Also known as Why the Sea is Salt or Why is the Sea salty? because of its most famous translation in Andrew Lang’s Blue Fairy Book, “Kvernen som maler på havsens bunn” is a Norwegian folk tale collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe in their famous Norske Folkeeventyr. I talked about some of […]
There is snow on the ground, And the valleys are cold, And a midnight profound Blackly squats o’er the wold; But a light on the hilltops half-seen hints of feastings unhallow’d and old. There is death in the clouds, There is fear in the night, For the dead in their shrouds Hail the sun’s turning […]
Well, yesterday some of you people protested when I wrote that the brawn is probably something no one would cook, and I’m glad because I kind of like the stuff, but you have forced me to double down with another traditional Tudor Christmas dish: the boar head. Wynkyn de Worde, most likely a pseudonym, was […]
A traditional Chinese restaurant that has recently opened here in Milan has a section of the menu that lists “dishes we know you won’t order, but we put them on anyway”. I guess that would be a good subtitle for this post because, continuing my research on the traditional Tudor dishes for a historically accurate […]
O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors: The north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car. He hears me not, but o’er the yawning deep Rides heavy; his storms are unchain’d, sheathed In ribbed steel; I dare not lift mine eyes; […]
Today’s story on my Patreon is another tale translated from the 1911 collection “The Dance of the Gnomes and other stories”, put together by Guido Gozzano. It features shapeshifting battles, a curse princess, danger and derring-do. And it’s free to read.
Sweep thy faint strings, Musician, With thy long lean hand; Downward the starry tapers burn, Sinks soft the waning sand; The old hound whimpers couched in sleep, The embers smoulder low; Across the walls the shadows Come, and go. Sweep softly thy strings, Musician, The minutes mount to hours; Frost on the windless casement weaves […]
Today’s feature on my Patreon is the translation of a fairytale originally published in an Italian magazine in 1911 as a selection of tales by Guido Gozzano. This is the tale that gave the title to the collection: it has recently been gifted to me by an Italian author I follow, and I try and […]
Just in case you’re looking to cook up a traditional Christmas dinner looking at the history of England, I recently stumbled upon a couple of dishes used as appetizers in Tudor and Victorian times, so I thought you might enjoy trying them (or not). Plum Porridge and Figgy Pudding are two traditional recipes published today […]
I counted till they danced so Their slippers leaped the town, And then I took a pencil To note the rebels down. And then they grew so jolly I did resign the prig, And ten of my once stately toes Are marshalled for a jig. – E. Dickinson, Poem #36 (Snowflakes)