[MR] National Geographic Goodies

[Garth Groff and Sally Sanford]

Noble friends, especially Vikings and Scots,

On Saturday our March issue of National Geographic magazine arrived.
Included were two articles of great interest to Scadians.

"The Vikings Who Vanished" by Neil Shea explores the failed Nordic colony
on Greenland. It features 22 glorious pages of photos, two excellent
paintings showing possible period clothing, and is supported by a map and a
timeline. The images include several lovely artifacts that are sure to
interest our craftsmen and craftswomen such as a tiny wooden horse and a
bone axe.

A Wikipedia article at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_settlements_in_Greenland also discusses
Greenlan's Viking era.

The magazine's second article, "Can Tik Tok Resurrect Scots" by Ross
Perlin, discusses the Scots language's recent revival. Scots has often been
considered a quaint "backward" dialect of Early Middle English, but
recently received recognition by the Scottish government as an official
language. Despite modern English being Scotland's most common tongue, Scots
remains the primary language of 1.5 million people, and many more switch
between the two. And what a colorful and delightful language it is! It is
littered with a *muckle* of interesting terms, some cognates from English
and others quite native; words like *sark*, *neeps*, *tatties*, *dreich*,
*haggis*, *hame* and *mor.* My favorite Scots word is *crabbit*, a cognate
for the English word "crabby" and can mean bad tempered or just unhappy. [
*Crabbit* is the by-name of Duncan an Crabbit, a *heiland* *ned* (Highland
trouble-maker), and my alternate SCA persona when I wear a kilt.]
Curiously, Scots still has no regularized spelling, unlike Scottish Gaelic
which was recently standardized.

For more about Scots see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_language .

This National Geographic issue is going to be a keeper in my library.

Yours Aye,

Mungo Napier, Laird o' Mallard Lodge  🦆
Continuing a crusade to keep the original Merry Rose relevant and in
business.