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Bookselling, Uncategorized

Viking sales and setbacks

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My apologies to anyone who may – possibly – have come to Viking Fest Minnesota in Farmington on Sunday, and found me not among those present. It was due to what television announcers, when I was young, used to call “circumstances beyond our control.”

I drove down to the Dakota County fairgrounds on Saturday morning, without incident. I babied Sigrid the Haughty, my Subaru Forester, as planned, and she did not overheat. My confidence in her grew – I felt I could probably continue driving her lightly until I get a different car – as long as it’s soon.

The day went fine. The festival is set up in two sections – there’s the central area for the hard-core reenactors, so that visitors can get some idea of an authentic, period Viking camp. Few or no modern objects on view.

Around that is the periphery, where I was posted. Mostly vendors. A lot of people from the Renaissance Fest. Crafts, mystical crystals, knickknacks. I was there, with my tables of books. I had a friend manning the booth with me, selling a few of our club’s white elephants. We chatted pleasantly. Many people came by, and a fair number of them bought books. I saw a couple visiting friends. The weather was unseasonably warm – almost 90 degrees Fahrenheit. And the wind was annoying – not as bad as Minot had been, but several times we had to set things aright after they’d been knocked over.

When it was over, at 6:00 p.m., we moved my books and gear into a friend’s tent for the night. My plan was to go home to sleep, and return the following morning.

As I headed for the parking lot, I was stopped by someone (I won’t identify them, or even their sex) whom I didn’t know personally, but who knew who I was. Facebook friend. They greeted me and told me they were on my side. They were aware of some trouble I’ve had with a different Viking event – something I haven’t written about here, and still won’t for the time being. They said  they didn’t entirely agree with my opinions, but they supported my right to express them. I told them this was very gratifying, which it was. I left with a warm glow.

That glow faded as the engine temperature in my car spiked, just a couple miles outside of town. I ended up calling AAA for a tow home. I called one of the Vikings to tell him I wouldn’t be able to be there on Sunday. I no longer trust Sigrid the Haughty to get me places.

It’s not practical to replace a head gasket on an old Forester with turbo. So I’ll be getting a different car. Just as soon as I can move some money around.

If I can get it in time, I plan to be at the festival next weekend. If not, so be it.

Oh yes – it rained yesterday and some of my books got wet. Not the fault of the guy whose tent was sheltering them – these are the chances you take when you camp out. Or when your books camp out. Books are essentially indoor pets.

I’m not griping. I have my health (mostly). I am alive, and free, and not living on the street. This too shall pass.

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Høstfest report, 2025

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The whole Viking crew at Høstfest 2025. I’m 5th from the right in the back row, reading right to left.

The 2025 Norsk Høstfest in Minot is history now, and I feel as if I am too, almost. I’ve often said that I experience Minot as a stop-motion film, altering just a little each frame, as the years go by. What I hadn’t noticed before is that it’s a stop-motion film of my own life, too. I feel a little older, a little slower, with each festival. And this year I felt it especially.

I think (or hope) that my perception was a little skewed this year. I was coming right off a month-and-a-half bout with a stubborn sinus infection. It sapped my strength and kept me sedentary, bad preparation for days of Viking play.

But that doesn’t account for my failure of memory. My shame is extreme – I’ve been going to Høstfest for the better part of 20 years. I’m one of the old hands. Yet I FORGOT that Tuesday is travel day. This year, for some reason, I looked at my calendar, where Wednesday through Saturday were marked off for the festival, and just thought, “I have to leave on Wednesday.” The upshot was that I missed a full day.

I get the feeling I properly belong in a nursing home. Or congress.

The festival went fine. We were once again in the outdoor venue, and it did not rain on us. It was unseasonably warm, though, and the prairie wind (especially on Friday) got pretty vicious. Oddly, the wind seemed to have a psychological effect on customers – the more frantically I was re-tightening stake ropes and repairing tears in my awning, the more buyers flocked in for my books. It was exasperating, but profitable. I tried to be pleasant.

One of my tent poles actually broke. Fortunately, I have a spare.

Sales were very good, for which I’m grateful.

