What does seal taste like

No, the animal, not the singer.

"Having forced myself out of curiosity to taste seal while I was in Greenland, and not gotten beyond the second bite, I can understand why people from a European dietary background might prefer venison over seal if given the choice."

"The meat itself is bizarre. It’s deep and dark like duck or venison, but the animal has developed a totally different way of storing fat, due to its life in the cold North Atlantic. It doesn’t have marbling; instead, the fat is liquid, like oil, and permeates all of the meat. "When you handle seal meat it’s almost like a lanolin kind of feeling, your hands get so soft," says Perrin. But that oil is also one reason seal hasn’t caught on away from the coasts where it’s caught: like many oils (walnut and flax come to mind), seal oil goes bad incredibly quickly; there’s no good way to preserve it. That’s why the native seal-hunting peoples of Canada tend to eat it raw; it’s not for religious purposes, it’s simply because seal meat has a very short lifespan and is best when freshest."

"Seal flipper tasted like bear meat cooked with seaweed: dusky, feral, tidal."

"Seal flipper pie as usually prepared is one of the worst things I have ever put in my mouth. Imagine dog legs frozen in open air, tossed into the bottom of a boat, stored in a freezer for months, cleaned to get rid of residual fat, and baked in a pot pie. I’ve had edible pie exactly once in 25 years, done by a grad student from a freshly-killed animal without freezing. Still tastes fishy. I’ll take a turkey pot pie any day."

Don't worry. This is research for an A&S project for Ice Dragon.

If all goes well, I'll have snacks for everyone.

Speech Bubbles

Speech Bubbles

Figure 1

Nothing new is new. If you think that speech bubbles are a modern invention of the comic book industry, please think again. The concept of linking text with a figure via a line or a ribbon dates back centuries. The oldest that I know of was found in Pompeii.

    On Pompeian [wall painting], arranged in adjacent panels, like a comic strip and accompanied by speech 'bubbles' in colloquial Latin, appears to tell the story of a couple of young men having a night out; they are shown first meeting, then being served by a barmaid, then tossing dice at a table, finally quarreling and being turned out by the landlord. [Ling, p163] [see figure 2]

Figure 2

But, early examples, such as the one from Pompeii, just have text floating around the images. A medieval invention was to link the text to a person by several methods.

figure 3

1) Free Floating Text.

Improving on the classical Roman method of graffiti like text, medieval scribes modified the text so that it appeared to flow out of the speaker's mouth. They also used different colors to denote individual speakers. Figures 4, 5 and 6 are examples from the same source of this method. Notice how the scribe used red and black to denote speakers. And in figure 4, you can see that the text is arraigned in an order so that the conversion can be followed.

Figure 4

Figure 5

Figure 6

figure 7

2) Lines

Simple lines were used to connect the text bubble with the speaker. This was the beginning of the text style that we are used to, today. Figure 8 is the only clear image I could find of this style.

Figure 8

The art historian Lucy Freeman Sandler has devoted considerable attention to this scene (a transcription and literal translation is found in this publication). Using her work, while rewording her literal translation, the following conversation may be overheard:
The figure on the left starts, with a strange mantra: “They die because of heat, they die because of heat.” Then the two young people on his right speak, probably addressing their father [according to Sandler], who is walking behind them: “Sir, we die of cold!” The father, carrying a heavy toddler, orders them to stop whining: “Behold your little brother in front of us, he is only wearing a hood.” (He is right, because he is otherwise naked.) Then the toddler speaks, uttering universal toddler sounds: “Wa we”. Finally the two children in the back come into play. “Sir, I am carrying too much weight,” says the one on the left. The one on the right closes the conversation by comparing his own misery to that of his brother and father, stating “It is not they who carry the heaviest burden.” [Kwakkel]

3) Banderole

The final aspect was a method of condensing the spoken word and combining it with a method that not only portrays the speaker, but enhances the artwork at the same time. Visually, the banderole was used to not only give words to a figure, but for the figure to physically claim those words: the figure pointing to, or even grabbing, the words [figure 9].

figure 9

This method of speech bubble was used up until the 19th century.

figure 10

figure 11

In figure 11, a man is repeating the words whispered into his ear by a devil on his left shoulder, "Non est deus" ("There is no god"). The man is holding onto his words, claiming them as his own. Perhaps so that they do not escape.

figure 12

Banderoles were often used with images of old testament prophets to distinguish them from the book writing evangelists. It might have been a metaphor as the old testament, like the Torah, was written out as a scroll, while the new testament was written in book form. It is worth noting that the use of banderoles were not restricted to religious figures. 

