- RIP, Pauline Baynes. I am more familiar with her work on the Chronicles of Narnia, and did not know until today that she also produced illustrations for Tolkien.
- Hurray! A Black Plague vaccine! Now if someone would only invent a time machine so we can go back about seven centuries or more to when it would have been really useful...
- Speaking of plague, it's St. Oswald's Day!
- Here's a three-part essay on Beowulf in Strange Horizons, a speculative fiction magazine. I haven't had a chance to do more than skim this yet. h/t Steve Shervais on AnSax-L.
- Old Norse News points us to Heimskringla, an Old Norse literature website. They look to have the site available in about nine different languages.
- Also via Old Norse News, Alaric Hall's Old Norse Grammar magic sheet, inspired by Peter Baker's Old English Grammar magic sheet. Why, students, you ask if you might be allowed to use said sheet for the quizzes in Old English class? At the beginning of the semester, yes, you might just be! (hint hint)
- Miglior Acque has a post on Tom Phillips's lithographs & translations of Dante.
- Steven Till has a post on the medieval warhorse, and reviews Bernard Cornwell's The Archer's Tale.
- The Medieval Term of the Week is barbican, which is not an image or representation used in the religious worship of dolls.
- Dr. Virago posts pictures of castles.
- Gypsy Scholar has a post on quaille in The Canterbury Tales and the Ozarks.
- News for Medievalists has an update with several new posts, as does Medieval Material Culture Blog.
- Jeff Sypeck posts on medieval cuisine, and has additional reasons to study Old English.
- Heroic Dreams has a meditation on solar eclipses and the Middle Ages.
- The Weird Medieval Animal of the week is the Lamed Wufniks -- which aren't really an animal, but it can't be easy scouring bestiaries every week for new material!**
- Geoffrey Chaucer hath a post on televisioun.
- Don't forget to submit your favorite blog posts for the next Carnivalesque -- h/t Blogenspiel.
*Sorry for the ugly "it is to be hoped." I have a friend who loves using that particular passive construction ironically.
**No, I haven't forgotten that JLJ nominated me for the Brillante Weblog award thingie -- it's just that nearly the entire medieval blog-o-web-o-net-0-sphere has already been nominated, so I've got to figure out what to do about my three nominees.
The Old English and Old Norse Grammar magic sheets — wow, those are handy! Thanks for passing them along.
ReplyDeletePauline Baynes's illustrations for Bilbo's Last Song are quite beautiful.
ReplyDeleteDarn tooting it's hard. I figure it's been a year almost, I can start stretching the definition of WMAM.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that places of the world where plague is now endemic and it still does occur as an epidemic will find that vaccine useful, not to mention that plague has been used as a biological weapon in the 20th century.
ReplyDeleteWhatever your reason for the construction "it is to be hoped", kudos for avoiding the adverb "hopefully" in its stead.
ReplyDeleteHow serious are you about finding medieval beasties for the bestiary?
Would St. Andrew the Dog-head count? Would you extnd the search into Roman times and include the very real Dire Wolf?
Just noticed the link. I wondered if you'd notice my aunt's 'quaille'...
ReplyDeleteJeffery Hodges
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