Inverted Morality

 I always disliked the changes Disney made to the delightful fairy-tale The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen. From Classical Ideals:

The story of The Snow Queen (1844) by Hans Christian Andersen begins with an evil mirror, crafted by the devil himself. Its deviousness lies in the fact that it shows things the opposite of what they are. Good looks evil, beauty looks ugly and conversely, evil looks virtuous and ugliness looks good.

At the beginning of the story, while the devils carry this mirror up and up to heaven in order to laugh at God Himself by inverting His reflection, they drop it and it breaks into a trillions of pieces. Some of these pieces land on earth and pierce the eyes of people to invert their vision, and into their hearts to invert their sense of morality. Though this story was written nearly two hundred years ago, well before the internet and its devices captured society so profoundly, its message feels urgently relevant. So many of society’s ideas about morality, heroism and virtue seem not merely wrong, but completely inverted. 

One of the most egregious examples of this, ironically, is in Disney’s retelling of the Snow Queen, Frozen (2013). The villain of the Snow Queen becomes the heroine in Frozen as Elsa, a misunderstood princess with superpowers she “just hasn’t learned to control yet”. Frozen shows selfishness as freedom, permissiveness as love.

(Read more.)

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Shattered Realm, Scattered People

 From Peter D. Richards:

The year 1066 is often remembered for a single, pivotal day on a Sussex hillside—the clash of shield walls at Hastings, the fall of King Harold Godwinson, and the triumph of William the Conqueror. Yet, the Battle of Hastings was merely the prologue to a far broader socio-political cataclysm. In the decades that followed, native Anglo-Saxon society was systematically dismantled.

While stone Norman castles rose like iron beacons across the landscape, the people who had called England home for six centuries faced two distinct, painful fates: exile across the known world for the elite, or subjugation on the lands their ancestors had plowed for the masses left behind.

For the surviving Anglo-Saxon aristocracy, life under Norman rule quickly proved untenable. Following a series of crushed rebellions across the Midlands, the North, and the Fens, the native elite recognised that submission meant disinheritance, imprisonment, or death. Thousands chose flight over servitude.

This sparked one of the most remarkable, yet underreported, diasporas of the Middle Ages:

• The Celtic & Scandinavian Fringes: Many nobles sought immediate refuge in Scotland and Ireland. Margaret, sister of the un-crowned Anglo-Saxon claimant Edgar Ætheling, married King Malcolm III of Scotland, weaving English royal lineage directly into the Scottish monarchy. Others fled to Denmark and Norway, appealing to Scandinavian kin for military aid.

• The Exodus to Byzantium: The most extraordinary chapter of the diaspora unfolded far to the east. By the late 1070s, a massive fleet of dispossessed Anglo-Saxon warriors and their families sailed into the Mediterranean, bound for Constantinople.

• The Varangian Guard: The Byzantine Emperor, Alexios I Comnenus, eagerly inducted these seasoned housecarls into his elite Varangian Guard. The English became the primary core of the Emperor’s personal bodyguard. In a dramatic twist of history, these exiles faced their Norman foes once more at the Battle of Dyrrhachium in 1081.

(Read more.)

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Garden Party at Trianon

 As has been described before on this blog, Marie-Antoinette loved gardens and nature. She wanted her domain at Petit Trianon to be like a natural landscape, albeit a fabricated one. As consort of the most powerful monarch in Europe, it was expected that the queen entertain foreign visitors in grand style. Entertaining heads of state was an expensive enterprise, however, even when they visited incognito, as did Emperor Joseph II and the Grand Duke Paul and Grand Duchess Maria of Russia. The French government was nearly bankrupt due to the help given by King Louis XVI to the American colonists in their war for independence from Britain. To save money, Marie-Antoinette would use her private gardens as the site of the entertainments by illuminating the gardens and having everyone wear white. She would have musicians playing amid the shrubbery, so that it seemed that the music was wafting through the gardens in an ethereal manner.

In May, 1782, the Russian Grand Duke and Grand Duchess visited as the "Comte and Comtesse du Nord." Madame Campan wrote of their visit in her Memoirs:

They were presented on the 20th of May, 1782. The Queen received them with grace and dignity. On the day of their arrival at Versailles they dined in private with the King and Queen.

The plain, unassuming appearance of Paul I. pleased Louis XVI. He spoke to him with more confidence and cheerfulness than he had spoken to Joseph II. The Comtesse du Nord was not at first so successful with the Queen. This lady was of a fine height, very fat for her age, with all the German stiffness, well informed, and perhaps displaying her acquirements with rather too much confidence. When the Comte and Comtesse du Nord were presented the Queen was exceedingly nervous. She withdrew into her closet before she went into the room where she was to dine with the illustrious travellers, and asked for a glass of water, confessing “she had just experienced how much more difficult it was to play the part of a queen in the presence of other sovereigns, or of princes born to become so, than before courtiers.” She soon recovered from her confusion, and reappeared with ease and confidence. The dinner was tolerably cheerful, and the conversation very animated.

