Author: Erik

Christie and Tolkien: When the World Ends but You Keep Going

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The literary works of Agatha Christie and J. R. R. Tolkien may not seem to have much in common. One wrote murder mysteries set in genteel English country houses, the other high fantasy in a mythic secondary world. When you look at the themes and ideas of their work, though, interesting parallels appear.

The two authors were close contemporaries; Christie was born in 1890, Tolkien in 1892. They belonged to the generation whose young adulthood was shattered by the First World War. Their experiences were different—Tolkien saw battle firsthand as an officer, Christie its terrible aftereffects as a nurse—but they both reflect the shock of the war in their writing.

One theme that occupies both writers is death. Death was, naturally, a crucial element of Christie’s murder mystery stories. In Tolkien’s legendarium, death and the things people will do out of the fear of it is a running theme. But neither writer’s work is focused on death as a fact; rather, the underlying drive in their work is a search for some way in which death makes sense.

In Christie’s case, this theme is more obvious: she writes about detectives solving crimes. By the time we reach the drawing room summation at the end of the book, we can see clearly how and why the victim or victims died. Order is restored to the world, and reason triumphs over the illogic of death, whether that reason is embodied in a fussy Belgian’s love for methodical neatness or a wise spinster’s deep observation of human nature.

In Tolkien’s work, the drive to make sense of death is subtler. Death often appears pointless in Tolkien. Boromir dies defending Merry and Pippin from Orcs, but after he falls the young Hobbits are captured nonetheless. Denethor dies in despair instead of living to see his city saved. But the larger point of Tolkien’s work is that hopelessness is an illusion. We never know the end of our own story or how profoundly the choices we make will affect the world. In the legendarium as a whole, death is the greatest mystery, but also the greatest hope. The world of Middle Earth had a beginning and will someday end, yet the spirits of mortal beings will not end with the world but transcend it through death.

It is not just the death of individuals that occupied Christie and Tolkien, but also how ways of life come to an end. They both witnessed the end of the world, in a sense. The innocence and hope of the time they grew up in perished on the battlefields of the Great War, but they did not. They kept going and witnessed as the world around them changed.

Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is about the ending of an age, the Third Age of Middle Earth to be precise. The story takes place during the last days before the Elves either depart into the magical west or dwindle into creatures of fairy tale and folklore, taking their beauty and wisdom with them. Yet the story also carries hope for what is to come after in the ages of Men—hope without guarantees, as Gandalf puts it. The Elf Legolas and Dwarf Gimli reflect on the promise and weaknesses of humans in the streets of Minas Tirith:

“If Gondor has such men still in these days of fading, great must have been its glory in the days of its rising.”

“And doubtless the good stone-work is the older and was wrought in the first building,” said Gimli. “It is ever so with the things that Men begin: there is a frost in Spring or a blight in Summer, and they fail of their promise.”

“Yet seldom do they fail of their seed,” said Legolas. “And that will lie in the dust and rot to spring up again in times and places unlooked-for. The deeds of Men will outlast us, Gimli.”

– The Lord of the Rings. Book 5, Chapter 9, “The Last Debate”

Christie reflects the changing world in different ways, but also with hope for what the future will bring. Her early works are set in the interwar world of country estates and garden parties that we typically think of when we think of a Christie mystery, but that world was ending. She kept writing through the fifties and sixties as the life and culture of Britain changed around her.

The traces of this change are all over Christie’s writing. One of the ongoing themes in her mysteries is that it is difficult to know who people really are. Many of her plots hinge on people passing themselves off as or being mistaken for someone else. Such impersonations were possible only because the world of country villages and garden parties where everyone knew one another was ending. Miss Marple speaks of this shift in A Murder is Announced:

Fifteen years ago one knew who everybody was. The Bantrys in the big house—and the Hartnells and the Price Ridleys and the Weatherbys … They were people whose fathers and mothers and grandfathers and grandmothers, or whose aunts and uncles, had lived there before them. If somebody new came to live there, they brought letters of introduction, or they’d been in the same regiment or served in the same ship as someone there already.

