Will Straw's Saga (2)

Source: Huffington Post

Making friends with the elves

"The people of Heathdaele[1] are fickle[2]," said Jóhann. “Their speaker Jakob[3] is of the Íhaldsflokknum[4], but those who study such things think he will be ousted at next year’s Althing[5]. Our Party, Verkamannaflokksins[6], is expected to lead by 40 farms[7] and become the new government at Kirkjan Vestur[8]. If you succeed in seizing Heathdaele, you will be seen as helping in the victory and your ship will be launched on a favourable tide.”

“How can I achieve this?” asked Vilhelm, whose father’s analysis had made him more eager than ever.

“The people of this country have no understanding,” replied the other. “If they had, they would have hanged most of the inhabitants of Kirkjan Vestur long ago. But they have no brains. Appeal to their hearts; in other words, befriend them. Say you like the things they like, especially their elves."

"I know nothing of elves," replied Vilhelm, "but I am willing to learn. Should I go to Elf School?[9] "

“I am saddened that your memory is so poor!” retorted his father. “I have just told you that you do not govern by knowing things, but by knowing your fellows. There are thirteen kinds of Huldufólk[10] and only a fool would waste his time studying them. “

“Is that because they do not exist?” asked Vilhelm, chastened by his father’s reproof.

“They certainly do exist[11],” said Jóhann, “but they do not vote.”

 “Then why are they important?” asked his son.

“The Spring is a season of celebration,” came the reply. “Your neighbours dress like dark elves, dance and drink ale. You will gain their affection if you share their company, however briefly. But you must do this in a careful way. Some will try to pretend that the dancers’ appearance is a mockery and shows that your neighbours have bad feelings about elves. You will prevent criticism by saying immediately that it is a tradition and those who do not like the dancers do not like the common people.”

Vilhelm followed this suggestion, and all went well. But that was not the end of the matter. The local speaker Jakob tried to take the wind from his rival’s sail by naming a Heathdaele ale as his choice for the tavern in Kirkjan Vestur. The ale came with a picture of the dancers as dark elves.

“You watch,” said Jóhann to his son, “this will not turn out as he hopes. In the first place, he is making his gesture away from the people he wishes to impress. Secondly, there are many more malicious tongues in that town than here, and they are far sharper. He has forgotten to dull their edges as you did.”

So it turned out. The gossips made it seem as though the dancers were elf-haters, and so the picture had to be changed[12]. When the farmers at Heathdaele heard, they were doubly offended, both for the implied slander and for their speaker’s failure to defend their good nature, on which they prided themselves. Their response was to drink so much of the ale at the festival that it won the prize.[13]

"From the Burnley and Pendle Citizen)

“By this time next year, all the details will have been forgotten,” said Jóhann to Vilhelm. “The people have even worse memory than you. But the heart remembers what is essential.”

“All this, over elves and ale?” asked Vilhelm.

“This is chess played with feelings,” replied his father. “Every move counts.”

(Wikipedia)

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[1] Rossendale (and Darwen)

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rossendale_and_Darwen_(UK_Parliament_constituency)

[3] http://www.debretts.com/people-of-today/profile/26895/James-Jacob-Gilchrist-(Jake)-BERRY

[4] Conservative Party

[5] See swing prediction here: http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/gainloss.html

[6] Labour Party

[7] http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html

[8] West Minster

[9] Álfaskólinn - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_Elf_School

[10] “Secret People” - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulduf%C3%B3lk

[11] http://www.elfmuseum.com/?q=contemporarytales

[12] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2619267/Race-fear-Commons-Parliamentary-PC-brigade-refuses-let-bar-sell-ale-featuring-black-faced-Morris-dancers-cause-offence.html

[13] http://www.burnleycitizen.co.uk/news/11199803.Britannia_Coconutters_have_last_laugh_as_controversial_ale_a_hit_at_beer_festival/

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Respect for learning, and Druids

(pic source)

I have long felt that Celts have greater respect for learning than Anglo-Saxons. It seems to me that the descendants of the latter would far rather have their children become worldly successes (such as professional sportsmen) than university professors.

