#FunWithFacts Archives – Page 3 of 17

April 3, 2023April 5, 2023

C is for Camel

There is an old British joke that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Attributable to Sir Alec Issigonis (who originated the Mini auto), the last laugh might be on Sir Alec if he tried to cross the Asian deserts with only horses. While horses did originate and thrive in the grasslands of Asia, the camels always ruled the dunes, whether the sand was in the Sahara, the Gobi, or even the deserts of Australia. A Mini wouldn’t last very long trying to cross the Silk Road. Camels–in particular the Bactrian camels–were the ships that sailed across the Asian deserts.

The camel has a single hump;
The dromedary, two;
Or else the other way around.
I’m never sure. Are you?
Ogden Nash

The mnemonic to separate the two types of domesticated camels, the Bactrian from the Dromedary, is pretty simple. “B” has two humps, whereas “D” has one. The problem is remembering the mnemonic. Maybe after this post, we’ll all just remember the difference.

December 7, 2022December 7, 2022

December Histories: The Wild Hunt on Christmas Eve

Peter Nicolai Arbo’s Asgardreien (The Wild Hunt of Odin), 1872, wikipedia.

Dear Reader: this is one of my favorite holiday posts, so I couldn’t resist a repeat for 2022.

Pretend this is the Jeopardy category: Common Bonds. The Wild Hunt, mind control, and the 1871 Polaris disaster. What do they all have in common? Got it? Add in fan fiction, Zwarte Piet, shoemakers, Martin Luther, reliquary theft…. Yes? Norse mythology? Saving girls from prostitution? Louisa May Alcott, Thomas Nast? How about Shadrack, the Black Reindeer?

It will soon be Christmas Eve, after all.

The mythology–the extensive fan fiction, which is what mythology is, isn’t it?–around the legends of Santa Claus and Christmas have roots that go waa-a-a-y beyond the Coca Cola commercial. Although I dug deep into a comparison of Santa and Jesus back in 2021, there are Santa rabbit holes to be discovered. Even if we just talk about Santa and his helpers, there’s plenty that even that Greek scholar and seminarian Clement Moore didn’t envision.

March 16, 2022March 21, 2022

Herstorians

As we are well into Women’s History Month, accounts abound of wonderful women and their remarkable achievements. I’d like to go straight to the heart of the matter and point out some of the true heroines of Women’s History month: the women historians. We used to say “herstory “back in the ’70s because, often, historians claimed women didn’t do very much. Women have gotten more credit–a whole month now! So I can just use the word to refer to those who write it.

Let’s talk about history by women, who have been writing for nearly as long as the cave paintings. Which might just as likely have been done by women as men, right?

Grand Dames

In fact, the first writer in world literature was a woman. Enheduanna was a priestess in Ur in ancient Sumeria, who composed poems and temple hymns to the goddess Inanna. Not entirely history, but poetry was the way people wrote, and even stories of gods and goddesses are a kind of history.

The first woman formally recognized as a historian was in the 12th century. (There were surely others, but this is the encyclopedia answer to the question.) Princess Anna Comnena, the daughter of Byzantine emperor Alexius I, wrote a 15-volume history about her father’s reign and the era called The Alexiad. She wrote in her spare time, because she also raised four children and administered a 10,000 bed hospital and orphanage in Constantinople. While administering medicine, she became an expert on gout, a disease which pestered her father for years. After Alexius died, Anna plotted to overthrow her newly-crowned brother in favor of herself and her husband, but she lost the fight and her court position as well. Sounds like a series for Showtime to me.