Day 13 is the paladin as a mourning dove! Only 2 dnd birds left after this! You can find both of them on my ig if you can’t wait though :)

name specific works within the genres/other in the tags!

THEY FUCKING DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

hwaet! memory-mother, in meadhall sing the hatred, from heartlocks broken, of achilles peleusson, cursed by his people, wreaker of woes unending. often his spear made the mighty drink to dogs, food for the feathered, strong souls banished to breathe in the dark.

deep it was driven, the doom of zeus, since they stood sundered, bitter in boasting, atreusson the people-king, and sun-bright achilles. but who in heaven struck up their strife? the son of leto, livid at the king, spelled sickness, and the people perished, for atreusson harmed his holy priest, chryses.

spear-greeks he sought by the swift sea-steeds, daring, undaunted, his daughter to ransom, bearing garlands of the arrow-guiding god on a golden staff. he sank before spear-greeks, saying to them and the sons of atreus, people-guides: “sons of atreus, and strong-scaled spear-greeks, may the mighty gods in their mountain-helming halls give you priam’s gore-gold, and glorious homecoming. only unchain my child, in exchange for this ringhoard, with honor for him, the arrow-hailing son of zeus.”

The completed Ring Verses illuminated calligraphy scroll. Romanesque style vesica illumination of Sauron as "Annatar", the Lord of Gifts, as he appeared to the Elves in the 2nd Age.

I’m (maybe?) almost done with a Théodred story I’ve been working on for a long time and, in looking back over some of my notes about his canon life, I couldn’t help clocking the many similarities between his experiences and those of LOTR’s other first son of a kingdom of men, Boromir. It’s not super relevant to my story, but I ended up with this running list and I’m just sticking it here because why not. None of this is groundbreaking stuff (and there are probably more) but so far I have that Théodred and Boromir both:

1. Were heirs to the leadership of their respective realms and held their land’s senior military positions (Second Marshal for Théodred—there being no First Marshal at the time—and Captain of the White Tower for Boromir).

2. Lost their mothers early (Théodred at birth and Boromir at age 10) and grew up in households run entirely by powerful fathers who never remarried.

I got to hold a 500,000 year old hand axe at the museum today.

It's right-handed

I am right-handed

There are grooves for the thumb and knuckle to grip that fit my hand perfectly

I have calluses there from holding my stylus and pencils and the gardening tools.

There are sharper and blunter parts of the edge, for different types of cutting, as well as a point for piercing.

I know exactly how to use this to butcher a carcass.

A homo erectus made it

Some ancestor of mine, three species ago, made a tool that fits my hand perfectly, and that I still know how to use.

Who were you

A man? A woman? Did you even use those words?

Did you craft alone or were you with friends? Did you sing while you worked?

Did you find this stone yourself, or did you trade for it? Was it a gift?

Did you make it for yourself, or someone else, or does the distinction of personal property not really apply here?

Who were you?

What would you think today, seeing your descendant hold your tool and sob because it fits her hands as well?

What about your other descendant, the docent and caretaker of your tool, holding her hands under it the way you hold your hands under your baby's head when a stranger holds them.

Is it bizarre to you, that your most utilitarian object is now revered as holy?

Or has it always been divine?

Or is the divine in how I am watching videos on how to knap stone made by your other descendants, learning by example the way you did?

Tomorrow morning I am going to the local riverbed in search of the appropriate stones, and I will follow your example.

The first blood spilled on it will almost certainly be my own, as I learn the textures and rhythm of how it's done.

Did you have cuss words back then? Gods to blaspheme when the rock slips and you almost take your thumbnail off instead? Or did you just scream?

I'm not religious.

But if spilling my own blood to connect with a stranger who shared it isn't partaking in the divine

I don't know what is.

Phew. This one took, uh… a bit longer than expected due to other projects both irl and art-wise, but it’s finally here. The long-awaited domestic animal infographic! Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough space to cover every single domestic animal (I’m so sorry, reindeer and koi, my beloveds) but I tried to include as many of the “major ones” as possible.

I made this chart in response to a lot of the misunderstandings I hear concerning domestic animals, so I hope it’s helpful!

Further information I didn’t have any room to add or expand on:

they did not appreciate my longsword technique at the job interview

Replica of a 12th/13th century leather pouch made in Afghanistan or eastern Iran. The original is currently housed at the David Collection in Copenhagen:

(Khorasan pouch, available from Armory Rasa)

Was doodling in Procreate and then there was Owl.