Brilliant entertainments were given at Court in honour of the King of Sweden and the Comte du Nord. They were received in private by the King and Queen, but they were treated with much more ceremony than the Emperor, and their Majesties always appeared to me to be very cautious before these personages. However, the King one day asked the Russian Grand Duke if it were true that he could not rely on the fidelity of any one of those who accompanied him. The Prince answered him without hesitation, and before a considerable number of persons, that he should be very sorry to have with him even a poodle that was much attached to him, because his mother would take care to have it thrown into the Seine, with a stone round its neck, before he should leave Paris. This reply, which I myself heard, horrified me, whether it depicted the disposition of Catherine, or only expressed the Prince’s prejudice against her.

The Queen gave the Grand Duke a supper at Trianon, and had the gardens illuminated as they had been for the Emperor. The Cardinal de Rohan very indiscreetly ventured to introduce himself there without the Queen’s knowledge. Having been treated with the utmost coolness ever since his return from Vienna, he had not dared to ask her himself for permission to see the illumination; but he persuaded the porter of Trianon to admit him as soon as the Queen should have set off for Versailles, and his Eminence engaged to remain in the porter’s lodge until all the carriages should have left the chateau. He did not keep his word, and while the porter was busy in the discharge of his duty, the Cardinal, who wore his red stockings and had merely thrown on a greatcoat, went down into the garden, and, with an air of mystery, drew up in two different places to see the royal family and suite pass by.

Her Majesty was highly offended at this piece of boldness, and next day ordered the porter to be discharged. There was a general feeling of disgust at the Cardinal’s conduct, and of commiseration towards the porter for the loss of his place. Affected at the misfortune of the father of a family, I obtained his forgiveness; and since that time I have often regretted the feeling which induced me to interfere. The notoriety of the discharge of the porter of Trianon, and the odium that circumstance would have fixed upon the Cardinal, would have made the Queen’s dislike to him still more publicly known, and would probably have prevented the scandalous and notorious intrigue of the necklace.

In June of 1784, King Gustav III of Sweden arrived under the alias of the "Comte de Haga." Marie-Antoinette did not care for him, because of what she had heard concerning his private life. As Madame Campan relates:

The Queen, who was much prejudiced against the King of Sweden, received him very coldly.All that was said of the private character of that sovereign, his connection with the Comte de Vergennes, from the time of the Revolution of Sweden, in 1772, the character of his favourite Armfeldt, and the prejudices of the monarch himself against the Swedes who were well received at the Court of Versailles, formed the grounds of this dislike. He came one day uninvited and unexpected, and requested to dine with the Queen. The Queen received him in the little closet, and desired me to send for her clerk of the kitchen, that she might be informed whether there was a proper dinner to set before Comte d’Haga, and add to it if necessary. The King of Sweden assured her that there would be enough for him; and I could not help smiling when I thought of the length of the menu of the dinner of the King and Queen, not half of which would have made its appearance had they dined in private. The Queen looked significantly at me, and I withdrew. In the evening she asked me why I had seemed so astonished when she ordered me to add to her dinner, saying that I ought instantly to have seen that she was giving the King of Sweden a lesson for his presumption. I owned to her that the scene had appeared to me so much in the bourgeois style, that I involuntarily thought of the cutlets on the gridiron, and the omelette, which in families in humble circumstances serve to piece out short commons. She was highly diverted with my answer, and repeated it to the King, who also laughed heartily at it.

As Baroness Oberkirch relates in her Memoirs, the Swedish king was charmed with both Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, in spite of various misunderstandings. Especially he was enchanted by the illuminated gardens of Trianon, which he thought resembled the Elysian fields. A Swedish scholar once told me that the because of Louis and Antoinette, Gustav was seriously considering becoming a Catholic; I have not yet substantiated that information myself, but it would not surprise me. He certainly did all he could to save their lives, especially through his delegate, Count Fersen. Gustav said of the French king: "Louis XVI is the best and most benevolent prince in existence. His soul radiates serenity. I am filled with admiration."

(Sources: Vincent Cronin's Louis and Antoinette, Madame Campan's Memoirs, Nesta Webster's Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette before the Revolution, Baroness Oberkirch's Memoirs and Antonia Fraser's Marie-Antoinette:The Journey) Share

Legendary Crown Jewels

 

From Only Natural Diamonds:

According to Daughters, the Danish Crown Jewels came very close to taking the top spot because they are among the clearest examples of uninterrupted monarchical continuity in Europe. The collection remains remarkably intact and exceptionally well preserved, offering a rare glimpse into how royal regalia can survive centuries of political and cultural change while remaining deeply tied to national identity.

Daughters notes that the Danish Crown Jewels are especially significant because of their extraordinary continuity and preservation. “The British and Danish crown jewels are perhaps the strongest examples of monarchical continuity in Europe,” he says. While Britain’s regalia reflects both continuity and reinvention following the destruction of the original Crown Jewels during the English Civil War, Denmark’s collection “has remained almost entirely intact,” creating what he describes as “a rare sense of unbroken cultural identity.”

He also explained that Denmark’s regalia functions differently than many other royal collections in Europe. “In Denmark, the regalia feels more closely tied to national heritage and cultural continuity, serving as an enduring public symbol of Danish history,” he says. That connection between the monarchy and national identity has helped transform the jewels from historical treasures into living cultural artefacts still woven into modern royal life. (Read more.)

