HT: Ed Driscoll.

The Atlantic headline says it’s been discovered that the Maya had a zoo, but the real news in this story is the discovery that they were using jaguars in their ritual sacrifices. But the Atlantic wouldn’t want to come down hard on that little detail. That could make the worthy and magnificent Maya just about as bad as that dentist who shot Cecil the lion.

In the Mayan city of Copán, at the base of a 30-meter-tall pyramid, there’s a beautiful stone slab known as Altar Q. The altar is square, and each of its meter-wide faces preserves carvings of four of the city’s 16 rulers, including its final king, Yax Pasaj Chan Yoaat, who commissioned the structure in 776. It was as much propaganda as historical record. Though Yax Pasaj wasn’t part of a dynastic bloodline himself, the altar shows him receiving the scepter of kingship from Copán’s founding ruler, thus proving that he was worthy of ruling. The altar was a statement of his legitimacy.

The jaguars probably helped.

There’s a crypt immediately in front of the altar, which contained the bones of several birds, and 16 big cats—jaguars and pumas (cougars) packed so tightly that the people who first excavated them referred to them as “jaguar stew.” It’s likely that these animals were sacrificed on the altar as emblems of power, one cat for each king.

“It’s hard to imagine this very elaborate ritual in one of the hardest times for the Copán dynasty,” says Nawa Sugiyama, an archaeologist at George Mason University. Yax Pasaj was the last person to rule the city before it collapsed, and his reign was one of political turmoil and environmental degradation. Amid that turmoil, he somehow managed to acquire 16 big cats, even though the surrounding valley was too small to house more than five jaguars, and even though these beasts are hard to find, much less to capture.

Sugiyama thinks she knows how he did it. By analyzing the chemicals within the buried cat bones, she and her colleagues showed that jaguars and pumas likely came to Copán from distant regions and were kept in captivity for most of their lives. The city effectively had its own zoo, which was part of a wide trade network that sucked in wildlife from a larger area. For three centuries, wild animals—including the most formidable carnivores around—were brought in, housed, fed, and eventually used in ritual ceremonies.

RTWT

The helmet.

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The gorget.

John Gregory Bourke (1846-1896) enlisted in the Fifteenth Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry at the age of 16, and was awarded a Medal of Honor for “gallantry in action” at the Battle of Stones River, Tennessee, in December 1862. He also fought at Chickamauga under George H. Thomas.

After the war, through Thomas, he received an appointment to West Point where he graduated in 1869, and was then assigned as a second lieutenant in the Third U.S. Cavalry. He served with his regiment at Fort Craig, New Mexico Territory, from September 29, 1869 to February 19, 1870.

Bourke was an enthusiastic student of Indian ethnology, on which subject he published a number of studies, and a copious diarist.

He compiled, from his diaries, a military memoir, On the Border with Crook, published in 1892, which is one of the key primary sources on the Indian Wars.

His quarters in New Mexico were simple and rough, he tells us, but they were decorated with a set of three hundred year old Spanish armor.

My assignment was to one of the rooms in the adobe house, an apartment some fourteen by nine feet in area, by seven and a half or eight in height. There was not enough furniture to occasion any anxiety in case of fire: nothing but a single cot, one rocking-chair — visitors, when they came, generally sat on the side of the cot — a trunk, a shelf of books, a small pine washstand, over which hung a mirror of greenish hue, sold to me by the post trader with the assurance that was French plate. I found afterward that the trader could not always be relied upon, but I’ll speak of him at another time. There were two window curtains, both of chintz; one concealed the dust and fly specks on the only window, and the other covered the row of pegs upon which hung sabre, forage cap, and uniform.
In that part of Arizona fires were needed only at intervals, and, as a consequence, the fireplaces were of insignificant dimensions, although they were placed, in the American fashion, on the side of the rooms, and not, as among the Mexicans, in the corners. There was one important article of furniture connected with fireplace and which I must make mention—the long iron poker with which, on occasion I was want to stir up the embers, and also to stir up the Mexican boy Esperidion, to whom, in the wilder freaks of my imagination, I was in the habit of alluding as my “valet.”

