#no welsh conferences for you

[variousqueerthings]

through the oddity of life i have been invited to a conference (to observe not to speak lol, i am not the expert here) in cardiff and man... if i had the money......

[evidenceof]

From Harry Welsh's file: Presenting Dick Winters turning to Lewis Nixon in breakneck speed

One of the things that never fails to make my stomach do goddamn backflips are instances post-war when people remember Dick and Nix as a pair, whether consciously or unconsciously. Like a verbal/written representation of Dick saying, "He [Nix] always walked on my left side, one or two steps behind me." Many such cases:

Second Lieutenant Thomas Gibson in a letter to Harry Welsh (Feb 1980) after mentioning Dick he asks, "Oh by the way how's that Nixon guy?"

I do remember Dick Winters quite well. I almost hope he doesn't remember me. About the last time we met eyeball to eyeball was when we were in Germany or Austria toward the end of the war. [...] I do hope you give him my best wishes when you can. By the way, whatever became of Lewis Nixon? As I remember it Cap. Lewis J. Nixon III got letters from his father whose return address was Lewis J. Nixon II. Nixon Nitrate 00., Nixon, New Jersey. Is that right or do I just remember it that way? Tom L. Gibson in a letter to Harry Welsh dated 6 Feb. 1980

When Cole Kingseed's daughter, who spoke a lot to Dick when her father was writing out the two memoirs, hears about Dick's passing she says immediately,

“He was such a good friend to you, to us. I hope Major Winters is reuniting with his good buddy Nixon up in heaven right now, sharing their old glory stories.” - Conversations with Major Dick Winters, Cole C. Kingseed

Don Malarkey goes into a Nixon tangent in a 2007 panel when asked by an audience member, "Why did you guys respect Winters so much?"

He was a guy you admired for his personal habits... He didn't drink. He didn't smoke. I don't think he cussed. And there was a question on whether he went out with girls or not. So I think Winters' personal habits reflected on a feeling of a mentor. His best friend was a severe alcoholic—Nixon. How do you figure that out? Nixon, uh, Winters went to work for Nixon at Nixon Nitrate Company in New Jersey. [...] Band of Brothers Panel, American Veterans Center Conference 2007

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

I'm Irish but work for a UK based company. The English treat us the way that architecture lady did ALL THE TIME. Literally don't bother to know basic things like when our bank holidays are, what relevant laws and industry practices are different in Ireland vs England, we've been assigned HR people who don't know anything about Irish employment law, given 'benefits' we couldn't use because we weren't in the UK, hosted in-person meetings in our offices where English guests keep saying 'here in the UK', we get paid less because instead of adjusting our wages to euro they just changed out the pound sign for a euro sign in our contracts, they refuse to let us use local suppliers for office supplies etc so everything takes longer to arrive and costs more than it does for the rest of the company, during a recent rebrand we were refused a budget for (legally required) Irish-language signage, the list goes on and on.

The irony is that because of the nature of our work we have constant meetings and workshops about acceptance of different nationalities and learning not to discriminate but if we try bringing up how we're discriminated against we get laughed at.

We have colleagues in an office in Scotland who get similar treatment so at least there's some solidarity there, but it's exhausting. It feels like we're fighting a constant battle. And the response we always get to complaints is just 'oh oops silly us' if we get any at all.

English entitlement is very very real and I don't blame you for reaching the end of your rope with that woman.

Oh Jesus Christ that sounds exhausting. And yeah, very familiar. Wales often gets included with the English south west when companies try to do countrywide provision, and what really stands out is the utter lack of consideration or respect for the language and bilingual signage, and Welsh road infrastructure not allowing easy or cheap travel in the same way. "Everyone get to Bristol for this meeting" is far, far harder for mid and north Wales than anywhere else. Plus, getting called a Taffy just casually. Super fun.

My sister used to work for a nationwide charity, actually, based in London. She took over as the organiser for their eight nationwide conferences a year. And the people in the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish offices loved her, because she was the first one in years who remembered that they existed, and made an effort to get the conferences to them at least SOME of the time; and the English offices complained each time she did. They thought four should be London (it's easiest to get to!), three in northern England (that's diversity!), and one in Northern Ireland (different landmass so begrudgingly accepted every other year) was reasonable.

Gah. Frustrating as fuck.

[hopefulromances]

I Still Get Jealous - Jamie Tartt

Word Count: 1.5k

Warnings: Jealousy, some heated activities

Jamie showed up to the club as soon as he could. He told you that he’d be late because of the press conference but that he'd get there as soon as he could. When he showed up, the crowd was pulsing with the music, the lights in the club a dark red color, seemingly swaying with the movement of the crowd. He pressed through the crowd looking for you in the throng. 

He spotted you then, just as the song was changing. You were in a ring of friends, all there to celebrate your birthday. Work friends, some of the team, Keeley, everyone there for you. And you looked spectacular. You were wearing that dress you loved, the one you’d picked out ages ago and shown him and your smile was dazzling. 

Then his eyes followed who you were smiling at. It was some man he didn’t recognize, probably someone from your office, but the look on his face was less than friendly. Right in front of Jamie’s eyes, the man looked up and down your body as you danced with friends. 

Finally, your eyes found Jamie and you lit up. 

“Jamie!” you called out, breaking away from your group. 

He smiled at you, hooking his arm around your waist and tugging you towards him. 

“Hello, darling,” he greeted before pressing his lips against yours. He kissed you harder than he normally would in public, but knowing that man was over there watching you kiss him was egging him on. You made a noise of surprise and brought your hands up to his neck. 

“Mm, what was that for?” You murmured against his lips, as you pulled away. 

“Happy Birthday, love,” Jamie replied, kissing you again. “You look…” he shook his head as he looked down your body. “Fucking mint.” You blushed under his praise, ducking your head down to avoid giving him the satisfaction, but he brought his finger up to pull your eyes back to him. “My gorgeous girl.” 

You shook your head, not being able to help the smile on your face. “Fuck off. Come meet my friends.” 

You grabbed his hand and started pulling him through the crowd. You introduced him to some of the people in your circle dancing. Molly, April, Rina, David, and a lot of other names that went right over Jamie’s head. But they were all excited to meet the famous footballer, and he was happy to answer questions, take photos, and do anything to allow his girl to shine. 

“And this is Kevin,” she pulled him over to someone new. Jamie looked over and saw it was the man who’d been eyefucking her when he walked into the room. “Kevin, this is Jamie, my boyfriend.”

“How’s it going, Kevin?” Jamie put out his hand. He could be cordial. 

Kevin’s eyebrows raised. “Jamie Tartt? Look, (Y/N), when you said you were dating a footballer I thought you meant Sunday church league not… star striker for AFC Richmond.”

“Well, he’s just Jamie to me,” you thrilled, wrapping your arm around his waist and leaning into him. 

Jamie pulled you closer to him, turning to Kevin. “So, you two work together?”

“Kevin sits across from me,” you told Jamie. “Isn’t that right, Kevin?”

Kevin hadn’t taken his eyes off of Jamie. “Sorry, I just can’t believe you’re dating Jamie fucking Tartt! I mean how did you two meet?”

Jamie felt you shift against him, clearly uncomfortable with the line of questioning.

“Um, well, my cousin, Colin, is on the team and…”

“Wait, as in Colin Hughes?” Kevin interrupted. Jamie huffed, puffing out his chest slightly. 

You pinched Jamie’s waist, silently getting him to calm down. “Yep. My dads side is welsh. But mums from London. Anyways, Colin introduced us at some gala or something and we hit it right off.”