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This Unconventional Swedish Country Home

 

 

From Architectural Digest:

“My mother is an artist who’s passionate about botany,” explains architect Daniel Fagerberg, who was recently tasked with fashioning an unconventional Swedish country home for her to the west of Stockholm. For this highly personal project, he wanted to honor the intricacies of the flora and fauna that his mother has “dedicated her entire life to studying,” while paying homage to the cozy, light-wooded interiors that Scandinavian cottages are known for. The resulting property is a dream home for anyone who wants to be immersed in nature, botanist or not.

 Fagerberg describes the site as a “gentle westward slope, with oak and fruit trees, overlooking a vast landscape of meadows with a dense forest as a backdrop.” The home itself is a tribute to the famous Erskine Villa, a 1963 home by architect Ralph Erskine located a few miles away. The 2,260-square-foot structure was divided into four spaces with vaulted ceilings that was originally conceived as a stucco building (the white facades were intended to serve “as a canvas on which to display botanical studies.”) After a more detailed analysis, the architects decided that a façade of wooden panels would be more appropriate, as they provide “detail and texture,” while the size of the project also grew in tandem. (Read more.)

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How the Thirty Years’ War Ravaged Europe

 From The Collector:

The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history. What began as a religious struggle in the Holy Roman Empire soon expanded into a continent-wide power struggle involving nearly every major state. Entire regions were depopulated, armies grew to unprecedented size, and the war changed how Europe understood sovereignty and statehood. By the time peace finally arrived in 1648, the war had not only shattered old medieval structures but helped lay the foundations of the modern nation-state.

The Holy Roman Empire in the early seventeenth century was a fragmented and decentralized political entity, composed of hundreds of independent kingdoms, principalities, bishoprics, free cities, and minor lordships. While these territories owed nominal loyalty to the Emperor, real power rested with local rulers, many of whom guarded their autonomy jealously.

This loose structure had endured for centuries, but it was placed under immense strain by the religious divisions unleashed by the Reformation. By 1600, the empire was split between Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinist states. Although the Peace of Augsburg (1555) had attempted to stabilize relations by allowing rulers to choose between Catholicism and Lutheranism, it excluded Calvinists and failed to resolve underlying tensions.

Religious identity became closely tied to political authority, with rulers using confessional allegiance to assert independence from imperial control. The Habsburg emperors were staunch Catholics and increasingly sought to reverse Protestant gains and strengthen central authority within the empire.

These pressures erupted in Bohemia in 1618. Protestant nobles, alarmed by perceived Habsburg encroachments on their religious and political rights, threw imperial officials out of a castle window in Prague, in the Defenestration of Prague. The initial rebellion was against Habsburg rule rather than a purely religious uprising. Although framed in confessional terms, the conflict centred on resistance to imperial centralization. (Read more.)

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Medieval Mystery of Brunanburh Battle May Be Solved

 From Medievalists:

A long-running debate over the location of one of the most important battles fought in medieval England may finally be nearing an answer. A new study argues that the Battle of Brunanburh, fought in 937, took place at Bromborough on the Wirral, bringing fresh clarity to a question that has occupied historians for more than a century.

The book, Finding the Battle of Brunanburh, published by the University of Chester Press, is written by Paul Cavill, Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham, and Steve Harding, Professor Emeritus in Applied Biochemistry at the University of Nottingham. The authors present what they describe as the most comprehensive analysis of the available evidence yet undertaken.

Brunanburh was a decisive clash between the West Saxon king Athelstan and a coalition force led by King Anlaf of Dublin, King Constantine of Alba, and King Owain of Strathclyde. After a day-long and exceptionally bloody battle, Athelstan’s army emerged victorious. The defeated Hiberno-Norse forces retreated by sea to Dublin, while the northern British armies returned home. For Athelstan, the victory was the crowning moment of his reign, supporting his claim to be the “ruler of all Britain”. (Read more.)

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East of the Sun, West of the Moon

Next Thursday evening the White Bear came to fetch her. She seated herself on his back with her bundle, and thus they departed. When they had gone a great part of the way, the White Bear said: "Are you afraid?" ~ from "East of the Sun, West of the Moon"

"East of the Sun, West of the Moon" seems to be a favorite tale of many of the readers of this blog; it certainly is one of mine. It is a Scandinavian version of the myth of "Cupid and Psyche" from which many other tales flowed, including "Beauty and the Beast." According to SurLaLune:

The tale of Cupid and Psyche is considered by many scholars to be one of the first literary fairy tales. Written by Lucius Apuleius in the second century A.D.... the tale features many characters from Greek/Roman mythology, although earlier records of this tale are not known. Cupid and Psyche was translated into English in 1566 by William Adlington and was well-known throughout Europe. For example, John Milton refers to the story in his Comus, first performed in 1634 and published in 1637....The tale is a direct ancestor of the French Beauty and the Beast tale. However, it bears even closer resemblance to East of the Sun and West of the Moon.

Many such stories involve a prince who has been changed into an animal and whom only sacrificial love can restore to human form. It also has many resemblances to "Snow White and Rose Red," in that a bear shows up at the door of a humble cottage one night. The peasant family pities the bear, who is really a prince in disguise. In "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" the parents entrust their daughter to the bear and she goes off with him. Instead of coming to a predictably dreadful end, the girl finds wealth and love, which she comes close to losing forever through giving in to curiosity. I never understood why the girl should be blamed for wanting to see what the prince looks like. Fairy tales, however, are not always reasonable; this particular one is latent with symbolism.

