Old Norse Wordle 26-03-11 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 🟩⬜⬜⬜🟩 🟩🟨⬜⬜🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 onp.ku.dk/z2

I get yelled at for saying this but for many hundreds of years people went to university not to get diplomas or be employable but because immersion in the humanities was considered foundational to a good life, and school must return to its original purpose: the joy of learning.

This book will be excellent. But if you really love Mercia I’d recommend coming to study History in the heart of Mercia, at the University of Birmingham!

New discovery: A large burial ground dating from the Early Imperial Age to Late Antiquity has been uncovered in Rome’s Ostiense Necropolis during pre-construction works. cultura.gov.it/comunicato/2...

#FindsFriday Time for trading; this week's trinket is a lead alloy weight used in the mixed coin / bullion economies of ninth-century viking army camps BH-1DA0A5 (finds.org.uk/database/art...)

The real Dubai

Many place-names are deceptive, so it’s not surprising that many people have assumed that the striking place-name Pity Me can’t really be what it seems. What is it, though? Today's name story is written by Emeritus Professor Diana Whaley of @newcastleuni.bsky.social. www.snsbi.org.uk/exploring-na...

RÚV English #Radio - THE WEEK IN #ICELAND, FROM #AKUREYRI: #WEATHER, DAVÍÐ ODDSSON, #FLIGHTS, #GRINDAVÍK, #PEPTIDES https://www.ruv.is/english/2026-03-03-ruv-english-radio-the-week-in-iceland-from-akureyri-weather-david-oddsson-flights-grindavik-peptides-468582

The response must be a safe system approach, not guardrail. We emphasise subsequent lines in the report: "We are also assessing common contributory factors in pedestrian KSls to establish appropriate interventions", "excessive or inappropriate speed remains the most prevalent contributory factor".

Such a huge environmental impact for so little gain. www.heraldscotland.com/news/2588713...

A ‘temporary’ but seven-year post in Medieval English literature.

Update: Einstein cheatbot is "real" in that you can download an agent, but v. expensive, and it is a wrapper for openclaw so likely a massive, scary, data scrape/phish. With apols for substack link, couldn't find anyone elsewhere who'd done the test michellekassorla.substack.com/p/the-first-...

Today was the first day in 2026 when I cycled home in the light, dry and without a fierce wind or aggressive driving. It felt good!

Join the Irish Historical Society on Tuesday, 24 February (7pm) for a panel on: “New Directions in the Study of Early Medieval Ireland” Speakers: Dr Elva Johnston (UCD) Dr Immo Warntjes (TCD) Chair: Prof Dáibhí Ó Cróinín Boston College, 43 St Stephen’s Green or online: tinyurl.com/mr59w9k2

We are hiring .... Because John Nightingale is retiring... for a Tutorial Fellowship in European History 400-1000... www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQP650/t...

It is self-evident looking around cities, towns and the smallest villages that there are places of worship no longer used by those that built them. 🗃️ Some, of course, are houses. Others remain in devotional use. Some examples from our volumes, supplemented by other information - a short thread 🧵

For more ship-moving excitements, check out the #Vikingtidsmuseet YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@vikingtidsm...

If you liked this experiment, I published a full piece today in the same vein: a text that gets 100 years older with every section, from a modern blog post to a medieval chronicle. It's a single story spanning 1000 years of English. See how far you get. www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-ba...

A chance to study this fascinating text. www.paideiainstitute.org/intermediate...

"Now that our leaders are no longer literate, no one, they say, has any time for humane letters." - Gerald of Wales, c. 1193-94, in his Descriptio Cambriae (trans. Lewis Thorpe, "The Journey Through Wales and The Description of Wales" (London, 1978) p. 216)

I regularly see people wondering how it's possible that there are so many musicians and writers and film makers and artists from a tiny nation like Iceland. And the answer is really simple: State funding for art education and artists. I literally get a salary from the government to write books.

I’m glad to see that a former PhD student of mine is still producing good work on a period that’s hugely under researched. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

búðarvist (sb. f.): 3 cits, e.g. stay in a booth/(fisherman’s) hut // ophold i bod/(fisker)hytte ‘Bǫðvarr hafði búðarvist með Þórólfi Sigmundarsyni ok hafði meiri ráð yfir þingmǫnnum ok búðarliði en Þórólfr’ (Stu in AM 440 4°) onp.ku.dk/o12013 #OldNorse

To bring some sunshine to your timeline, an imitation gold solidus minted in Frisia in the 860s/870s, probably by Scandinavians, and ending up in Bickmarsh (Worcs.) in a hoard with coins of Burgred of Mercia. 📷 Treasure Hunting magazine

Ill be clear about why I am so angry and critical about it: Im seeing a good portion of my students who have imbibed the notion that they dont have to read, think or write for themselves because ChatGPT/CoPilot will do their thinking for them, and its terrifying. It should scare all of us.