“That’s mental, Jamie, mate, you gotta get me tickets to a game,” Kevin jeered, giving Jamie a friendly shoulder punch. But Jamie did not find it friendly. He found Kevin incredibly grating and condescending. 

“Yeah, sure,” he answered shortly. “(Y/N), why don’t we go for a dance?”

He didn’t wait for you to answer, leading you away from Kevin and onto the dance floor. You pulled on Jamie’s hand, bringing him to a stop. 

“Can you behave, please?” you whined, pulling him back to you. 

“You want me to behave?” Jamie growled, winding his arms around your waist. “Kevin’s a dick you know that?” He started swaying the two of you to the beat. 

You brought your hands up to his chest, smoothing out the dress shirt he was wearing. “He’s not that bad. Just excited to meet you.”

Jamie looked over your head to see Kevin was still looking over at you. Jamie’s arms tightened around your waist, pulling you flush against his chest. He felt your hands on his jaw as you pulled him to look down at you. 

“Jamie?” 

“Hm?”

“Are you jealous?”

Jamie quirked an eyebrow up, smirking. “And why shouldn’t I be?” 

He spun you around and brought you so your back was flush with his chest. You gasped, letting your head fall back against his shoulder as his hands slid down the front of your body. He continued moving the two of you to the beat of the music as his lips came down to your ear. 

“You see Kevin over there?” He kissed the back of your neck, relishing the shudder it drew from you. “He’s been staring at you all night. Cause you look so fucking sexy.” His lips moved over your skin. “So fucking beautiful.” Another kiss to your neck “And everyone in this room wants a taste of you.” He watched your eyes flutter close as he continued to kiss and nip on the skin behind your ear. “That’s why I’m jealous.” 

Your eyes shot open when you realized what he was doing. “Did you just give me a hickey?” You brought a hand up to where he’d been sucking on your skin and felt the welt growing under your fingers. “Jamie!”

He snickered, kissing the mark, happy with his work. “Gotta make sure everyone here knows you’re taken, love.”

“You are unbelievable, what are we teenagers?” 

He looked over and saw that Kevin had looked away, he couldn’t help but feel victorious as he guided you back to facing him.

“You’re really jealous, aren’t you?” you giggled, kissing his cheek. Now it was Jamie’s turn to duck away but you grabbed his jaw and pulled him back to you. “Baby.”

You knew Jamie too well to know that his preening was his insecurity shining through. As much as you loved when his strong arms kept you tight and safe against his firm chest, you knew that he just wanted to know you weren’t going to leave him. 

“Corse I’m jealous,” Jaime mumbled, resting cheek against your temple. “I know that you could do better than me.”

You let out a deep sigh. How was this man, that you held so much love for, unable to see that there was no way that you could leave him. There was no one better for you than him. You wrapped your hands up so they tangled in his hair, holding his head against you as comb through his locks.

“Jamie, you know that’s not true,” you reassured him, pressing kisses to his face. “I could never leave you.” 

“Kevin showed up on time,” Jamie pointed out. You could feel his pout against your cheek and you chuckled.

“Kevin is an ass,” you reminded him. He chuckled, pulling back from you so he could look at you clearly. 

He looked around the club - the club both of you seemed to have forgotten you were in. He grabbed your hands and pulled them up to his lips. 

“Let’s get you a drink, love.” He started pulling you towards the bar. 

You nodded and started to follow him. “Wait, one more thing.”

You yanked him back to you, kissing him firmly. He caught you easily, his hands struggled for a moment to find their placement but he brought one hand sliding between your shoulder blades up to your neck and the other wrapping around your waist to hold you against him. You quickly lost control of the kiss, only able to circle his shoulders, as his hands continued to move around your body. He moved his head back and forth, kissing you firmly and passionately. Finally he pulled back and rested his head on your forehead, noses touching, before coming down one more time for a softer kiss. When he pulled back, you were staring, a little dazed as you smiled. 

“What was that one for, love?” He asked, picking a stray hair off your face. 

“Hm?”

“That kiss?”

“Oh! Molly was looking at you for a little too long,” you explained, raising your eyebrows at him. 

“Alright! Okay!” Jamie rolled his eyes, grabbing your hands again. “Now who’s jealous?” 

Just imagine this for that last kiss:

[finnlongman]

About Me, My Books, and My Research (2024 Edition)

Hi, I'm Finn, a writer, medievalist, and all-round nerd. You may know me as the author of The Butterfly Assassin, "that person who wrote the trans Cú Chulainn article", the weird nerd in the Tumblr corner writing excessively long and incomprehensibly niche posts about their research, or something else entirely. I am all of those things! (Well, depending on what the 'something else' is, anyway...)

Currently, I'm a PhD student at the University of Cambridge researching friendship in the late Ulster Cycle (c. 12th-17th centuries). I have an MA in Early and Medieval Irish from University College Cork, and wrote my thesis about Láeg mac Ríangabra, my best beloved. I also have an undergrad degree in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic from Cambridge, and wrote my dissertation about queer readings of Táin Bó Cúailnge, including transmasculine readings of Cú Chulainn.

You can find out more about my research on my website, which also includes info about all of my academic publications. This includes the aforementioned "trans Cú Chulainn article", an article about Láeg in the Death of Cú Chulainn, an article about the seven Maines, and a discussion of a conference on Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire from the perspective of my own work on lament and grief. Whenever possible, I try to make my research available Open Access. If you're ever having trouble finding one of my articles, please contact me!

If you want recommendations for books about medieval Irish (or Welsh) literature, this list on my Bookshop page has all my go-to recommendations. If you buy via this link, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you, so this is a great way to support me.

I am also an author, and I write both YA and adult novels. Again, my website is the place to go for all the info and links, but a quick summary:

The Butterfly Assassin trilogy (The Butterfly Assassin, 2022; The Hummingbird Killer, 2023; Moth to a Flame, 2024): YA thrillers about a traumatised teenage assassin who is trying (and failing) to live a normal life in a fictional closed city in Yorkshire. Featuring friendship, street art, Esperanto, zero romance, and a whole lot of murder, as well as increasingly unsubtle commentary on the UK arms industry and the military recruitment of vulnerable teenagers.

The Wolf and His King (coming Spring 2025 from Gollancz): a queer retelling of 'Bisclavret' by Marie de France which uses werewolfism as a metaphor to explore chronic pain and illness. Also very much about yearning, exile, and the mortifying ordeal of being known.

The Animals We Became (coming 2026 from Gollancz): a queertrans retelling of the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi looking at gender, compulsory heterosexuality, and trauma, through the medium of nonconsensual animal transformations.

To Run With The Hound (coming 2027 from Gollancz): my take on the Ulster Cycle, looking at why Táin Bó Cúailnge is a tragedy and what it means to be doomed by the narrative, but not in the way you thought you were. Featuring a lot of feelings about Cú Chulainn, Fer Diad, and Láeg.

You can find out more about my recently-announced medieval retellings in this blog post.

I generally tag personal posts and selfies as “#about the author”; other than that, I think I’m pretty straightforward with my tagging system.

I’m very happy to answer questions about medieval Irish lit, my research, or my books, or just generally to chat. Send questions via asks, chat via DMs, and if you're looking for my articles, you can email me at finn [at] finnlongman [dot] com, which is also the best way to contact me for professional enquiries, whether academic or fiction related.

You can also find me on Bluesky, on Instagram, and on YouTube, where I (infrequently) retell medieval Irish stories for a general audience with lots of sarcasm and hand gestures. Technically I'm still on Twitter, but I'm trying to leave.