 Artist Kay Nielsen illustrated the story quite magnificently.

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On the Birthday of Sigrid Undset

 From The Catholic Thing:

Fran Maier recently expressed concern about Emily Wilson’s new translation of The Odyssey, which jettisons the familiar grand summoning of the muse to “sing” for something more casual: “Tell me about a complicated man.” This attempt to translate in our own image is nothing new, and not always bad. Seamus Heaney chose to translate hwaet, the opening word of Beowulf (essentially a call to attention, formerly rendered as something like “listen,” “lo,” or the admittedly antiquated “hark”) as “So, the Spear-Danes in days gone by. . . .” Indeed, where the reader once may have heard an Anglo-Saxon scop calling across the centuries, he now hears the Dublin or Boston Irishman at the bar in mid-story: “So, there was this guy by my cah. . . .”

Past generations seemed not to need such condescension.  A 1937 Book-of-the-Month Club promotional for Kristin Lavransdatter claims that, in the ten years since the club’s founding, Undset’s story has remained the enduring favorite: “This remarkable trilogy has been more deeply enjoyed by the real booklovers of the nation than any novel published in the past decade.” Calling the story “as modern and as ancient as the passions of humankind,” the ad echoes what the Archer translation was able to communicate to hundreds of thousands of average readers: “Years pass, long years, and do their work. This is a book, in short, that leaves you rich in memories, as Time does itself.”

Kristin Lavransdatter is, in the Archer translation, quite simply a book that sings. It sang out to Dorothy Day and her friend Frieda, whose “beach house remained unswept, her husband and son unfed” while she devoured it. It sang out to Catholic converts like Deal Hudson, whose lives it transformed. It sang out to Southern Agrarian Andrew Lytle, who, in his nineties, wrote one final work, an homage to the novel simply entitled Kristin. And so it sings to me of a life spent striving. (Read more.)

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Fake News and Salacious Rumors at Versailles

 
I am disappointed to hear that the PBS series Marie Antoinette depicts Count Fersen as the true father of the Queen's two youngest children. A book by Nancy Goldstone which came out a few years ago is filled with the same lies that the revolutionaries used to destroy her reputation. I so enjoyed Goldstone's books on Elizabeth Stuart and Marguerite de Valois. But to say that Marie-Antoinette's youngest children were illegitimate is utterly contrary to what we know about the Queen. And Louis XVI may have been high-functioning on the Asperger's/autism spectrum but that did not keep him from loving his wife and fathering children. So many old fallacies resurrected. What a shame! From Caroline Weber at The New York Times:

In her new biography, “In the Shadow of the Empress,” Nancy Goldstone seeks to tell “the story of a family of immensely strong women, beginning with Marie Antoinette’s formidable mother, the empress Maria Theresa … and three of her daughters, of whom the notorious queen of France was but the youngest.” (The other two are Queen Maria Carolina of Naples and Marie Christine, Duchess of Techsen.) Goldstone, the author of books about Catherine de Medici and Mary, Queen of Scots, is drawn to female royals who defy “tradition and stereotype,” and on that count her new subjects have much to offer. Regrettably, her book does not.

The problem starts with the “selected genealogy” that opens the book, where Goldstone lists the two youngest of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI’s four children, Louis-Charles (later Louis XVII) and Sophie, as the illegitimate offspring of Count Axel von Fersen, a Swedish officer whom the queen undoubtedly loved, but with whom, as the scholar Susan Lanser wrote in 2003, “no one yet … has been able to establish whether she had a consummated relationship.” Indeed, historians and biographers generally agree that the evidentiary record cannot answer this question conclusively.

On the one hand, speculation about the nature of the pair’s involvement was rife at Versailles, where scabrous rumor-mongering — especially about the ladies of the court — had flourished for more than a century. On the other, Marie Antoinette’s rank subjected her to the round-the-clock company and scrutiny of countless attendants, domestics and (during the French Revolution) guards. So closely monitored was her existence that of her 15-year friendship with Fersen his own diary — which Goldstone includes in her bibliography, and which Stefan Zweig describes in his influential study of Marie Antoinette as “a record of incomparable value for those who love ‘hard facts’” — identifies just one specific date on which the pair may have spent the night alone together. That hypothetical tryst occurred in February 1792, nearly seven years after Louis-Charles’s birth and five and a half years after Sophie’s. Even so, Goldstone justifies her claim about the two children’s paternity by asserting without qualification that the “Nordic dreamboat” was “the queen’s lover” and “stayed with her many nights.” (Read more.)

I cannot even begin to say how ridiculous the idea of  a 1792 affair is, because the Queen was under house arrest at the Tuileries, with guards outside the door and coming into her rooms at all time of the day and night. I have written more about this HERE, HERE, and HERE. And in my bio of Marie-Antoinette, HERE.

Marie-Josèphe de Saxe, Dauphine of France, wife of Louis the Dauphin, was the mother of Louis XVI. It is said that her little grandson, the tragic Louis XVII, resembled her a great deal, as can be seen in the portrait below. It gives further lie to the ridiculous rumor that Count Axel von Fersen fathered Louis-Charles (Louis XVII).