Whereas according to Peter Berresford Ellis, the Druids, whose knowledge was never written down in pre-Christian times and who took twenty years of study to qualify, had enormously high status. For example, in the ancient Irish text Leabhar na hUidre the king of Ulster stands up to speak to his assembly, but is forced to stand in needle-drop silence, unable to utter a word, until his druid Cathbad asks him, "What is the matter, O King?"

It is said that the druid Merlin caused Stonehenge to be built; he also starts the great Arthurian cycle by casting a spell on Uther Pendragon to make him resemble the just-slain Duke of Cornwall, so gaining entrance to the bedroom of his enemy's wife Igraine and begetting the future King Arthur.

Is learning worthwhile, even though it may not make us rich or rulers?


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Electric aircraft: you couldn't make it up

The spoof (from last month's BOM)

 

The reality: EADS E-Fan (source)

Turns out it wasn't a joke, after all. There really is a potentially commercial electric plane being developed - and it's not the first to fly. Though short-flight, it recharges quickly (about an hour) and fuel costs are allegedly one-third that of conventional flying.

I'm not sure how that cost claim stands up in the accounting - the electricity is generated elsewhere and ultimately implies a vast web of economic activity, so it would be an interesting challenge to compare the work achieved/costs of conventional and electric air transport in purely energy terms, say along EREOI lines.

But there could also be an exercise on relative disbenefits - noise and air pollution (including the high-altitude water vapour that I think has some effect on weather and climate) - and the economic costs of same. (Electric might spike the guns of the chemtrail conspiracy people.)

Here's the video of this new creation:



Cheaper than windmill-powered?


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The bleak delights of Blogworld

It would seem that human beings are not able to describe, nor perhaps to imagine, happiness except in terms of contrast.

George Orwell - Why Socialists Don't Believe In Fun

There are numerous reasons to blog, but I’m sure one of them is the pleasure to be found in contrast. We all know all about it, but allow me to set the basic scene via a familiar experience.

One of the pleasures of walking through a peaceful snowy landscape, quite apart from the exhilarating beauty, is returning home to put the boots away, hang up the coats to dry and light the fire. The kettle comes into it too.

It’s partly the contrast between snowy cold and snug warmth. Both pleasurable in themselves, but back home the pleasure is enhanced no end simply by coming in out of the snow. Especially as night closes in. 

Both experiences need not be pleasurable of course. Walking home from the dentist for example. Rarely is there so much quiet enjoyment from walking home.

Yet maybe we with our soft lives are not able to savour sweet contrasts as in earlier times. As Orwell says in the essay quoted above, Dickens knew how even poor people could glean a great deal of enjoyment from the warmth of fleeting pleasures. Not merely the appeal of a crust of bread to someone who is starving, but further up the scale of destitution too.

The inability of mankind to imagine happiness except in the form of relief, either from effort or pain, presents Socialists with a serious problem. Dickens can describe a poverty-stricken family tucking into a roast goose, and can make them appear happy; on the other hand, the inhabitants of perfect universes seem to have no spontaneous gaiety and are usually somewhat repulsive into the bargain.

George Orwell - Why Socialists Don't Believe In Fun

I suspect most of us live comfortable lives with no personal experience of Dickensian contrasts, but maybe blogging sometimes provides us with an alternative. 

We roam an angst-ridden landscape as a counterpoint to those comfortable lives. A mental cold shower where the comforts of real life are all the more pleasing when we leave the delightfully bleak scenery of Blogworld.

So I think I’ll finish off with coffee and dark chocolate.

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Negative leader

(pic source)

Leaders are not necessarily good for the group, or even clever.