===================

Beard, Mary. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome 1st Edition. Home Ancient History & Civilisation 

Ling, Roger. Roman Painting. Cambridge University Press, Mar 7, 1991

Majkut, Paul. Smallest Mimes. Defaced Representation and Media Epistemology. Zeta Books, May 20, 2014

Kukkonen, Karin. Studying Comics and Graphic Novels.  John Wiley & Sons, Jun 28, 2013

Kwakkel, Erik. Medieval Speech Bubbles. January 23, 2015. https://medievalbooks.nl/2015/01/23/medieval-speech-bubbles/

Saenger, Paul. Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading. Stanford University Press, 1987

fig 1 - Genesis 25 - Birth of Esau and Jacob as an example of twin’s fate against the arguments of astrology by Francois Maitre c1475-1480

fig 2 - A brawl in a bar over a game of dice. In this nineteenth-century copy of some of the paintings from the Bar of Salvius in Pompeii, the argument starts in the left–hand panel. ‘Exsi’ shouts one of the players, ‘I’ve won, I’m out’, while his opponent disputes the throw. In the next scene, the landlord, on the right, is not only telling them to get out, but man-handling them towards the door.. Beard p.79

fig 3 - The Guthlac Roll

fig 4 - Breviculum ex artibus Raimundi Lulli electum - St. Peter perg. 92 11v

fig 5 - Breviculum ex artibus Raimundi Lulli electum - St. Peter perg. 92 8r

fig 6 - Breviculum ex artibus Raimundi Lulli electum - St. Peter perg. 92 12r

fig 7 - Gorleston Psalter, British Library, Additional 49622, fol. 190v

fig 8 - British Library, Stowe MS 49, fol. 122r

fig 9 - Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 11978 

fig 10 - A Masonic Anecdote, 18th century, from Wikipedia

fig 11 - Angeles, Getty Museum, MS 66

fig 12 - The Queen Mary Psalter

Bodleian Libraries Coloring Book

The Bodleian Libraries now has a coloring book

Do you need something to color? Either for you or an offspring. Are you looking for ideas for a scroll? Well, the Bodleian Libraries have you colored. Please visit http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/197453/2016-Colouring-Book.pdf for a free download.

Things you shouldn't put on an SCA Scroll part 9

Things you shouldn't put on an SCA Scroll part 9

Oh, god! No! Just because it's from a medical text (Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 0457, f. 273v) doesn't mean it should go on a scroll. Even if it's for your BFF.

English Bowling

Bowling is older that you think

There are many games that involve rolling or throwing balls at targets (bocce, bolla, bolle, boules); the game of bowling has been around for millennia, although the rules weren't set in stone until quite recently, perhaps not until the 18th century. Bowling was played indoors and out: records show that the oldest, used bowling green is in Southampton, England, and has been in operation since 1299. Records show that, at least in England, bowling was a game for both the upper and lower classes. "The most comprehensive presentment of higher status men for bowling was in Queenborough in 1500, when the jury presented that the ... mayor and all his brethren and many others living within this town are common players of a certain game called 'le Bowles'." [1]

Henry VIII had a bowling alley installed in Hampton Court; a partial view of it appears in a manuscript image but no trace of it (the alley) has survived. Among the first alterations King Henry had made to Hampton Court, after his 1529 acquisition, was to have built a 'close tennys play' (an indoor tennis court) and a ‘close bowling alley'. [2]

Lawn bowls, also known as bowling on the green or lawn bowling, probably originated in France and some think that it was brought to England by Norman invaders, although there is no evidence of this and no references to bowling, in England, during the reign of William I. At Westminister, indoor bowling alleys began to appear in the 1460s. In Southwark the first reference to an indoor bowling alley appears around 1500. [3]

The oldest references to bowling describe a game more like quints or horseshoes: a stone was tossed towards a target with the object of getting as close to the target as possible. Later, the game was changed: the stones were replaced by balls, made of wood or stone, where were rolled towards an upright target in order to knock it down. In France, the game was known by the Latin word for ball, 'boule', which became the Anglicized 'bowl'.

While the game has been popular in England for centuries, it was not always legal. Edward III, in 1366, outlawed bowling because it was a distraction from archery practice. In 1477, Edward IV issued a similar edict against "bowles, closh, kayles, hand-in and hand-out". In  1511 Henry VIII [4] enacted a statute banning "Tenys, Closshe, Dise, Cardes, Bowles". In 1541, he banned labourers, apprentices and servants from bowling except during Christmas and then only in their master's house and only with their master present. Any one playing bowls outside their own premises could be fined 6s. 8d (between $250 and $2400 in today's money based on either straight conversion or relative labor costs). However, people with property with a yearly value of more than £100 could buy a license to play on their own private green. This ensured that only the wealthy could play.