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Of Canada and Greenland

 From Amuse on X:

To say that Canada is militarily helpless is not to indulge in hyperbole, but to confront a reality long obscured by diplomatic euphemism. The Canadian Armed Forces are not merely under-resourced; they are structurally incapacitated. The nation lacks the manpower, equipment, logistical depth, and political seriousness to defend its own vast territory, much less contribute meaningfully to the defense of NATO allies or embattled democracies like Ukraine. The Canadian military is, to borrow Hobbes, nasty, brutish, and short—in staffing, in supplies, and in strategic thinking.

Begin with manpower. The Canadian Armed Forces are authorized to field around 101,500 personnel. As of 2025, they are short by at least 16,000. This is not a minor discrepancy; it is a hemorrhage. Nearly 15% of the force exists only on paper. And even among those still wearing the uniform, a distressing number are functionally undeployable: overweight, undertrained, or shackled by bureaucratic delays that make a military posting resemble a Kafkaesque waiting room.

In some vital specialties—aviation technicians, naval crews, combat medics—the effective manning levels have dropped to less than half of what operational requirements demand. Training pipelines are slowed to a crawl. The few who do enlist find themselves waiting upwards of a year and a half for security clearances and medical screenings. And when they finally report for duty, the story turns tragicomic: in one recent deployment to Europe, Canadian troops reportedly had to borrow basic equipment—including helmets—from their American counterparts. Others bought their own kit from civilian retailers.

This is not merely inconvenient. It is existential. A military without the ability to equip and train its soldiers is not a military but a costume party at the edge of a battlefield. (Read more.)

 

From Tierney's Real News:

 Understand what JD Vance is saying. Notice how key Greenland is (geographically and strategically) to America for all the major arctic shipping routes for the world. It is also a strategic location for air and submarine surveillance in the northern hemisphere. If the US lets Russia & China control that - America is doomed. We will lose control of imports and exports, to our enemies, and also give them a military advantage - TO INVADE US - off our shores.

VP VANCE: "Our message is very simple. Yes, the people of Greenland are going to have self-determination. We hope that they choose to partner with the United States because we're the only nation on earth that will respect their sovereignty and respect their security - because their security is very much our security."

"We can't just bury our head in the sand — or, in Greenland, bury our head in the snow — and pretend that the Chinese are not interested in this very large landmass. We know that they are."

“Our message to Denmark (which currently rules over Greenland) is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland. You have under invested in the people of Greenland and you have under invested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful landmass."

"We want to have good relationships with everybody... but part of having good relations is showing your strength when you have to. And unfortunately, the story of Greenland over the past 20 years when it comes to security is that we've underinvested... that has to change." (Read more.)

 

From Sharyl's Substack:

1. U.S. Aspirations to Buy Greenland Date Back Nearly 160 Years

   President Andrew Johnson sought to purchase Greenland in 1867. Johnson’s Secretary of State William Seward explored buying Greenland alongside Alaska, per the U.S. State Department’s historical records. Only the Alaska deal went through.

2. Truman Tried to Buy Greenland
   In 1946, President Harry Truman proposed buying Greenland for $100 million in gold. The idea stemmed from Cold War fears about Soviet influence. Denmark rejected the offer.

3. Trump Talked About Greenland Takeover in First Term, Too
   During his first term, Donald Trump also floated the idea of the U.S. buying Greenland, sparking global headlines in August 2019. He called it a “large real estate deal” for national security. Denmark quickly dismissed the notion, with Greenland’s leaders asserting their autonomy.

4. A Cold Connection Dates Back to WWII
   The U.S. military first set foot in Greenland during World War II to prevent Nazi Germany from gaining a foothold.

5. Norway Used to Own Greenland

   Denmark owns Greenland as a constituent country within the Kingdom of Denmark. In 1814, after the Napoleonic Wars, Norway was forced to relinquish several territories when its alliance with Napoleonic France crumbled, according to the Norwegian Historical Association. Denmark, aligned with the victorious powers, gained Greenland and other territories. (Norway was transferred from Danish to Swedish control.) This wasn’t a voluntary handover but a consequence of wartime negotiations and territorial realignment dictated by the treaty’s terms. (Read more.)

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Scientists Discover 500-year-old Shark

 From The Brighter Side:

The Greenland shark holds the title as the longest-lived vertebrate on Earth, with some individuals potentially reaching 500 years of age. This elusive deep-sea predator, found in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, has fascinated scientists due to its remarkable lifespan. Its slow growth rate and mysterious biology have made it a subject of ongoing research, shedding light on how some species defy the limits of aging.

A major breakthrough in understanding the longevity of Greenland sharks came from a research team led by Julius Nielsen, a marine biologist at the University of Copenhagen. Nielsen and his colleagues conducted a study that revealed a Greenland shark estimated to be at least 272 years old, with some models suggesting an upper age limit of nearly 500 years. This finding shattered previous records, surpassing the known lifespan of the 211-year-old bowhead whale, which had long been considered the longest-lived vertebrate. (Read more.)

