(Magica de) Spelled the wrong way

[M.J. Prior]

HARRY and GILLES:

> 1. "Sirse" is spelled the wrong way. Circe would look like KIPKH in 
> Greek. 

That's right (of course). But maybe Gilles has copied this spelling from 
Don Rosa's "Treasury of Croesus", in which "Syrse", "Kroesos" en 
"Midos" are spelled the wrong way. Croesus would be KPOISOS and 
Midas MIDAS. (Replace S for Greek Sigma, which looks like an M on 
its side, and D for triangular Greek Delta. The P in KPOISOS is of 
course Greek Rho.) There's another 'Greek' word on the wall that 
doesn't make any sense to me.
It's a bit of a pity that Rosa, for all his research, let slip this little mistake 
into his story. But then, how many people can read Greek, so that they 
would notice? And then, there's a sufficient number of Greek-reading 
people on this list to have maybe already mentioned it. (Does this 
sentence make any sense?)

I don't know how Circe is pronounced in English and French, but I 
would guess that both C's are pronounced like tsj or cc in capuccino, 
which would make up for both Don and Gilles rendering the C's like 
Sigma's. The original Greek Kirke is pronounced with two hard K's, and 
that's how the Romans must have pronounced it too. (CIRCE is just the 
Roman transcription (switch from one alphabeth to the other) of Greek 
KIPKH. The Roman C was originally pronounced like the hard Greek 
Kappa. CAESAR was not pronounced like English 'Sea-sar', but more 
like German Kaiser, which is, of course, derived from it.)

Gilles, I really like your drawings! (Or is it just one drawing, caught 
twice in the process of coming to be? It is, isn't it?)

>> Have you NEVER seen this drawing done by Don Rosa: 
>> {HYPERLINK "http://fandrawings.duckburg.dk/ebay_magica.jpg"}http://fandrawings.duckburg.dk/ebay_magica.jpg ?
> Even Don Rosa does now draw nipples. 

Can't see any nipple in that picture, though. Birds (ducks) don't have 
any, by the way. 

I believe that the (Dutch) assumption that Gyro is a crane at least dates 
back to the 1980's, for that's when I read the DD-weekly and that's 
what I always thought (Gyro being a crane). It's at least as plausible an 
assumption as the chicken-theory. Gyro doesn't look like either bird!
(Well, he is a tall white bird with long legs, but he has not a very crane-
like beak. Neither has he wobbly red chicken-thingies, for which I won't 
bother to look up the correct English translation right now, on his head 
and beak.)

Last remark: In Don Rosa's "W.H.A.D.A.L.O.T.T.A.J.A.R.G.O.N.", 
there appears a grey-haired Gyro-like bird at the 'examination-court' of 
the Junior Woodchucks. I thought that this bird might be Gyro's father 
Fulton Gearloose. (Could someone give me the full version of the 
acrostichon in the title? I only got as far as 'When Huey And Dewey 
And Louie...')

Michiel Prior.