And finally, if you’ve found my research interesting or just generally want to support me, I have a tip jar and am always immensely grateful when somebody helps me to fund my book-buying habits: http://ko-fi.com/fianaigecht. You can also tip me directly on Tumblr if you like. I’m also a Bookshop affiliate, and you can buy books from my recommendation lists to support me and get some great reads at the same time.

[llyfrenfys]

Diolch mawr to everyone who attended this morning's session at the Association og Celtic Students conference where I delivered my paper! Huge diolch also to everyone who asked questions. If you have any more questions, please email me at llyfrenfys@gmail.com (in Welsh or English).

[bfpnola]

Hey. It's @reaux07. If you remember my last angry history rant on Paul Robeson, I'm back for Part 2. This time? King Leopold II and his relationship to the Congo. I just finished writing a 5-page, single-spaced essay on this for class, so I'll do my best to summarize in bullet points this time rather than chunky paragraphs. This will still be long though, as a warning, but it's a necessary read. Please let me get through this, because y'all know this hurts to write.

Trigger warnings for... just about everything typically associated with mass colonization (e.g. rape, murder, torture, etc.). Tiktok below as a brief introduction first:

King Leopold II of Belgium, due to his personal unpopularity and lack of love from his parents, had low self-esteem. As his father had already made 50 attempts to colonize foreign lands to no avail, Leopold felt the only way to uplift both himself and his country was to take take control of his own colony.

He checked Sarawak, the New Hebrides, the Fiji Islands, and the Philippines. Nothing. But what was left? The Congo.

How did he learn of the Congo? Leopold hired Henry Morton Stanley, a famous Welsh explorer of the time, to cross Africa from east to west, walking and canoeing 7,000 miles.

Upon the Congo's discovery, Leopold turned his palace into a luxury hotel for the delegates of a new conference to discuss Africa's colonization, supervising every detail. He successfully lied to the major powers of Europe, making claims of charitable and philanthropic aims, and that there would be free trade amongst the African colonies. (And yes, he did give every single attendee a painting of his face... Because he could.)

Meanwhile, back in the Congo, Stanley (the explorer I just mentioned) used bribes and trickery to provide official treaties with the various chiefs of the land in case Leopold ever needed legal proof of land ownership. (Ex of said trickery: One report noted that a village assumed "the white man controlled the sun.")

In 1891 and 1892, Leopold released decrees stating that both vacant land and produce of the forests exclusively belonged to Belgium and that natives could only harvest for the state.

Enforcing Leopold’s rule were 16,000 Africans equipped with modern Belgian-made automatic rifles.

Outing Attempt #1: One African American man, George Washington Williams, during his trip compiled a report to be sent to the American secretary of state. In this letter, Williams remembers bets being taken on who could shoot the native people in the head first, among other instances of vile treatment. While the document never made it back to Williams’ home country, it was eventually found in Europe where he later died.

By this point, the Congo was actually ruining Leopold’s finances and he was growing desperate. But to his surprise, he happened to pick the one spot where rubber grew in abundance, just as the demand for cars and bicycles rose internationally, John Dunlop, a Scottish veteran, having just invented the first pneumatic tire.

Because of this, rubber-prominent areas were the targets of mass exploitation and punishment if daily and weekly rubber quotas were not met.

Missionaries began to write not just to one another, but back home in disgust of these aforementioned “punishments,” one man’s writings put in missionary magazines and national newspapers in Europe. These punishments included rape, tying people up to trees, cutting off men's heads and genitals to be displayed along the fences of Congolese villages, cutting women’s breasts off, and most notably...

Attempt #2: The world, if only momentarily, saw BASKETS after BASKETS of right hands that had been cut off as proof that each of the cartridges given to the Africans had been fired and killed one of their own people. These hands were then smoked for preservation and brought back to their officers.

What did Leopold do once this information came out alongside photos of child mutilation? Acknowledge the abuses and moved on almost immediately.

In Europe, the rubber was processed in a city called Antwerp, ironically named after a mythological giant who also cut off hands. To this day, the connection between such a name and Belgian history has not been made by the general public as countless documents by the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs are kept secret to maintain an image of untouched royalty.

One commissioner in charge of a district in Congo, Leon Fievez, produced one ton of rubber a day, boasting of 1,000 people killed, 162 villages destroyed, burning gardens and plantations so people would starve, and having “only” used 3,000 cartridges. He was nicknamed the “Devil of the Equator” and rightly so.

Attempt #3: One day, a man named Charles Stokes, a British trader working for the Germans, entered the picture. Stokes was arrested for trading in state territory, despite those former claims of free trade, and sentenced to death. Leopold was forced to pay compensation to both Britain and Germany for his death, both countries now increasingly aware of the Congo’s dark reality.

To cover it up, Leopold made claims of the Congo opening up to new companies. Let's be real: His men were on the boards of all these new companies and he took 50% of the profits.

In particular were these "concession companies" where the "hostage system" was set up. Agencies, with official hostage licenses authorizing such, would take the wives of rubber collectors for up to 15 days until the quota was met.

On the 15th day, the men of the Congo either got their wives back or faced further punishment, often death. For the agents, the 15th day meant it was time to calculate commissions, and for the king? It was proof that this new hostage system worked.

These abusive concession companies lasted over 10 years until formal competition arose in South America and Asia.

Attempt #4: Then came Edmund Dene Morel, a half-French, self-taught shipping clerk turned investigative journalist who wrote in The Speaker of the abuses faced by the Congolese, backed up by evidence, not just speculations.

Due to Morel’s growing specialization in West African affairs, he was able to not only send out 15,000 brochures and 3,700 letters in six months after his move to Wales, but start his own newspaper, West African Mail.

By 1903, Roger Casement, an ally to Morel’s cause, spent two months traveling the upper Congo, recording African testimonies. He, too, realized that missionaries were key witnesses and went to visit Joseph Clark (a missionary of 20 years) for 17 days.

Through these reports, which grew to 50 pages in length, Casement and Morel were able to solidify Belgium as perpetuating the worst colonial system Africa had ever known. Punishments included Africans performing public incest for the colonists' entertainment, decapitation, women being stabbed with wooden spikes up their vaginas, and one woman tied up to a tree and slashed straight in half from her left shoulder through her abdomen and out the other side.

The West African Mail even reported on a part of Congo no one knew existed, private property within private property called the “Crown Domain” on the other side of Lake Tumba, which gained 231 million euros alone, all sent directly to King Leopold II. Crown Domain was 10x 5)3 size of Belgium.

Founded by Morel, Liverpool became the headquarters of a coalition called the Congo Reform Association. He also published a book called Red Rubber (1906). I think you’ll find the cover particularly striking! Check out the hand in the bottom right corner being weighed against King Leopold II on the left.

Leopold obviously not having this, commissioned a number of books and monthly magazines to clear up the mess. This didn't work. Obviously.

He even tried to send his own international commission to control what the Congolese said in 1904, to no avail. This was due to a missionary named John Harris who had taken the accounts of various people in the area and sent them back to Morel.

In one particularly heartbreaking moment, a chief brought to Leopold’s judges 110 twigs for each of the entire villages, not just people, killed by the Belgian state, naming every last one.

By the time they returned to Europe, the governor-general committed suicide and, upon being asked, Harris suggested Leopold should be sent to the gallows by the relatively new International Court of Justice.

The commission's report vindicated Casement and Morel. Leopold had tricked no one. EVERYONE in Belgium was calling him out.

