In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit...

Hi, I'm Egg (my initials, it's not that I have a giant love for eggs). I love sci-fi, fantasy, superheroes, and history, so you'll see a lot of those things here. some political stuff too

[badassdemonsword]

You couldnt come up with a jollier name for a bird if you tried

[minmos]

this thang has one of my favorite ebird descriptions of all time

[medievaljournalist]

forgot to leave a note for my doordasher to bring a blunt weapon to get past the catacomb skeletons so congrats to whichever necromancer is about to get my banh mi i guess

[tanoraqui]

that theory that the Arkenstone is a Silmaril…it’s doubly implausible, but imagine if nobody knew. If the dwarves were guarded enough of their greatest treasure that…you wouldn’t even need to hide it from that many people, honestly. Mostly a few elves, and all wizards.

and then Bilbo sidles up to Gandalf like, “Thorin and all are holed up in the Mountain, but I think they’re being nuts, so I…kind of stole the Arkenstone, I think.” And (it’s been thousands of years since the light of the trees was doused save for the precious brilliance locked away in Feanor’s gems, since oaths and blood and war that raged until the skies cracked and the earth shattered, and the little people of the Shire have no memory of it at all) he pulls out a fucking Silmaril.

[tanoraqui]

Gandalf: *spittake*

Gandalf: *hurriedly glances at Thranduil. the king of Mirkwood’s eyes shine with curiosity and greed, but not recognition, nor the terrible lust that overtook Feanor and his sons. right, right, he was never in Thingol’s court while the jewel that Luthien and Beren took was there. we’re good. we’re good for now*

Gandalf: That’s, uh, nice, Bilbo. Put it away, would you?

[tanoraqui]

Gandalf, telepathically(?): EMERGENCY RINGBEARERS ONLY CONFAB NOW

Gandalf: [mental image of a goddam Silmaril in hobbit hands, labelled “thisfuckingrockagain.jpg”]

Galadriel, who watched 95% of her family slaughter everyone within 100 miles for several thousand years over these things, including each other and themselves: no.

Elrond, who was very nearly one of those people slaughtered, and did watch most of his town be killed before he and his twin were kidnapped for a while: Absolutely Fucking Not.

Gandalf: Apparently fucking yes. The legendary Arkenstone-

Galadriel: You’ve got to be kidding me.

Elrond: Thorin Oakenshield has a Silmaril right now?

Gandalf: No, no.

Gandalf: Bilbo stole it.

Elrond: *wordless sputtering*

Gandalf: @Galadriel [information packet: BilboBagginsoftheShire.pdf]

Galadriel: Oh yes, Belladonna’s boy, you were telling me about him last winter. 

Galadriel: Btw, orc+warg army probably coming your way. Spotted it in the mirror last night. Thank goodness we dealt with Dol Goldur at least, huh?

Elrond: No fucking shit.

[tanoraqui]

Gandalf @Gwaihir Windlord: hey, sorry to bother you again, I know it’s nearly mating season. but we have a situation again

Gandalf: [thisfuckingrockagain.jpg]

Gandalf: [oncomingorcwargarmy.jpg]

Gandalf: [flashbacktobadasseaglesinwarofwrathhinthint.mov]

[avelera]

I mean, given that Tolkien retconned “The Hobbit” so Bilbo’s little invisibility ring became an ancient piece of jewelry that controls minds and drives the mighty mad, one can at least understand why it seems plausible that the other shiny white gem that destroys empires and makes the mighty go mad with greed could be linked from his kid’s book to his gigantic early mythology in retrospect??

[crazy-pages]

You know this actually explains a lot about why Gandalf didn’t immediately raise the alarm about Bilbo’s ring out of an abundance of caution. I mean, what are the odds, what are the fucking odds, that this one little hobbit stole both a Silmaril and the Ring of Power? Like, you are Gandalf the Grey and you have already dealt with the heart attack to end all heart attacks because this little innocent fool stole a world war inspiring artifact once. You still get flashbacks every time Bilbo offers to show you something and have to employ all of your angel’s serenity and thousands of years of learned composure not start giBbERinG “ pleaseletitnotbeanotherartifactpleaseletitnotbeanotherartifact”. And then. AND THEN! One day he’s like, “hey Gandalf let me show you this neat ring I found back on our journey”. And on the inside a tiny part of you is screaming “nottheoneringnottheoneringnottheonering” while a more rational part of your brain assures you it could not possibly be the one- “It’s this plain gold ring that’s very precious to me and turns me invisible!”