On Friday morning, as I drove in, my car’s engine temperature spiked, right up to the red line. So I got somebody to recommend a local auto shop and took it there, a friend following behind to give me a ride back (I’ve had this adventure before at Høstfest, you may recall). Later that day, I got the bad news – my head gasket is going out. If you know about Subarus, you know that’s a very bad thing. It’s a costly job to fix it, about what my old car is worth.

So I’ll almost certainly have to get a new car. The mechanic thought I could “probably” get her home. I drove below the speed limit all the way, babying the vehicle, and had no problems, though I got in late (and tired).

But last night I slept well, and I feel better right now, physically, than I have in months.

This picture is of me, with a massive drinking horn one of my friends has for sale. (I believe it’s water buffalo horn from India, standing in for the horn of the extinct aurochs, which Vikings would have used.) My friend Dale Nelson, whom I visited on the way home, is writing an article about mead and asked for such a picture – though he did not anticipate my big thinking. Photo credit: Erik Patton.

Bookselling, Uncategorized

Off to Minot

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Tomorrow I’m off, as is my custom, to Norsk Høstfest in Minot, North Dakota. I’m told we Vikings will once again be right across the street from the main entrance. The weather is supposed to be unseasonably warm. The festival runs Thursday through Saturday.

If you’re in the area, I’ll be there (God willing), and have the complete Erling series to sign and sell, along with Viking Legacy.

Note to burglars — my home will not be empty. My heavily armed renter will be in residence. And he never sleeps.

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Thinking of Denmark

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Denmark is on my mind tonight. I’m reading a book about Denmark during World War II, but haven’t finished it yet. Above, a gauzy travel video.

I don’t write much about Denmark in this space, even though I’m a quarter Danish.  I suppose it’s partly because it’s my minority ethnicity, but I think it’s largely because being Danish isn’t as funny as being Norwegian. The Norwegians have a public profile in this country, for better or worse. The stolid, taciturn farmer in overalls, painfully shy, honest, not all that bright. Ole Olsen, the butt of a thousand jokes. Garrison Keillor’s Norwegian Bachelor Farmer.

I’m not sure what Americans in general think about Danes, if they do at all. There aren’t that many around – they didn’t come over here in the numbers they came from Norway and Sweden. There are a few famous Danish Americans – Victor Borge, the comic pianist. Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore. Buddy Ebsen and Leslie Nielsen were Danish. But all in all, the Danes assimilated pretty well. They blended in. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a joke about Danes, except among fellow Scandinavians making fun of their pronunciation.

My Danish grandfather loved the out of doors and hunting. He liked polka music (someone once told my brothers and me that he played drums in a band, but I never heard of that). He was most notable for his sense of humor, which was exceedingly dry – people were always complaining that they couldn’t tell whether he was joking or serious.

I have striven to emulate him in this.

Which is no doubt why so many people don’t find me funny.

More on Denmark when I’m ready to review the book, probably on Monday.

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The saga of Harald Hardrada

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Monument to Harald Sigurdsson at Harald Hardrådes plass in Gamlebyen, Oslo, Norway. Relief by Lars Utne 1905. Photo credit: Wolfmann. Creative Commons Attribution – Share Alike 4.0.

I’m in between book reviews. Of what shall I blog? The other day, somebody on Facebook asked what I had to say about King Harald Hardrada of Norway. Well, there’s plenty. Probably enough for a long post. I’ve blogged before about Harald’s death at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066, but I don’t think I’ve ever devoted a post to the man himself.

He has much in common with Napoleon, whose biography I reviewed the other day. An important figure, and a fascinating personality. But in almost no way appealing.

I didn’t feel that way when I was a kid. I read about him in David Howarth’s 1066, and it fired my imagination. What a saga! This guy ranged all over Europe and the Mideast, fought scores of battles, amassed a fortune, and went home to be king of his homeland. A real-life Conan the Barbarian.

If you’ve read my novel The Baldur Game (you have read it, haven’t you?), he shows up in 1030 at the Battle of Stiklestad, where Saint Olaf died. Harald’s patronymic was Sigurdsson; he was half-brother to Olaf (same mother). He was about 15 at that time; I picture him as a reckless teenager, still growing into his height (he’s supposed to have been unusually tall). He was wounded in the battle, but got away with the help of Ragnvald, later jarl of Orkney. I assume he must have hero-worshipped his older brother. Very likely he admired Olaf’s autocratic policies.