Leopold ordered all of the Congo State Records to be burned.

In 1908, the Congo became a Belgian colony, not longer Leopold’s personal property. The state still made claims of "civilizing" the Africans after Leopold's death though, utilizing the leftover mineral exploitation industry with no guilt.

At least during his funeral, which he was denied of having privately, the entire city booed his body <3 well deserved. By this point, he had become Europe’s most hated man of the time.

And in case you were wondering, Casement and Morel were both accused to pro-German sympathies during WWI and executed.

I would like to add more detail but I think I’ve hit a character limit. Just know that Congo’s population was cut in HALF, in some places as much as 60-90%. Villages after villages were burned, as shown through so many soldiers’ and missionaries’ journals. This was a genocide of over 10 MILLION PEOPLE y’all. Hearing this story was truly SICKENING, but here’s the BBC 4 documentary we watched for class for more: Congo: White King, Red Rubber, and Black Death.

What truly gets me is just how OTHER colonizers were calling this man out after finding out the full truth… For me, that feels like extra proof of how truly messed up this was if THEY were disturbed too.

And what feels truly insidious was how Leopold made sure to institutionalize all of his wrongdoings and was so… obviously knowing about every wrongdoing, I mean writing in letters to make sure no one else found out. Please…

Linking my angry history rant on Paul Robeson from last semester here.

Happy Black History Month.

[irelandseyeonmythology]

DIAS Black Friday Sale

Once a year, the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS), offers a sale for Black Friday -- DIAS is one of the major publishers for Celtic Studies, many of the best studies of medieval Irish material have come through there.

Some books that I recommend, personally:

Fergus Kelly, A Guide to Early Irish Law (26.25 Euro, normally 35) (THE introduction to law in medieval Ireland)

"", Early Irish Farming (26.25 Euro, normally 35) (Everything you wanted to know about day to day life in medieval Ireland but were afraid to ask. Literally. Everything.)

Medieval Irish Prose

Fergus Kelly, Audacht Morainn (18.75 Euro, normally 25)

Are you planning on becoming a medieval Irish king? Do you want to know what you should do to involve the total destruction of the natural order? Then this is the text for you! Now with English translation!

In all seriousness, this text is used a LOT with regards to studies of ideal kingship in medieval Ireland.

Cecile O'Rahilly, The Táin from the Book of Leinster (26.25 Euro, usually 35)

I'll be real with you, lads: I hate Cú Chulainn. I hate him. I hate his smug, misogynistic face. His creepy multi-pupiled eyes. The shitty way he treats Emer. The way that his presence is like this black hole in the study of medieval Irish literature that means that the Ulster Cycle can get a prestigious yearly conference held in its honor while the other cycles are left with either crumbs or outright dismissal. I think the Táin is boring and episodic as a piece of lit and I've never found anything overly redeeming about it over any other piece of medieval Irish literature, especially since imo other pieces of literature do women (and homoeroticism) much better and get much less praise for it.

...that being said. It's important. It IS iconic, both as a piece of medieval Irish literature and, in general, to Irish literature. Its status as The Irish Iliad means that, if you want to study medieval Irish stuff...you have to read the Táin. And this is a version of the Táin that you might not have gotten, translated and edited by a master of Old Irish, with commentary.

"", Táin Bó Cúailnge: recension I (10 Euro, normally 35)

See above.

Early Irish History and Genealogy

T.F. O'Rahilly, Early Irish History and Genealogy (30 Euro, normally 40)

So. On the record, a lot of what he says here is absolutely not currently believed in the field. Just. No. BUT. There's a reason why I always recommend him anyway, and it's because if you're serious about doing a study of Irish Mythology, whatever we take that to mean...you will not be able to avoid this man. His ideas were very popular for decades and still often are to people who don't really focus on mythology. It's better to know where these ideas come from and to identify them than not, and O'Rahilly, in his defense, had an *excellent* knowledge of his sources. It's dense, it's difficult (rather like the author himself, from the accounts I've heard), but it's necessary if you really want to attack this.

Joan Radner, Fragmentary Annals of Ireland (22.50, normally 30)

There is so much weird shit in the Fragmentary Annals. So much.

Welsh

Patrick Sims Williams, Buchedd Beuno: The Middle Welsh Life of St Beuno (22.50 Euro, normally 30)

I know what you're thinking: "Why the FUCK are they recommending this book about a random Welsh saint? Answer: Because this is how I learned Middle Welsh. The introduction to Welsh at the front of the book + the VERY good index at the back is still one of the best ways to learn Middle Welsh. Also if anyone was watching the Green Knight film and going "Why is there a lady with her head chopped off?" this answers that question.

 R. L. Thomson, Pwyll Pendeuic Dyuet: the first of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, edited from the White Book of Rhydderch, with variants from the Red Book of Hergest (15 Euro, normally 20)

Once you've gotten enough of a hang of Middle Welsh to know the basics, it's time to dive into the classics, and what better way to do it than with the Mabinogi, starting at the very beginning, with the First Branch? Personally, I dislike a lot of Thomson's orthographic decisions, but, hey, it's the First Branch, and that's Middle Welsh orthography for you.

Ian Hughes, Math uab Mathonwy (22.50 Euro, normally 30)

The Fourth Branch, my beloved. Incest, rape, bestiality (well...pseudo bestiality, really), creating a new life while not being willing to deal with the consequences of it...it truly has it all. Not for the faint of heart, but absolutely worth the read if you can stomach it because imo it handles its themes very well and it's incredibly haunting.

And a lot more -- go in, shop around, see what's available. Even with the older books, they're often things that we're still referencing in some way into the present.

[lzjr121]

So I am an avid fan of Cassandra Clare and my favorite series is TID (the infernal devices for those uneducated) and I just watch a movie called Leap Year. It’s a romcom type thing in which an AMERICAN goes to Ireland to propose to her fiancé who is there for a conference. It’s an old tradition where on Feb 29 (leap year) the females propose to the male cause their cowards or whatever. She gets caught in a storm and ends up in WALES in a pub run by a DARK HANDSOME AND WELSH MAN WITH AN OVERCOAT SEEN IN WILL HERONDALE ART and she enlists his help to GET HER CROSS COUNTRY to Dublin as that is where her bf is. They keep trying to get their lot of problems and it’s a cross country trip tbh and SHE PICKS HIM OVER THE OTHER GUY (granted Jem is an absolute angel (hehehe) and should be protected at all costs!)

So to get to my point, Miss Clare? Have you seen this? And if not this is the most Will coded thing I have ever watched right down to his witty humor and I think you would enjoy it.

[mask131]

Ségurant, the Knight of the Dragon (1/4)

In order to do my posts about Ségurant, I will basically blatantly plagiarize the documentary I recently saw - especially since it will be removed at the end of next January. If you don't remember from my previous post, it is an Arte documentary that you can watch in French here. There's also a German version somewhere.

The documentary is organized very simply, by a superposition of research-exploration-explanation segments with semi-animated retellings of extracts of the lost roman.

0: The origin of it all

The documentary is led by and focused on the man behind the rediscovery of Ségurant, the Knight of the Dragon – Emanuele Arioli, presented simply as a researcher in the medieval domain, expert of the Arthurian romances, and deeply passionate by the Arthurian legend and chivalry. If you want to be more precise, a quick glimpse at his Wikipedia pages reveals that he is actually a Franco-Italian an archivist-paleographer, a doctor in medieval studies, and a master of conferences in the domain of medieval language and medieval literature.