The quartermaster had recently received permission to expand “a reasonable amount” of paint upon the officers’ quarters, provided the same could be done by labor of the troops. …

It goes without saying that the work was never any too well done, and in the present case there seemed to be more paint scattered about my room than would have given it another coat. But the floor was of rammed earth and not to be spoiled, and the general effect was certainly in the line of improvement. Colonel Dubois, our commanding officer, at least thought so, and warmly congratulated me on the smug look of everything and added a very acceptable present of a picture—one of Prang’s framed chromos, a view of the Hudson at the mouth of the Esopus creek – which gave a luxurious finish to the whole business. Later on, after I had added an Apache bow and quiver, with its complement of arrows, one or two of the bright, cheery Navajo rugs, a row of bottles filled with select specimens of tarantulas, spiders, scorpions, rattlesnakes and others of the fauna of the country, and hung upon the walls a suit of armor which had belonged to some Spanish foot-soldier of the sixteenth century, there was a sybaritic suggestiveness which made all that has been related of the splendors of Solomon and Sardanapalus seem commonplace.

Of that suit of armor I should like to say a word: it was found by surgeon Steyer, of the army, enclosing the bones of a man, in the arid country between the waters of the Rio Grande and the Pecos, in the extreme southwest corner of the State of Texas, more than 20 years ago. Various conjectures were advanced and all sorts of theories advocated as to its exact age, some people thinking that it belonged originally to Coronado’s expedition, which entered New Mexico in 1541. My personal belief is that belong to the expedition of Don Antonio Espayo or that of Don Juan de Oñate, both of them came to New Mexico about the same date —1581-1592—and travelled down the Concho to its confluence with the Rio Grande, which would have been just on the line where the skeleton in armor was discovered. There is no authentic report to show that Coronado swung so far to the south; his line of operation took in the country farther to the north and east, and there are the best of reasons for believing that he was the first white man to utter the fertile valley of the Platte, not far from Plum Creek, Nebraska.

But, be that as it may, the suit of armor — breast and back plates, gorget, and helmet — nicely painted and varnished, and with every tiny brass button duly cleaned and polished with acid and ashes, added not a little to the looks of the den which without them would’ve been much more dismal.

For such of my readers may not be up on these matters, I may say that iron armor was abandoned very soon after the Conquest, as the Spaniards found heat of these dry regions too great to admit of their wearing anything so heavy; and they also found that like cotton batting “escaupiles” of the Aztec served every purposes as a protection against the arrows of the naked savages by whom they were now surrounded.

—————–

Parts at least of Bourke’s Spanish armor have survived, and I found some discussion on the Internet in a discussion thread at Above Top Secret:

The few records of the armor that exist came from U.S. cavalry officer and anthropologist Capt. John Gregory Bourke, who was given the gorget, helmet, and a breast- and backplate in 1870, from an army doctor who claimed to have found them “enclosing the bones of a man in the arid country between the waters of the Rio Grande and the Pecos.”

Bourke took the armor with him from post to post throughout the West during his career, losing the breast and backplates to thieves in Arizona along the way.

But before his death in 1896, Bourke gave the helmet and gorget to a judge’s wife in Nebraska, and by the early 20th century, it was in the possession of an Omaha attorney, in whose family it remained until it was donated to a museum in 1961, and then to the state historical society.

The assumption is the armor is Spanish, that would be the most likely scenario as it dates to the appropriate period.

Historical records describe the equipment used by Spanish soldiers at that time, but the team found that it included little armor, the Spanish instead having used mostly padded leather or shirts of chain mail.

“It just is not very much like armor known to have been used by colonial Spanish forces,” Bleed said of Bourke’s armor of iron scales.

“The Spanish apparently had some (chain) mail, but the idea of taking a fabric and attaching little fish scales to it, this is not something they did.”

It’s too bad the breast plate and back were lost as they would shed more light on where this came from.

RTWT

From Henry Bernatonis:

A very short gun story.

A wild eyed (and butt ugly) old woman walked into a crowded bar in downtown Washington, D.C. waving an un-holstered pistol and yelled out;

“I have a .45 caliber Colt 1911, with a seven round magazine, plus one in the chamber.

I want to know who’s been sleeping with my husband?”

A female voice from the back of the room called out,

“You Need More Ammo, Mrs. Clinton”.

Samples of miltos, including a sixteenth century Ottoman example (e), and a control sample of yellow oxide (b).

Andrew Masterson, in Cosmos magazine, reports that modern researchers are attempting to pin down the exact identity of an intriguing Roman mineral.

