Shadows of a Forgotten World

The Galician (Spain) folk band Sangre de Muerdago released a new EP "Os Segredos da Raposa Vermella"  (The Secrets of the Red Fox) "Before humans started building with concrete and steel, much earlier before machines reigned, and the steam locomotive was invented. There was a little red fox that wandered through the woods of the Iberian northwest, in a land where its people were  known as the Galaicos. This red fox liked to listen to the melodies of the leaves and the stones, to the songs of the streams and flowers, and she sung and sung and whistled as she wandered through the forests looking for food and adventures. Until one day she knew so many songs, more songs than any other red fox in those woods. Even more songs than the ravens themselves. Afraid of forgetting those beautiful melodies, she decided to start writing a little book with her favourite songs. The book had a cover of moss and paper of birch bark, and on its pages she wrote and drew. Many ...

"Wychód" - Polish archaism meaning "exit" ("Wyjście" in modern usage) Found in a corridor of a building that from the 1820s housed a hotel and restaurant-winery The hand points in the direction of the front entrance, from an inner courtyard Another theory is that the sign reads "wychodek" and points to an outhouse. However, I'm not entirely convinced as there is a line coming down just right of the letter "D" and the hand would not be centered if there were still two more letters at the end of the word.

I came across a curious German-language benchmark in one of Lviv's courtyards. Unlike the other pre-WWI benchmarks that I have seen in Lviv, which are small simple plaques in Polish, this one is much larger, in German, and even includes a relief of a hand pointing to the leveling mark. The sign reads:  XXX Zolle über den Wasserstand  (30 Feet Above Sea Level) And while this one was from the Austrian-era (the building where it is found dates from 1911), it was not part of the first leveling system created in Lviv (1880-1888), which was used to construct Lviv's first sewer system. More on Lviv's benchmarks can be found here . Example of Polish-language benchmark from original network Z.W. = Znak Wysokosci (Height Marker)