It all began when Arioli was visiting the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, at Paris. There he checked a yet unstudied 15th century manuscript of “Les prophéties de Merlin”. Everybody knows Monmouth’s Prophetiae Merlini, but it is not this one – rather it is one of those many “Merlin’s Prophecies” that were written throughout the Middle-Ages, collecting various “political prophecies” interwoven with stories taken out of the legends of king Arthur and the Round Table. And while consulting this specific 15th century “Prophéties de Merlin”, Arioli stumbled upon a beautiful enluminure (I think English folks say “illumination”) of a knight facing a dragon. Interested, he read the story that went with it… And discovered the tale of Ségurant, a knight he had never heard about during the entirety of his studies.

Here we have the first fragment of Ségurant’s story: “Ségurant le Brun” (Ségurant the Brown, as in Brown-haired, you could call him Ségurant the Dark-haired, Ségurant the Brunet), a “most excellent and brave knight”, sent a servant to Camelot, court of king Arthur, and in front of the king the servant said – “A knight from a foreign land sends me there, and asks you to go in three days onto the plain of Winchester, with your knights of the Round Table, to joust. You will see there the greatest marvel you ever saw.”

Checking the rest of the manuscript, Arioli found several other episodes detailing Ségurant’s adventures, all beginning with illuminations of a knight facing a dragon. And this was the beginning of Arioli’s quest to reconstruct a roman that had been forgotten and ignored by everybody – a quest that took him ten years (and in the documentary he doesn’t hide that he ended up feeling himself a lot within Ségurant’s character who is also locked in an impossible quest).

I: Birth of king, birth of myth

The first quarter of the documentary or so is focused on Arioli’s first step in his quest for Ségurant: Great-Britain of course! However, slight spoiler alert, Arioli didn’t find anything there – and so the documentary spends a bit more time speaking about king Arthur than Ségurant, though it does fill in with various other extracts of Ségurant’s story.

Arioli’s first step was of course the National Library of Wales, where the most ancient resources about king Arthur are kept, and where old Celtic languages and traditions are still very much alive, or at least perfectly preserved. The documentary has Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan presenting the audience with the oldest record of the name Arthur in Welsh literature – if not in European literature as a whole. The “Y Gododdin”, where one of the characters described is explicitly compared to Arthur in negative, “even though he was not Arthur”. The Y Gododdin is extremely hard to date, though it is very likely it was written in the 7th century – and all in all, it proves that Arthur was known of Welsh folks at the time, probably throughout oral poems sung by bards, and already existed as a “good warrior” or “ideal leader” figure.

From there, we jump to a brief history lesson. Great-Britain used to be the province of the Roman Empire known as Britannia – and when the Romans left, it became the land of the Britons (in French we call them “Bretons” which is quite ironic because “Breton” is also the name of the inhabitants of the Britany region of France – Bretagne. This is why Great-Britain is called Great-Britain, the Britany of France was the “Little-Britain”, and this is also why the Britain-myth of Arthur spreads itself across both England and France – but anyway). However, ever since the 5th century, Great-Britain had fallen into social and political instability, as two Germanic tribes had invaded the lands: the Angles and the Saxons. In the year 600, the Angles and the Saxons were occupying two-thirds of Great-Britain, while the Britons had been pushed towards the most hostile lands – Cornwall, Wales and Scotland. This era was a harsh, cruel and dark world, something that the Y Gododdin perfectly translates – and thus it makes sense that the figure of Arthur would appear in such situation, as the mythical hero of the Briton resistance against the Anglo-Saxons.

However we had to wait until a Latin work of the 12th century for Arthur’s fate to finally be tied to the history of the kings of England: Geoffrey of Monmouth, a Welsh bishop, wrote for the king of England of the time the “Historia Regum Britanniae”, “History of the Kings of Britain”, in which we find the first complete biography of Arthur as a king – twenty pages or so about “the most noble king of the Britons”. Geoffrey’s record was a mix of real and imagination, weaving together fictional tales with historical resources – it seems Geoffrey tried to make Arthur “more real” by including him into the actual History with a big H, and it is thanks to him that we have the legend of Arthur as we know it today ; even though his Arthur was a “proto-Arthur”, without any knight or Round Table. The tale begins in Cornwall, at Tintagel, where Arthur was conceived: one night, Uther Pendragon, with the help of Merlin, took the shape of the Duke of Cornwall to enter in his castle and sleep with his wife Igraine. This was how Arthur was born.

The documentary then has some presentations of the archeological work on Tintagel – filled with enigmatic and mysterious ruins. The current archeological research, and a scientific project in 2018, allowed for the discovery of proof that the area was occupied as early as 410, and then all the way to the 9th and 10th century, maybe even the years 1000. There are many elements indicating that Tintagel was inhabited during the post-Roman times when Arthur was supposed to have lived: post-Roman glass, and various fragments of pottery coming from Greece or Turkey and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea – overall the area clearly was heavily influenced by Mediterranean commerce and cultures. Couple that with the fact that we have the ruins of more than a hundred buildings built solidly with the stone of the island – that is to say more buildings than what London used to have during the same era – and with the fact that there are scribe-performed inscriptions for various families and third parties (meaning people were important or rich enough to buy a scribe to write things for them)… All of this proves that Tintagel was important, wealthy and connected, and so while it does not prove Arthur did exist, it proves that a royal court might have existed at Tintagel – and that Geoffrey of Monmouth probably selected Tintagel as the place of birth of Arthur because he precisely knew of how ancient and famous the area was, through a long oral tradition.

2: After birth, death

The next area visited by the documentary is Glastonbury. “On a Somerset hill formerly surrounded by swamps and bogs”, medieval tradition used to localize the fabulous island of Avalon – where Arthur, mortally wounded by his son Mordred, was taken by fairies. Healed there, he ever since rests under the hill, and will, the story says, return in the future to save the Britons when they need it the most… More interestingly fifty years after Monmouth’s writings, the actual grave of king Arthur was supposedly discovered in the cemetery of the abbey of Glastonbury, and can still be visited today. It is said that in 1191, the monks of the abbey were digging a large pit in their cemetery, 12 feet deep, when they find a rough wooden coffin with a great lead cross on which were written “Here lies king Arthur, on the island of Avalon”. Now, you might wonder, why were monks digging a pit in their cemetery? Sounds suspicious… Well it is said that Henry II was the one who told the monks that, if they dug in their cemetery, they might find “something interesting”… Why would Henry II order a research for the grave of king Arthur? Very simple – a political move. Henry II was a Plantagenet king, aka part of a Norman bloodline, from Normandy, and the House of Plantagenet had gained control of their territory through wars. The Plantagenet was a dynasty that won large chunks of territory through battles (or through marriage – Henri II married Aliénor d’Aquitaine in 1152, which allowed him to extend his empire so that it ended up covering not just all of Great-Britain but also three quarters of France). But as a result, the Plantagenet House had to actually “justify” themselves, prove their legitimacy – prove that they were not just ruling because they were conquerers that had beaten or seduced everybody. They needed to tie themselves to Briton traditions, to link themselves to the legends of Britain – and the “discovery” of king Arthur’s tomb was part of this political plan. And it was a huge success – Glastonbury became famous, and so did king Arthur, who went from a mere Briton war-chief that maybe existed, to a true legend and symbol of English royalty.

However, so far, there are no traces of Ségurant in the Welsh tradition, and here we get our second extract of Ségurant’s roman, which actually seems to be the beginning of his adventures.

