Posts Tagged with Old Norse

Honourable mention for “It’s Fenrir, You Morons”

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A bit of publishing news: my flash fiction piece, “It’s Fenrir, You Morons” has received an Honourable Mention in the first War of the Words competition. The contest was held in conjunction with this year’s When Words Collide festival, run by the Alexandra Writers Centre Society, in Calgary. The story will appear with the other winners in War of the Words Anthology Volume 1.

If you’re attending When Words Collide (sadly, I am not), which runs Aug 16-18, a celebration of the contest, featuring author readings, will be held at 10 a.m. on Sunday 18, in the Bonavista Ballroom at the Delta Hotel where the festival is being held.

The War of the Words winners are as follows:

1st Place: “Motherhood, Etc.” by Collette Burjack

2nd Place: “Last Evening” by Barbara Darby

3rd Place: “Alan” by Carmen Poon

Honourable Mentions:

“*It’s Fenrir, You Morons” by David Jón Fuller

“Hardy’s War” by Mark Lloyd

“Cailleach Calling Over Lake Lament” by Emily Mody

“Query” by paulo da costa

“Play of the Game” by Kirk McDougall

“A Tree Odyssey” by Stephen James

“Lifeline” by Katalina Maridi

Congrats to all the winners!

Tolkien’s dwarvish (not dwarfish) names

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Confusticate and bebother these dwarves: Bilbo tries to keep names like Fili, Kili, Oin, Gloin, Bifur and Bofur straight.

For all that Tolkien devoted The Silmarillion to the vast history of the Elves (and, to a lesser extent, Men), it’s clear from The Hobbit (and in the characterization of Gimli in The Lord of the Rings) that he had a soft spot for Dwarves.

In the first place, Thorin Oakenshield isn’t the leader of a band of three or seven or even nine dwarves, but thirteen; and, remarkably, they all have personalities and relationships and are pretty well fleshed out for secondary characters.

But where did Tolkien find such distinctive dwarvish names as Fili, Kili, Dwalin, Oin, Bifur, Bofur and Bombur, among others?

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Parson, composer, werewolf hunter: Sabine Baring-Gould

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Sabine Baring-Gould is by no means a celebrity today, but in the 19th century he brought a modern sensibility to an ancient body of superstitions: werewolf lore.

Portrait of Sabine Baring-Gould
Portrait of Sabine Baring-Gould (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I first came across his name thanks to A Very Special Christmas, of all things. On the 1987 compilation album, among the carols recorded by the then-current crop of rock stars was “Gabriel’s Message,” by Sting. The liner notes credited S. Baring-Gould as the composer.

Born in 1834, the Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould was a prolific writer, composer and collector of folklore. Among his scores of published works  are a multi-volume Lives of the Saints, hymns including  “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” and The Book of Were-Wolves, a classic survey of werewolf folklore first published in 1865.

For fans of gothic literature, the first chapter alone makes the book worth picking up. As the introduction in the edition I have puts it, Baring-Gould’s account of his stumbling across pervasive belief in werewolves while on holiday in France is worthy of a Victorian novel.

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