Lion El'Jonson has embraced his inner beast.

Classics tumblr should try starting posts with invocations to the muses.

"To the goddess I call, of memes she sings

Make light of the epics, those ancient things

Give cause to jeer Atreus' son

Within the tags, of his name make a pun"

Tē, dea dīva, rogō, mema tōt cantāre perīta,

prōmātur ioculātum epos et sceptrīger Atrīdēs;

cancellīs decet huic lūsū confundere nōmen.

μιμίδιον μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα,

τα ἔπη φώτισε, τα αρχαϊκά

λόγο δώκε ίνα χλευάζουν τοῦ Ατραίος τόν υιόν

ἔνδον τῶν πινάκων, άλλατε τό ὄνομα τοῦ

What she says: I’m okay

What she means:

Hwæt! Wé Gárdena      in géardagum þéodcyninga      þrym gefrúnon· hú ðá æþelingas      ellen fremedon. Oft Scyld Scéfing      sceaþena þréatum monegum maégþum      meodosetla oftéah· egsode Eorle      syððan aérest wearð féasceaft funden      hé þæs frófre gebád· wéox under wolcnum·      weorðmyndum þáh oð þæt him aéghwylc      þára ymbsittendra ofer hronráde      hýran scolde, gomban gyldan·      þæt wæs gód cyning. Ðaém eafera wæs      æfter cenned geong in geardum      þone god sende folce tó frófre·      fyrenðearfe ongeat· þæt híe aér drugon      aldorléase lange hwíle·      him þæs líffréä wuldres wealdend      woroldáre forgeaf: Béowulf wæs bréme      –blaéd wíde sprang– Scyldes eafera      Scedelandum in.

So here's one of the coolest things that has happened to me as a Tolkien nut and an amateur medievalist. It's also impacted my view of the way Tolkien writes women. Here's Carl Stephenson in MEDIEVAL FEUDALISM, explaining the roots of the ceremony of knighthood: "In the second century after Christ the Roman historian Tacitus wrote an essay which he called Germania, and which has remained justly famous. He declares that the Germans, though divided into numerous tribes, constitute a single people characterised by common traits and a common mode of life. The typical German is a warrior. [...] Except when armed, they perform no business, either private or public. But it is not their custom that any one should assume arms without the formal approval of the tribe. Before the assembly the youth receives a shield and spear from his father, some other relative, or one of the chief men, and this gift corresponds to the toga virilis among the Romans--making him a citizen rather than a member of a household" (pp 2-3). Got it?

Remember how Tolkien was a medievalist who based his Rohirrim on Anglo-Saxon England, which came from those Germanic tribes Tacitus was talking about? Stephenson argues that the customs described by Tacitus continued into the early middle ages eventually giving rise to the medieval feudal system. One of these customs was the gift of arms, which transformed into the ceremony of knighthood: "Tacitus, it will be remembered, describes the ancient German custom by which a youth was presented with a shield and a spear to mark his attainment of man's estate. What seems to the be same ceremony reappears under the Carolingians. In 791, we are told, Charlemagne caused Prince Louis to be girded with a sword in celebration of his adolescence; and forty-seven years later Louis in turn decorated his fifteen-year-old son Charles "with the arms of manhood, i.e., a sword." Here, obviously, we may see the origin of the later adoubement, which long remained a formal investiture with arms, or with some one of them as a symbol. Thus the Bayeux Tapestry represents the knighting of Earl Harold by William of Normandy under the legend: Hic Willelmus dedit Haroldo arma (Here William gave arms to Harold). [...] Scores of other examples are to be found in the French chronicles and chansons de geste, which, despite much variation of detail, agree on the essentials. And whatever the derivation of the words, the English expression "dubbing to knighthood" must have been closely related to the French adoubement" (pp 47-48.)

In its simplest form, according to Stephenson, the ceremony of knighthood included "at most the presentation of a sword, a few words of admonition, and the accolade." OK. So what does this have to do with Tolkien and his women? AHAHAHAHA I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED. First of all, let's agree that Tolkien, a medievalist, undoubtedly was aware of all the above. Second, turn with me in your copy of The Lord of the Rings to chapter 6 of The Two Towers, "The King of the Golden Hall", when Theoden and his councillors agree that Eowyn should lead the people while the men are away at war. (This, of course, was something that medieval noblewomen regularly did: one small example is an 1178 letter from a Hospitaller knight serving in the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem which records that before marching out to the battle of Montgisard, "We put the defence of the Tower of David and the whole city in the hands of our women".) But in The Lord of the Rings, there's a little ceremony.

