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Read it very, very carefully, first of all. This book is fantastic.
It's a comic book version of a live performance Moore did (he's doing lots of these lately; read his interview in Eddie Campbell's now-defunct magazine EGOMANIA #3 for more on this, as well as various other Moore interviews, like the ones in all the birthday tribute books coming out for him this summer).
Moore is talking about the geographical spot where they're doing the performance and it's history. He's also talking about life, the universe and everything a la PROMETHEA. Several months before the performance, his mother passed away and he found an actual birth caul in her things. It turns out it was his. He never knew he had been born with one, and I don't think he even knew what a birth caul was at the time. (Hell, neither did most of us until we read this comic. I'd never even heard of a birth caul.)
What's a birth caul? It's defined in the comic, but it's a sort of thin, plastic like covering that covers a baby (or just a baby's head? I'm not sure) in the womb and comes out with the baby at birth. These are VERY rare and were considered in the 1800s to be signs of good luck. Moore makes the comment that maybe it marks you as a shaman. Sailors said if you were born with a birth caul and always kept it in a secure place (people would wrap them up a bit and put them a safe box), you would never drown. So it also functioned as a sort of talisman/magickal object, according to superstition.
It's mentioned in GREAT EXPECTIONS, as Moore found out (and references in the performance and in the comic). Also, as shown in the book, they were signs of wisdom, and apparently old barristers/attorneys/lawyers would wear them on their heads, which led to the tradition of the wig-wearing barristers in jolly old England.
I guess the word 'caul' means something like a blanket or wrap?
From dictionary.com:
A portion of the amnion, especially when it covers the head of a fetus at birth. Also called pileus.
See 'greater omentum'.
[Middle English calle, from Old English cawl, basket.]
Caul\ (k[add]l), n. [OE. calle, kelle, prob. fr. F. cale; cf. Ir. calla a veil.] 1. A covering of network for the head, worn by women; also, a net. --Spenser.
It is deemed lucky to be born with a caul or membrane over the face. This caul is esteemed an infallible preservative against drowning . . . According to Chysostom, the midwives frequently sold it for magic uses. --Grose.
It's all there in the comic. Read carefully, read the whole thing, and it will make sense - I promise. |
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