Ségurant comes from a fictional island (or at least going by a fictional name): l’île Non-Sachante. There Ségurant le Brun was knighted on the day of the Pentecost by his own grandfather. There was great merriment and great joy, and after the party, Ségurant openly declared he wanted to see the court of king Arthur and all the great wonders in it that everybody kept talking about. He claimed he would go to Winchester – and thus it leads to the invitation mentioned above. Yep, he decided that the best way to go see king Arthur’s court and his wonders was to basically challenge the king and his knights…

3: No place at the Round Table

Of course, the next step of the documentary is Winchester, former capital of Saxon England. Some traditions claim that it was at Winchester that Camelot was located, king Arthur’s castle and the capital of his Royaume de Logres, Kingdom of Logres. Logres itself being actually clearly the dream of a land rebuilt and given back to the Britons, once all the Germanic invaders are kicked out.

The documentary goes to Winchester Castle, built by William the Conqueror, and takes a look at the famous “Round Table” kept within its Great Hall – a table on which are written the name of 24 Arthurian knights, with a painting of king Arthur at the center… Above the rose of the Tudors. Because, that’s the thing everybody knows – while the Round Table itself was built in the 13th century and presented as an “Arthurian relic”, it was repainted in the shape it is today during the 16th century, by Henry the Eight (you know, the wife-killer), who used it as yet another political tool to impose and legitimize the rule of the Tudor line – and he wasn’t subtle about it, since he had Arthur’s face painted to look like his… On this table you find the names of many of the famous Arthurian knights: Galahad, Lancelot of the Lake, Gawain, Perceval, Lionel, Mordred, Tristan, the Knight with the Ill-Fitting Coat… They were organized according to a hierarchy (despite the very principle of the table being there was no hierarchy): at the top are the most famous and well-known knights, with their own stories and quests, such as Galahad, Lancelot of Gawain. At the bottom are the less famous ones: Lucan, Palamedes, Lamorak, Bors de Ganis…

And Ségurant is, of course, absent. Which can be baffling when you consider what the story about Ségurant actually says…

NEW EXTRACT! We are on the field of Winchester. All the tents are prepared for the greatest tournament Logres ever knew. The tent of Ségurant is very easy to spot, because there is a precious stone at the top, that shines day and knight, constantly emitting light as if it was a flaming torch. In front of king Arthur, all the bravest and most courageous knights of the Round Table appear and joust between them: Lancelot and Gawain are explicitly named. Suddenly, Ségurant appears and defies them all in combat! One by one, the knights of the Round Table battle with Ségurant – but all their spears break themselves onto his shield, and in the end, no knight wants to defy him, realizing they could not possibly defeat him. And in the audience, a rumor start spreading… “For sure, it will be him, the knight who will find the Holy Grail!”

So we have a knight who managed to defeat all the knights of the Round Table, in front of king Arthur, and yet nobody talks about him? But as the documentary reminds the audience – the Winchester Round Table only contains knights that the British tradition is familiar with. There many Arthurian knights with their own story and quests, such as Erec or Yvain the Knight of the Lion, who are absent from it… Because they are part of the French tradition, and thus less popular if not frankly ignored by England (a specific mention goes to Erec who was only translated very recently into English apparently, and for centuries and centuries stayed unknown in the English-speaking world).

Anyway – the conclusion of this first part of the documentary is simple. Ségurant is not from Great-Britain, he is not British nor Welsh, and so his origins lie somewhere else.

ADDENDUM

In the first part of this documentary, they stay quite vague and allusive about the story of Ségurant (because the documentary is obviously about the quest and research behind the reconstruction of the roman, not about what the roman contains in every little details). So to flesh out a bit the various extracts above I will use some information from the very summary Wikipedia page about this recently rediscovered knight (I didn’t had the time to get my hands on the book yet).

In the version that is the “main” one reconstructed by Arioli and that is the basis for the documentary’s retelling, soon before being knighted, Ségurant had proved his worth by performing a successful “lion hunt” onto the Ile Non-Sachante. Said island is actually said to have originally been a wild and deserted island onto which his grand-father, Galehaut le Brun, and his grand-father’s brother, Hector le Brun, had arrived after a shipwreck – they had taken the sea to flee an usurper on the throne of Logres named Vertiger (it seems to be a variation of Vortigern?). Galehaut le Brun had a son, Hector le Jeune (Hector the Young), Ségurant’s father. However, unlike the documentary which presents Ségurant as immediately wishing to see Camelot and defy its knights as soon as he is knighted, the Wikipedia page explains there is apparently a missing episode between the two events: in the roman, Ségurant originally leave the Ile Non-Sachante to defeat his uncle (also named Galehaut, like his grandfather) on the mainland. After beating his uncle at jousting, rumors of his various feats and exploits reached Camelot, and it was king Arthur himself who decided to organize a tournament in Ségurant’s honor at Winchester, so that the Knights of the Round Table could admire Ségurant’s exploits.

The fact that the documentary presents a version of the story when the Knights of the Round Table are already in search for the Holy Grail when Ségurant arrives at Winchester is quite interesting because according to the Wikipedia article, Ségurant’s name is mentioned in a separate text (a late 15th century armorial) as one of the knights of the Round Table who was present “when they took the vow of undergoing the quest of the Holy Grail, on Pentecost Day”. The same armorial then goes on to add more elements about Ségurant’s character. Here, instead of being the son of “Hector the Young”, he is son of “Hector le Brun” (so the whole family is “Brown” then), and this title is explained by the color of his hair, which is actually of a brown so dark it is almost black. Ségurant is described here as a very tall man, “almost a giant”, and to answer this enormous height, he has an incredible and powerful strength, coupled with a great appetite making him eat like ten people. But he is actually a peaceful, gentle soul, as well as a lone wolf not very social. He also is said to have a beautiful face, and to be “well-proportioned” in body. A final element of this armorial, which is the most interesting when compared to the main story given by the documentary (where the dragon comes afterward) – in this armorial, Ségurant is actually said to have killed a dragon BEFORE being knighted, a “hideous and terrible” dragon, and this is why his coast of arms depict a black dragon with a green tongue over a gold background.

Again, this all comes from an armorial kept at the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal – which has a small biography and drawing of Ségurant over one page (used to illustrate the French Wikipedia article). It is apparently not in the “roman” that Arioli reconstructed – especially since in the comic book adaptation, and the children-illustrated-novel adaptations, not only is Ségurant depicted as of regular size, but he is also BLOND out of all things…

As for the name of the island Ségurant comes from, “l’île Non-Sachante”, it is quite a strange name that means “The Island Not-Knowing”, “The Unknowing island”, “The island that does not know”. This is quite interesting because, on one side it seems to evoke how this is an island not known by regular folks – this wild, uncharted, unmapped island on which Ségurant’s family ended up, and from which this mysterious all-powerful knight comes from (and you’ll see that the fact nobody knows Ségurant’s island is very important). But there is also the fact that the adjective “Sachante” is clearly at the female form, to match the female word “île”, “island”, meaning it is the island that does not “know”. And given it is supposed to be this wild place without civilization, it seems to evoke how the island doesn’t know of the rest of the world, or doesn’t know of humanity. (Again I am not sure, I haven’t got the book yet, I am just making basic theories and hypothetic reading based on the info I found)

[navysvettel]

Nico Rosberg is the Finno-Anglo-Franco-Italiano-German who speaks 97 languages (including Welsh) and has a world record Il passports - but deep down he's really a Monegasque. You can tell from the exquisite manners and the smell of money whenever he wafts by. So even if he hadn't won the race for the last three years the build-up to the Monaco Grand Prix mostly consists of Nico dutifully explaining that he went through the tunnel to school every morning while growing up, and the media dutifully reporting it like they have the previous ten years he's said it. Just once we'd like Nico to bullshit the press conference and claim to have been raised by wolves in a Lappland yurt. Like Kimi.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

didn't want to add to your post bc i'm not welsh (but asian) and haven't lived in the uk for a while so by no means is this on the same level as the celtophobia experienced by welsh people, but thank you so much for bringing up that "hahaaha your words are so complicated, too complicated for meee" thing that english people do! it's so spot on, right down to that stupid laugh! i work in academia too and i swear i've only ever seen the english do it*-- not just with names/terms/places in lectures but even refusing to say the names of speakers that they introduce at conferences. it's like there's pride in that behaviour, as if they think makes them sound humble rather than incredibly insensitive and ignorant. the other day i saw an english comedian on tv apologize (apologize!) for pronouncing a french word CORRECTLY (while commentating eurovision, of all things) because she knew it was "making her sound pretentious". like what is wrong with these people!

