I'm skimming through The Secret History of the Mongols for an SCA project. This is a thirteenth-century chronicle; I'm using Igor de Rachewiltz's translation, which has excellent and copious footnotes.

I was struck by the segment where Činggis Qa'an's mother is kidnapped (by Činggis Qa'an's father):

( history is tragic )

• What did you recently finish reading?
  
  Listing back a little ways, since these books are thematically akin:
  
  Full Fathom Five and Last First Snow by Max Gladstone, Night Flower by Kate Elliott, The Winged Histories by Sofia Samatar, and Fire Logic by Laurie J. Marks ( Read more... )

My university's student body president made national news this morning, which means it's time to make that essay I've been writing about tenure public ( Read more... )

Recently read: Nine Princes in Amber.
Currently reading: Guns of Avalon.
Up next: Next one in the series, probably.

I actually stumbled on A/N/N/A/R/C/H/I/V/E, read about half of the Amber Diceless RPG rules linked therein, and decided to go back & see what the Amber books looked like, from an adult perspective.

I read Nine Princes in Amber the ( Read more... )

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Suggest some topics, and I'll post about them in January?

Cross-posted from http://ursula.dreamwidth.org/173554.html .

Let's take the Chaucer Hath Blog gift quiz, in the spirit of livejournal of yesteryear.

THE MOOST OOLD AND POWIRFUL QUIZZE OF GIFT PREFERENCE 1. Which element dost thou prefer: fyre, air, earth, watir ( Read more... )

My translation of the portion of the statutes of the sixteenth-century French Ordre du Saint-Esprit concerning the initiation of a new member. In comparison to fifteenth-century ceremonies, this shows a much greater emphasis on the power of the Sovereign. As one might expect from a kingdom embroiled in religious wars, there is also a far greater ( Read more... )

I bought early period shoes at An Tir Twelfth Night. I try for sixth century when I'm doing early period stuff, which is a hard time period to buy shoes for: due to market forces, people sell Roman-era shoes and Viking-era shoes, but not much in between. Thus, when I saw comparatively inexpensive, plausibly at least fifth-century shoes, I jumped ( Read more... )