From ancient Greek and Roman source texts it is possible to conclude that in the classical world a mineral, a powder known as miltos, was something of a wonder substance.

Miltos – referred to in the works of writers such as Theophrastus, Dioscorides and Pliny – was red, fine-grained, and made up mostly of iron-oxide.

By the time Theophrastus, a Greek philosopher and proto-botanist, wrote about it in the third century BCE, it was already a mineral validated by antiquity. Its use is attested to in Mycenaean clay tablets, inscribed in the script known as Linear B and dating from the second millennium BCE.

The variety of applications for which it was used was broad indeed. According to a team of researchers writing in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, it was used “as a pigment, as a cosmetic, in ship maintenance, agriculture and medicine”. …

The ancient texts made it clear that miltos, unlike some other types of mineral, could be found, and mined, in only a few places in Graeco-Roman world – namely Kea, in the Cyclades, Lemnos in the northeast Aegean, and Cappadocia in Turkey. This specificity meant identifying the substance was simple: it was the red dusty stuff found at the mine sites, and easily matched, therefore, with older samples held in museums and galleries.

RTWT

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The intersection of Steep and Trenchard Street, Bristol, England, 1866 and now.

I have compiled all the comments on this web-site loading slowly below, so that potential technical support can have a handy reference.

My own observations:

I have no clue what the problem some people (and only some people) seem to be having could be.

I use Chrome for blogging and I look at the blog all the time in Chrome, and it loads normally for me. My wife finds no problem either.

I did reduce the number of posts on page one which should slightly speed things up.

I now intend to ask for technical advice.

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2018/10/09 at 5:51 pm:

Your website has become really, really slow. Last few days. So slow sometimes I just cancel the load and go somewhere else.

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2018/10/11 at 3:03 pm:

Thursday, 10/11, 3:00 p.m. EST: unusable. 1:16 (one minute, 16 seconds) for your page to load once the name resolution completed. Just as long to access this comment page. No problems with any other websites.

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2018/10/13 at 9:42 am:

It’s working well now! Much, much better.

I’ve been using both Chrome and Safari on a Mac – operating system and browsers all latest versions. Chrome has been flakey with High Sierra, but the slow load was only your site, until last night.

You can email me to discuss offline if you like, and I’m happy to provide feedback going forward.

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2018/10/13 at 5:55 pm:

I spoke too soon. Now, almost 6:00 p.m. Saturday, it’s back to 1:16 from clicking the comment link to the page load.

Something’s very wrong.

——————

2018/10/13 at 10:06 pm:

Update: right now it’s really, really slow on Chrome and Safari, but
speedy on Firefox.

Mac OS X 10.13.6 (High Sierra)
Chrome Version 69.0.3497.100 (Official Build) (64-bit)
Safari Version 12.0 (13606.2.11)
Firefox 62.0.3 (64-bit)
(I believe these are all latest versions)

I can’t explain it.

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2018/10/16 at 7:33 am:

I know, it’s weird. I tried it again just now, it seemingly NEVER loads on Safari, and takes forever on Chrome, but it’s speedy with Firefox. As I said, latest Mac OS, latest Chrome, latest Safari, latest Firefox. The browser status when it’s taking a long time is “Connecting….” It eventually connects, but ever page load to your blog takes as long.

I’d really like to know if it’s me, what it is!

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2018/10/16 at 12:24 pm:

On Chrome on my home desktop has been loading slowly for a week or two.

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2018/10/16 at 11:42 am:

Use Chrome . No issues .

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2018/10/16 at 5:23 pm:

on Safari it has stopped loading all together when I click my bookmark. But if I manually type in url it will load. On Chrome it loads very slowly but eventually does load.

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2018/10/16 at 5:59 pm:

Usually access using Android phone with Chrome. Has been exceeding slow to load the last couple weeks but is ok after it does.
Tried it with Brave which I recently installed. Handshake took a few seconds but loaded quickly. Never had an issue with Firefox on laptop.

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2018/10/16 at 6:50 pm:

It is just fine on Firefox but videos linked from facebook don’t even show on the page.

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2018/10/16 at 7:05 pm:

Chrome… about two weeks ago it started to go very slow. Takes about 30 seconds to open the home page. Clicking here just now to comment also took another 30 seconds.

But like the old catsup commercial… anticipation was worth it.

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2018/10/19 at 12:44 pm:

Loads like ye olde greased lightning.

