Today is the 24th day of the A to Z April Challenge. Participants in this blog hop post on a letter of the alphabet every day except Sunday. To go to the main web page to visit other players, click HERE.
I chose Fantasy as my theme and today I chose the word Xanadu. Because there is little known about this it will be a short post. Sorry.
Xanadu is a Mandarin word that is pronounced Shandu. It was the summer capital of Kublai Kahn's Yaun empire. It is also associated with fictitious places.
Other words associated with Xanadu are: Arcadia, dreamland, dreamworld, Eden, heaven, land of milk and honey, paradise, promised land, never-never land, Shangri-La, wonderland.
I want to build a story in Xanadu. A paradise land where fairies are real and magic abounds. Have you ever written about a land such as Xanadu? Maybe it has a different name, but has the same amount of wonder in it? It would be a nice place to visit when you want to relax and imagine things with you muse.
Didn't know the pronunciation but familiar with the name. I quoted the Kublai Kahn poem in one of my blogs.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, reading the Puzzle Box. Wondered if you knew what a Tantalus is.
I thought that poem was good.
DeleteI didn't have a definition for Tantalus. I hope it fits his personality? Uh-oh.
I didn't know this definition, but it just might fit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantalus.
DeleteI didn't know where the word came from and I've definitely been mispronouncing it.
ReplyDeleteSusan: I was mispronouncing also. It's the cross over from Mandarin to English that fools me.
DeleteI've never used it as a setting, Karen. And I didn't know the correct pronunciation for it, or that so little is known about it. :-)
ReplyDelete