Silhouettes and Fox Holes

I woke up around 3am or so, after having just dreamed of the word "Silhouette".  In the dream, it was similar to other 'word plays' that I've had where the first syllable "Sil" was conveyed as being different or having another meaning.  As in, multiple words and languages wrapped up in that one word.

When I woke up, I was wide awake and overwhelmingly hungry.  So, I went down to the kitchen and got something to eat.  While doing that, I looked up Silhouette on Etymonline.com to see what we had.  Here is what I got:

"portrait in black showing the profile," 1798, from French silhouette, in reference to Étienne de Silhouette (1709-1767), French minister of finance in 1759.

But also:

The word was used of any sort of dark outline or shadow in profile from 1843; as "contour of a garment" by 1920. The verb is recorded from 1876, from the noun.

The family name is a Frenchified form of a Basque surname; Arnaud de Silhouette, the finance minister's father, was from Biarritz in the French Basque country; the southern Basque form of the name would be Zuloeta or Zulueta, which contains the suffix -eta "abundance of" and zulo "hole" (possibly here meaning "cave").

For the "Sil" first syllable, I have seen that enough in other contexts to recognize the Elvish word for "to shine".

But, and I think this is important, "Sil" can also mean "Moon", which I think I knew before, but it had slipped my mind until I looked it up again while eating cereal at 3am in the morning.

Putting that multi-language word of Sil-houette together, we have something like "to shine moon black profile", possibly.  I think that is a fairly straightforward interpretation.

So, with this I instantly thought of a Solar Eclipse and all of the things I have written so far here about that, or "New Moon Shining" (as another way of describing an eclipse).  Here we have a statement that the black profile of a moon will shine.  I think that very clearly describes a solar eclipse.

 And again, I find that pretty interesting.  It could be coming from my brain, constructing these simple words that develop into more complex thoughts or references using clever English-Elvish combinations that either push a story forward or are on theme with earlier writings, and if so, props to my brain (though not so many props for constructing that and letting me know at very odd early hours of the morning...).  Or, it could be other explanations, obviously.  I tend to view these things under the 'other explanations', clearly, so am I bit biased in how I approach these things, but am honestly open to all sorts of options.

So, that's all fine, and we have another reference to a solar eclipse, and the alignment of the Sun and Moon which I have also associated with the linking of the Anor and Ithil Stones, etc.

The additional definitions on Etymonline, however, caught my attention, specifically the mention of "hole".   The definition noted the word 'silhouette' is from the name of an actual French person and thus its etymology is a little unique in that people adopting the practice of producing these profiles just used his name to describe the portraits (for a few different potential reasons it cites).

However, the definition also noted that the name itself was "Frenchified" form of a Basque name and then mentions Silhouette's father, whose name was Arnaud, was from French Basque country.  

Two interesting things about this:

First, Arnaud.  Arnaud is the 'frenchified' name of Arnold.  Given Arnold Schwarzenegger's presence in some of posts here, including yesterday's Predator post, this caught my attention.

Second, the Basque name, which is Zuloeta, means in a literal translation "hole abundance of", and in more practical terms something like "Place of many holes", which people have equated with caves, typically, I guess.

The 'holes' caught my attention, because this has come up in recent posts, also.  Black Holes, specifically, which I have also equated with Rabbit Holes (potentially associating Faramir as a Rabbit who will go through a hole, portal, or gateway).  In fact, when seeing that Silhouette could also mean "Place of many holes" a picture from the Watership Down 'prologue' came to me, where El-Ahrairah is seen going in and out of many holes (on an apparently very small world!).  Here is the screenshot:

That is definitely an abundance of holes that rabbit is going in and out of.

This this also reminded me of a detail I didn't include in my fox hunt yesterday, because I didn't really think it was important (I was too focused on the fox herself).

I shot the fox from about 150 yards away, and when I went out to the pasture to retrieve it, I noticed that it had been hanging out next to its den, or fox hole.  I had actually seen this hole before, but assumed it was a woodchuck den.  It was created out in this year's pumpkin patch, which I tilled up after halloween (which is why this section is just dirt, not grass), so I am thinking the hole was created in November sometime.  I had seen a woodchuck scuttle out in the pasture, and found the hole, so I put those two together.  And maybe that was originally the case - foxes and other animals are known to opportunistically take over other animals' dwellings.  Perhaps when I saw the woodchuck hurring away it had already been given its eviction notice, or was on its own Watership Down voyage away from the fox.  I don't know.

In any case, she was lying next to the hole.  Here is a picture of how I found her.  I had taken the picture originally so I could show my youngest son evidence that I had gotten her before disposing of the body (I only thought of keeping here hide afterward).  He had been out in the back pasture hunting with his small bow and arrow a few days earlier with no success (though we was only allowed to shoot rabbits, not go after foxes as I didn't trust him to make a humane shot on a larger animal).  Apologies as this picture has just a bit more gore than the one yesterday due to the visibility of the damage to her right temple from the shot (I had rolled her over to her other side for the picture I posted yesterday).  I had to shoot her from behind based on her position, and aim at her head through her back flank, and you might be able to tell that is how the shot went.  Entered through the right back flank, and exited the right temple.  It was a 22-250, so extremely high velocity and energy for a quick kill (for anyone concerned about the fox...)

What I discovered, however, was that not only was she lying next to her den opening, but that either she or somebody else had expanded the home and created a second hole.  I am fairly confident this hole was not there as late as early December, and that should give you some idea as to just how crazy mild this winter has been in Minnesota.  Most years by this time, open ground is frozen 2-4  feet deep (up to 9 feet under streets!).  My youngest son has been wanting to go ice fishing, but the lake ice is still too thin, whereas usually we have several feet of ice on the lake at this stage.  It's been weird.  Here are the two holes together (I went out to the crime scene this morning to take another picture).

Anyway, I thought that was interesting, to see two holes now, with the second being made during winter, which typically would not have been possible.   And I didn't think much of it until this morning when I saw the reference to multiple holes, and then I remembered I have been writing about Black Holes, and Rabbit Holes, and now we can add Fox Holes.  And just as a I was speculating in prior posts about the possibility of a Hole or portal, that one goes in one end, and then can come out the other, that is essentially what you have with these two connecting fox holes. 

Also, in thinking through some of this, both the "Silhouette" word and meaning, as well as the Fox Holes, I went over to check WJT's blog during these early morning hours, and read his latest post (partially skimmed as by this time I was fading again since it was really early - I will have to go back through again) and found the things he was working through and connecting pretty interesting.

One additional thing:  just now in typing this post, the mention of "an abundance of holes or caves" made me think of Menegroth.  Menegroth is Elvish for "Thousand Caves", and was where Thingol (John-Aragorn) and Melian (Arwen) lived and ruled in Doriath.  It was constructed primarily by the Dwarves, who made all the tunnels and caves, and the Elves put the finishing touches on it.

It is also where Thingol was betrayed and Dior (Joseph) was murdered.  There is the traditional telling of that, and there is my take on it with Dairon (Brigham) being the betrayer.  

Just logging that here also, just in case.