…

But it’s not like that any more. Every village and small country place is full of people who’ve just come and settled there without any ties to bring them. The big houses have been sold, and the cottages have been converted and changed. And people just come—and all you know about them is what they say of themselves.

– A Murder is Announced. Chapter 10, “Pip and Emma”

At the same time, Christie also saw that the fundamentals of human nature that underlay her stories were not changed by the passing of time. People might live differently, but they still had the same jealousies and aspirations, desires and fears as they ever had. Miss Marple, again, reflects on this fact in The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side as she explores the new housing development at the edge of her beloved village:

She turned out of Aubrey Close and was presently in Darlington Close. She went slowly and as she went she listened avidly to the snippets of conversation between mothers wheeling prams, to the girls addressing young men, to the sinister-looking Teds (she supposed they were Teds) exchanging dark remarks with each other. Mothers came out on doorsteps calling to their children who, as usual, were busy doing all the things they had been told not to do. Children, Miss Marple reflected gratefully, never changed. And presently she began to smile, and noted down in her mind her usual series of recognitions.

That woman is just like Carry Edwards—and the dark one is just like that Hooper girl—she’ll make a mess of her marriage just like Mary Hooper did. Those boys—the dark one is just like Edward Leeke, a lot of wild talk but no harm in him—a nice boy really—the fair one is Mrs Bedwell’s Josh all over again. Nice boys, both of them. The one like Gregory Bins won’t do very well, I’m afraid. I expect he’s got the same sort of mother…

She turned a corner into Walsingham Close and her spirits rose every moment.

The new world was the same as the old. The houses were different, the streets were called Closes, the clothes were different, the voices were different, but the human beings were the same as they had always been.

– The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side. Chapter 1

Some days now it feels like we are living through the end of the world we knew, and none of us knows what will come next. In these times, there is comfort in going back to writers who lived through the end of one world and saw that there was hope in the next.

Tolkien, J. R. R. The Lord of the Rings. London: HarperCollins, 1994, p. 855.

Christie, Agatha. A Murder is Announced. London: HarperCollins, 2023, pp. 132-133.

Christie, Agatha. The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side. London: HarperCollins, 2023, pp. 13-14.

Image: Photo collage of Agatha Christie and J. R. R. Tolkien by Erik Jensen. Photograph of Christie via Wikimedia; photograph of Tolkien via Wikimedia

Post edited to correct formatting errors

Story Time is all about story-telling and how stories work, and what makes us love our favorites.

Top Five Posts of 2024

Erik

Happy New Year, everyone! We’ve closed the lid on 2024. Time to sit and reflect for a moment on the year that was.

Here’s a look at the posts we wrote in 2024 that got the most views from all of you:

  1. News on the Murderbot Screen Adaptation, with Thoughts. Nothing got a bigger audience this year than Eppu’s reflections on what we knew at the time about the upcoming tv adaptation of Martha Wells’s Murderbot Diaries, about the self-named killing machine who would actually rather just be left alone to watch media.
  2. Trailer for Megalopolis, with Thoughts. Eppu was underwhelmed by the trailer for Francis Ford Copola’s sci-fi man-epic. Given how the movie came and went with little visible effect on the public consciousness, it looks like she wasn’t alone in that feeling.
  3. A Homebrew Alchemy System for Dungeons & Dragons. Erik’s attempt at homebrewing an alchemical crafting system for tabletop role-playing. We hope some of you have found it useful in your own games.
  4. Night Elf Survival Hunter Transmog Tweak. Eppu put together a new dragon-y transmog for her survival hunter in the waning days of the Dragonflight expansion.
  5. Train Like a Spartan. Erik’s review of what we know about how the ancient Spartans trained themselves for war—which may not be quite what you would expect.

It’s been a pleasure to share our thoughts and ideas with you again this past year. We hope you’ve enjoyed it as well. May the new year bring you lots of new and interesting things to enjoy!

Messing with numbers is messy.

The Song of Seikilos

Erik2 Comments

We know that the ancient world was full of music. Some of the earliest texts to survive from antiquity are songs, and ancient art is full of musical performances. Sadly, we know very little about what that music sounded like. The texts of many songs survive, but not the melodies that went with them.

