Fulk Nerra

I just started a history of The Crusades, by Thomas Asbridge. It's off to a raring start, setting the pre-Crusades scene with the tale of Fulk Nerra:

In the year 1000 , the county of Anjou (in west-central France) was ruled by Fulk Nerra (987–1040), a brutal and rapacious warlord. Fulk spent most of his fifty-three years in power locked in near-constant struggle: fighting on every front to retain control of his unruly county; scheming to preserve his independence from the feeble French monarchy; and preying upon his neighbors in search of land and plunder. He was a man accustomed to violence, both on and off the battlefield—capable of burning his wife at the stake for adultery and of orchestrating the ruthless murder of a royal courtier.

But for all the blood on his hands, Fulk was also a committed Christian—one who recognised that his brutish ways were, by the tenets of his faith, inherently sinful, and thus might lead to his eternal damnation. The count himself admitted in a letter that he had 'caused a great deal of bloodshed in various battles' and was therefore 'terrified by the fear of Hell'. In the hope of purifying his soul, he made three pilgrimages to Jerusalem, more than 2,000 miles away. On the last of these journeys, now an old man, Fulk was said to have been led naked to the Holy Sepulchre--the site of Jesus' death and resurrection—with a leash around his neck, being beaten by his servant while he begged Christ for forgiveness.

While the story is accessible in a "Johnny Depp-could-play-Fulk-Nerra-in-the-movie" way, I've been mulling over Fulk's life and excesses for days. The violence, even evil; the companion remorse, sense of culpability, and epic and increasingly desperate acts of penitence. The first pilgrimage didn't mend Fulk's ways; and the second pilgrimage didn't mend Fulk's ways; it's so "us" that there is a third pilgrimage.

Engraving by Gustave Doré for the Bibliotheque des Croisades.

W.U.D. World Upside Down

When I started putting these pics up months ago, I noted that I should've been in the kitchen concocting mousse thon à la pomme verte (tuna mousse with green apple, from the first Chocolate & Zucchini cookbook) for a birthday/belated Bastille Day soirette. . . .

Kennedy and I had just spent a weekend camping on the Black River near Black River Falls. Our site was right on the river. Couldn't stop looking.

Swam in the river, which runs disconcertingly rusty red as it is black. It would be nice to call it "tea" color but it's weirder. The color comes from "decomposing organic matter"—neither of us could remember if anyone posited theories about the murderous, perilous Wisconsin Death Trip years, linking the area insanity to the water.

Went back about a month later—too cold to swim in the river, just as eye-pleasing.

I swear I read some Neil Gaiman thing online where he used the acronym W.U.D. for World Upside Down. I like a good acronym, but now I can't find the interview or reference, and just find links to things like, "How Assassin's Creed Flipped My World Upside Down," various pop songs, Monde a l'envers (Your source for unique mechanical cards and automata. Surrender to the power of paper!), and the British ballad/nursery rhyme, with various discrete versions/lyrics, from"The wine pot shall clinke, we will feast and drinke./And then strange motions will abound." to "If the buttercups buzzed after the bee," et cetera.

I loved the Midwest portions in Gaiman's American Gods (and all the other portions). Wisconsin and environs in all the mundane, morbidity, color, horror, and sweetness.

We were good about getting out for brief forays into the Midwest wilds this summer. After our last trip, a night camping in SW Michigan near Warren Dunes, we stopped at a small county fair on the way home. There were the usual attractions, animals, rides, fried pickles, and also displays of entries in sundry competitions including houseplants, photos, garden produce, and a miscellaneous category. Yipes. Taxidermy dog face.

And more doggies, more enticingly displayed (though also with a hint of horror, possibly only due to TDF), but I had already spent my fair dollars feeding the pygmy goats.