All the nines...

Today is 09/09/09.

There are many, many folkloric examples of nine!

The Chinese particularly like nine, because the word for nine pinyin jiu' means 'long-lasting'. Nine is associated with the dragon, and 'Kowloon' means 'Place of Nine Dragons'!

There are nine circles of Hell in Dante's Inferno:

They descend in order of wickedness, the first five being for self-indulgent sins, the sixth and seventh, violent sins, and the last two for malicious sins.


The Devil himself is trapped in a lake of ice, rather than fire at the centre of the ninth circle, chewing on the three greatest traitors of all time, the chief being Judas Iscariot.

1. Limbo
   
2. Lust
3. Gluttony
4. Avarice
5. Wrath & Sloth
6. Heresy
7. Violence
8. Fraud
9. Treason

Gustav Mahler - self-fulfilling prophecy?

Gustav Mahler, the composer believed there was a curse against musicians creating any more than nine symphonies. He believed Beethoven, Schubert and Dvorak has died when they tried to progress to a tenth symphony. He accordingly died before his tenth was finished!

Russian composer Shostakovich effectively broke the curse by composing an ironic, plagaristic, sarky little ditty for his ninth, which Stalin hated when he heard its first performance. (Shostakovich was lucky he didn't get sent to Siberia for that!)

There were nine worthies of the medieval world who in total represented the perfect warrior:

Charlemagne, Emperor of the Franks

• Hector
• Alexander the Great
• Julius Caesar
• Joshua
• David
• Judas Maccabeus
• King Arthur
• Charlemagne
• Godfrey de Bouillon

And... the nine of Diamonds is known as the 'Curse of Scotland' - Earl Dalrymple, the Master of the Stair reputedly signed the order to slaughter the MacIains of Glencoe on this playing card.

'Butcher' Cumberland

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable also states that William, Duke of Cumberland, 'the Butcher' wrote the order to give no quarter to the Jacobites on the eve of Culloden.

Nine is also three times three, and thus a powerful charm.