"'Let her be as lord to the Eorlingas, while we are gone.' 'It shall be so,' said Theoden. 'Let the heralds announce to the folk that the Lady Eowyn will lead them!' Then the king sat upon a seat before his doors and Eowyn knelt before him and received from him a sword and a fair corselet."

I YELLED when I realised what I was reading right there. You see, the king doesn't just have the heralds announce that Eowyn is in charge. He gives her weapons.

Theoden makes Eowyn a knight of the Riddermark.

Not only that, but I think this is a huge deal for several reasons. That is, Tolkien knew what he was doing here.

From my reading in medieval history, I'm aware of women choosing to fight and bear arms, as well as becoming military leaders while the men are away at some war or as prisoners. What I haven't seen is women actually receiving knighthood. Anyone could fight as a knight if they could afford the (very pricy) horse and armour, and anyone could lead a nation as long as they were accepted by the leaders. But you just don't see women getting knighted like this.

Tolkien therefore chose to write a medieval-coded society, Rohan, where women arguably had greater equality with men than they did in actual medieval societies.

I think that should tell us something about who Tolkien was as a person and how he viewed women - perhaps he didn't write them with equal parity to men (there are undeniably more prominent male characters in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, at least, than female) but compared to the medieval societies that were his life's work, and arguably even compared to the society he lived in, he was remarkably egalitarian.

I think it should also tell us something about the craft of writing fantasy.

No, you don't have to include gut wrenching misogyny and violence against women in order to write "realistic" medieval-inspired fantasy.

Tolkien's fantasy worlds are DEEPLY informed by medieval history to an extent most laypeople will never fully appreciate. The attitudes, the language, the ABSOLUTELY FLAWLESS use of medieval military tactics...heck, even just the way that people travel long distances on foot...all of it is brilliantly medieval.

The fact that Theoden bestows arms on Eowyn is just one tiny detail that is deeply rooted in medieval history. Even though he's giving those arms to a woman in a fantasy land full of elves and hobbits and wizards, it's still a wonderfully historically accurate detail.

Of course, I've ranted before about how misogyny and sexism wasn't actually as bad in medieval times as a lot of people today think. But from the way SOME fantasy authors talk, you'd think that historical accuracy will disappear in a puff of smoke if every woman in the dragon-infested fantasy land isn't being traumatised on the regular.

Tolkien did better. Be like Tolkien.

I for one welcome our new strygine overlord. :)

Backstory: This gentleman escaped from Central Park Zoo in March after his enclosure there was vandalized, and there was a lot of concern over whether or not he could/would survive out of captivity. Unconcerned by this, Flaco settled himself in a particular area of Central Park and spent all the spring, summer, and most of the fall eating large numbers of rats, and genially allowing himself to be photographed by an ever-growing cadre of bird paparazzi.

Then a few weeks ago, possibly irked by repeated mobbing by assorted hawks and corvids, Flaco took off from his normal haunts and went on a brief tour of apartment-building courtyards on the Lower East Side. Now he's on the Upper West Side, within sight of Central Park (so food's no problem, should he feel like heading back that way to hunt), and shouting for everybody to hear that he owns the place. The image above shows him on the water tower of an apartment building at 86th and CPW.

If you look back through the Manhattan Bird Alert and Above 96th Twitter feeds, you'll see many splendid pictures of him. He's a handsome lad, and it's good to see him thriving.

What's in his future? Hard to tell. (Though some people on Twitter are suggesting he should run for mayor.) He may head upstate at some point. But he may decide he's quite happy to be a Manhattanite. As a fellow one, I wish him very well. :)

I love that an animal escaped from the zoo and everyone just went "no let's see where he's going with this"

as someone who has actually tried to get an unflighted adult Eurasian eagle owl back into his box while actually having a good grip on him, I can tell you with reasonable certainty there is no damn way they were ever going to catch him again.

Y'all simply must see this Roman mosaic from Thysdrus (El Djem, Tunisia)!

The text reads: invidiā rumpuntur avēs neque noctua cūrat, "the birds are bursting with envy but the owl doesn't care."

Which, accurate description indeed.