Simon

a male and female Robin sit on a branch together in the woods on a rainy day

Robin report: love seeing these two together

there was a Malky Dungeon story I put on hold that was meant to be a big epic set in post covid Glasgow about all the places that are now gone or closed
but I could never fully pierce the strangeness of this new atomised era plus it was very depressing but I mean to come back to it some day

Feeling like I’m living in sub Roman Britain the way grand buildings from a former era collapse in flames and can never be rebuilt whilst dodging rival germanic and Celtic roving war bands

Glasgow cannae catch a fuckin break man

A small grey pillar stone stands proudly from the leaf strewn ground of Inchagoill Island. It has a depiction of two crosses on the visible face, and the inscription LIE LUGUAEDON MACCI MENUEH in Insular half uncial script

The Luguaedon Stone • Inchagoill Island

This small stone pillar stands close to the early church of Teampall Phadraig.

It bears one of the earliest inscriptions of Irish in the Latin alphabet. It reads:

LIE LUGUAEDON MACCI MENUEH

THE STONE OF LUGUAEDON, SON OF MENUEH

#Ireland #SpéirGhorm 🏺

A carved stone head in a glass. Are with reeds and a green background to either side

A carved stone face with eyes nose and mouth visible. The mouth has a hole in the upper right lip (as we look) perhaps for offerings

#findsfriday the astonishing, enigmatic Hendy Head from Anglesey now in Oriel Môn - found in a ploughed field overlooking the Menai straits and thought to be Late Iron Age. Did this Celtic god oversee the a Roman attack on the Druids and an end of the old ways? #celts #ironage #druids #anglesey

A find photograph of a small, rectangular lead plaque, Torksey find DB 1620, from the Great Army camp at Torksey, Lincolnshire.

It's Viking Camps #FindsFriday! I've had a few weeks away, with both the Jorvik Festival and half term, so we'll get back to it today... and in honour of yesterday's World Book Day (heavily norse-themed in this household) I thought we'd look at a find with some writing.

This is Torksey DB 1620. /1

a pair of Robins sitting on a branch together

There's good in the world worth fighting for

I now understand how the idea of a kelpie arose conceptually

Since people seem to be in agreement with me over this I happened to have also made a wee comic a while back about a Norse ghost trapped in a lost Lewis Chess piece that can be read here

www.patreon.com/posts/malky-...

still working on the next Malky Dungeon, just some of the more magical/ abstract pages can be harder to rough out from idea form onto the canvas

one of my favourite wee historical fellas

sadly a talk event I was working on got cancelled but here's a peek at a map I was working on for it.
It's incredibly speculative but its meant to show that in the 10th century the kingdom of Strathclyde stretched roughly at least from Govan to the river Eamont in Cumbria

a black and white ambiguous photo of a bush lit up by lights: a hand extends out writing something unknown, a vague bearded face and whirling objects circle around it

kind of reminded me of something ...

a nice round robin plucking up a wee bit of cheese off a fallen log in the woods ona clear bright day

making an offering to the spirits of the woods

The light green is meant to show areas of light Strathclyde control that may have been back and forth contolled by the Norse/ Norse-Gaels depending on the various political situations

sadly a talk event I was working on got cancelled but here's a peek at a map I was working on for it.
It's incredibly speculative but its meant to show that in the 10th century the kingdom of Strathclyde stretched roughly at least from Govan to the river Eamont in Cumbria

Yeah I try and imagine how they must have felt being the last Cumbric speakers of the North, but at the same time the Govan Stones reflect an openness to different cultural influences.

In some sense similar to vikings in being a warrior culture but also with a flexibilty to change

Yeah I try and imagine how they must have felt being the last Cumbric speakers of the North, but at the same time the Govan Stones reflect an openness to different cultural influences.

In some sense similar to vikings in being a warrior culture but also with a flexibilty to change

Similar to as suggested for Sutton Hoo and other ‘princely burials’ in England: North Sea mercenaries serving farther afield than previously thought

(Gittos 2025)

You know after years of this shit I still cant get over americans just casually slaughtering a bunch of school girls en masse like that what the fuck is their fucking problem

when a yank uses the words "regime change" I only ever want to hear it in regarding them over throwing their own genocidal child raping ICE concentration camp making regime otherwise fucking forget it

the yank fourth reich really needs to be stopped for the good of all humanity

I've been enjoying working on this one but my big regret is not being able to incorporate more of the Orkney leid into this.

For the most part when writing Malky Dungeon I use the west coast Scots that I'm accustomed to, but I like making the dialogue as theatrical and as interesting as the art

Hjörvarðr: "I have a teeming multitude of berserks, warriors, elves and witchcraft on my side, Odin walks amongst us! What could possibly go wrong?"

Bödvar Bjarki:

They couldn't get enough of them, there are four of those around:
Frienstedt, Germany, 2nd half 3rd century: kaba;
Toornwerd, Frisia: kɔ(m)bə̣;
Ribe, Denmark, early 9th century: kãbaR;
Elisenhof, Germany, late 9th century: kãbr.

"You wont find runes as interesting when you realise most inscriptions are thoroughly mundane or post conversion!"

me looking at a comb that says comb:

"You wont find runes as interesting when you realise most inscriptions are thoroughly mundane or post conversion!"

me looking at a comb that says comb:

a Viking age rune stone, round the border is a great serpent with a runic inscription within its body in the middle is a great tree someone is holding a ring and a branch as if swearing an oath another figure approaches the tree with a drinking horn around them are other beasts and humans

Do you have a favourite rune stone?
I really love the Ockelbo stone, more so for the art than the inscription itself: the intwined dragon, the people playing a board game and drinking, the person approaching the great tree with a drinking horn as if making an offering, I find all really evocative

a fluffed up round Robin sitting on a thin branch in the woods looking at the viewer

his royal roundness