The Very Model of a Modern-Age Millennial
by Meg Elison

An unprecedentedly intimate and comprehensive glimpse at the breadth and diversity of one of world literature’s most vital, adventurous presences.
On Monday I killed Applebee’s, on Tuesday I axed country clubs
I’ve never bought a diamond and I have no use for cashmere gloves
I quote dank internet memes in lieu of sharing actual thoughts
For earnestness has been passé since sometime in the early aughts
Still advertisers flail and fail to capture all my buying power
(The sum of which amounts to renting GIG cars by the paltry hour)
I’m subject to the bleak nostalgia of Generation Xers
And YouTube sensibilities adored by web-savvy youngsters
So I get to the take the blame for our country’s tanked economy
While fighting for my basic rights and bodily autonomy
In short I’m fucked in matters from the vital to the trivial
I am the very model of a modern-age millennial
In fact, when I know what is meant by “social justice warrior”
When I can tell at sight a fascist MRA conspirator
When such affairs are treated as unsolvable new mysteries,
I shake my head and wonder if the Boomers studied history
When I have learnt what progress has been made and then just flushed away
My generation’s best bet looks like playing Fortnite drunk all day
In short, if you’re angry right now and spewing aged white vitriol
Remember you created me: the modern age millennial
For I’m the generation raised upon the game Monopoly
You’re hoarding all the wealth and jobs and mock me for my poverty
So now I’m skewing socialist with discourse quite ungenial
Please check your local ballots for the modern-age millennial

HT: McSweeney’s via Karen L. Myers.

Sent at 11:45 A.M., just as Nelson’s two parallel columns of ships prepared to break through the French & Spanish line.

Wikipedia:

At four o’clock in the morning of 21 October Nelson ordered the Victory to turn towards the approaching enemy fleet, and signaled the rest of his force to battle stations. He then went below and made his will, before returning to the quarterdeck to carry out an inspection. Despite having 27 ships to Villeneuve’s 33, Nelson was confident of success, declaring that he would not be satisfied with taking fewer than 20 prizes. He returned briefly to his cabin to write a final prayer, after which he joined Victory’s signal lieutenant, John Pasco.

Mr Pasco, I wish to say to the fleet “England confides that every man will do his duty”. You must be quick, for I have one more signal to make, which is for close action.

Pasco suggested changing ‘confides’ to ‘expects’, which being in the Signal Book, could be signalled by the use of a single flag, whereas ‘confides’ would have to spelt out letter by letter. Nelson agreed, and the signal was hoisted.

As the fleets converged, the Victory’s captain, Thomas Hardy suggested that Nelson remove the decorations on his coat, so that he would not be so easily identified by enemy sharpshooters. Nelson replied that it was too late ‘to be shifting a coat’, adding that they were ‘military orders and he did not fear to show them to the enemy’. Captain Henry Blackwood, of the frigate HMS Euryalus, suggested Nelson come aboard his ship to better observe the battle. Nelson refused, and also turned down Hardy’s suggestion to let Eliab Harvey’s HMS Temeraire come ahead of the Victory and lead the line into battle.

Victory came under fire, initially passing wide, but then with greater accuracy as the distances decreased. A cannonball struck and killed Nelson’s secretary, John Scott, nearly cutting him in two. Hardy’s clerk took over, but he too was almost immediately killed. Victory’s wheel was shot away, and another cannonball cut down eight marines. Hardy, standing next to Nelson on the quarterdeck, had his shoe buckle dented by a splinter. Nelson observed ‘this is too warm work to last long’. The Victory had by now reached the enemy line, and Hardy asked Nelson which ship to engage first. Nelson told him to take his pick, and Hardy moved Victory across the stern of the 80-gun French flagship Bucentaure. Victory then came under fire from the 74-gun Redoutable, lying off the Bucentaure’s stern, and the 130-gun Santísima Trinidad. As sharpshooters from the enemy ships fired onto Victory’s deck from their rigging, Nelson and Hardy continued to walk about, directing and giving orders.

Shortly after one o’clock, Hardy realised that Nelson was not by his side. He turned to see Nelson kneeling on the deck, supporting himself with his hand, before falling onto his side. Hardy rushed to him, at which point Nelson smiled

Hardy, I do believe they have done it at last… my backbone is shot through.

