Still baby steps, but I think @kidehen.bsky.social may be right that AI tools are going to transform the usability of knowledge graphs bsky.app/profile/kide...

Mapping Identities Conference 9/02/26-10/02/26 Call for Papers. We warmly invite expressions of interest in the form of 250-word abstracts and 100-word short biographies Wednesday 17/12/25 tinyurl.com/3nnacccd

"The women here [Kirkwall] are much addicted to pleasure, which I attribute to the abundance of fish." Description of the Orkney Islands, 1529

And you can explore many of the #PlaceNames of the #Saga here! storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/e91b...

'Water' is from a more widely attested Proto-Indo-European root. Its Old Norse cognate is vatn, as in the excellently named Trolla Vatn in North Ronaldsay. The Proto-Indo-European root was heteroclitic, ie it had different final consonants in different cases. Old Norse formed vatn from the -n stem >

"It may be observed that most of the Names of these Isles end in a or -ey, which in the Teutonick Tongue signifieth Water, to show that these Isles are pieces of Land surrounded with Water." Land surrounded with water is >>> A brief description of Orkney, Zetland, Pightland-Firth & Caithness, 1701

For giants and dwarves in Norse Orkney, see some brief comments by me in ‘Kirkwall, Orkney’, in Europe: A Literary History 1348-1418, ed. David Wallace, Oxford: OUP 2016, I, 375-383.

17th-19th century Irish scribal abbreviations that look like text-speak: numeral 8 edition "beannacht" (x2), "Connacht"

CAIN' WHALE 'pilot whale', so named because of how easy they are to drive (ca') ashore. "A dyke at Grainbank Farm, Wideford Hill, was composed of the skulls of ca'in whales driven into Kirkwall Bay. "

Orkney word of the day: KROMO 'to tie the toes (of geese) together to prevent straying'

The Greek χλωρός (chlorós) means both 'grass-green' and 'pale, pallid'. In Tyndale's translation, therefore, Death, the fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse, rides 'a grene horsse'. And apparently it's now just a thing in some translations that Death has a green horse.

The Shell Holm, the southern most outcrop of the Holm of Aikerness yesterday. Selkies litter the north, on their own desert island. #holmsweetholm #papayatoll #orkney #westray #papawestray #desertisland

The Stane o' Quoybune, Birsay walks to the loch for a drink on New Year's Day too. Unfortunately, if you witness it you die shortly after so hard to confirm.

Marwick suggests this #PlaceName derives from ON Jǫtunn ‘giant’. The same word is in Yettna Geo (Sandwick) & in a Rousay standing stone of which it ‘is said that in the early hours of every New Year’s Day the Yetnasteen takes 2 giant strides down to the nearby loch for a drink!' (Rousay Remembered)

20 year antedating of the SND's only citation for JET 'a pier' from Armstrong's 1775 'A New Map of Ayrshire' maps.nls.uk/view/218514920

When you see millions of the mouthless dead Across your dreams in pale battalions go, Say not soft things as other men have said, That you’ll remember. For you need not so… —Charles Hamilton Sorley (1895–1915) #RemembranceSunday #poem #poetry www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47427/...

Better than calling yourself Lake Superior

Watching @realgdt.bsky.social’s excellent new Frankenstein film reminded me of a specific passage from the book. Mary Shelley wanted somewhere extremely remote and depressing for Victor Frankenstein to create the companion for his ‘monster’. So she sent him to…Orkney 📚🧬⚡️

That's so much healthier than the toxic self-image that some lakes have.

The last two orders before my self-imposed book-buying ban arrived today

@shroomgirl.bsky.social That was great - really enjoyed it!

A reminder to other lochs to abandon the pressure to be perfect maps.nls.uk/view/218516888

Whistle O'er the Lave O't from 'Before Burns: Eighteenth-Century Scottish Poetry'

Made a site where you can practise Old English scansion. You get given a half-line and have to select which of Sievers's five types it belongs to. Just Beowulf for now, but that's 6364 half-lines to be getting on with: dgplacenames.github.io/scansion/ [Data: clasp.ell.ox.ac.uk/]

My article on Metre and Clitics in Old English and Old Saxon has just appeared in Glossa. Basically an attempt to use metre to get a better handle on the prosody of things like prepositions and the development of articles in those languages. Really enjoyed working with Glossa -- a model journal!