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Princess Alice of Battenberg

 From Tatler:

A great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, Philip’s mother was born as Princess Alice of Battenberg at Windsor Castle in 1985, and was born congenitally deaf. She met her husband, Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark in 1902 at the coronation of King Edward VII, with the two marrying a year later. The couple went on to have five children, four daughters and one son, Philip, and remained in Greece until the exile of the Royal Family in 1917. Then, they settled briefly in Paris, before Philip was sent to live in England and his mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia, being committed to a Swiss sanatorium in 1930. (Read more.)

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The Island We Saved, Then Surrendered

On Greenland. From Amuse on X:

April 1940: Denmark capitulated to Nazi Germany in a mere six hours. Greenland, severed from its colonial master, was left adrift—a geopolitical orphan. With a population of roughly 18,000 people at the time, the island found itself at a crossroads. Eske Brun, Greenland's governor, made the shrewd choice to align with the Allies. While Denmark collaborated with its occupiers, Greenland became a free agent on the world stage.

Recognizing Greenland’s strategic importance as a stepping stone across the Atlantic and a base for weather stations vital to Allied convoys, America seized the initiative. President Franklin Roosevelt authorized military occupation under the 1941 Greenland Agreement, brokered by Danish envoy Henrik Kauffmann—an act of defiance that came at great personal cost. As Denmark, under Nazi occupation, adopted a policy of collaboration to maintain its domestic stability, Kauffmann’s unilateral decision to side with the Allies was deemed treasonous by his homeland. By bypassing Copenhagen, which was effectively under Nazi control, Kauffmann ensured Greenland would serve as an Allied stronghold rather than fall into Axis hands. This bold move not only enraged Nazi authorities but also embarrassed Denmark’s collaborationist government, which sought to maintain a veneer of sovereignty despite its subservience to Berlin. Kauffmann’s branding as a traitor underscores the tension between moral conviction and political expediency in times of national crisis.

The island became a critical Allied outpost, hosting airbases and radar stations that bolstered the fight against the Axis. Greenland wasn’t just a slab of ice; it was a fortress and a gateway. Remarkably, these U.S. bases and operations established during World War II remain active to this day, underscoring Greenland’s enduring strategic significance in the Arctic and beyond. (Read more.)

 

From The Hill:

Greenland Prime Minister Múte Egede said he is “ready” to talk with President-elect Trump, who has recently expressed ambitions for the U.S. to acquire Greenland, the world’s largest island. Egede was asked during a press conference in Copenhagen on Friday if he was in touch with the president-elect. He said no, but added that “we are ready to talk.”

 Trump has previously said the U.S. control of Greenland, an autonomous island within the Kingdom of Denmark, is “an absolute necessity.” He declined to rule out using the military in hopes of getting the island with a population of over 56,000 people, arguing its control is crucial to national security, a sentiment echoed earlier this week by his pick for national security adviser, Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.). 

Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen met with Egede in Copenhagen on Friday. Both were at the press conference. During the address, Frederiksen said she had asked for a meeting with the president-elect. 

Egede emphasized Friday that, “Greenland is for the Greenlandic people. We do not want to be Danish, we do not want to be American. We want to be Greenlandic.” (Read more.)

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Tiny Living and Economic Freedom

 

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The Vanished Kingdom of Alt Clut

 I am listening to Vanished Kingdoms by Norman Davies and the second chapter is about the lost Pictish Kingdom of  the Rock or Strathclyde, also known by the Britons as Alt Clut. Some scholars think it might be the site of the legendary Camelot. St. Patrick probably came from there as well, as did my MacLachlan ancestors. From The History Files:

The tribe of the Damnonii were never fully conquered by Rome. Instead, at some point during the Roman occupation of Britain they seem to have created an independent kingdom of their own in the region of Scotland that is now known as Strathclyde. This kingdom quickly became known by the Brythonic name of its capital at Dumbarton: Alt Clut or Alclud ('Rock of the Clyde'), or Alcluith (an older version of the name). Centred on the Clyde headwaters and its capital of Dumbarton, the kingdom's borders can only be vaguely estimated. They seem to have stretched a little north of the Antonine line, then over to the ridge of the Campsie Fells (roughly between Lennoxtown and Balfron, and taking in the later county of Dumbarton), up towards Loch Lomond where two huge ice age stone deposits both bear names that possibly mark out a British border (see AD 711, below), and westwards to the head of Loch Long. Its southern border seems usually to have abutted that of Galwyddel (Galloway), while to the north it was bordered by Pictland, to the north-east and east by the Guotodin, and to the south-east by Caer Guendoleu.

Essentially re-established in AD 382 by Magnus Maximus, it may in fact have been much older. The original first century Roman conquest of southern Scotland did not include Alt Clut's British Damnonii territory, although there were periods when it later fell under Roman administration. For the most part, however, it seems to have remained independent. Certainly it was one of the few British kingdoms never to be conquered by the English or Normans, instead eventually being taken over by the Scottish crown. Its southern region of Cumbria was gained after the fall of North Rheged and a period of possession by Bernicia, and simply bore the name of its 'people of the same land', the Cymri, which is the same source of the name for Cymru (Wales).

Many of Alt Clut's kings are obscure or are only poorly attested. Only two stand out - Coroticus and Rhiderch Hael. Many of them are often only known by the Welsh or Irish versions of their names. Little of the Cumbric dialect of Brythonic which was used by the Britons between the walls was written down by them. Mostly their actions were recorded either due to Irish attacks on the coast or by Welsh storytellers who were remembering events from several generations away in time. Where both Alt Clut's British and later Welsh forms are known, the latter is always shown last. Edward Dawson suggests the theory that the somewhat mysterious Attacotti of AD 364 could be the Alt Clut Britons....(Read more.)