The Ordinances of the Guild of Spectacle Makers approved by the King's Justices in 1630, state that:

‘if any Apprentice shall misbehave himself towards his Master or Mistress . . . Or be any Drunkard haunter of Taverns, Ale Houses Bowling Alleys or other lewd and suspected Places of evil Company . . . he shall be brought to the Hall of the said Company . . . and shall be stripped from the middle upwards and there be whipped.'  [5]

An English statue of 1541, which banned any games that distracted from archery practice, included bowling.

The penalty for keeping a house for illegal games, including a bowling alley, was 40s, while that for players was 6s 8d. .. Local courts must have considered the 40s fine for gaming houses and bowling alleys excessive, for it was only recorded as being imposed once, on William Rouse, tavern keeper of New Romney, in 1553." [6] 

Towns and cities drew on national rules when drafting their own regulations. In September 1496 Worcester, reviewing its existing regulations, established a new ordinance which banned citizens from playing any games prohibited by law, including the newly re-criminalised sports of tennis and bowls. In September 1504 Rye passed an ordinance prohibiting servants from playing tennis or other illegal games on workdays, which was more generous than the 1495 statute that only allowed such games to be played at Christmas. In 1508, however, a Lyme Regis jury went beyond the statute forbidding burgesses from playing dice at all. Juries presented men who played illegal games. In October 1496 a Chishester jury presented two men for playing closh (and indoor bowling game) contrary to the statute. ... Juries presented men who ran professional outfits, such as 'a kayle house' or 'a Closshe house', or who possessed a tennis court or a bowling alley. Patrick Russel, a London gardener, was accused of keeping bowling alleys in his house in the parish of the Holy Sepulcher in 1499.  [7] 

[1] Jones, p187
[2] Spelthorne Hundred
[3] Horrox, p288
[4] I am, I am
[5] Dargue
[6] Jones, p187
[7] Clark, p153

Bibliography:

Beresford, M. W.; Joseph, J. K. S. Medieval England: An Aerial Survey. Cambridge University Press, Nov 15, 1979

Carlin, Martha. Medieval Southwark. Hambledon Press, 1996

Clark, Linda. Of Mice and Men: Image, Belief and Regulation in Late Medieval England. Boydell Press, 2005.

Dargue, William. 2008-2016 A History of Birmingham Places & Placenames . . . from A to Y.

Horrox, Rosemary W.; Ormrod, Mark. A Social History of England, 1200-1500. Cambridge University Press, Aug 10, 2006.

Jones, Karen. Gender and Petty Crime in Late Medieval England: The Local Courts in Kent, 1460-1560. Boydell Press, 2006

Laughton, Jane. Life in a Late Medieval City: Chester, 1275-1520. Windgather Press, 2008.

Pitcher, John. Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England, Volume 11. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, Mar 1, 1999

'Spelthorne Hundred: Hampton Court Palace, architectural description', in A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 2, General; Ashford, East Bedfont With Hatton, Feltham, Hampton With Hampton Wick, Hanworth, Laleham, Littleton, ed. William Page (London, 1911), pp. 371-379. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol2/pp371-379 [accessed 8 November 2016].

Survey of London: Volume 13, St Margaret, Westminster, Part II: Whitehall I, ed. Montagu H Cox and Philip Norman (London, 1930), British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol13/pt2 [accessed 25 November 2016].

'The Tennis Courts, etc.', in Survey of London: Volume 14, St Margaret, Westminster, Part III: Whitehall II, ed. Montagu H Cox and G Topham Forrest (London, 1931), pp. 37-45. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol14/pt3/pp37-45 [accessed 13 October 2016].

I keep forgetting that I hate doing knot work

All of them lines and little gaps to fill in.

I should never forget how much I hate doing knot work. It looks so nice but it is such a pain to do. "Oh!" I always say to myself, "That doesn't look that difficult to do." You got to trace the image, ink all of the lines, paint between the lines, paint inside the lines, touch up all of the paint, re-ink all of the lines, et cetera ad nausium. This took three days. In comparison: this one of a page from I,33, took about two hours.

I will admit that once the knot work is done, if I didn't screw it up, does look very nice. It doesn't appear that I made too much of a mess on this 'P'. I judge it to be acceptable. I might touch up the white work, when it is completely dry, though. Or.... I might just leave it alone and not risk screwing it up.