The Sievers type quiz is almost good to go. Just need a name. I'm never going to top 'This b the verse' so will happily take suggestions

Papay Don't Preach Altnabreac-y Heart In Tain in the Brain Beauly and the Beast

That's me learned the word chemoautotrophic

Don't think the author was called 'Joseph', though, the only info is that he was 'Jo Ben'. There's some useful stuff in this: www.orcadian.co.uk/shop/orkney-... 1/2

Also, the Latin text is reproduced in Barry's History of the Orkney Islands (1805; pp. 433 ff. in the 1975 facsimile reprint and p. 447 ff. in the Internet Archive version). archive.org/details/hist... 2/2

Stronsay, 3. [...] One half of it is barren. Some of the inhabitants worship a god called Tuidas, others do not. They have great belief in fairies, and say that men dying suddenly, spend their life with them afterwards, but this I do not believe. celt.ucc.ie/published/T8...

@ccurran.bsky.social I made this using CLASP data. I'd planned to make a similar tool for scansion but unlike the xml files, I haven't been unable to find a license or copyright statement for that data. Do you know if it can be reused and if so how to credit it? Thanks! bsky.app/profile/dgpl...

Incredibly, I've only just learned that Shetland Islands Council's motto is in Old Norse - Med lögum skal land byggja

📣 Time Change - Kemble Lecture #TOEBI #medievalsky 🕰️ 5:30pm‼️ 📅 13 November 2025 📜‘Myths and Monsters: Beowulf and the Etymologists’ 🗣️Prof. Richard Dance, University of Cambridge 🏫Neill Lecture Theatre, Trinity Long Room Hub, Trinity College Dublin 💻Register for Zoom: tcd-ie.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Are you tired of reading each line in the same direction? If so, Boustrophedonise might be what you're after: dgplacenames.github.io/boustrophedo...

A great opportunity to see Prof. Steve talk about Govan and Glasgow over the last 1,500 years! Stones, Saints, Ships and Slaves: an archaeology for Glasgow 850 - Prof. Driscoll of Glasgow Archaeology for the 2025 Glasgow Archaeological Society Dalrymple Lecture Series - FREE online and in person.

Are you tired of reading each line in the same direction? If so, Boustrophedonise might be what you're after: dgplacenames.github.io/boustrophedo...

After wrestling with some difficult sources, I'm quite excited about my paper next Saturday at the Scottish Place-Name Society conference. New research on the cult of Curetán/Boniface in the Black Isle, and the possible layout of early medieval Rosemarkie. Details here: spns.org.uk/spns-autumn-...

Just had to check to see if Paul is a bot and he is the CTO of Bluesky

I just scored 93 in a Second Guessing monthly challenge! #SecondGuessing www.secondguessing.net/shared/chall...

Not long now until the Katharine Briggs Lecture and Book Award, & we're really looking forward to it! We're delighted that this years lecturer is Professor Terry Gunnell, & after the lecture we'll announce the winner of this year's book award. Get your tickets: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-kathar...

Might be a different story on Halloween

Kirkbean Fairy Procession On Hallowe'en, fairies beating drums would pass through Prestonmill on their way to Hangman Hill, where they would spend the night dancing.

Wee productivity hack - listening to this makes you do the dishes really quick youtu.be/6ro1aHvhGec

In 2008, Google created an ad-powered wiki encyclopedia called Knol, seen as a "Wikipedia killer" amid its highly-publicized launch. And the Wikimedia Foundation gave an unbothered response that I quite like: "the more good free content, the better for the world." Anyway Knol instantly flopped

@dgplacenames.bsky.social's poem "Merry Dancers", in modern Scots, is an example of dróttkvætt. Like Norse dróttkvætt poems, it is chock full of kennings. alliteration.net/poetry/merry...

- In 2004, you saw some college guy using me and thought, “What a lazy cheater.” Now you’d think, “At least he’s not asking Gemini.” In a few years, you’ll say, “Wow, look, a human being who can read.”

AI written content has really poisoned the well because I can't read this style of post without assuming it's been churned out by ChatGPT or similar. I'd be actively avoiding describing anything as "quiet" with a well balanced tricolon to avoid suspicion