He had been hit by a marksman from the Redoutable, firing at a range of 50 feet (15 m). The bullet had entered his left shoulder, passed through his spine at the sixth and seventh thoracic vertebrae, and lodged two inches (5 cm) below his right shoulder blade in the muscles of his back.

Nelson was carried below by sergeant-major of marines Robert Adair and two seamen. As he was being carried down, he asked them to pause while he gave some advice to a midshipman on the handling of the tiller. He then draped a handkerchief over his face to avoid causing alarm amongst the crew. He was taken to the surgeon William Beatty, telling him

You can do nothing for me. I have but a short time to live. My back is shot through.

Nelson was made comfortable, fanned and brought lemonade and watered wine to drink after he complained of feeling hot and thirsty. He asked several times to see Hardy, who was on deck supervising the battle, and asked Beatty to remember him to Emma, his daughter and his friends.

Hardy came belowdecks to see Nelson just after half-past two, and informed him that a number of enemy ships had surrendered. Nelson told him that he was sure to die, and begged him to pass his possessions to Emma. With Nelson at this point were the chaplain Alexander Scott, the purser Walter Burke, Nelson’s steward, Chevalier, and Beatty. Nelson, fearing that a gale was blowing up, instructed Hardy to be sure to anchor. After reminding him to “take care of poor Lady Hamilton”, Nelson said “Kiss me, Hardy”. Beatty recorded that Hardy knelt and kissed Nelson on the cheek. He then stood for a minute or two before kissing him on the forehead. Nelson asked, “Who is that?”, and on hearing that it was Hardy, he replied “God bless you, Hardy.” By now very weak, Nelson continued to murmur instructions to Burke and Scott, “fan, fan … rub, rub … drink, drink.” Beatty heard Nelson murmur, “Thank God I have done my duty”, and when he returned, Nelson’s voice had faded and his pulse was very weak. He looked up as Beatty took his pulse, then closed his eyes. Scott, who remained by Nelson as he died, recorded his last words as “God and my country”. Nelson died at half-past four, three hours after he had been shot.

Coloured engraving by J. Heath after Benjamin West, The death of Lord Nelson aboard HMS Victory at the battle of Trafalgar, 1811.

Gerard van der Leun is fed up with our generation’s, his and mine, members of the elite community of fashion.

In the past few decades, self-loathing has drenched many Americans of the Left. …. A self-loathing that has reached its apotheosis in those “Americans” that love the hallucinogenic fantasy of an Islamic mosque at Ground Zero, a sanctuary California, a Hillary forcefully installed as Big Granny President for Life, and Donald Trump’s head on a stake over the main gate to DC. All so they can get back to sitting in their dark cave and watch their dream-world socialist vision screened on the back wall.

After the rise of Obama, the most anti-American American president in history, the vision became joyfully anti-American. It is now self-evident what their “path to success” is in the minds of those who have embraced and live the progressive vision. It is a vision very much alive, kicking and in residence in the DNC, the Obama mansions, the Clinton Crew, the Groves of Academe, and the dark, Satanic propaganda mills of the media, news as well as advertisements and “entertainment”.

Millions of Americans, unknowing, uncaring, or ungulled by the Left cannot see this vision. This vision, as far as the masses are concerned, is unknown and unknowable. It is very much a secret.

It is “the vision that dare not speak its name.”

What is no secret is that classical liberalism, in the mold of FDR, JFK, and LBJ that reached its apotheosis in Hubert Humphrey, has long been consigned to the bone-yard. What has taken its place hates to be tarred with the brush of liberalism because, frankly, it isn’t. It prefers to be called “progressivism” even though “a sociopathic political and social recidivism” more accurately describes it.

What now stands in the place one occupied by classical liberalism is a kind of perverted one-world idealism in which “the world as it is” is constantly measured against “the world as it should be.” Classic liberalism at least had the argument that it was being done for the greater good. The new perverted progressive liberalism variant is one in which policy and plans are made because it makes the initiators yearn to “feel good” in the manner that compulsive masturbators obsess over fantasies implanted before puberty. Those that make and support these measures hold themselves in high regard, seeing each other as, in the French phrase popular when many of them were young, citoyens du monde.
The donations come in the front door and the Creches go out the back. All done with a nudge and a wink to “the protection of liberty and diversity”

