Lion

English lion punning with “loan”

In historic times, there have never been any lions in northern or western Europe. Still, the heraldics of northern & western Europe are chock-full with lions, more dominant than in any other region, and more often represented than any other animal.

As usual, the explanation may be a spooky pun: The word lion puns with the word loan in English and in many other European languages. The spellings even overlap: leon meant both “lion” & “loan” in English. Similar spellings without the N are leo for “lion”, and Slavic lihva for “loan” & “usury”.

Direct power was always just goons-with-sticks. But the elaborate deception that allowed cryptocracy was always intertwined with loans, i.e. fraudulent banksterism: The direct goons-with-sticks power enforces “financial” rules on society, and the “hidden hand of spookery” then takes care that those rules only ever empoverish the commoners and enrich the spooks.

A very similar punny pair exists in Semitic, see below.

Semitic lbyˀ punning with “loan”

In Semitic there are many words for “lion”. The most spooky one is לביא lbyˀ lavi for “lion”, which puns with לוה lwh lavah for “money-lending”.

Both words are so similar to the pan-European roots for lion & loan above that they may well be related via some archaic root. For the lion this is sometimes admitted, though not for the loan. In any case, the lion puns with “loan” — in English and in Semitic!

I think this is also relevant for the heraldics. Since all the interbred high houses of Europe have their primary roots in the Ancient Fertile Crescent, I assume the chose the lion / loan pun from above because it’s similar to the Semitic lavi / lavah pun.

Both words also pun with לעב lˁb for “mockery”, see Levi.

(The actual etymology for the lion may be from לבי lby “flame”, perhaps for the mane & color.)

Semitic kpyr punning with “cover” & “denial”

From Samson’s riddle, we get the somewhat rare word כפיר kpyr kaphir for “lion” (for the “covering” mane), which puns with כפר kpr kephar for “denial”. Denying to be ultra-rich & ultra-powerful aristocrats, and feigning to be little people, that’s what spookery is all about.

This pun seems unrelated to the heraldic lions.

Lion of Judah

Yet another Semitic word for lion is ארי ˀry ari. This is the word used for the “Lion of Judah”.

If my solution of the 12 tribes parable is any indication, then this is supposed to be an anagram pun with ראי rˀy raai “appearance”, presumably a fake appearance. The pun is found in Genesis 49:9.

Judah humself is likely supposed to pun with hwdyˁ “informant”, i.e. a spook agent feigning to be a commoner. The “lion of Judah” would then be the “[fake] appearance of an informant”.

Note: Some truth-seekers conflate every lion symbol in human history with the Lion of Judah. I don’t think that’s true, I think the lion was used for different puns in different languages.

Three lions in heraldry punning with “trillions”

Many European aristocratic families feature two or three lions on their coat of arms. In theory, this could be a pun with “billions” or “trillions”, referring to the combined wealth of the clan, in some behind-the-scenes currency. This is again just a wild guess though, and the numbers and animals could be some other form of wordplay. That such wordplay is possible is alluded to with the “bee-thrice” pun of princess Beatrice.

Egyptian rwty punning with “gates”

In the ancient world, many gates were flanked by 2 lion statues as “protectors”, such as at the Mycenaean Lion Gate. It is claimed that this was also true for Egypt, and that even the Mycenaean are Egyptian lions. Only a few such lion statues have survived in Egypt though, such as the lions of Medinet Madi.

The Egyptian lions have puzzled me for a while, but the most straightforward explanation is that rwty for “lions” simply puns with rwt for “gate”. The T is only present in the dual grammar form, so it has to be 2 lions.

Since the 𓃭 seated lion glyph was a biliteral sign for to write rw, the lion was even used to write the word “gate” sometimes.

There are other Egyptian words for “lion”, and there may also be additional spooky puns, but I haven’t found anything meaningful so far. This harmless little lion ≈ gate pun is still not admitted, perhaps to keep the general usage of pun-encryption a secret.