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“running parallel to the medieval”
― The Brendan Voyage
― The Brendan Voyage
“In fact next morning was not the right time to ask questions either. Everyone had fierce headaches, and the sun was already high before we were ready to set out on the road again. I loitered, waiting for Donnachad to pay our host for all the food and drink we had consumed, but he made no move to do so, and our host seemed just as good-natured as when we first arrived. Donnachad muttered only a few gracious phrases of thanks and then we rejoined his men, who were trudging blearily forward. I sidled across to the elderly servant and asked him why we had left without paying. 'You never pay a briugu for hospitality,' he answered, mildly shocked. 'That would be an insult. Might even take you to court for looking to pay him.'
'In Iceland, where I come from,' I said, 'a farmer is expected to be hospitable and give shelter and food to travellers who come to his door, particularly if he is wealthy and can afford it. But I didn't see any farming near the house. I'm surprised that he doesn't move away to somewhere a bit more remote.'
'That's precisely why he's built his house beside the road,' explained the old man, 'so that as many people as possible can visit him. And the more hospitality he dispenses, the higher will rise his face price. That's how he can increase his honour, which is much more important to him than the amount of wealth he has accumulated.'
What the briugu would do when all his hoarded savings ran out, he did not explain. 'A briugu should possess only three things,' concluded the old man with one of those pithy sayings of which the Irish are fond, 'a never-dry cauldron, a dwelling on a public road and a welcome for every face.' p243”
― Odinn's Child
'In Iceland, where I come from,' I said, 'a farmer is expected to be hospitable and give shelter and food to travellers who come to his door, particularly if he is wealthy and can afford it. But I didn't see any farming near the house. I'm surprised that he doesn't move away to somewhere a bit more remote.'
'That's precisely why he's built his house beside the road,' explained the old man, 'so that as many people as possible can visit him. And the more hospitality he dispenses, the higher will rise his face price. That's how he can increase his honour, which is much more important to him than the amount of wealth he has accumulated.'
What the briugu would do when all his hoarded savings ran out, he did not explain. 'A briugu should possess only three things,' concluded the old man with one of those pithy sayings of which the Irish are fond, 'a never-dry cauldron, a dwelling on a public road and a welcome for every face.' p243”
― Odinn's Child
“erudition,”
― In Search of Genghis Khan
― In Search of Genghis Khan
“The Serrana Bank, a formation of shoals and low cays 250 miles out in the western Caribbean off the northeast coast of Nicaragua, is named after its own castaway. Pedro Serrano was shipwrecked there in the first half of the sixteenth century — the date is uncertain — and his survival story is so extreme as to beggar belief. He maintained that he lived for seven years on an island that had no fresh water.”
― In Search Of Robinson Crusoe
― In Search Of Robinson Crusoe
“On the contrary, they seemed to be outstandingly healthy and it was not uncommon to meet countrymen and women in their 90s still looking remarkably fit.”
― In Search of Genghis Khan
― In Search of Genghis Khan
