The Endless Knot

We speak with Dr. Liz Gloyn about her new book, Tracking Classical Monsters in Popular Culture. We talk about Hercules: the Legendary Journeys, the Odyssey, the problems with Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey pattern, and more!

Liz Gloyn

Classically Inclined blog

Tracking Classical Monsters in Popular Culture

Facebook Page for Tracking Classical Monsters

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We talked to Winston Black about his new book, The Middle Ages: Fact & Fiction, which addresses the most common myths and misconceptions about the Middle Ages. And we touch on video games, D&D, and Game of Thrones in the process!

The SoundEducation Conference page

The Middle Ages: Fact & Fiction

Winston on Twitter

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The Fates have decreed that it’s time for us to talk about the word “Weird”! We discuss its etymology, the concept of fate in the ancient and medieval world, whether mythical women really do usually appear in threes, and Shakespeare.

Twist of Fate cocktail

Weird Sisters Blood & Hand Punch

Shakespeare Not Stirred book

“Weird” video

“Does English have a future tense?” video

“Arrow” video

“As We Like It Podcast” – Macbeth episode

Chart of ‘strange’ vs ‘weird’ usage

Chart of ‘weird’, ‘uncanny’, ‘eerie’, & ‘unearthly’

More information about the Moirai

Hesiod passage about the Fates

Catullus 64

Theoi site for Greek mythology

Articles about WEIRD linguistics and WEIRD psychology

Professor Elemental “Everybody’s Weird”

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While at VidCon this year, we sat down and chatted with a few of our fellow educational YouTubers: The Cynical Historian, Knowing Better, 12tone, and Step Back History. This is a compilation of our discussions about their channels, their reasons for making videos, and their experience of VidCon and its educational companion event, EduCon. If you don’t already watch their videos, we strongly recommend you check them out. Thank you to them all for taking part!

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We discuss a person who had an important impact on both science and language: Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles. In particular, we talk about the use of poetry to explain science, from Hesiod to Lucretius to Darwin to Baba Brinkman, and the new wave of science communicators on and off line.

Erasmus Darwin cocktail menu, based on The Loves of the Plants

D.G. King-Hele. “Erasmus Darwin, Man of Ideas and Inventor of Words.” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 42.2 (1988): 149–180 .

Baba Brinkman

Hesiod’s Theogony

Aratus’s Phaenomena

Acapella Science

Thomas Meritt

Susan McMaster

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We spoke to Carly Silver, an editor and a writer on ancient history and horse racing, about how she connects the past to contemporary issues, the intriguing stories in curse tablets in Roman Britain, murder mysteries set in the ancient world, romance novels, breeding programs for American Thoroughbreds, and more!

Carly’s website

Carly’s article about Hadrian’s Wall

Carly’s article about the sexual assault charges against a workman in ancient Egypt

Carly’s writing about horse racing

Ancient murder mysteries mentioned in the podcast:

Gary Corby, Athenian Mysteries

Lindsey Davis

David Wishart

John Maddox Roberts, SPQR series

Rosemary Rowe

Big Finish Cicero series

Robert Harris

Paul Doherty

Agatha Christie “Death Comes as the End”

Elizabeth Peters

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Happy (?) April Fool’s Day! We talk about the origins of the holiday, its connections to the Tom Collins cocktail, and hoaxes throughout history, from Athenian tyrants to the ‘Scratching Fanny’ ghost to the Da Vinci Code.

Tom Collins recipe

Podcast episode on Cuckold

Podcast episode 7, with discussion about urban legends

Podcast episode on Sublime

Bunny Trails episode on ‘wild goose chase’

Herodotus passage

Erasmus Darwin video

Podcast episode about the 12 Days of Christmas

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We talk about names for countries — endonyms and exonyms — and the trade goods named after the places they come from, in a discussion that ranges from Japanese guns to the connection between Wales and roosters to the colour of the phoenix, and much more. If you can make it to the end of the podcast, you’ll never look at porcelain the same way again!

Red Dragon Cocktail

The Rising Sun Cocktail

Jabzy’s Japan videos: Europeans in Japan and Guns in Japan

Cynical Historian’s video on gun history

Eidolon article about cooking sows’ vulvae (I’m afraid I said “vagina” not “vulvae” in the podcast, mea maxima culpa!)

Schork, R. J. “Egyptian Etymology in Vergil.” Latomus, vol. 57, no. 4, 1998, pp. 828–831. JSTOR

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We talk to Edward Watts about his new book Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny, which covers the history of Rome from the 3rd century BCE to the rise of Octavian to princeps. Our conversation ranges across questions of Roman identity, our fascination with transitional periods, and the connections between Roman history and contemporary politics.

Edward Watts

Ancient Greece Declassified episode 19 “America's Greco-Roman Legacies w/ Caroline Winterer”

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Amalia Dillin is an author of mythic fantasy and historical fiction set in the ancient and Viking worlds. Among other books, she’s written the Fate of the Gods trilogy, about Eve and Adam (and Thor and Athena and more!), and the Orc Saga, beginning with Honor among Orcs. She also writes, as Amalia Carosella, about Bronze Age Greece (Helen of Sparta & sequels, about the love between Helen & Theseus) and the Viking Age (Daughter of a Thousand Years, about Freydis, daughter of Erik the Red, and also a modern women wrestling with her newly found pagan faith).

We spoke to Amalia before the holidays about her love of mythology, the complexities of writing historical fiction, and goats!

And hey, the Kindle of Daughter of a Thousand Years is on sale for $0.99, and the paperback is also on sale!

Amalia’s website with links to her blog and all of her books.

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