Under-tree me

This oak stands about halfway around my favourite run.

My father tells me that hunter-gathers could gather all their food for the winter at acorn time. Acorns are nutritious, apparently. And, he says, they eat them in Poland and Germany. Hmmm.

I fancy an acorn snack.

I told my brother and sister-in-law about my desire for mead and it turns out that they know a mead-maker. I thought if anyone did, they would. I sent them series one to five of Vikings. I expect Vikings ate acorns.

My latest forays into the world of Norse - having finished and enjoyed The Greenlanders - have been Beyond the North Wind (fairly interesting, I suppose) and now The Long Ships by Swedish writer Frans Bengtsson. This is wonderful, though I am not far into it yet. I listened to The Poetic Edda, translated by Jackson Crawford, which I enjoyed. I love the repetitions that occur in poetic sagas... It makes the story like a dance or a piece of music...

Excitement of excitement, Adrian Goldsworthy's latest book, The Fort, is out. It follows on from Vindolanda, The Encircling Sea and Brigantia. He was at St Johns... maybe still when I was there... but he's written five or so novels plus a load of proper history books. I read his one on Caesar. Anyway, the hero of these Roman novels, Flavius Ferox, is wonderful and the stories are great. Lots of fighting. I'm keen on all these pagans. I listened to this latest one far too quickly, so I've started from the start again, with Vindolanda. Ferox is a Silurian - known for their silence and their cruelty. But he's not cruel. He's quite sensitive really and prone to melancholia - but also a great warrior and strategist. He has a friend called Vindex who is also superbly imagined. And the women in it, as in Vikings, are powerful and impressive.

So, go Pagans!