Whatte the Swyve?

I have spent the past few weeks holed up in the library wading through a massive amount of texts, and so don't have much in the way of snazzy photos or exciting Oxonian anecdotes to share. What I can offer is a series of stick-figure comic strips illustrating a few of the more ridiculous things I've found in my medieval readings. This is one of the aspects I love about medieval literature: even when the authors are being serious (and they joke a lot), you're laughing.

There is an early medieval Irish manuscript detailing how a king ought to spend his days. Sundays are for drinking ale, Mondays are for judging, Tuesdays are for board games, Wednesdays are for hunting with hounds, Thursdays are for having sex, Fridays are for watching horse races, and Saturdays are for a different kind of judging (the distinction between the two is unclear, but there was a lot of judgement flying around).

The Romance (Tale) of Havelok the Dane, which is sort of Lion King meets Snow White with a lot of blood-running and bone-breaking. Havelok is kidnapped by his evil uncle and given to a fisherman and his wife so that they will murder him, but when they see magical light shining out of his mouth while he's asleep, they realize that he's the true heir. Logical. They lie to the evil uncle and raise him themselves. When Havelok grows up, he wages war against the usurper and reclaims the throne.

Sir Tristrem, temporarily exiled to Wales for sleeping with the queen, fights a giant and wins a particolored baby for his efforts. Sort of like getting handed an armoire-sized stuffed animal for shooting targets at the fair and then trying to figure out what on earth you are going to do with it. So he decides to send the weird baby to his queenly true love as a gift and token of his affection. Gee, thanks. Not awkward at all.

I love those moments where I've been reading and reading and reading all day and then suddenly come across a section like these and my brain says, "Wait, what?"

Night at the Museum

Last night, the Ashmolean Museum put on Egyptomania, a celebration of the 1920s discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb and craze for all things Egyptian. I met up with some SJC friends and we spent the night roaming around the Ashmolean after hours. People were asked to come in Britain-in-Egypt '20s and '30s costumes. Every room had a different event, from live jazz bands and Charleston and Lindy-Hop dancing to reenactments of 1890s-1930s Egyptian-themed British plays to an old-fashioned (Victorian lantern) slideshow of antique photographs of archeological digs. Plus cocktails, of course.

If you haven't tried it, find an opportunity to wander around a museum at night. It's a completely different experience, a much better one, and definitely a little eerie. Less eerie once the bands started jamming and people began showing up in flapper dresses. The whole thing made for a fantastic Halloween.

Photo next to one of the exhibits! In costume, too. Wait, is that my sub-fusc ribbon repurposed? Why, yes it is. Waste not, want not.

Tonight we're having a decidedly less cultured Halloween party in college. There will be plenty of normal sophomoric shenanigans, rest assured.