Clik here to view.
People Messhall Pickled Cabbage
My wife’s from Zhejiang province, and so is this can of pickled cabbage that she bought yesterday. I like the label a lot. It’s not quite Engrish: of course, we would say “people’s mess hall”, but the...
View ArticleBy the Great Pharaoh
When annoyed, my dad (born in ’43) will sometimes use a pretty awesome expletive that has largely fallen out of fashion. Men då får han väl se till och ordna det då, för höge farao! “So he’d better...
View ArticleBellman’s Pale Rhenish
Dear Reader, please try saying “ENSKTBLEH”. Yes, six consonants in a row. ENSKTBLEH. OK? Now sing it, loudly and happily. Go! I’ve spent three happy days at the first ever Picture Stone Symposium in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Beauty Is Not Luxurious Imagination
My wife just returned from Beijing where she’s been collecting interviews for a TV project. And I find that her beauty is not luxurious imagination.
View ArticleI Don’t Fear For The Swedish Language
Year after year, the Swedish language is spoken by a smaller percentage of the world’s population. And year after year, the geographical area where Swedish is spoken shrinks a little. But year after...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Curiosity Rover’s Message To Finders
The Curiosity rover, a science robot the size of a car, is on its way to Mars where it will use a new landing system and hopefully spend several fruitful years trundling about. One of the coolest...
View ArticleRue Poirier de Narcay
When I was 16 in 1988 I spent a couple of days in Paris with a language school. I brought the address for a game store, one that advertised in White Dwarf magazine. It was on Rue Poirier de Narcay,...
View ArticleDungeon Dudgeon Gudgeon Bludgeon
Dungeon: a massive inner tower in a Medieval castle or a dark usually underground prison or vault. Traceable back to Latin dominus, lord. Dudgeon: a wood used especially for dagger hilts or a fit or...
View ArticleEaster Cryptogram
In order to find her easter egg, my daughter first had to solve a +1 transposition cryptogram with appended translation table. It gave her the location of a note with a +9 cryptogram where she was...
View ArticleQuaint Local Pronunciation
My boss at the Academy of Letters used to head the National Archives. Here’s a story he told over coffee the other day. Some decades ago a delegation of Swedish archivists was driving across the...
View ArticleHedge-Wizards and Hedge-Parsons
The Grey Mouser, along with Fafhrd the Northerner hero of Fritz Leiber’s genre-defining sword & sorcery story cycle, is the archetype of the Dungeons & Dragons thief. He began his career...
View ArticleNorse Saga About The Buddha
I found something pretty wild in an essay by J.L. Borges this morning. There’s a 13th century Norse saga about the Buddha. And the story has other fine twists as well. This all revolves around a...
View ArticleThe Viking Age Is Really A Period
I have a problem with the term Viking Age. And it’s not likely that I will ever get satisfaction. Because I am a Scandy archaeologist, and the term is owned by UK historians and the general...
View ArticleMessrs Silk, Licker and Ball Carve Some Runes
We interrupt this transmission for a puerile message from Medieval Bergen. It was found carved with runes on a stick at the Hanseatic docks. ion silkifuþ a mek en guþormr fuþcllæikir ræist mik en : ion...
View ArticleClik here to view.
An Heraldic Snail
I visited Grödinge church south of Stockholm for the first time Thursday. The occasion was my great aunt Märta’s funeral, an event which, though of course sombre, cannot be called tragic. The old lady...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Lovecraftian Horror of French
1972 back-cover blurb I bought a used copy of Maurice Lévy’s Lovecraft ou du fantastique (Paris 1972) at the Fantastika 2016 scifi con, and now I’m picking my way through it with the aid of a...
View ArticleStop Prefixing with “So”
I was pleased to learn from Current Archaeology #330 (p. 65) that Chris Catling shares my distaste for the habit scientists have recently picked up of prefixing their answers to interview questions...
View Article