I love the hagiography of early Irish & Welsh saints. You’re like. Did most of these people exist? Probably not. Did any of these events occur? Also probably not.

Then you find out there are many, many, first hand accounts of Irish monks making it to Iceland and the Faroe Islands centuries before the Vikings and there are written accounts of the curses early Irish missionaries put on people and you’re like. Okay. Maybe it’s not that crazy. Maybe St. Brendan did find the Isle of the Blessed and give communion to a mermaid, or something mermaid shaped.

If I was a Christian, I’d try to make sure these beautiful babies made it to the kingdom of heaven too. Or whatever.

I’m a normal human man. I’m just not fond of iron, rowan trees and bread. But I’m totally normal.

I am the biological child of my human parents. My mother never left the window open in my nursery.

Doing all of the things they say attract fairies in hopes someone will take my loser baby and replace it with a cooler one.

Vikings visiting nearly uninhabitable extremely remote subarctic islands only to find there are already Irish monks there and they are not at all happy to see them is sooooo funny. Stepping off your boat into a remote uncharted land 300+ miles away from the nearest known inhabited place and there is already a judgement Christian guy there. No trees. Few animals. Several Irish monks who started coming there 200-400 years before you.

And they made it there on ships of leather. Apparently.

Yeah, as proof of God goes, I think Irish hermits managing to miraculously navigate the North Atlantic on leather boats is pretty strong evidence of it. I’m agnostic but I have to admit those early Irish holy men seemed to have extra help from something. Or they were extremely lucky. Perhaps both.

Why are you lgbtq+? wrong answers only GO

Vikings visiting nearly uninhabitable extremely remote subarctic islands only to find there are already Irish monks there and they are not at all happy to see them is sooooo funny. Stepping off your boat into a remote uncharted land 300+ miles away from the nearest known inhabited place and there is already a judgement Christian guy there. No trees. Few animals. Several Irish monks who started coming there 200-400 years before you.

And they made it there on ships of leather. Apparently.

There is a subspecies of super chunky gigantic field mice that have rapidly evolved on a remote Scottish archipelago in the past 1,000 years. 😭

The human inhabitants of the archipelago went extinct several times (literally, they seem to have died out and repopulated several times and the last permanent inhabitants moved away in the 1930s) but these rats that came with them on viking ships sometime between the 8th and 11th century have thrived and evolved to store extra fat to deal with the extreme climate that humans could not survive in. That is so fascinating. The rats and mice really will inherit the earth.

I also love that the solution to survival was just. Get fatter. Get rotund. Go round mode.

Let me show you the European wood mouse they evolved from so you can truly appreciate how much they changed:

It seems like the St Kilda’s field mouse’s ears didn’t grow in proportion with the rest of their bodies, maybe because there were less predators to worry about or because having smaller ears closer to their bodies kept them from getting frostbitten? Very interesting.

“I’m having my son in 2 months and I’m jealous of how cute baby girl clothes are” you can put your newborn son in a little strawberry print romper, I swear. he won’t mind. he won’t develop a complex over it, I promise.

It’s so interesting how heavily gendered baby clothes are an extremely modern phenomenon like even in the midcentury period baby clothes were often the same cut and color for baby boys and baby girls but now you can’t put your son in a pink romper and you have to use baby glue to affix a flower to your daughter’s head so everyone knows she’s a little girl.

There is a subspecies of super chunky gigantic field mice that have rapidly evolved on a remote Scottish archipelago in the past 1,000 years. 😭

The human inhabitants of the archipelago went extinct several times (literally, they seem to have died out and repopulated several times and the last permanent inhabitants moved away in the 1930s) but these rats that came with them on viking ships sometime between the 8th and 11th century have thrived and evolved to store extra fat to deal with the extreme climate that humans could not survive in. That is so fascinating. The rats and mice really will inherit the earth.

I also love that the solution to survival was just. Get fatter. Get rotund. Go round mode.

he’s just riding along and decides to start digging in the dirt for a root… 10/10, stellar gawain moment. I’m sure you’ll get to use your root later king