AND THEN YOU FUCK OFF AND SEARCH THROUGH EVERY POSSIBLE TOME YOU CAN TO PROVE IT CAN’T REALLY BE THE RING OF POWER, SAURON’S RING OF POWER, THAT RING, THE ONE RING, LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE TOME, BEFORE FINALLY FUCKING ACKNOWLEDGING THAT THIS SHIT IS REALLY HAPPENING AGAIN

[countesskittymeow]

@shewhodoesnotexist what says you? :P

[shewhodoesnotexist]

I’ve never been a proponent of this theory, but I gotta admit the idea of Bilbo finding two world war inspiring artifacts is alluring ;D

Next you’ll be telling me Sting is Gurthang

[abrownpanther]

Sting may or may not be Angrist, the knife that Beren used to get the Silmarill off of Morgoth’s crown

[queenofthequillandink]

“Average Hobbit finds at least one world war inspiring artifact when on a journey” statistic inaccurate. The Spiders Took Family, who find a world war inspiring artifact every five feet they step outside the Shire, were outliers and should not have been counted.

[depsidase]

[greek-orthodox-priest]

went to miami to recover father sotirios. and made some new friends.

these animals... they are wise. I recruited them to avenge my dear brother. I was then escorted out of the sea world.

[a-book-of-creatures]

Better than the 1596 Marseille dolphin exorcism I suppose.

[maxkowski]

[a-book-of-creatures]

In 1596 dolphins were infesting the port of Marseille. Back in those days, y’see, dolphins didn’t have the cuddly image they enjoy today. They were pests and were causing damage.

So the cardinal of Avignon sent the bishop of Cavaillon to do something about them. In front of a huge crowd, the bishop sprinkled some holy water into the waters of the port and told the dolphins to begone. Whereupon the dolphins indeed turned tail in terror and fled, and were never seen again.

Still not as dramatic as Saint Bernard excommunicating the flies though.

[melononthefloor]

What happened to the flies?

[a-book-of-creatures]

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux built a monastery in 1124, but it was plagued by flies. So the good saint promptly excommunicated them. By the next day the flied had died in such quantities that they had to be shoveled out.

Still not as nutty as the Basel rooster trial though.

[fatefulfindings]

*everyone in unison* um what rooster trial?

[a-book-of-creatures]

In 1474, a rooster in Basel did the heinous and unspeakable act of laying an egg. As everyone knows, an egg laid by a rooster will hatch into a basilisk (or cockatrice).

So to avoid the creation of a cockatrice (or basilisk), the rooster was tried, found guilty, and burned at the stake along with its egg. A huge crowd was present.

The “rooster” in this case was likely a hen that had developed male characteristics (it happens).

Still not as properly legal as the Savigny pig trial though.

[bonnettbee]

Ok, clearly you want an excuse to talk about the pig thing, and I now DESPERATELY want to hear about the pig thing, so PLEASE tell us about the Pig Thing.

[a-book-of-creatures]

In 1457 a sow killed Jehan Martin, a five-year-old boy in Savigny. For that crime she was put on trial and judged guilty, and sentenced to be hanged from a tree.

Her piglets, however, were judged to have been innocent of the murder, and so were returned to the owner, with the caveat that he had to surrender them to the law if they were later found to have eaten any of the boy.

Not to be confused with a whole bunch of other, similar porcine trials.

I won’t mention the 1454 excommunication of eels in Lake Geneva then.

[hemipelagicdredger]

OK what did the eels do, and more pressingly why were they in communion with the church in the first place

[a-book-of-creatures]

Animals are expected to be part of the Church by default, that’s why they take excommunication so badly.

