NPPF Comm 2: Parents, part 3

[Jasper Fidget]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
> Behalf Of Don Corathers

> 
> demilune. Half-moon or crescent? Not found in the old MW10, which is all I
> have access to at the moment.
> 

Also: "Fortification. An outwork resembling a bastion, with a
crescent-shaped gorge" (OED).

Part of Alfred the Great's appearance in this note:

pg 105
"A peasant woman with a small cake she had baked": 

According to legend Alfred spent the night in a peasant woman's hut while a
fugitive in the marshes of Athelney.  The woman, ignorant of his identity,
left Alfred to watch some cakes she had left cooking on the fire, and
scolded him when he allowed them to burn.

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_the_Great
http://www.ogdoad.force9.co.uk/alfred/alfcake.htm

pg 106
"a drunk with a walrus mustache kept staggering around and patting the
trunks of the lindens"

A linden is a lime tree, but it's also the wood from such a tree.  Linden
wood was commonly used to create shields and boats, and it turns up in many
Anglo-Saxon poems, for instance in Beowulf, or here from Tennyson's
translation of "The Battle of Brunnanburh":

There by Brunnanburh,
Brake the shield-wall,
Hew'd the linden-wood,
Hack'd the battle-shield,
Sons of Edward with hammer'd brands.

http://www.lincolnshire-web.co.uk/lincolnshire-illustrious/tennyson-brunanbu
rh.htm

Alfred (the King, not the Lord) was responsible for the creation of a fleet
of ships and a series of fortifications, so in keeping with the kennings of
that period's poetry, he might have "[patted] the trunks of the lindens"
while ensuring the security of his kingdom.  He also had a mustache.  I'm
not sure why he's drunk here, perhaps in celebration of his victory over the
Danes?

Jasper