It’s a rare treat, therefore, when we find evidence for the music that went along with a text. The modern form of musical notation developed only in the past several centuries, but ancient people had their own forms of musical notation. The earliest complete song preserved without gaps or fragmentation is known as the Song of Seikilos, from the name on the dedicatory inscription that included it.

The text and its notation are preserved on a stone stele found at Ephesus in 1883. It was set up in the first or second century CE. The stele itself has had an interesting life since then, being at one time used as a stand for a flower pot, before ending up in the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen. It is generally thought that the stele was set up as a gravestone, but the original context of the find has long since been lost, so it is no longer possible to be certain. The text of the song inscribed on the stone would certainly fit:

For as long as you have to live, shine out.

Be entirely free of any pain.

There’s not much to life.

Time demands its due.

(My own translation)

Since this text is preserved with its musical notation, the song can still be performed today, and we can hear what the music of the ancient Greeks sounded like. Here’s an interpretation performed with lyre, flute, and drum.


Seikilos Epitaph (the earliest complete tune) Greek 200BC [sic] via YouTube

Image: Seikilos Stele, photograph by Artem G via Wikimedia (found Ephesus; currently National Museum, Copenhagen; 1st-2nd c. CE; marble)

An occasional feature on music and sound-related notions.

Dress Uniform Transmog

Erik

I love the old-time nautical style of the Kul Tirans in World of Warcraft. I like imagining that my Kul Tiran warrior stepped off the pages of the fantasy equivalent of a Patrick O’Brien novel. So, now that the season of holiday parties is coming, it seems like a good time to give her a proper dress uniform transmog. What do you think?

The outfit uses the Sky-Captain’s Formal Coat and a couple of pieces from the Gilnean Noble’s set, which I think go together handsomely. The swords are older models, but they pick up the blue and gold tones of the rest of the outfit and look appropriately cutlass-like. Here’s all the pieces.

Image: World of Warcraft screencap

Of Dice and Dragons talks about games and gaming.

Stories in which Being Good is Smart

Erik

I’ve been thinking a bit lately about how to describe the kind of stories I want to experience, whether on the page or the screen. I’ve long known that I enjoy stories about characters solving problems. But that’s not the only thing I look for in fiction.

I enjoy reading about people who are good to one another, kind, compassionate, and generous. I don’t enjoy stories in which kindness is portrayed as weakness, or in which the most manipulative, cruel, or ruthless characters prosper at the expense of others. I want to see how being kind and treating others well is the best way to go about solving problems. I like stories in which being a good person isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do.

I don’t mean stories with a moralistic bent, in which some outside force (be it divinity, fate, or just the author’s guiding hand) intervenes to reward virtue and punish vice. I don’t want to see good people win just because they are good. I want to see them win because complicated problems can’t be solved by one person acting alone, no matter how devious or ruthless they may be. Big problems only get solved by people working together, and the best way to get people working together is to treat them decently.

Here are a few my favorite stories on page and screen that fit what I’m looking for.

J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is a tale of cosmic good and evil, but one that plays out on the individual level. The forces of good ultimately triumph because many individual people, some of them quite small and unimportant, choose the good of others over their own safety or comfort. Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor follows Maia, a neglected half-goblin prince, as he is thrust by circumstance onto the throne of an Elvish empire. Maia is surrounded by devious plotters and dangerous revolutionaries, but he keeps his throne and his head by listening to others, finding trustworthy allies, and being compassionate to the weak and vulnerable. In Martha Wells’s Murderbot Diaries series, the sarcastically self-named Murderbot is a human/machine construct designed by a ruthless ultra-capitalist corporation to fight and kill, but who would rather just be left alone to watch media. Over the course of the stories, it discovers humans who are not ruthless ultra-capitalists, whom it ends up learning to trust and value.

