Back from the commercial break, Gwawl was tapping his foot meaningfully and waiting for Rhiannon and Pwyll to emerge from their huddle. “Hello? You people ready to get back to it?” “Of course, of course,” said Pwyll. “Well, much as … Continue reading →
Pwyll benefited tremendously from his friendship with Arawn. None of the other kings in his neighborhood were buds with an actual fairy-king, plys Arawn was all the time sending Pwyll little presents like cattle and hawks and gold bars, just … Continue reading →
Pwyll (pronounced, according to my inexpert interpretation of the pronunciation guide in my copy of the Mabinogion, midway between puhl and pewl) was a small-time local lord, local in this case being fairy-tale Wales. His particular little territory (comprising a … Continue reading →
Man, I’m just not feeling Herodotus. I’d like to, Lord knows, and maybe I will again at some point, but it’s not turning out like a fun project which is worthwhile, and so I’m going to do something else. Something … Continue reading →
Herodotus’s source for all this Nile lore was some cool guys in Cyrene, a Hellenic colony on the African coast just to the west of Egypt proper. He met them in a bar (probably) and they spun him a tale … Continue reading →
In which we talk about Kush, finally As hinted yesterday, today we examine a fun new topic here in Herodotus Explains African Geography: the source of the Nile! Nobody knows from whence the Nile flows, except the clerk at the … Continue reading →
Another thing I did this past weekend was watch a lot of Friends, which was recently added to the Netflix streaming library. Watching it, I was struck by several things: Even though I am pretty sure I’ve seen most of … Continue reading →
I used to write about games that I played a lot, but that was in another life and a different presidential administration. We hadn’t yet learned Iron Man was the greatest American hero, that’s how long ago it was. But … Continue reading →
In which we consider the Nile This brings us around to the topic of the mysterious Nile. Herodotus has several agenda items here. First, why does the Nile flood every year at midsummer? Regular as clockwork, supposedly, the Nile rises … Continue reading →
In which Herodotus explains farming Maybe the Egyptians will be able to figure out some way to combat climate change, though: they’re really sharp guys. In particular Herodotus wants to call out the humble Egyptian subsistence farmer as a secret … Continue reading →
