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Hello, all.

I'm back in my apartment, after two very pleasant weeks spent with my family in Philadelphia. In the words of Jane Austen (from Emma, which I am reading this week in preparation for teaching it next month), "It was a delightful visit; - perfect, in being much too short." Although it was wonderful to see parents, assorted relatives and old friends, the best part was the amount of time I could spend with my sister; we are very close, and generally talk to each other five times a week via telephone, but we hadn't spent more than seven consecutive days together in the last year and a half.

Of course, since I didn't really use the computer much while home, my friendslist is now at skip?some unreasonably high number. If any of you have important news or writing you posted in the last weeks and don't want me to miss, please comment here. Also, I will applaud the rest of the friends I promised to praise in the next few days, and I will finally read jandersoncoats's novel, which has been sitting unopened in my mailbox waiting for me to have three consecutive hours to spend reading it for weeks. Sorry!

I did, however, glance briefly over some yuletide tales others recommended, and I am absolutely thrilled to report the presence of excellent stories in the two fandoms I wanted most to see.

The Water-Horse by Thamiris.
Fandom: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Rating: NC-17 (The rating is only earned near the end of the story, but it is definitely earned. Be warned.)

In the fourteenth-century Middle English poem that inspired this tale, Sir Gawain passes several kisses from his host's wife to his host. Gawain's omnisexuality has not attracted nearly as much attention, at least from fanwriters, as it really ought. There's a fine trilogy by irisbleu out there somewhere (I can't find the link; Irisbleu, could you link it?), but the world certainly needs more Gawain/Green Knight. The cheery, sexy, hilarious "The Water-Horse" is a wonderful addition to a nearly nonexistent fandom.
( Brilliant, if bawdy, tapestry joke behind the cut )

Freawaru's Lament by ellen_fremedon
Fandom Inspiration: Beowulf and the Finnsburg Fragment
Rating: G

Freawaru, one of a handful of female figures wandering quietly and unobtrusively through the text of the Old English epic Beowulf, fascinates me. Her doom, an unhappy marriage capping a failed alliance, is sketched in brief allusions and foreshadowings. ellen_fremedon takes up Freawaru's story in a verse fragment paralleling the fragment that tells the tale of Hildeburh, another one of those mysterious women of Beowulf. She uses an alliterative meter, which, although not quite identical to Beowulf's alliterative meter, is about as close as any English translation could ever come.

ellen_fremedon knows the presence and absence of women in Beowulf well. Her username suggests a longstanding interest in the subject; ellen fremedon, from line 3 of Beowulf, translates to "they performed courageous deeds" and is the punchline to the geeky medievalist joke, "Who is the most interesting woman in Beowulf?" When she recites Freawaru's story, then, she does so with infinite understanding of exactly what the incompleteness of Freawaru's tale does to Beowulf, She signals the importance of incompleteness by leaving one careful, intentional absence in the fragment. The woman in Freawaru's Lament is never named.

( Wretched the woman who wakes alone... )

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Breaking news: muchabstracted is a queen among women, a jewel among friends, and a selectrix of the very best presents, like a copy of The Fall of the Kings signed by both Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman, with a note from Delia Sherman, "To: Andrea - who appreciates the academic in-jokes."