value

[Jim Westrich]

One of the interesting bits of Christian mythologies borrowed from Teutonic 
mythologies was the notion that all buried/"unredeemed"/"unlifted"/unused 
treasure would be the property of Mr. 666 itself (the Anti-Christ) when it 
finally came.  It adds a nice wrinkle to a lot of stories of modern 
capitalists being the devil. I do not know if this variant makes it into 
any modern Christianity but usually it does somewhere.

Isn't a lot of ancient stories about this (no, I can't really think of one 
but I know I should)?  It has been a while since I read any Nibelungen 
thingies but doesn't one of the stories take the uselessness of hoarding 
treasure one step further as two brothers cannot figure out a way to divide 
their hoard and hence lose it.

Jim

At 06:32 AM 8/30/01, you wrote:
>are there any well-known (or obscure) tales of someone who spent a lot of 
>money to obtain something of value to them but, once they got it, they 
>were so afraid of losing it/having it stolen or damaged that they never 
>used it or displayed it?

"Bend the rainbow

  Break the wheel

  Fight the moon."

--Tadashi Yabe