(* not that non-english people are always respectful about non-english/minority languages, but i've never seen them refuse to pronounce something or do "the laugh" + i've experienced a lot more non-english people at least saying "i hope i pronounced this correctly, please correct me if i'm wrong", which is marginally better. i wish more people were like you with the tanzanian terms)

anyway, i hope that lecturer faces consequences for being so unprofessional.

Oh yeah, this is a HUGE part of the problem! The one I always bring up is Amanda Holden announcing the UK Eurovision voting results in 2021. Like EVERY OTHER ANNOUNCER, she had learned how to say 'Good evening' in French and Dutch ("Bon Soir, Goedenavond."); and then, unlike literally any other announcer, IMMEDIATELY followed it up with "That means good evening in French and Dutch, but I've got no idea which is which! Tee hee!"

Friend, I can tell you now - Welsh language social media had a fucking field day.

But yeah, they are highly motivated, culturally, by the idea that respecting someone else's language is cringeworthy and pretentious. They can't handle the idea of losing face and being embarrassed in case they get it wrong, so it becomes turned around - if saying it right is pretentious, then socially, they no longer have to do it and risk embarrassment. It would now be embarrassing to do it right. Genius! They're off the hook!

Anyway, it's bad enough when they do it to us, but it's worse when they do it to Asian languages and cultures, so I offer you a fist bump of solidarity.

[ihavetoomanyhyperfixations]

Here's my haul from the UK trip mentioned in my previous post!

First off; The books.

On the Talyllyn, at Tywyn Wharf they have a little book stand with random books and dvds for free in return for small donations you feel are appropriate. I got myself the SECR book about country stations. I dunno why, I guess it was because it could hold some really good inspiration for the future of my own layout.

The other book I got there was the pictorial tribute to Crewe Works. Because big locomotive works across the UK are so fascinating. Ever seen Terrier55Stepney's video on Brighton Works and it's history? I found that fascinating so I thought it'd be neat to have. Also Henry got his rebuild at Crewe so that gave the book some bonus points.

I also got a DVD from that book stand but I am currently unsure where it went.

I also got a Guide Book for the Talyllyn Railway detailing it's history, stations, engines and significant people. My mom saw it and wanted it because it looked neat. It has some amazing pictures and genuinely interesting facts. Like, have any of you ever heard of a place called Tadpole Cutting on the Talyllyn? You have now! It's a little past Rhydyronen and known to flood after stormy weather.

Then of course, since I was already at the Talyllyn Railway, Railway Adventure was a must-have. I'd only heard small bits of what occurs in it via the Railway Series Book Club podcast (check them out BTW they're great) and thought it sounded fascinating.

Then, being a TTTE and RWS fan (shocker, I know) I also got myself four Railway Series books. I bought two at Tywyn and two at Abergynolwyn, one on each day at each station when I was there. I got Branchline Engines, Enterprising Engines, Mountain Engines and Duke the Lost Engine. I honestly regret not getting Stepney's book, but I wanted to have at least one book not illustrated by the Edwards, great as they may be.

Now let's move on to the models.

At Tywyn Wharf, in the shop, they sold some TTTE Bachmann models. After some conferring with online friends on what was appropriately priced, I settled on getting Toad because the UK version has printing on both sides. (Thanks for telling me that, Vivian.)

And then in the National Railway Museum, I was... not as money smart, to put it lightly. Without consulting people I know on the internet, I got Edward and Henrietta, both from Bachmann. Henrietta because she'll go along nicely with my Toby and Edward because he was at least 10 £ less than the Henry they were selling. I love my mom so much for getting me these because yowie those prices would have made me faint if I'd paid for them. They maybe were a bit overpriced but at least there was no shipping costs or agonizing wait for the package to arrive. I can just... take them home :>

Aaaand that's it! Haha I honestly loved being here. I got to see THE Talyllyn engines in real life, met Luke Ryan (he was lovely) and took some lovely pictures of the Welsh Countryside. The National Railway Museum, even if it wasn't completely opened due to them refurbishing the Station Hall, was mindblowing. I got to see the Stirling Single, an engine I love very dearly. Unfortunately neither Scotsman or Truro were there, but Boxhill was a pleasant sight. As I mentioned in my previous post, I used the NRM's railway book archive to read one of Chris' Awdry's RWS books. The only other one grey had was James' original book. And honestly it wasn't amazing but I think it could be worse, which is my opinion on a lot of things considered unpopular or bad.

Pictures I've taken are sure to follow, but only once I'm home!

[blysse-and-blunder]

In lieu of a travel journal

2am my-time, monday, july 24, 2023

Awake and giddy and trying to calm down after completing what I think may accidentally actually be a decent conference paper, a few short hours before I need to present it—some thoughts on the things that have kept me entertained and sane while on necessary breaks from writing! writing this on my phone so there’s no read-more, apologies.

reading

having a very good time alternating between after Sappho, selby wynn schwartz, and an angela carter short story collection called the bloody chamber. both very ~feminist~ but in ways that are subtly distinct—you can tell which came out in 2021 and which did not—but both so interesting. I think I may DNF this other unnamed spy-urban fantasy, unfortunately, which sucks because the premise was good, the execution is just very grating. assorted other libby holds include italo calvino’s the baron in the trees, ty @morrak and carmen maria machado’s in the dream house.

listening

yws gwynedd and the resulting welsh pop / rock mix on 24-hour lockdown repeat. it’s been extremely good to me, high energy, low engagement, except I’m also getting better at listening comprehension slowly but surely, there’s no downside. Stuck in my head currently, perpetually:

watching

the first episode of d20’s starstruck odyssey, which despite all the potential for getting bogged down in new mechanics and bad stats and dysfunctional team dynamics was really lovely? It is filling the sweet spot right between being in the mood for fantasy high and being in the mood for Neverafter, and plus I like! just getting to hear them play! I also watched the first few minutes of disn*y’s strange world on this airbnb’s d+ account, and will hopefully be able to go back—I was looking for something I could have on in the background and ended up getting interested, so, task failed successfully! I also watched, and slept through, amsterdam (2022) on a plane recently.

playing

fallow week. shoutout to the game I tried with friends a few weeks ago and forgot to mention, genesis noir, which was so gloriously atmospheric and moody and interesting, right up until it was slightly too buggy and/or unintuitive to get past the first fifteen minutes or so. though that could have been the fault of the internet connection, which had been slow that whole night and did crash immediately thereafter. we laughed ourselves to absolute fucking tears over gangbeasts again, afterwards. but I’m still thinking about the celestial noir vibes and hope to get back to this one soon.

making

fallow week! making plans and achieving them, making memories and taking pictures, making virtual friendships into realities. making more homecooked meals, hopefully, now that I have real kitchen access! making some professional connections??

working on

the last week has been all about either working on said paper, or getting a mental refresh by getting as far from it as possible. it’s been hard to get back into work mode after some of these full days off, but also, I did budget my time and I *did* put enough in, early and often, that by the time the eleventh hour came around it was possible to actually finish. i don’t think i could have gotten to this version, which i’m pleased with, with any less effort—but spending all day thurs at the library, working in the morning or an hour before bed, or between lunch and dinner tonight—and a lot of time the week prior—it all added up. it all contributed something. this is my memo to myself: the long boring slog leading up to the exhilarating last minute is just as necessary. it helped that I have other (dissertation-based) uses for every idea and sentence and quote I had to cut tonight, and I still think this paper is stronger without them.