Star Trek is all about characters being good. Deep Space Nine pushes its characters to the limits of the universe’s hopeful utopianism through trauma and war, but ultimately finds them trusting one another, working together, and finding compassion even for their most implacable enemies. In Doctor Who, the wandering Time Lord stumbles into one disaster after another, but approaches them all with a spirit of hope and understanding, asking questions always and shooting never. Downton Abbey follows the inhabitants of the titular manor, both the family upstairs and the staff downstairs, through the tumultuous social changes of the early twentieth century. All the characters have their flaws, and some can be quite vicious, but the series follows how the characters come to rely on one another, and how even the most mercenary of them learn that kindness and compassion are vital for surviving in a changing world.

These are the kinds of stories I want more of: people being good or learning to be good, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it works.

Images by Erik Jensen

Story Time is all about story-telling and how stories work, and what makes us love our favorites.

Archaeology and Intentionality

Erik

One of the themes that guides a lot of what I post here is that thinking historically is good practice for thinking fictionally. As an example of what I mean by that, let me present the question of intentionality in archaeology.

Much of what we know about ancient cultures comes from archaeology. For all that we can learn from texts, there are many things, peoples, and experiences that were either never written about, or for which the texts have been lost. Individual artifacts can be interesting in their own right, but we often get the most valuable insights from studying objects found together as a group. When we examine groups of artifacts, though, it is essential to begin by asking questions about intentionality: were these objects intentionally grouped together by the people who used them, and was that group of objects intentionally placed where it was discovered? How we answer those initial questions determines a great deal about what further questions we can ask.

When thinking about groups of artifacts, there are two important terms to start with: assemblage and deposition. In archaeology an assemblage is a group of objects found together in the same place. Deposition is the process, whether through human or natural action, by which those objects came to rest in that place. Questions of intentionality are important for how we analyze both assemblages of artifacts and the processes of deposition that left them for us to find.

Assemblages can be either intentional or unintentional. Sometimes we find groups of objects that were purposefully grouped together by the people who used them. In other cases, the objects in an assemblage are not connected except by happenstance. Similarly, some acts of deposition were intentional, while others were not. Recognizing the differences between intentional and unintentional assemblages and depositions is crucial for asking the right questions about the things we find.

For example, the objects placed in a grave were purposefully chosen by the family and friends of the deceased and intentionally deposited. We can pose questions about why these objects were chosen for this person, what it meant for the people who gave them to see them buried, and what the whole assemblage conveys about the person they were deposited with.

The goods we find on a shipwreck, on the other hand, were deliberately chosen, and share an important facet of their history, but they were not intended to end up where we find them. We can pose useful questions about how and why the people who laded this ship choose this particular set of cargo and equipment for their voyage, much as we can ask questions about why mourners chose particular objects to go into a grave. On the other hand, we also have to keep in mind that the ship’s crew expected it to reach port safely, not go down and leave its cargo on the bottom of the sea. If we want to understand the objects found on the ship, we have to consider their intended destinations once they were offloaded from the ship, which were probably numerous and varied.

We also find assemblages of objects that were not intentionally put together by the people who lived with them, some deliberated deposited and some not. The objects we find in an ancient settlement’s rubbish heaps were deliberately disposed of, but not purposefully chosen to go together as a set. Such finds are useful for understanding how the people of that settlement used and disposed of their material goods, but we have to be careful not to assume that the things we find in such a deposit were used by the same people, in the same households, or even within the same timeframe. In fact, looking at what kinds of goods people discarded and how they changed over time can tell us a lot about the life of the place they were found in.

The debris we find in the silt of a disused drainage ditch, by contrast, was neither purposefully assembled nor deliberately deposited. Such finds are useful in examining what kinds of objects were casually lost in a particular place that were too insignificant to their owners to be worth the effort of searching for or retrieving, which in turn tells us about the economic life and material culture of the settlement.

The important thread that unites all of these possibilities is that they require us to think about the people of the past as people, individuals who made choices about what to do with the things around them, just as we do. The habits of thought we apply to archaeology and history are ones that also serve us well when writing fiction: just as we have to think about people in the past as people, we have to think about our characters as people with intentions and desires, too. In a work of fiction, everything is intentional from the author’s point of view, but not everything is intentional from the characters’ point of view. Thinking about what choices characters make, and when they are making a choice at all, is a helpful habit to have.