Then off to exile in Kiev, where he served at the court of Prince Jaroslav the Wise (who also appears in my novel). There Harald grew to maturity – and no doubt picked up Russ ideas about government.

In 1042 he headed south for Constantinople, the goal of every enterprising young Viking in the east. The Byzantine emperors valued the tall Northmen as warriors, and Harald rose to become captain of the famous Varangian Guard, fighting in various campaigns in various places, including Sicily and (possibly) Jerusalem. We actually have outside corroboration for this service– a Greek book from the 1070s, the Strategikon of Kekaumenos, describes a portion of his Byzantine career.

Harald seems to have been involved in the revolt against Emperor Michael V, and at some point (according to the saga) he was imprisoned and escaped. Somehow he managed to get out of the city with the enormous fortune he’d amassed, and he made his way back to Kiev, where he won the hand of the princess Elisabeth, and set off for home, where his nephew, Olaf’s illegitimate son Magnus the Good, now reigned.

(Continued on p. 2)

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Blogs, Socials, Religion, Uncategorized

R.I.P., Charlie Kirk

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Credit: Adam S. Keck. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0.

Charlie Kirk is dead at 31, the victim of a cowardly assassin.

I was not a follower of Charlie Kirk’s. Nothing against him; I guess it was mostly an old fart’s reflexive resentment of up-and-comers. He took over Dennis Prager’s spot on Salem Radio, and though Dennis’s accident could hardly be blamed on Charlie, I suppose I was annoyed by the change. As old men are wont to be.

I resented a video clip I saw, in which Charlie stated that “no heterosexual man” ever re-plays old conversations in his head, pondering what he should have said. Since I do that all the time (and a number of my friends, whom I firmly believe to be heterosexual as well, say they do it too), I took some offense.

Until I discovered that Dennis Prager said it first.

But I think what annoyed me (subconsciously) most of all about Charlie Kirk was that he did – extremely well – a thing I always wanted to do. He faced people who disagreed with him in public, and argued with them, never (that I know of) descending into anger or name-calling, no matter how much anger and name-calling he took from the other side. I’ve never been able to do that, to my great shame.

My strongest impression of Charlie Kirk actually comes from video clips I’ve caught on Facebook, in which he appeared on a podcast called “Whatever.”

I watch “Whatever” clips now and then, as low entertainment. It’s a podcast about men and women and their relationships, and the format (as far as I can tell) is for young women, often heavily tattooed and pierced, to appear on one side of the table in the studio, to describe how wonderful their lives are as “sugar babies,” OnlyFans influencers, or porn stars. The host and his friends sit on the other side, arguing for something (usually) a little more responsible. The guest who seems to show up most frequently is a guy about whom I know nothing at all, other than that he claims to be an Eastern Orthodox Christian, but is not shy about using profanity. His strategy seems to be to shame these women into repenting and becoming celibate (he does not recommend they marry, as he considers them morally spoiled).

But Charlie Kirk was a guest at least once. And the clips of him at the table are something entirely different. He was polite, courteous, and sympathetic with the women, even as he condemned their sins. He listened, and spoke kindly. I feel that Jesus, when he dealt with prostitutes, must have been very much like that.

And I thought I saw (though Heaven knows I know nothing about reading women’s faces) that there was something in those women’s eyes as they looked at Charlie Kirk. A look that seemed to say, “Why couldn’t I have found a guy like this?”

Well, there’s one fewer guy like that in the world today.

Rest in peace, Charlie Kirk. Enter into the glory of your Master. May your blood be the seed of the church for which you fought so bravely.

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With malice toward some

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“The Surrender at Appomattox” – Mosaic Mural by Allyn Cox, 1965 at the General Grant National Memorial

Recently, the popular intellectual Malcolm Gladwell came out with an apology for supporting the idea of men playing in women’s sports.

At first blush, this filled me with Glad(well)ness.

But I had another, delayed response. One I’m now reconsidering.

That has to do with being a gracious winner.

When I saw conservative commenters castigating Gladwell, because he should have had the courage to tell the truth from the start, I thought at first they were being unnecessarily vindictive. My tendency is to say, “Let’s just let bygones be bygones. We need to live with one another, after all.”

