Brandon M. Bender

A modern "sword in the stone" monument in Qooqqut, Greenland

The northern lights over Nuuk, Greenland

Greetings from Greenland!

👑 Emma of Normandy (died 1052), the wife of King Aethelred the Unready from 1002 to 1016 and then the wife of King Cnut from 1017 to 1035, was a dominant player in English politics for nearly 50 years.

📝 Article by Brandon M. Bender. 
🖼️First image by The British Library. 

#History #Royalty

I was at the library and walked past a name that looked familiar. Empires of the Normans by @proflroach.bsky.social has made it all the way to Johnson County, KS.

Vastly more nonfiction, although I did attempt (and finish!) a novel earlier this year for the first time in ages. Probably helped that it was historical fiction, but still.

Also, just because someone reads a lot about the 11th century doesn't mean they know anything about the Tudors or the modern royal family. I don't have the slightest clue about either!

Many historians of the medieval period have little to no interest in weaponry or "battlefield tactics"

Check out my article on stories of Norse and Inuit interaction in medieval Greenland: www.epoch-magazine.com/post/memorie...

I'm one of the people who have tried to rehabilitate him to an extent, but I'll concede that he was often his own worst enemy. He could be a real disaster artist.

The End of Æthelred: On this day in 1016, King Æthelred II Died “He ended his days on St. George’s Day, and he had held his kingdom with great toil and difficulties as long as his life lasted.”

On this day in 1016, King Aethelred "the Unready" died after ruling England for nearly four decades.

A 13th-century depiction of Æthelred II with sword and crown.

Æthelred II, king of the English, died #OTD in 1016. He laid waste to ‘Cumberland’ in 1000, and in 1002 ordered the deaths of all Danish men within his realm – an event that became known as the St Brice’s Day massacre. #medievalsky

The Rock Formations of Kansas Kansas is likely stuck with its reputation for flatness. That said, the state is full of hidden badlands, rock formations, and other interesting features.

My home state is famously flat, but I traveled to some of the most surprising badlands, rock formations, mesas, and canyons in Kansas.

Was Aethelred really Unraed? Find out next time

So that's how the vikings got around

In the US, some school districts stopped teaching phonics in the 90s and 2000s too. I got lucky that mine wasn't one of them, but there is a whole cohort of functionally illiterate young adults in the US -- like, they actually CAN'T read words that they haven't memorized before. It's wild.

There's a very similar plaque at Mt. Sunflower in Kansas, which is not a mountain and has no sunflowers. But I sure bet nothing happened there either.

The book is out, tell your libraries! The contributors bring a whole range of interesting insights into how the history of pre-Norman England was transmitted by later medieval writers. Also available in a reasonably affordable ebook....

Leif Eriksson looking down over Brattahlid, the farmstead in Greenland from which he sailed to discover Vinland (part of modern Canada) in around 1000. Leif is credited with the European discovery of continental North America nearly 500 years before Columbus #greenland #leiferiksson #brattahlid

This is so good

AI has its uses, but when it takes the "human" out of the humanities, hell no.

I'm just a boy, reading something written by people with PhD's, hoping the subject at the beginning of this sentence connects with the object at the end of it despite fifty-two intervening clauses.

At first I thought it might be a real quote attributed to the incorrect author, but googling this phrase with quotation marks brings up no one else. Sketchy. Maybe the comment about AI is on to something.

Page numbers!! That's practically the most essential thing, yet I have seen so many kindle-like platforms omit them.

Optimist: the cup is half full.

Pessimist: the cup is half empty.

Footnote: The CUP Companion to Drinking Vessels (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024).

Peter Ustinov was so great as Prince John. It had to be mostly ad libbed

I watched the Disney Robin Hood, looked up a list of English monarchs to see when King John reigned, and wondered why the ones before 1066 had such strange names.

@bsky.app Tomorrow is the first annual National Indexing Day! Be sure to hire an indexer the next time you write a book. Your readers will thank you!

I was very saddened to hear this afternoon about the passing of Björn Weiler: the kindest friends, most generous of mentors, and most brilliant of scholars. He shall be sorely missed, but his legacy lives on. #RIP

Oh, it's "unsafe" alright!

A poster for the Great Viking Survey, featuring Byzantine architecture and a silhouetted viking ship. Overlaid is the following text: 'We want to hear from you! Join the Great Viking Survey, a landmark global study on viking history and myth in the world today. Let us see the Viking Age through your eyes at Vikingsurvey.org'.

Spread the word - tell your friends!