Image: Dishes from the Helmsdale Hoard, photograph by Erik Jensen (found Helmsdale, Scotland; currently National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh; 200-400 CE; bronze)

History for Writers looks at how history can be a fiction writer’s most useful tool, from worldbuilding to dialogue.

Role-Playing Around the Campfire

Erik

In table-top role-playing, there are opportunities everywhere to let players role-play their characters and build the narrative of the group. Even the humble act of camping for the night in the wilderness can be rich with openings for some character work. Some players will seize these opportunities for themselves, but sometimes it helps to have the DM nudge the character-building along.

Stopping to camp for the night is usually downtime to be passed over quickly. If wilderness survival is an important part of your campaign, maybe you have everyone scratch a batch of rations off their inventory. The party decides who’s going to keep watch and in what order. You might have some nighttime encounters planned for them, but soon enough it’s time to refresh everyone’s daily powers, heal some hit points, and carry on with the next day’s adventure. But it can also be a low-stakes chance for players to think about and play with their characters, both as individuals and as a party.

If your players don’t naturally take the initiative to role-play, here are some ways you can encourage them.

Set the scene

Filling in the details of the world gives your players something to react to, and that’s equally true if it’s an angry dragon in a crumbling old stone tower or a patch of berry bushes by the side of a little woodland stream. When your party decides to stop for the night, take a moment to fill in the scene around them. Draw in as many sensory details as you can:

“You find a good spot to camp in a small clearing amidst old pine trees. The ground is covered in dry, rust-colored fallen needles that crunch under your feet. The roots of the trees spread across the clearing, making little pockets that each of you can curl up into. At the edge of the woods, you spot some buckberry bushes. You hear small nocturnal critters rustling in the underbrush in the woods, unbothered by big folks like you passing through. The smell of pine pitch is in the air, a sharp topnote over the earthy, mossy scent of the forest underneath. The rays of the setting sun fade from golden to red to purple as you settle in.”

You can encourage players to help fill in scene themselves, if you like. See if anyone wants to check out the area before settling in, and invite them to describe what they would like to find—within reason. Unexpected chests of gold hidden under leaves are probably out of the question (depending on what your campaign is like), but if the druid would like to turn up some edible mushrooms, or the ranger wants to hunt some small game, or the rogue would like to climb a tree and find a comfortable perch in the branches, those can be good things to add to the scene.

A simple but useful way to both build the scene and encourage some role-play is to ask every player: “Your character finds something at this campsite, something perfectly ordinary and normal to find in this environment, but that makes them happy. What do you find?”

Prompt some action

You don’t have to gloss over the business of setting up camp. Ask each player what they’re doing to help make camp for the night. Or maybe prompt them by asking: “Who’s going to make the campfire? Who’s making dinner, and what are you making? Who’s setting up the tents? Who’s fetching water? Who’s taking care of the horses? Everyone tell us how your task goes.”

It can be good to tie the small actions of making camp to the bigger actions of the adventures before. Was there a big fight? Maybe the barbarian is really starting to stink of old sweat and needs a wash. Did the wizard cast a big spell? Maybe channeling all that magical energy was rough on their robes and they need to do a little patching. Was there a lot of riding, hiking, or climbing? Everyone’s sore, someone is getting blisters on their feet or has cuts on their hands from scrambling over rocks—not the sort of thing that costs hit point or needs proper healing, but something to take care of once there’s a chance to sit down.

Ask some backstory questions

The downtime between adventuring days is a good opportunity to give everybody a chance to reflect on their character’s personality and backstory. You can help this along with a few leading questions, like:

  • “As you chew on your trail rations, you daydream about the best meal you ever had. What does your character wish they were eating right now?”
  • “You’ve settled in, and you’ve got time to kill. What’s a funny story your character could tell the group that they haven’t shared before?”
  • “What do you do to entertain yourselves and each other while waiting for sleep?”
  • “Darkness is falling, and you know you need sleep to face the dangers ahead, but what’s keeping your character awake? What are you afraid of or worrying about?”
  • “You fall asleep dreaming about what you’re going to do with your share of the treasure once this quest is over. What comes into your minds?”

