In which Natasha shows that she has pure Russian blood running through her veins

At Uncle’s

After the hunt the young Rostovs come along with Uncle to his authentic Russian wooden house. Uncle isn’t married and from an impoverished branch of the family. He lives alone with his serfs. As soon as he gets home, he changes into a Cossack coat, blue trousers and boots. Nicholas and Natasha are so full of expectations and in such a happy mood, that they can only look at each other and burst out laughing. Now that the hunt is finished, Nicholas can act normally again with his sister. Petya has fallen asleep on the sofa. The housekeeper Anisya brings in the most delicious dishes, all prepared by herself. From her countenance Natasha and Nicholas soon conclude that she is not just Uncle’s housekeeper.

The young Rostovs savour the local dishes while someone in…

Greenland is a mysterious land mainly covered in ice and not much is green. During prehistoric times the early Paleo-Eskimo  2500 BC – 800 BC lived there. Southern and Western Greenland was inhabited by the Saqqaq culture. The early Saqqaq artifacts were found at Disko Bay located on the western side of Greenland. Surprisingly Greenland is the largest island in the world!

Around 800 BC, the Saqqaq culture disappeared and the Early Dorset culture emerged in western Greenland and the Independence II culture in northern Greenland. The Dorset culture was the first culture to extend throughout Greenland’s coastal areas, both on the west and east coasts. It lasted until the total onset of the Thule culture in 1500 AD. The Dorset culture population lived primarily from hunting of whales and caribou. They were a peaceful people. In 986 Icelanders and Norwegians settled the west coast convinced by Erik the Red that Greenland…

One of my favorite Gaelic legend is about the infamous, Ellén Trechend in 8th to 9th century Irish mythology and is also known in Gaelic as Aillén Trechenn .

Art below of a depiction of Ellén Trechend by Nifty Buckles ©2018

Strong minded women have in the past been considered some sort of threat to insecure men in our society. Even in the past a character such as Ellén Trechend was given a bad rap. She was known in legend as a triple-headed monster (most likely a woman with her own opinion) that is mentioned in the text “Cath Maige Mucrama”, (The Battle of Mag Mucrima) as having appeared from the cave of Cruachan (Rathcroghan, County Roscommon) accompanied by goblins and a flock of copper red birds, helped to destroy Ireland and create chaos among the Irish folk. This monstrous creature according to an array of authors claim that the…

Shahrokh was at his friend’s house for a visit.

His friend’s son was doing homework when the door bell rang. His friend’s father walked in with a box of color pencils for his grandson.

When the grandson got the gift he loudly said: “But grandpa, these colored pencils have no brand and they don’t have good quality.”

His friend’s wife smiled and said: “See Dad, you can’t trick kids these days because they are very smart.”

The poor grandpa didn’t know what to say.

Shahrokh didn’t like what he saw and heard so he looked at his friend’s son and said: “When I was a little boy, my grandma gifted me a broken sugar cube.

I didn’t like it but I politely said thank you and went to my Dad and complained quietly to him; “Why did your mother give me a sugar cube as a walk-in gift. This sugar…

When I toured with The Passion of Mary Magdalen, opening by belting out the first paragraphs of the novel’s prologue in song, (ending with the line “when only a whore is awake!”) that question almost always came up.  In celebration of Mary Magdalen’s feast day, I’d like to offer answers that continue to evolve.

There is no scriptural evidence that Mary Magdalen was a prostitute. In a sermon, 6^th century Pope Gregory I gave as his opinion: “This woman, whom Luke calls a sinner and John calls Mary, I think is the Mary from whom Mark reports that seven demons were cast out.” (This confusion and proliferation of Marys inspired me to make a joke. Q: How many holy Marys does it take to change a lightbulb? A: I don’t know. I keep losing count.)

In fact, very little is known about Mary Magdalen. There are fourteen…