In a word: Hibernaculum

hi·ber·nac·u·lum

[hahy-ber-nak-yuh-luhm] noun, plural hi·ber·nac·u·la  [-luh]

  1. a protective case or covering, especially for winter, as of an animal or a plant bud.

2. winter quarters, as of a hibernating animal.

A snake hibernaculum in London
via www.wired.com

I've often wished I were a hibernating creature. OK, never a snake to be fair. But certainly a bear or a beaver or some beast that can justifiably hide away and sleep for three or four months every year. I have even planned my perfect hibernaculum. It would be womb-like and well-stocked with midnight snacks. At the centre would be a vast bed; a cozy sea of cushions and pillows and blankets. It would have elements of a Bedouin tent or a yurt. There would certainly be lanterns; each emitting a warm, red light. But only when I wanted. You see, despite the hibernaculum's superficial primitiveness it would, of course, be magically-programmed to respond to my every need.

Once enveloped in the carefree embrace of this nest, the outside world would effectively cease to exist. Lotophagus-like, I would slumber in blissful ignorance until such time as I was bored. Then I would throw the windows of my hibernaculum open, and let in the sounds and smells of spring. 

Yes yes, hardly the true ursine experience. And I should probably never try heroin...

A bear emerging from its hibernaculum
via http://rinklyrimes.blogspot.co.nz/

Anyway, escapist fantasies aside, for many creatures enforced hibernation is the only way to see out the winter. And more often than not, it is a far from solitary experience. Take the red-sided garter snake, which hibernates in a great seething ball. One colony, in Manitoba, is estimated to be 30,000-strong!

©Olivier Blaise

At the other end of the cuteness scale, Alpine marmots spend up to nine months in hibernation. That's too much time in bed even for me!

Via thelocal.de

Anyway, all this talk of hibernacula is making me sleepy...

In a word: Homunculus

ho·mun·cu·lus   [huh-muhng-kyuh-luhs, hoh-]

noun, plural ho·mun·cu·li

1. an artificially-made dwarf, supposedly produced in a flask by an 
   alchemist
2. a fully formed, miniature human body believed, according to some 
   medical theories of the 16th and 17th centuries, to be contained in the spermatozoon
3. a diminutive human being
4. the human foetus.

19th century engraving of Homunculus from Goethe's Faust part II

http://www.levity.com/alchemy/alchemy_laboratories_engravings.html

It's a tricky word to slip into a sentence unless, perhaps, you were talking to Umberto Eco or channelling John Dee. This is a crying shame, because it's a peculiarly pleasing word to say out loud. Especially, I think, if you pretend you're a 1940s British bobby (the kind that probably only ever existed on the telly and in Enid Blyton stories), in which case you might well say:

"'ello 'ello 'ello. What we gort 'ere then? An 'omunculus, eh?"

Go on, try it! I'm sure you'll find it as pleasing as I do.

I also like this word because it conjures up such wonderfully arcane images of secret societies carrying out ancient, esoteric  rites in hidden chambers lined with dusty tomes. But before I get all Dan Brown on you, I also like it because it sounds a bit like 'monkey' - another very appealing word. And it's such a damned wacky concept. I mean really...


According to one source*, the way to make a homunculus was "to take an egg laid by a black hen, poke a tiny hole through the shell, replace a bean-sized portion of the white with human semen, seal the opening with virgin parchment, and bury the egg in dung on the first day of the March lunar cycle. A miniature humanoid would emerge from the egg after thirty days, which would help and protect its creator in return for a steady diet of lavender seeds and earthworms."


How bloody wonderful! 


More reading:


Wiki (of course) has got heaps of fascinating stuff about homunculi, including some modern usages of the word I didn't know about like its use in medicine (to describe rather creepy things called teratomas) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus


*Dr. David Christianus. University of Giessen c18th