"All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered."

― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

#AdventCalendar – Day 16: Coventry Carol

When we talked about the boar’s head as a traditional Christmas dish, we mentioned “Boar’s Head Carol”, one of the oldest Christmas carols to date. Today we take a look at another Christmas Carol from the XVI Century, and perhaps the one with the most enthralling history of them all: the Coventry Carol.

It’s usually considered a lullaby sung by Mary to baby Jesus, but reality it’s far more haunting: it comes from the Coventry Mystery Plays, specifically The Pageant of the Shearmen and the Tailors, and it’s a song sung by mothers to their doomed children during the Massacre of the Innocents. Read about it today on my Patreon.
Spooktober

Spooktober 29 – The Black Monk (4)

Chapter 7 One long winter night Kovrin was lying in bed, reading a French novel. Poor Tanya, who had headaches in the evenings from living in town, to which she was not accustomed, had been asleep a long while, and, from time to time, articulated

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October 29, 2026 6:00 am
technology

Hey, teacher, leave the bumblebee alone

Every few months it comes back. A pencil drawing of a bee, a quote in a serif font, and different authorities invoked as the source: aerodynamically speaking, the bee cannot fly, but it doesn’t know that, so it flies anyway. It gets shared and liked,

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October 28, 2026 9:00 am
Spooktober

Spooktober 28 – The Black Monk (3)

Chapter 5 Glad that he had been so successful in the part of peacemaker, Kovrin went into the park. Sitting on a garden seat, thinking, he heard the rattle of a carriage and a feminine laugh — visitors were arriving. When the shades of evening

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October 28, 2026 6:00 am
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