It looks as if (God willing), we may be winning this gender battle. Both the unisex sports thing, and the transexual thing. This is a splendid development. Much of the transgender madness was fueled by a conviction (a delusion, but often sincere) that catering to sexual dysphoria would prevent suicide. (It increasingly appears that it not only does not do that, but rather contributes to suicide and murder.)

Not to mention ruined lives and reproductive sterility, just at the moment when we’re facing a demographic cliff.

My hero has always been Abraham Lincoln, who, as the end of the Civil War approached, proposed a gracious reconciliation – “to bind up the nation’s wounds.” His plan was not fully realized, but we did, in time, work out an accommodation – the north allowed southerners to believe (not entirely without reason) that the war had been about more than slavery. That there was an important constitutional issue involved. They called it the “Lost Cause.”

It allowed them to keep their pride.

So my inclination is to say, “Let’s let the people who were wrong about transgenderism keep some dignity. Let’s let them construct some kind of myth to justify their cruel (often cowardly) error.”

But then I thought about it some more.

The fact is, the world has changed since 1865. If (as I hope), we’ve won this battle in the gender wars, we’re not in the position of the north at the end of the Civil War. Our enemy’s cities do not lie in ruins (except as a consequence of their own policing policies). Our opponents still occupy the highest, most prestigious positions in many of our most honored institutions.

We don’t have to create a new myth of a “lost cause” for the transgender advocates. They will, you can be sure, construct it for themselves. The media will (first) drop the whole business down the memory hole, as much as they can; and (second), to whatever extent the memory lingers, find a way to blame it on conservatives and Christians.

So I think the leaders of the transgender movement need to be made to pay in some way. They must suffer some kind of public disgrace.

I don’t know what to suggest, though.

I think President Trump should put somebody to work on it.

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Bull-Hansen on the Birka warrior woman

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No book to review tonight. A friend pointed the video above out to me recently, and I watched it with interest. It’s by Bjorn Andreas Bull-Hansen, a Scandinavian living historian and video blogger. I’ve watched several of his videos before and found him very sensible – that is to say, he often agrees with me.

Except on religion. He’s a strong heathen, so I imagine we probably couldn’t be great friends. Which speaks well for both of us (I think) when we agree in spite of that.

This video is about the famous “woman warrior” grave at Birka in Sweden. As Bull-Hansen explains, early excavators assumed the excavated skeleton to be male, because of the rich finds of weapons and armor buried with it. But more recently, DNA analysis has shown that the occupant was in fact a woman.

This, of course, set off fireworks and celebrations among feminist historians and Lagertha groupies. It also had the effect of muting (somewhat) my own position, where I insist that there might be other reasons for armor in a grave than identifying the occupant as a warrior. Inheritance law is one possibility that comes to mind. Family graves had legal importance in regard to property rights – a man who died at sea or abroad might require a surrogate in a grave as a sort of proxy. (I don’t know that to be true – I’m purely speculating.)

Bull-Hansen answers one question I’d wondered about – there are no signs of any healed wounds on the skeleton. That seems to me significant.

Anyway, I find this an excellent discussion of the matter, and thank Bjorn Andreas Bull-Hansen for it.

Blogs, Socials, Uncategorized

Are we all Ned Ludd now?

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When you do a web search for “Ned Ludd,” this is the only picture our computer overlords have to offer.

On Wednesday, my Close Personal Friend®, Gene Edward Veith, posted an article describing a recent report out of Microsoft Corporation, predicting which jobs are most threatened by Artificial Intelligence. Ed’s post is subscription only, but the report itself can be found here, if you care to read it. It includes the following list of endangered jobs, in order of endangerment:

  1. Interpreters and Translators
  2. Historians
  3. Passenger Attendants
  4. Sales Representatives of Services
  5. Writers and Authors
  6. Customer Service Representatives
  7. CNC Tool Programmers
  8. Telephone Operators
  9. Ticket Agents and Travel Clerks
  10. Broadcast Announcers and Radio DJs
  11. Brokerage Clerks
  12. Photographers
  13. Technical Writers
  14. Tour Guides
  15. Copy Editors and Proofreaders
  16. Librarians
  17. Museum Technicians
  18. Archivists
  19. Event Planners
  20. Public Relations Specialists
  21. Marketing Coordinators
  22. Social Media Managers
  23. Conference Coordinators
  24. Advertising Sales Agents
  25. Travel Agents
  26. Court Reporters
  27. Paralegals
  28. Insurance Underwriters
  29. Claims Adjusters
  30. Survey Researchers
  31. Market Research Analysts
  32. Fundraisers
  33. Grant Writers
  34. Instructional Coordinators
  35. Human Resources Specialists
  36. Compensation and Benefits Analysts
  37. Training and Development Specialists
  38. Executive Assistants
  39. Office Managers
  40. Data Entry Keyers

This will be, of course, a troubling list for many people. For me, it’s already kind of old news, as I, in my old gig, translation, (Number One on the list), have already been “made redundant,” as the English say.

