I've been interested in the Middle Ages for many years and like to visit them in person via SCA activities as well as studying the languages, literature, and culture of the period.       I also acquired a lap harp a few years ago, which I'm learning to play, concentrating on 13th century music. (Well, I needed a medieval musical instrument!)       And this is Jasper, as gentle as my beloved Minischnauz Gretl was fierce, who KNOWS that everyone he meets wants to pet him.

In the "current Middle Ages" I also shoot arrows enthusiastically, if not always accurately(sometimes making dents in my garage wall when I miss). I'm also working to become a bard, but as performer rather than writer of songs. I've even been known to teach a class on medieval poetry now and again and I've begun illuminating scrolls lately as well. The H from the Book of Kells is the fanciest one I've done to date. I do lots of other things, too. I read voraciously. I swim several mornings a week(in a pool; I live in Wisconsin and it gets cold in the winter) and would swim more often if the pool were open more mornings.

Apart from all the time I spend at the computer e-mailing, newsgrouping, playing with graphics, etc., since I retired, I've also been ham radio operator K9TUD since 1959, but haven't been on the air much recently; a big storm took my antenna down and I haven't found anyone to help me get it back up. I play around with all kinds of crafts. I have a yard which demands more time than I give it, too. I really don't have enough time for my hobbies!

And as for what an erilar is, I call it a kind of job description: literate person who can create runic inscriptions. This is the Rök stone, a Viking memorial. Many runic inscriptions include "signatures" like "I erilar carved these runes." I actually have carved a few runes, though not in large stones like this, but this erilar normally uses other media; stones are not very portable, after all.

And speaking of vikings, this is my favorite verse from the Old Norse "Havamal". Can't read Old Norse too well? You have lots of company. Mine has become too rusty to be of much use as well. Here's a translation of this verse of the "Sayings of the High One": "Cattle die, kinsmen die, one(oneself) dies the same; I know one(thing) that never dies: the name(reputation) of each one dead."

     Another thing I really like to do is travel, particularly in Germany. In the summer of 1997 I chased back and forth all over Germany with my daughter and two grandchildren for a month, traveling by train, bus, and foot and staying mostly in youth hostels. It's not the only trip I've made to Germany by any means, but it was certainly unique. A short version of that trip is available at "trip collection" along with the 1999 trip and several other trip synopses. Most of my earlier trips were with my high school German students, but I've been there without them as well, starting with the three semesters I studied in Bochum.
     The last several student trips were with the same airline, so I collected enough frequent flyer miles to go to Germany all by myself and do exactly what I pleased in 1999. I only had enough miles to go in mid-winter, but since I retired I can do things like that, and there aren't many tourists around then to clutter up the castles and museums. Not a bad time for a castle hunt. At the time I thought it might be the last one, but I keep hunting.
      My 2001 trip was devoted even MORE to German history than the one in 1999. I started with a list of German youth hostels actually IN castles and then figured out which ones I could reasonably tie together with public transportation. I also had a list of open-air museums I tried to combine with my castles and some of them would not be open in October, while August is not only touristy but too hot for me, so the trip was going to be in September. I also wanted to visit some friends on weekends. . . Because it's such a good example of a budget castle hunt, it's back up on the page here.
     I don't just hunt castles, however. I'm also interested in medieval Scandinavia, particularly its Viking past and its maritime aspects, which led me to Iceland and a few years later to Denmark and Norway. Again, see the trip collection page
      In 2003, however, I got back to castle-hunting, this time in both Germany and Austria, though not in as many youth hostel castles as I had assembled in 2001. Although it's not the most recent one either, it's quite representative of my castle hunts, with its castles, youth hostels, and museums. To see it, click HERE for Part I.
      In 2004 I tried something new, first Viking-hunting in Scandinavia and then joining an Elderhostel tour for "Culture along the Pyrenees". This one is also on the trip collection page and in my google maps, as is the 2006 return to German-speaking territory, a trip to Germany and German-speaking Switzerland.
     But after no trip in 2005, I let myself be carried away and made a second, shorter one in August, 2006. It also included a Viking bit. It was an Elderhostel trip, so it didn't need lots of planning. To find out what I was up to in Sweden, click HERE.
      Then in spring 2007 I went castle-hunting with friends, in a new venue: Wales and Yorkshire. This was the most sheer fun ever, partly because of the places we went, but largely because the three of us had so much fun doing it.
      But in spring 2008 I decided to try something totally different: I went island-hopping with Elderhostel in the Med and out into the Atlantic, then to Portugal, before coming home. Then In 2009 I joined Elderhostel for the second year in a row, this time to Sicily. Both of those have been moved to the trip collection page as well. Although I enjoy the Elderhostel(now "Road Scholar") trips, now that I've slowed down I keep getting separated from the group as I stop to take fotos and record them in my trip diary 8-(
      In 2010 I returned to castle hunting in Germany again, for which I don't need a group nor a guide and can go at my own pace. That was familiar territory and practically modern compared to my 2011 Orkney Odyssey, however. This time I never got left behind by the group, because I was the group! I've been spoiled for life!