Lore and Ordure

Gather round the fire, everyone, and let me tell you a story.

Names have power, or so lots of people, in lots of different places, at lots of different times, have believed.

The world is changing, once again it seems, suddenly and drastically, unpredictably, and not for the better.

Some of you may remember that back in September I sort of semi-accidentally became the owner of a little letterpress machine, along with a quite-literal minivan-load of type and associated equipment.

I’ve been thinking recently about desire paths (and desire lines), and their cousins, witness marks, though I’m not entirely sure why they decided to pop into my head and make themselves at home.

What a year it’s been… With candlemas past, we start to feel the evenings lighten at last, and the realisation that just over a year has gone by since I first published here and invited you all along on this journey.

The librarian behind the desk takes my card and goes to look for the book I’ve requested.

In one of those rare but delightful moments of synchronicity, I came across something during my work at the dictionary word-mines which is legitimately adjacent to my PhD research.

This is something I wrote last year, before I started the project here on loreandordure.com, and so it was never published at the time.

I spend a lot of time with my head in old books and newspapers these days (virtually, at least).