I once taught a class where I felt a boy had followers, but his negative attitude to learning was dragging them down with him. A colleague told me about sociograms:

"Hand out a slip of paper to each child, marked so that you can identify them. They have to write the answer to two questions: if you could sit next to anyone in the class you wanted to, who would it be? And if you could vote for a form captain (boys for a boy, girls for a girl) who would it be? Then draw the diagram."

Sure enough, there was a cluster of boys who had given both their votes to the same lad.

I then wrote in the academic grades for each child. The ones closest to this individual had the lowest grades.

On this basis, we moved the negative leader, not down to a lower set, where he could have the same effect or worse, but up to a higher set, where the other children were success-oriented and he had the choice of shaping up or curdling in unsplendid isolation.

Somehow this experience resonates.

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Down the road a peacock struts

From Wikipedia

This is not easy to get across if you haven’t experienced something similar, but the other day I stumbled across Andrew Marr interviewing a politician on TV. I think it was one of the Eds or possibly George, Nick or even Dave.

So what?

Well here’s the difficult descriptive bit. For a brief moment it felt really weird to see a professional liar being interviewed on TV.

Weird? Yes I know - how could it possibly feel weird?

Yet it did – momentarily. For about a second or two – no more. One of those things you have to catch and store away because the clamour of daily life soon dilutes them to nothing.

So the weirdness was a brief strangeness - like seeing a peacock majestically strutting down the middle of the road. We once saw exactly that outside our house and for a second or two we had to make that basic adjustment we all make to the unexpected - is that thing really a peacock? It was.

The Andrew Marr thing was much like our double-take on first seeing that peacock. An appropriate image too - peacock strutting.

A startling flicker of evil on the very edge of perception. An insight yet not an insight, because we know these evils but don’t really feel them as evil. Too familiar. Perception has its wicked way with us, drops the veil too soon. Moulds reality, kneads it back into shape, back into what we expect.

We adapt so well and with such phenomenal speed don’t we? No surprises. So we even tolerate professional liars – see them as part of the furniture. Unremarkable. Normal. Not evil - not at all.

Nothing to see here – move along now.

But usually we don’t even get that far – we don’t so much tolerate professional liars as accept them into the backdrop of our lives. Folk still watch TV in their millions, so they must listen to what is said, to the lies, without feeling the weirdness. Without switching off in disgust.

We are too good at this, adjusting to what ought not to be. Missing what could be. Instead we grind out the social and political analysis, treat professional lies as some kind of argument requiring rebuttal. Even though we know what the liars are, what their lies are, why they lie.

It’s weird. But only rarely.

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Will Straw's Saga (1)

(pic source)

The Farm at Heathdale

There was a man called Vilhelm Johannsson who worked near Kirkjan Vestur[1].  He was skilled in rune-writing, but he had tired of this employment and wanted a farm of his own.  So in the Spring he went to his father, who had a homestead at Svartáin[2].

On his way, he rode across a heath and a valley[3], past a river where oak trees grow[4]. “This would be a good place to settle,” he said to himself.

When he came to Svartáin he greeted his father, and after dinner and the usual formalities he explained his plan. “It is not such an easy thing as you think,” said his father. “I can use my influence to get you the land, but you must learn how to work it.”

“Work is for slaves,” said the other. “I can write and speak well. When my neighbours need a man to go to the Althing, I can represent them.”

“You are young,” replied Jóhann, “though your ambition does you credit.”

“I am thirty-three,” replied Vilhelm. “You were thirty-two when you first spoke at Kirkjan Vestur. “

“That is true,” said his father. “But even before then I had represented many young men, and helped several important people with their counsels.”

“I should be glad of your counsel,” said the son. “That is why I have come, and if I am at Heathdaele it will be easy for me to consult you frequently.”

Pleased with his son’s sagacity, Jóhann agreed warmly and so they began to make their plans.

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[1] West Church/Minster

[2] Black River, or Black Burn

[3] heiðina og dalinn: Heathdaele (Celtic “Ros”: “moor, heath”, hence "Rossendale")
[4] ánni þar eik tré vaxa: Oak River (Celtic: “Darwen”)

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