The Rules for the Arrangement of Quatrains in the "Prophecies" of Nostradamus: The "Scytale" Cipher and the Principle of Alliteration

In recent publications, the author has demonstrated the presence of two types of steganography in Nostradamus's Prophecies. First, the order of the quatrains and the dates corresponding to them can presumably be reconstructed using simple ciphers similar to the well-known "scytale" cipher. Second, a graphic cipher is embedded in the Prophecies, possibly carrying illustrations for the predictive text. Fitting the text to the image parameters could be one of the reasons for its fogginess. This work continues the author's previous research concerning the algorithms for arranging quatrains. The author has developed a computer program for text analysis, which has revealed the chains of words "Provence" and "Concorde" placed in quatrains with equidistant numbers. The distance between the corresponding quatrains determines the keys for a cipher similar to a simple scytale, which allows arranging the fourth part of the quatrains without repetitions. The criterion for the correct arrangement is the presence of identical rare words in adjacent quatrains of the calculated chain, which was called by the author the "principle of alliteration." In addition, it turns out that the principle of alliteration is also applicable to the arrangement of quatrains in accordance with the previously formulated hypothesis concerning the counting of the letter combination "an." Thus, some specific algorithms for arranging quatrains have been discovered, which can be called the "branches" of the cipher. At the same time, the rules for assigning specific dates to quatrains remain less clear, which requires further research. It can be concluded that Nostradamus's Prophecies are not only a collection of predictive quatrains but also a kind of textbook of medieval steganography using several codes.

Nostradamus, prophecies, quatrains, centuries, chronologies, ciphers, scytale, steganography, cryptography, alliteration