[hexjulia]

hm maybe regret recommending a few episodes of The rest is history podcast. They passed my really low bar of not being a historical topics by Just Some Guy (imo you should at least have studied something related to history so you know how to handle sources + their interpretations) + with good recording quality (i can only listen to so many lectures recorded at some conference on what sounds like a $2 microphone with a sock on it when i just want to be distracted from a gross task for fun). And they do introduce you to a few less well known episodes in history like the welsh colonisation of argentinia etc. BUT

a good % episodes lack depth despite a lot of talking. this was initially not an issue because not all episodes are like this, and also because it was basically my toilet cleaning soundtrack. Sometimes the one i use when painting walls. So i just needed light distraction (without too much inaccurate information), not a lecture. But i'm starting to reach episodes that are hmm less good. I still think the ones about the history of package holidays was actually very fun! But it's a bit of a hit and miss.

I have since found out one of the hosts (tom holland) is a vocal JKR supporter. I'm honestly not that surprised though it is disappointing. The opinions voiced on the show are often too conservative for me (in a very british way). What made it listenable anyway was that it was both that I actively seek out opinions other than my own + it is usually quite clear when they were just opinions, that they usually cited at least some source, including ones they didn't agree with. This made it an acceptable way to be introduced to new topics which i could then later actually read up about and form further impressions of my own of.

I don't know if the JKR defense it would have stopped me from listening (i just dl these for free, it's whatever) but i would either not have recommended even the fun episodes or at the very least definitely not without a warning. I will say haven't heard any transphobic comments in actual episodes so far (but that could just be luck. there are a lot of them!), and there's a difference between misguidedly defending a politically active millionaire against online aggression and actually being transphobic out of some deeply held convictions about gender.... i think? i'm not british and i'm not willing to spend more time digging through twitter to find out.

I skimmed through one of tom holland's history books (rubicon) and did Not like it. At all. This is very much one of those writing history for a General Audience writers and he seems to be writing about things he has not actually studied as deeply as you'd expect someone to have when they're writing a book about it. hm.

[gawrkin]

King Arthur's Son from Jack the Giant Killer

The folk story of Jack the Giant Killer is one of those rare fairy tale stories that's also an Arthurian story - being that its setting during Arthur's reign. Other stories of this type include Tom Thumb and Child Rowland. These stories are generally post-Malory. (unfortunately)

Apparently, according to some scholars the story of "the giant slaying Jack" arose because of the popularity of Arthur himself as the "Slayer of Giants" was so numerous, people were getting bored with it. Jack himself and his story comes off as hodgepodge of various motifs that you find elsewhere in other stories.

What caught my attention with this story, is that the largest episode of Jack's story involves Jack meeting up with a nameless son of King Arthur and adventuring with him.

So, the story of Jack begins with a simple introduction and description of Jack and his first enemy, Cormoran:

For the first three sections of the story, Jack goes around killing giants and making a name for himself (including a famous moment where he tricks a giant into commiting suicide).

For this post, we're skipping over to the part where King Arthur's son is introduced:

Lol. When I was reading this part, I couldn't help but imagine this Prince is actually Sir Loholt, who is sometimes Arthur's Legit son with Guinevere. It actually makes a lot of sense with Lanzelet's description of him:

So yeah, for me he's Prince Loholt. :) Continuing on:

Yup. He's an Arthurian male character, alright. Too nice, not enough braincells.

Also, its kind of heartwarming to know Arthur and Guinevere would have a son who's so kind and generous, he wouldn't think twice to give up his riches if it meant helping someone.

So next up, Jack suggests that they sleep over at a giant's place. This is the other interesting about Jack the Giant Killer: He personally knows this giant and depending on the version, he claims this giant is actually his uncle. Other stories claim the giant is an idiot and Jack's just smooth talking him, but I think its way more interesting if the Giant IS Jack's relative. In Early Arthurian Lore, a number of giant-slayers, including Arthur, Kay and Gawain, all have giantish attributes (Kay's famous superpowers), have giants for relatives (Guinevere, in Welsh myth, is the daughter of Gogfran the giant) or are giants themselves.

Prince: Oh, so that means you're a giant, too? Jack: I guess? Prince: Cool. My Mother, the Queen, is a giantess as well. We're kinsmen! Jack: ... Prince: Also, my uncle can grow really big.

So Jack goes up to the giant's castle and knocks on the door:

So Jack and the Prince spend the night in the giant's castle while the giant himself is locked away. The next day, the Prince continues his journey while Jack promises to catch up after he deals with the giant. What's interesting here is that this giant isn't slain like the others. He survives, unlike Jack's other foes - which kinda puts more points to my theory that this really is Jack's uncle and Jack is a half-breed giant of sorts.

The giant wants to reward Jack:

These magic items are your classic fairy tale archetypal tools that have their inspiration found in earlier myths: You have your bog-standard cuts-through-anything magic sword (like Excalibur), the slippers are the "Seven-League boots" (Based on Hermes' winged sandals) and you have an item that confers invisibility (It comes in many forms: Hade's helm, Siegfried's cloak and even Arthur himself has an Invisibility cloak too)

Jack getting these items is a way to give your hero superpowers without utilizing... unsavory methods. That he's able to use these items despite belonging to - and presumably used by - a giant is never questioned.

Moving on, we get to meet the "Possessed Lady" Loholt the Prince was after this whole time:

Well that was rude. So naturally, the Prince despairs until Jack does something about it:

Methinks that this lady is actually a murderous sorceress and isn't actually possessed.

This is romcom material.

Lady: Um, what is wrong with him? Jack: *Puts on his Cap* ...Camelot, apparently...

So once again, its up to Jack to save the day.

Are you sure this Lady is possessed? Also, she's scolding Satan - definitely wife material Queen material.

And so, Satan was killed (lol), the Lady was restored to her former good looks (even though she was already described as beautiful), she and the Prince get married and Jack gets to be one of the Knights of the Round Table.

And that's the end of this section of Jack the Giant Killer's story and end of this post. Jack's story goes on for a few more episodes of giant-slaying before ending on your typical "...and they lived happily ever. The End."

I wonder what the usual cast's (Arthur, Guinevere, Merlin, Lancelot, Gawain, etc.) reaction to this story would be.

It's notable that (at least in the version I'm reading) this section with "King Arthur's Son " is longer than other stories. Moreover, no giants are actually killed in it. The "uncle" giant was merely hood-winked and Jack uncharacteristically spares him. The story is mostly about helping King Arthur's son woo a demonically possessed Lady.