Felix Hemmerlin’s treatise on exorcism, cited by e.g. Wagner’s Historia Naturalis Helvetiae (1680), informs us that around 1221-1229, eels once infested Lake Geneva in huge numbers. So Saint William, bishop of Lausanne, excommunicated them and banned them from the lake, forcing them to live in only one part of it.

Plot twist: as far as we know, Saint William was never bishop of Lausanne.

[redheadedhypocrite]

There’s no way you have historical Christianity nonsense more silly than this to share

[a-book-of-creatures]

I’ve been trying to stay on brand and talk about animals only, but sure, few intersections of Christianity and the legal system get sillier than…

… the Cadaver Synod.

Pope Formosus (“Good-looking”) was pope from 891 to 896, and apparently accumulated a few enemies. After his successor Boniface VI enjoyed all of a 15-day papacy, the next pope elected was Stephen VI.

And he hated Formosus.

How much? He had the corpse of Formosus exhumed, dressed up in papal vestments, and put on trial for his failings as a pope.

End result? Formosus was found guilty of papal fail. The corpse was stripped of its clothes, three fingers on its right hand were severed (no blessings for u), and it was tied to weights and dumped in the Tiber.

Needless to say Stephen VI came to a sticky end. An angry mob deposed him, he was strangled in prison, and Formosus’s corpse was fished up and reburied with honors. And the later popes passed edicts ensuring this kind of silliness would not happen again.

Tune in next time when I tell you about how a lawyer defended a city’s entire rat population.

[strawberriandromeda]

Please, the rats, give us the rats, i beg....

[a-book-of-creatures]

The story of the rats of Autun is also the story of Barthelémy de Chasseneuz (or Chassenée, etc.), a highly original and highly talented defense lawyer. That’s him here.

When the town of Autun was infested by rats in the early 1500s, they were accused of eating the province’s barley crop and were duly summoned to be judged in an ecclesiastical court of law. Chasseneuz was the defense attorney.

How do you defend an entire swarm of rats? You don’t, is the answer. You delay. Chasseneuz’s original defense was “my clients live all over the place, one summons won’t be enough”. So he got a court summons to be posted in all the infested parishes.

When the rats didn’t show up after the elapsed time delay, Chasseneuz proceeded to explain at length why. The rats didn’t come to court, he said, because of their enemies the cats, which are everywhere and always vigilant and hungry. “You cannot expect my clients to undertake a journey which would put them in mortal danger”, he argued in complete seriousness. “Thus they have the legal right to turn down a summons that endangers them”.

As far as we know, the rats never did appear in court, and remained unprosecuted.

Chasseneuz went on to have a distinguished career as a lawyer and was allegedly killed by a poisoned bouquet of flowers.

[byjove]

at least now we know why he has yet to return when Britain is in peril

[kitkatmoose]

We need a flick where King Arthur wakes in modern Jamaica and is very confused.

[byjove]

I think that would be so much funny. He wakes up on a remote beach in Jamaica and he only speaks/understands Brythonic and Medieval Latin. Locals assume he was a tourist who fell from a cruise ship or received a head injury and floated away from a resort. The authorities cannot match his description to any missing persons reports and his fingerprints and DNA produce no hits on INTERPOL. They suspect he may be Welsh or French because the language he speaks resembles Welsh or Breton but France and the UK both state he is not a citizen of their country. Stateless and deeply confused, he is taken in by the community near the beach where he was found, being cared for by a number of local families and doing odd jobs. He slowly learns English and adjusts to the contemporary world, uncertain if his belief that he is the legendary King Arthur was formed by whatever traumatic event caused him to end up Jamaica or if he is actually King Arthur and Prydain is in eminent peril. Mysterious letters from Morgan begin to reaffirm his belief he is King Arthur. He must choose between staying in Jamaica and continuing the happy life he has made for himself or finding a way to get back to Britain without any documentation.

[a-daks]

ancient king white boy stuns locals by ordering in perfect Jamaican Patois

[byjove]

He gets to Britain and everyone expects him to sound like a posh noble Englishman because that is the picture Malory painted but he prefers to speak Welsh and when he has to speak English, he speaks with a thick Jamaican accent.