 

From English Monarchs:

The kingdom emerged after Roman rule was withdrawn from Britain at the beginning of the fifth century. Its capital was Dumbarton Rock, a 240 feet high twin-peaked volcanic rock with the River Clyde on one side and the River Leven on two more, 'the Fortress of the Britons', known as Alt Clut in brythonic Celtic. A Celtic settlement on Dunbarton Rock was first recorded in a letter of St Patrick to King Ceretic, the British King of Strathclyde in about AD450. In which he complained about a raid the Britons had made on his Irish converts.

Strathclyde covered the area from Loch Lomond to the Celtic kingdom of Rheged around the Solway. At the head of Loch Lomond in Glen Falloch a great boulder, known as the Clach nam Breatann, the Stone of the Britons marked the northern reaches of Strathclyde.

It was bordered to the north by Pictland, to the north-east and east by the Goutodin, and to the south by Caer Guendoleu, and Galwyddel. the kingdom's southern region of Cumbria was acquired after the demise of North Rheged and acquired its name from its people, the Cymri, or comrades, from which same source the Welsh people referred to themselves as Cymru. (Read more.)

From Sean Poage:

Alt Clut, as part of what the Welsh called “The Old North” is full of fascinating history and legend and likely the longest-lived of the Brythonic kingdoms. Their imposing citadel at Dumbarton was never taken until the year 870, when the defenders ran out of water after a four month Viking siege. The king, his family and hundreds of Britons were taken as slaves to Dublin.

This finally gave the Scots their chance and it appears that Alt Clud becomes a mixed Gaelic and Brythonic kingdom, known as Strathclyde. This means “Valley of the River Clyde”, the center of power of the region. The Scots would fully take over Strathclyde by the mid eleventh century, controlling as far south as Cumbria until the end of the eleventh century. (Read more.)

From Kings and Queens:

Ceretic Guletic was king of Alt Clut in the 5th Century AD. He was identified with Coroticus a Britonnic warrior mentioned on a letter by Saint Patrick. One of the letters is addressed to the warband of the Coroticus people. The letter mentions the enslavement of newly Christianised Irish and the sale of Christians

‘Soldiers whom I no longer call my fellow citizens or citizens of the Roman saints, but fellow citizens of the devils, in consequence of the evil deeds; who live in death after the hostile rite of the barbarians; associates of the Scots and Apostate Picts; desirous of glutting themselves with the blood of innocent Christians, multitudes of whom I have begotten in God and confirmed in Christ.’

In the letter Patrick announces that he has excommunicated Coroticus’ men. The connection between Coroticus to Ceretic Guletic is based largely on the 8th Century AD gloss to Patrick’s letter. It has been suggested that sending the letter provoked the trial Patrick mentions in the Confession. The ‘Apostate’ Picts are the southern Picts that were converted by Saint Ninian and ministered to by Palladius who subsequently left Christianity. The Northern Picts of Flortriu were later converted by Saint Columba in the 6th Century AD. As they were not yet Christian they would not have been called Apostate.

From using the above you would be able to date Ceretic in the 5th Century AD. Ceretic also appears in the Harleian genealogies of the rulers of Alt Clut. This lists his father as Cynloyp, grandfather as Cinhil and great-grandfather as Cluim. It is from this source we get the nickname Guletic which means land-holder. In the Book of Armagh he is called ‘Coirthech rex Aloo’ or Ceretic, King of the Height (of the Clyde). (Read more.)

A site both pixilated and interesting. From Land of the Fae:

I subsequently found out that this whole area is tied up with the earliest myths of King Arthur and Merlin. I believe that when Britons migrated from Strathclyde to Wales and Corwall that they carried the stories of King Arthur and Merlin with them and transfered the stories to places that were more familiar to them.

Arthuret is the site of the Battle of Arderydd that was fought in AD 573 between the pagan king Gwendollau and the Christian kings Riderch, Peredur and Gwrgi. Riderch was the king of Alt Clut (Dumbarton). Gwendollau was defeated and his court magician Myrddin (Merlin) went mad with grief and fled to the woods of Celidon where he lived on wild food and became a prophet. (Read more.)

For further reading, go HERE.

Meanwhile, I highly recommend:

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Royalty and Architecture

King Gustav III of Sweden and his Brothers (1771), Alexander Roslin.

Gustav III was an ally and friend of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. He admired them both and visited them in France in 1784. From Apollo:

To build might be considered a natural activity for royalty: to manifest majesty and to improve the fabric of the state. But how far were kings, queens, princes and princesses actually involved in the design of the buildings they commissioned? Royalty and Architecture offers a series of case studies in response to this question, examining rulers from the 17th century to the present day. Fourteen chapters, written by leading scholars in their fields, are arranged chronologically and take in the Papal States, France, Germany, Russia, Sweden, Poland and Great Britain. In light of historiographical shifts towards popular rather than elite subjects, histories of making and decolonisation, sceptics might question the need for further interrogation of the role of royalty, but the specific focus of this study provides fresh justification. 