Add some complications or events

Even if no big threats are coming the party’s way tonight, little things can still go wrong. You can throw one or two minor annoyances at the party and see how they react. Try something like:

  • The ground is wet from rain and it’s hard to get a fire going.
  • The underbrush is dry and parched, and your fire gets out of control and starts to burn some nearby bushes.
  • The water available nearby is mucky and foul-smelling. It’s safe to drink and wash with, but not pleasant.
  • A small critter is attracted by the smell of your food and tries to get into one character’s pack.
  • A large browsing herbivore comes wandering through your camp in the night, doing no harm but knocking over tents and scattering campfire ashes.
  • A pack of local carnivores goes rushing by in the night chasing some prey. One of them stops and sniffs around the camp, but doesn’t attack.
  • A thunderstorm develops in the night and drenches the party in cold rain.

On the other hand, characters can have interesting reactions to things that are good or neutral. Maybe give them something nice to respond to, like:

  • Even a cursory search around the campsite turns up enough wholesome mushrooms, sweet berries, edible roots, and other wild foods to make a tasty and filling meal for everyone.
  • A curious local critter comes upon your camp and investigates with some amusing but harmless antics like sniffing everyone’s food or hopping up on one character’s shoulder.
  • Strains of haunting music echo faintly through the wilderness. If the party goes looking for the source, it disappears.
  • Ribbons of beautiful aurora light dance in the starlit sky.
  • A thunderstorm passes by the night nearby but not over the party. Peals of thunder shake the air and flashes of light illuminate the night, but no harm comes to the encamped characters.
  • An ethereal spirit appears out of the darkness and comes to the edge of the firelight. After observing the party for a moment, it makes a simple gesture of blessing and vanishes.

You can set these events in motion as soon as the party makes camp, or you can let them play out over the course of the night. A couple of touches like this can help make even an ordinary night in camp memorable.

You may not want to role-play every nighttime camp in as much detail as this. It’s a bit of interstitial downtime to give players a chance to flesh out their characters in between battles and quests, but it can get tiring if you do it all the time.

Also, if you have a particularly threat-wary party (or if you have a habit of interrupting their downtime with danger), it might be a good idea to let everyone know up front that this is a role-playing opportunity, and it’s safe to let their guard down a bit. Otherwise everyone might just spend their time role-playing being very on edge and waiting for the next fight.

Enjoy your next camping scene!

Image: Campfire in NB by Martin Cathrae on Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Of Dice and Dragons talks about games and gaming.

A Name for an Amazon

Erik2 Comments

Amazons, the bold warrior women who figure in Greek myths, are imaginary, but the myths about them likely had their origin in Greek experiences with actual fighting women in the cultures around the shores of the Black Sea. Ethnographic and archaeological evidence shows that women who trained with weapons and fought in battle were known in many of the cultures in the region, and the association of mythic Greek Amazons with horses and bows also matches the realities of life on the Black Sea steppes.

Greek literature and art records numerous Amazon names. Most of these names are Greek, and they are descriptive of relevant Amazon traits, such as Hippolyta (“She who sets the horses loose”), Melanippe (“Black horse”) or Antiope (“She who confronts”). These names may have been simply invented by Greek writers in the same way that fantasy authors today concoct suitable names for their characters. There is evidence, however, that some of the Amazon names recorded in Greek art might be actual names from languages spoken around the Black Sea.


Greek vase fragment via the J. Paul Getty Museum (made Athens, currently Getty Museum, Malibu; c. 510 BCE; glazed pottery; painted by Oltos)

This Greek pottery fragment shows Amazons riding into battle against the Greek hero Heracles (who appears accompanied by the god Hermes on the other side of the cup). We can recognize the riders as Amazons from their clothing and the bowcases they carry. Text in Greek letters surrounds them, although it is painted in a dark color that is difficult to see. Most of the text is fragmentary and hard to reconstruct, but one word seems to be a complete name. The text PKPUPES can be read by the head of the leftmost rider, evidently her name.