Nowadays I find myself in sympathy with the legendary Ned Ludd, an English weaver who supposedly broke up a “knitting frame” because the technology threatened his traditional job. (In fact, his legend seems to be older, going back to a boy who was disciplined for sloppy work and smashed the machinery in a fit of pique. Later on, when mechanization arrived, the people opposed to innovation were labeled “Luddites.”)

A better hero for us enemies of progress would probably be John Henry, the hero of the folk ballad, who raced a job-threatening steam drill and beat it, but worked himself to death in the effort. I remember that even as a boy I viewed John Henry as emblematic of something that was going on in the world – little did I guess how high the stakes would get in my own lifetime.

(Continued on page 2)

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Religion, Uncategorized

In defense of young men

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Photo credit: Drew Dizzy Graham. Unsplash license.

Should I comment on the Sydney Sweeney controversy? Let’s see – I’m an aging, lifelong celibate male with a shyness disorder. Obviously well qualified to opine on issues of sexuality.

First of all, I shall declare myself entirely on the side of American Eagle. I salute a return to traditional, sex-exploiting advertising. People (even women) like to look at beautiful women, and beautiful women sell product. I’ve missed that crass commercialism. Not only is it good for business, it makes the world (I think) a happier place.

Many Christians, I’ve noticed, strongly disagree. They caution against the display of sexiness, arguing that it incites men to lust in their hearts.

I’ve agonized over that issue all my life. Now that it’s pretty much an academic one for me, I want to say this publicly (many will disagree, I’m sure): When Jesus said that lust in a man’s heart was equivalent to adultery, I don’t think simply seeing an attractive woman and being sexually interested, was what he had in mind. I think Jesus was speaking in hyperbolic terms here, to demonstrate to us our complete inability to be clean before God. He certainly wanted us to curb our lust, but I don’t think He intended to demand asexuality of men, except for when they’re alone with their wives. (I think the sin is in actually contemplating an adulterous act.)

I’ve spent a lot of time lately with my novel Troll Valley. The audiobook version is being evaluated by the Amazon ACX people, and I’m almost ready to release a paperback version too. This is my most autobiographical book, despite the fact that almost none of the events in it bear any relation to my own experience. It’s autobiographical in terms of the Haugean, pietist community in which I grew up. I hope the book expresses, to some extent, how much I appreciate that heritage, but also the problems I discern in it.

One of those problems, I think, is the guilt it lays on boys and young men, the impression conveyed that just being a functioning male is somehow a shameful thing. Sadly, that view of manhood finds support in our time among the feminists, who say the same sort of thing, even more emphatically.

I have never solved the problem of “lusting in the heart” in my own life. In my youth, as an interested non-player, I was an outlier – a weirdo. But in more recent times – to my horror – I see young men rising around me everywhere who seem just like me. Sometimes they’re called Incels. Basement dwellers. There are probably other nicknames for them I haven’t heard yet, but they all describe much the same thing – unfinished young men who are too terrified to find a mate in a world that seems determined to portray them as subhuman losers. I am, in a sense, a father to those young men; I am their avatar.

I think the church needs to offer something to those young men. Something stronger than what we’ve got. Something a little more dangerous. Something edgy.

But I don’t know what that is. I certainly never found it in my own life.

The ideal solution, I think, would be arranged marriages. Historically, arranged marriages have an excellent track record. However, I don’t think the young people would go for it. Also, it’s probably illegal.

But we need something new. I want to see young men swaggering like Kirk Douglas. Grinning at women like Burt Lancaster. Sweeping the girls off their feet like Clark Gable.

I think – personally – that (generally speaking) that would please God, who made Sydney Sweeney beautiful, not without reason.