Jousting Snails, Pugilistic Sword Fighting, and Medieval, Mythic Norwegians

So many wonderful moments have come into my feed and internet wanderings. Here's a few of them that of late I've been enjoying.  Above is a curious and captivating of two nude jousters -- male and female(?) -- on snails. This is from the Baldus de Ubaldis. Lectura super Institutionibus. 1480-1481. The best part of this image is that it remains an utter mystery as to what sort of allagorical or rhetorical meaning they were trying to express by placing jousting snails in the marginalia. (Most of the images are of armored knights  and this is the only one I've ever seen of two nude firghters moving v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y toward each other. I did some internet checking and found this hilarious scholarly debate about the jousting snails. (It reads like something from a Monty Python sketch) And here too -- another attempt at a scholarly debate/discussion what the hell were those monks thinking! 

 

And then there is this...fighting of a different sort. A short Slovakian film with Bordertown overtones, Punk and Pugilistic...with freaking long swords. Awesomeness. 

PUGIL from lukasterenson

 

Finally, from Punk to Heroic Epic. A new Norweigian film coming out in 2016 about the national myth of the Birkebeiners, a group of courageous men who set out in 1026 on a perilous journey to bring the infant heir to the Norwegian throne to safety in Trondheim -- pitting the themselves against the elements of cold, ice, and snow, and a lot of unpleasant factions seeking to murder the would-be-king.  (I think I shall have to wear a coat and mittens in the theater as I shiver just watching the trailer.)