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# (Untitled)
- URL: https://thedailyeudemon.com/158/
- Published: 2005-03-05T20:31:00.000Z
- Updated: 2022-05-18T10:12:05.000Z
- Author: Eric Scheske
- Tags: TWE, #wpChunk

The King and the Dendrites

The weekend is a good time to take care of housekeeping matters.

1\. We received e-mail about the **King Canute legend** (see Issue XIII of *TWE*, posted March 1st). Yup, we're aware it didn't really happen that way. To quote *Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable*, "Canute's chief claim to fame is his supposed attempt to turn back the tide. Henry of Huntingdon, the 12th-century chronicler who first recounted the incident, gives no location, but it is traditionally said to have occurred at the inland port of Gainsborough. . . The story is entirely misinterpreted, since Canute was actually trying to demonstration to his courtiers that only God could control the tide, not man."

*Brewer's*, by the way, is an enjoyable reference book. We paid about $30.00 for our used volume. It's attractive, hardbound, and thick–1300 pages (16th edition, 1999). One of the best browsing books in our library, and the on-line edition appears to pale next to it. Did you know, for instance, that "nickel" got its name from the German *Kupfernickel*, a type of ore? *Kupfer* means "copper" and *Nickel* is the name of the mischievous **goblin** fabled to inhabit German mines. It got the name because, though copper colored, there was no copper in it, and the *Nickel* was blamed.

2\. There has also been a question about our use of "**anchorite**" and "**cenobite**" in "The Swimsuit Issue" (February 28th). We believe we used the terms correctly. "Anchorite" refers to a hermit monk, but a loose community of them, like the anchorites living in huts at Scetis (think of free-standing condos), are properly referred to as "cenobites."

For your edification and entertainment, here's a list of various forms of the eremitic life (from Tomas Splidik's *The Spirituality of the Christian East*):

*Boskoi*: Grazing or browsing eremites who had no fixed abode  
*Dendrites*: Eremites who lived in trees  
*Statics*: Eremites who remained standing in open air  
*Stylites*: Eremites who lived on an elevated platform  
*Recluses*: Eremites who locked themselves in a cell  
*Xeniteia*: Eremites who went away to live alone in a land not their own