this he was enabled to accomplish in a few years after the defeat of the Norse King Haco at Largs, in 1263. The mainland and islands of Scotland were now under one sovereign, though Orkney and Shetland still belonged to Norway. Alexander III was strenuous in asserting the independence both of the Scottish kingdom and the Scottish church against England. He died in 1285 by the falling of his horse while he was riding in the dark between Burntisland and Kinghorn. He left as his heiress Margaret, the Maiden of Norway, daughter of Eric of Norway, and of Alexander's daughter, Margaret. Under him Scotland enjoyed greater prosperity than for generations afterwards.
Alexander III was an Emperor (Tsar) of Russia. The son of Alexander II, he was born in 1845 and died in 1894 of kidney disease. He became heir to the throne on the death of his eldest brother, Nicholas in 1865, and succeeded in 1881, on the assassination of his father, being crowned in Moscow in 1883. He gave up the reforms begun by his father, and ruled in the old autocratic fashion, restricting the liberties of Finland and the Baltic Provinces, and encouraging persecution of the Jews. He spent much time in the closely-guarded castle of Gatchina, to be safe from Nihilistic attempts, several of which he narrowly escaped. 'He endeavoured to put down corruption and underhand dealing among the bureaucracy, and in his own habits gave an example of simplicity and economy. While showing himself suspicious of Germany and Austria-Hungary, he entered on friendly relations with France. He began to suffer from disease of the kidneys in 1893, and died at Livadia in 1894. Research Alexander III
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Cufic