The consideration of architecture as a suitable endeavour for royalty arose from the Renaissance idea of architecture as a noble pursuit that encompassed subjects including mathematics, geometry and history. It had important implications for military success, the projection of authority and the common good. Young royals therefore often received architectural education in the form of drawing classes. In the case of Gustav III of Sweden, examined in an essay by Magnus Olausson, it led to a lifelong passion, testified to by more than 200 surviving architectural drawings in his hand. Royal libraries included books of architecture and design, and monarchs were the recipients of dedications from architectural authors keen to secure patronage and commissions.

John Goodall’s opening essay identifies magnificence as the key distinguishing feature of royal building projects. As Louis XIV wrote in the handbook of kingliness that he prepared for his son, the two ways in which a monarch could achieve gloire and secure his reputation for posterity were military success and building. Goodall underlines the importance of royal architecture for state occasions as the stage for ‘the performance of monarchy’. To illustrate his point, he offers a perceptive account of the architectural settings of Elizabeth II’s funeral in September 2022, demonstrating that the relationship between royalty and buildings is a contemporary as well as historical subject. 

Although the public presentation of monarchy is key to many of the buildings that are examined in this volume, the emphasis here is on their direct personal engagement with architectural matters. Elisabeth Kieven’s lively essay shows us Pope Alexander VII (the papacy was an elective monarchy) not only commissioning works to transform the Eternal City, but also drawing with Bernini, researching ancient porticos to inform the square at St Peter’s, and helping to set up the columns there with the aid of his telescope. Likewise, in Simon Thurley’s essay on the later Stuart monarchs in England, we find Charles II sketching designs for Whitehall on paper, requesting plans of the Louvre for comparison, expressing his vision for the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire and approving Christopher Wren’s designs for the new St Paul’s Cathedral. Although building projects were inherently self-aggrandising, many of the monarchs were motivated to seek public benefit, as evidenced in Barbara Arciszewska’s chapter on the campaign by King Stanislaw August Poniatowski to revive Poland through architecture.(Read more.)

 

 

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Bring me a Sword!

 From The Abbey of Misrule:

This week, like last week, we’re in Killaloe, the small town at the end of Lough Derg which is currently most famous, if it’s famous at all, for its twelfth-century cathedral and the good fishing that can be had where the river Shannon meets the country’s second-biggest lake. But things have not always been this quiet. It’s a little-known fact that, once upon a time, this sleepy little town was the de facto capital of Ireland.

Admittedly, it was quite a long time ago. About a thousand years, to be precise. Back then, the Big Man around these parts was one Brian Bóruma mac Cennétig - better known today as Brian Boru. Boru, whose star still shines brightly around here, with statues and visitor centres and churches dedicated to him, was perhaps the key figure in early medieval Ireland, and is most famous now for finally defeating the Vikings who, as in neighbouring England, had been raiding, settling, slaughtering and trying to conquer the nation for years. The ‘nation’ back then had no central government or ruler, being instead a collection of 150 uneasily co-existing kingdoms in a country of not more than half a million people. This, as again in neighbouring England, made the Vikings’ job easier, since there was no united opposition to their raids.

Brian Boru was originally the King of a small sub-kingdom of the larger kingdom of Munster, but he had greater ambitions, and set about subjugating and defeating the other Irish kingdoms with great success. In 1002 he was acknowledged by his defeated foes as High King of all Ireland. Killaloe, where he was born and where his father had reigned, became his capital. You can still visit an overgrown hillfort on the lakeshore which may have been his family’s fortress. As king, however, he built himself a fancy new palace on the high ground in the town, where the Catholic church now stands. (Read more.)

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Country Houses Around the World

 

From House and Garden:

This three-storey newbuild has many of the hallmarks of a traditional Austrian jagdhaus (hunting lodge) – a steeply pitched roof, dormer windows and a pine-clad interior. Situated in the Northern Limestone Alps and designed by architect Peter Helletzgruber and interior designer Tino Zervudachi, the house blends into the landscape. The natural hues and textures of the wood set the tone for an interior featuring plank-lined walls and exposed beams. This is a vernacular that embraces simplicity and comfort, complemented here by deep armchairs, colourful kilims and painted furniture. Outside, the wide overhanging eaves are designed to provide protection from snow and rain for the wrap-around veranda below. (Read more.)

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Where Was Danelaw?

 From Rural Historia:

Danelaw was no small and meek kingdom, it was instead comprised of a large swathe of land across historic England. While the borders of Danelaw did shift and change with unstable allegiances and unreliable relationships, the area was primarily in the eastern part of England. Overall, Danelaw was made up of an area equal to roughly the fifteen modern day shires of Suffolk, Essex, Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Leicester, Huntingdon, Bedford, Hertford, Buckingham, Middlesex, Leicester, Northampton, and York. Important cities and strongholds, including York and Leicester, were a part of Danelaw, as was, at times, even London. Remnants of settlements in Danelaw form important archeological discoveries today. There are still some places known today that once held particular significance to the Norse population within the boundaries of Danelaw. Thynghowe at Hanger Hill located in Sherwood Forest is a good example of this. Thynghowe is believed to have been an important meeting place for Viking populations within the Danelaw area. (Read more.)

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