[catgirlinachally2]

also the way he pulls britain out of said peril really pisses off the right wingers, at least in part because he recognises that he cannot do it alone and chooses those he trusts (his jamaican community) as his knights

[byjove]

Absolutely, Guinevere is the Jamaican nurse who took him in in this universe and many of his friends in the Jamaican community that took him in are analogous with/reincarnations of common characters from Arthurian mythology. Except for Merlin. Who is the original Merlin. Who is living a retiree lifestyle in The Bahamas for plot and wizard foresight reasons.

[byjove]

Unrelated side note, I love slipping in an occasional Prydain in place of Britain just to remind everyone King Arthur was not English. The landmass is Ynys Prydein to him. ☝️

[agentofdeterioration]

The Catalogue of Ships in the Iliad is, to a modern audiences, what classicists have called “boring as hell,” but I can’t help but think that if you were watching Homer recite it it would have been more like when comedians go, “anybody here tonight from Chicago?” and the Chicagoans in the back start cheering

Homer’s like, “and there were forty black ships from… LOCRIS” and the Locrians in the crowd start going absolutely nuts

[what-even-is-thiss]

You should be able to adopt adults for inheritance purposes like in Ancient Rome. Yeah this is Cathy the 23 year old and she’s my daughter now. She has my last name. When I die she inherits the tire shop.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Cathy will bring glory and dignitas to this America’s Tire franchise location just as I and my father did before her.

[itsrainingshadybitches]

[tygermama]

“We heard youse are behind on your payments to Fat Tony.”

[defydamage]

I ALMOST SPIT MY ROOTBEER

[gallusrostromegalus]

“Think you’re all aesthetic, huh? A real instagram Wiseguy!  You want something to blog about? We’ll give ya something to blog about!”

[t4timekeeper]

ACCIDENTALLY LEFT MY MACERATED APPLE SYRUP ON THE STOVE AND IT CARAMELIZED I GUESS?

[t4timekeeper]

it was super thick and dark and golden and bubbly so i took it off the heat. happy accident.

[t4timekeeper]

tastes delicious so good. idk what to do with it though

[t4timekeeper]

thank you for your recommendation! with brief consideration, it has been disregarded.

[tall]

[s-t-a-r-c-o]

im reading discworld and im on the third book and i only just realized they arent arranged like this

[sator-the-wanderer]

I raise it to

[sandpancakecat]

My mom thought it was an elephant standing on four turtles

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Emily Wilson has inadvertently created a fascinating new way to categorize basically any visual media ever made

[theodysseyofhomer]

odysseus absolutely does present a threat to penelope if he perceives her as at all unfaithful, and i feel the unfairness of this, and i think people tend to undersell how much tension at least potentially exists between odysseus and penelope. but i'm also like. his reaction, all speculation aside, his actual reaction in the odyssey to her flirting with the suitors is delight, because he immediately ascertains that she is running a con. sorry that they're so in-sync in spite of the forces that try to drive a wedge between them, including their own misgiving hearts. sorry that they invented homophrosyne ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[strinak]

oh, you meant they literally did, ok

[theodysseyofhomer]

would i, tumblr user thee odysseyofhomer, lie to you?

[polyphemusthecylcops]

...

[theodysseyofhomer]

this is the only funny addition to this post

[gecko-with-a-greatsword]

*guy who doesn't know anything about sports and has never cared about sports in his life* hey did you know womens professional baseball is returning after 70 years and the games are going to be streamed for free on youtube and the season starts august 1st

[gecko-with-a-greatsword]

youtube link

Women's Pro Baseball League

Our time is now. The inaugural season of the WPBL begins August 1st, 2026.

website

[butch-ragh-barkrock]

I think this is so cool and it's awesome they're streaming games for free! I also think it's incredible that this picture is the one they used to advertise the opening day. It's like those videos where someone threatens the camera while their partner shows off their collection of rocks they found.

[playwrongs]

there's nothing i like more as a computer program than a long period of silent contemplation - not doing anything, not rushing anywhere, just standing here and enjoying this moment with the user. oh, it seems once again he has summoned my beautiful and ruthless wife Task Manager. hello, my darling! what are you doing with that long cruel scimitar

[hometoursandotherstuff]