Today's weather report promised "acquazzoni a tradimento" (backstabbing downpours--a very Renaissance way of putting it). I was at the mall, so I bought a new umbrella. I have plenty of ambush umbrellas. At least a dozen.
Go, Hungary! (Wir betreten feuertrunken!)
Sandra Ballif Straubhaar collected their voices in Old Norse Women's Poetry: The Voices of Female Skalds (Boydell Press, 2011). Old Norse with facing English translations.
Going to buy it now. 7/7
#Skáldkonur #Poetry #Books #AmReading
And Jóreiðr, a 16-year-old in 1255 Iceland who spoke eight prophetic stanzas she received in a dream (the largest body of poetry by a historically attested woman in Old Norse literature)
#Skáldkonur #DreamVerse #Medieval
Jórunn skáldmær ("Poet-maiden"), 10th century, the only woman among 67 skalds named by Snorri Sturluson. She composed political verse sharp enough to cut between a king and his son. 5/7
#Skáldkonur #OldNorse #WomenInHistory
And the women who forged these? The skáldkonur: the women skalds.
Steinunn Refsdóttir (Iceland, 999) mocked a Christian missionary with metrically flawless verse about Thor wrecking his ship. 4/7
#Skáldkonur #WomenPoets #VikingAge
A generous lord is a "ring-breaker"
A warrior is a "feeder of ravens"
A spear is a "war-snake"
A sword gleaming in battle is a "corpse-fire"
Every noun is a tiny poem inside a poem. 3/7
#SkáldicPoetry #Vikings #WritingCommunity
Blood is "battle-sweat"
A ship is a "plank-horse"
The sea is a "whale-road"
A sword is a "battle-icicle"
Gold is "fire of the sea"
The sun is a "sky-candle"
And poetry itself? "Odin's mead." 2/7
#Kennings #OldNorse #Skaldic
Today I learned that in Old Norse poetry, an arrow is a "wound-bee."
That's a kenning, the Viking poets' way of naming the world through metaphor. And it gets better. 1/7
#OldNorse #Poetry #Kennings #Vikings
This marvel is called "elephant's ear," (orecchia d'elefante if you want to order it in an Italian ristorante, in northern Italy--I hail from Lake Como)
Giving priority to queries that fit ⬇️
#mswl #amquerying #writingcommunity
Check out my #MSWL here: manuscriptwishlist.com/mswl-post/si..., and submission guidelines here: inkwellmanagement.com/contact/! no ai stuff pls.
Hello Writing Community! We are delighted to announce our Second Official Bluesky *** #MSWL Day *** February 26, 2026. 🎉🎉🎉
Agents + editors can post what they ✨wish✨ they had in their inboxes; writers can find their next best fit for querying.
Learn more: manuscriptwishlist.com/2025/01/the-...
Thank you!
Congrats to Kathleen and all the other finalists, including another two of my students, @sljohnson.bsky.social and @gioclair.bsky.social !
Crosses twenty monkey-fingers
Oh, that's great worldbuilding!
Y'all, I just got another short story acceptance (from The Literary Hatchet), but I'm MAD! Why oh why didn't the guys send their acceptance BEFORE the 31th of December, to gift me with my 20th sale of the year?
The sky over [your city]
Joyeux Noël!
The moon was captured, too, entangled in the trees
Two Santas were caught and trapped today. I wonder whether it's happening elsewhere #Xmas
I heard Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb, say they could mobilize a million people in an emergency. Out of ~6 million. And I got curious. So I looked up what other big European countries could realistically mobilize. Germany excluded, since it’s mid-rearm.
chatgpt.com/s/m_6945680a...
Confused periwinkle
Bullet Points 11 @jamesaaron.net @slashnburnett.bsky.social @gioclair.bsky.social @henryherz.bsky.social @liamjhogan.bsky.social @gerrileen.bsky.social @grigorylukin.bsky.social @kurtnewton.bsky.social @natashabennett.bsky.social @jeremyszal.bsky.social @ericfomley.bsky.social zurl.co/0jolK
That plush, marshmallow look when snow lands on trees that still have their leaves
I am linguistically confused!
Mädchen, sorry
German uses neuter for sweet little thing, like Madchen. Still. French beats them all. Le vagin, why is it masculine, when of course the original Latin is feminine???? But in slang you say la foufoune, feminine, of course