Britons and Celts
The Cat Who Caught a Cock
“But I minding another thing, and seeing that scratching could not move him, suddenly I leapt up and caught him by the genitals with my teeth, and bit so hard, that at last he cried out.” […]
Month: August 2022
Viking
A Dignified Duel
“Then Horwendil endeavoured to address the king first, asking him in what way it was his pleasure to fight, and declaring that one best which needed the courage of as few as possible. For, said he, the duel was the surest of all modes of combat for winning the meed of bravery, because it relied only upon native courage, and excluded all help from the hand of another.” […]
Britons and Celts
Brutus: Founder of Britain
“. It seemed to him that the goddess stood before him and spoke these words to him: “Brutus, beyond the setting of the sun, past the realms of Gaul, there lies an island in the sea, once occupied by giants. Now it is empty and ready for your folk.” […]
Knowledge
Trivia of Dead Worlds: Demosthenes’ Training
Demosthenes was one of the greatest orators of his time, using his profound rhetorical skill to steer the course of ancient Athens, one debate at a time. But it was not always so. When Demosthenes […]
Knowledge
Trivia of Dead Worlds: Descartes Robot
Rene Descartes is well known as a philosopher and mathematician. He tended to view the world in concrete, definable terms. As such, he was obsessed with the idea of the repetitive, predictable behavior of living […]
Knowledge
Trivia of Dead Worlds: Kidd’s Demise
Captain William Kidd has come down through history as a notorious pirate, but his true history is full of complex nuance that speak to the strangeness of the era he lived in. Kidd was actually […]
Knowledge
Trivia of Dead Worlds: The Last Words of Marie Antoinette
Sentenced to death at a sham trial of revolutionaries, Marie Antoinette delivered a blistering rebuke to the court, saying “I was a queen, and you took away my crown; a wife, and you killed my […]
Knowledge
Trivia of Dead Worlds: Mongol Executions
You might have imagined that Mongol executions were a bloody affair. But you’d be wrong. The Mongols were deeply squeamish about blood. The blood of important people, especially, was never supposed to touch the ground. […]
Knowledge
Trivia of Dead Worlds: Schwedentrunk
[Warning: this is gross]. The Thirty Years War was an exceptionally violent and chaotic event in European history. As the territory of the area that would one day become Germany descended into a bloody internecine […]
Knowledge
Trivia of Dead Worlds: Mongolian Drinks
The medieval Mongols had a few unusual drinking habits that gave their foreign associates (notably Marco Polo) a bit of a pause. Firstly, the Mongols had a ritualistic approach to drunkenness during their great feasts. […]