“Pkpupes,” at first glance, may look like mere gibberish. It certainly isn’t Greek. Many scholars in the past dismissed this and similar texts as nonsense words written by semi-literate vase painters. Maybe “pkupupes” was just an attempt at an onomatopoeic for the pounding of a horse’s hooves. It may, however, be something more significant.

Dense clusters of hard consonants like “pkp” are a common feature of languages spoken today in the Caucasus Mountains east of the Black Sea. “Pkpupes” is, in fact, fairly easy to read as an attempt to render a name in Circassian, a cluster of closely related languages of the northwestern Caucasus, with the letters of ancient Greek, which did not perfectly match up to the sounds of the original language. English doesn’t have all the right letters to easily represent the sounds of Circassian either, but a reconstructed Circassian name that would be rendered in English something like “Pqp’upush” is perfectly intelligible. This name is composed of several elements, the first referring to the body, the next to covering, and the final one connoting worthiness. Altogether, the name would mean “Worthy to wear armor,” a suitable name for a warrior woman.

Greeks had extensive contact with peoples around the Black Sea. Many Greeks migrated to the region, and people from the area also settled in Greece. The painter of this vase signed his name “Oltos,” which is not a typical Greek name, and he may have been an immigrant himself. He and other ancient vase painters may well have known people who spoke foreign languages or had ancestors from the Black Sea region who could recommend appropriately authentic names for Amazon characters. It may even be that some of the obviously Greek Amazon names like Hippolyta or Antiope were not invented by Greeks but are Greek translations of authentic names, in the same way that the names of many indigenous Americans in recent history have been translated into English, like Sitting Bull or Red Cloud.

The Amazons of Greek myth remain mythical, but we have evidence for some history behind that myth, maybe even the names of some real warrior women from the edges of the world known to the Greeks.

Source

Adrienne Mayor, John Colarusso, and David Saunders, “Making Sense of Nonsense Inscriptions Associated with Amazons and Scythians on Athenian Vases,” Hesperia 83, no. 3 (July-September 2014): 447-93.

History for Writers looks at how history can be a fiction writer’s most useful tool, from worldbuilding to dialogue.

An Autumnal Druid Transmog

Erik2 Comments

The beginning of autumn is upon us. Trees are putting on their fall colors as the days grow shorter and the night chill begins to bite. What’s a druid to do but put together an autumn-themed transmog? This includes a few of the beautiful woodsy leafy pieces from the Emerald Dream zone mixed with some other gear.

Here’s a link to the pieces in the set.

Image: World of Warcraft screencap

Of Dice and Dragons talks about games and gaming.

Quotes: Innumerable Shapes of Letters

Erik

There’s an old law of probability often phrased that if an infinite number of monkeys sat at an infinite number of typewriters pressing random keys for an infinite amount of time, they would at some point type out Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The point is that, given a large enough scope of opportunity, things that are very unlikely but not impossible can and do happen.

One of the earliest known expressions of this idea comes from the Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero, although Cicero takes the negative view. He poses the idea as a thought experiment to reject materialist philosophies, like Epicureanism, which held that the world was not created by the gods but was the product of random collisions of matter:

How can anyone look on these things yet convince themselves that certain solid and discrete bodies are carried by force and gravity, and the beautiful and exquisite world is made by the fortuitous arrangement of these bodies? If someone thinks this is possible, I don’t see why they shouldn’t also think that innumerable shapes of the twenty-one letters, made out of gold or whatever material, could be tossed down on the ground so that one could read the words of Ennius’ Annals in them. For myself, I doubt that chance could make a single verse out of them.

Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 2.93

(My translation)

As unlikely as it is that just tossing letters down on the ground once will yield any comprehensible lines from Ennius’ early Roman historical epic, the infinite monkey theory tells us that if we threw an infinite number of letters an infinite number of times, some verses of Ennius would eventually emerge, not to mention lines from Cicero himself, or any other text that could be written in the Latin alphabet.

One might say that Cicero’s mistake was an insufficiency of monkeys.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.