#PhotoFriday today is this photo of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists when located on New Street. Photographed by Percy J. Deakin of 19 Digbeth at precisely 10.12 hours on 27 June 1902. Ref: WK/B11/113 #LibraryofBham #Brumpic @rbsagallery.bsky.social

Fellowship Opportunity! Jenny Wormald Junior Research Fellow in Women’s History University of Oxford - St Hilda’s College www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQL341/j...

Foreign languages help children decode English says @susiedentwords.bsky.social www.thetimes.com/article/4730...

✝️ The Viking Age 'Birka Crucifix'. Decorated in silver filigree, it may have originally been gilded. A grave find from Bj 660, it's one of the oldest cross pendants known from Scandinavia. Note how the Christ figure is tied to the cross with ropes. My 📷 Historiska museet

''Acadian Seaplants, a massive Canadian corporation and owner of Arramara Teoranta, has put in an application to harvest tens of thousands of tons of wrack from huge swathes of the west coast.'' Sign the petition and lets stop this from happening ✊️ #SpeirGorm my.uplift.ie/petitions/st...

I'm convinced AI is our generation's radium - a discovery with genuinely useful applications in specific, controlled circumstances that we stupidly put in everything from kid's toys to toothpaste until we realised the harm far too late where future generations will ask if we were out of our minds.

A Minneapolis knitting shop has resurrected the design of a Norwegian cap worn to protest Nazi occupation. Its owner says the money raised from hat pattern sales will support the local immigrant community.

#BlackBritshHistory James Watkins was an American fugitive slave. He lived in Birmingham for several years in the 1850s, lecturing against slavery. The Narrative of the Life of James Watkins’, c. 1852-3. Ref: AX 310, Birmingham Vol. 10 #LibraryofBham #BlackBritHist

I know that these things generally make little difference, but I would advise medievalists to sign the petition to save Classics and Medieval Studies at the University of Calgary. #medievalsky c.org/gGvyrHcwYt

I've been busy this week... third and last, I've been talking on the @ohgodwhatnow.bsky.social podcast. A bit about my book, a lot about the disaster now unfolding in Britain's universities. It's an hour, but it's fun: www.podmasters.co.uk/oh-god-what-...

We hope the good people of #SanFrancisco will forgive us for adapting a song about their city in 1967 to address the shocking and tragic events in #Minnesota in recent weeks. This is dedicated to Renée Good and Alex Pretti, and in solidarity. Our version is called "Minnesota" ❤️ youtu.be/BRHxXHZmVAM

A Borre-styled bridle cheek piece from Dig Site 15, Troitsky Excavation, Novgorod. Bent and pierced secondarily for some unidentified purpose. Found in 2022. From p. 75f in "Археологические открытия. 2022 год (Moscow 2024). More here: archaeolog.ru/media/ao/AO_... #FindsFriday

Happy to see that there is no need to worry about the historical accuracy of new 1776 AI slop because it happens in the mystical land of Λamereedd.

'As sector guidance increasingly frames AI literacy as part of students’ digital capabilities, there is a risk that communication is treated as a technical skill rather than a relational one – something that can be optimised rather than learned through reflection and support.'

Very exciting job announcement! Permanent early medieval (Britain and/or Europe) teaching post at KCL. I know first-hand that this is a great opportunity to work with amazing colleagues and students. www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/136727-...

Inspired by a colleague saying she’d like a lesson on how to read a runic inscription, here’s a lesson! open.substack.com/pub/jasminhi...

Mit ALT-Text:

My family moved into a new build house in 1975 that didn’t have central heating. We’d had it installed by about 1980. I remember us using an electric fan heater sometimes in the winter.

Det er fortsatt litt tid for å sende inn fremlegg til Norske historiedager i mai i Oslo. Fristen er 25. januar 2026. www.hf.uio.no/iakh/forskni...

One day, if we are lucky, the erasure of American history will itself be remembered as a shameful chapter in American history

This week I wrote about one of my favorite commissioned maps: a 2022 map of the silk roads in Muslim lands. In this week's post, I write about how I drew the mountains. And there are so many mountains on this map! The post is free to read, so have at it! www.patreon.com/posts/silk-r...

He didn't "seem to" do it. He did it, repeatedly.

TRUMP: I invented electricity. did it one day, turned on a lamp and a scientist gasped and said wow how did you do that and I said I just flicked a switch and he started crying and saying "sir you've just saved Africa from ebola" BBC NEWS: a sober reflection on healthcare from the President

Thousands of gannets swoop off the towering cliffs of the island of Boreray, Outer Hebrides, photo by Jim Richardson, National Geographic photographer.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... a bit more detail on our excavations of the Early Medieval barrow cemetery out at Sizewell. Nice bit of detail on our barrow surrounded by posts, think a medieval sea henge, and Chris Ferns reconstruction sketch of what we think it looked like.