Typically these are people who have “gone beyond” nation-states in their own minds and, if they can afford it (and many can), in their personal lives as well. These are people with access to enough money to afford private jets or enough money to pay the premium prices of a hybrid car. They do not dwell in the same nation as their fellow, less-fortunate citizens. Instead, they can afford to spend their time spreading a gospel whose high costs and marginal benefits are always carefully hidden from the middle middle class and those below. But this is never seen by those spreading the gospel as a kind of noblesse oblige, only as something that is “good for them.” …

[W]e see thousands of continuing efforts to spread “correct thinking and correct behavior and correct belief” in the endless bullying of small organizations by larger “clear headed” organizations such as the ACLU. It is all their way or the lawsuit highway; a kind of fiscal extortion racket. The donations come in the front door and the Creches go out the back. All done with a nudge and a wink to “the protection of liberty and diversity” at the same time that diversity of the “bad” kind is reduced. Like latter-day Leona Helmsleys, these visionaries are always at pains to “thank the little people” for letting them have it their way.

These erstwhile American citizens do not think of themselves as actual Americans (although they play them easily and glibly on TV), but as a new and better breed that only retain their “American” status for the clear and present benefits. Instead, they prefer to think of themselves as inhabiting a rarer, more personally fragrant realm of ideals that the rest of us do not see and cannot aspire to.

RTWT

I have loads of Yale classmates (all white, mind you) eagerly looking forward to the elimination of the white American majority and the country’s transformation into a more-northerly Brazil. They manage to ignore the differences in economic productivity, cultural and technological creativity, and political order and stability between the United States and Brazil. And they are, alas! completely ignorant of the overwhelmingly social importance of differing shades of color in Brazil. But, if you disagree with them, you are a racist and doomed reactionary.

Queen Saga I

As told to the Guardian:

Every summer, my parents, my six-year-old brother and I go to stay in a cabin by a lake called Vidöstern in Tånnö in southern Sweden, not far from where we live. I like to build sandcastles on the beach, or find rocks to skim across the water and see how many times I can make them bounce. Mamma says she used to play and swim in the lake when she was little, too.

On 15 July this year, I was playing on the beach with my friend, when Daddy told me to get a buoy from the cabin: he said the water level in the lake was very shallow and we had to warn any boats that might come along because it was dangerous. He said it had been the hottest summer for 260 years.
Sweden’s ‘true queen’, 8, pulls ancient sword from lake
Read more

I waded into the water and it was very soft on my skin and refreshing, a little bit cool but not too cold. It was a nice feeling because the sun was shining and I was very hot. Daddy was begging me to rush so he could watch the World Cup final, but I like to take my time about things so I ignored him.

I was crawling along the bottom of the lake on my arms and knees, looking for stones to skim, when my hand and knee felt something long and hard buried in the clay and sand. I pulled it out and saw that it was different from the sticks or rocks I usually find. One end had a point, and the other had a handle, so I pointed it up to the sky, put my other hand on my hip and called out, “Daddy, I’ve found a sword!”

I felt like a warrior, but Daddy said I looked like Pippi Longstocking. The sword felt rough and hard, and I got some sticky, icky brown rust on my hands. It started to bend and Daddy splashed up to me, and said I should let him hold it. It was my sword and now he was taking it away! I gave it to him in the end.

I ran to my mamma and my mormor – my grandma – and some other relatives who were all sitting outside having fika, which is Swedish for having a sit-down with coffee and cookies. I was yelling, “I found a sword, I found a sword!” Daddy went to show it to our neighbours, whose family has lived in the village for more than 100 years, and they said it looked like a Viking sword. Daddy didn’t get to watch the football in the end.

When he showed it to an archaeologist, she said she had goosebumps and that it was at least 1,000 years old. Actually, they now think it’s 1,500 years old – from before the Vikings. She called it “sensational” and said nothing like this had ever been found in Scandinavia before, and that maybe I had found it because of the low water levels. She made me promise not to tell anyone because she and other archaeologists wanted to see if there was anything else buried in the lake; they didn’t want anyone else to come and take the treasures.
Experience: I run a hospice for animals
Read more

It wasn’t hard to keep the secret. But I did tell one of my best friends, Emmy, and now I know I can trust her because she didn’t tell anybody, except her parents – but they promised not to tell anybody else, so that’s OK.

This month, the archaeologists finally came to search the rest of the lake and they found a brooch that is as old as my sword, and a coin from the 18th century. Then they announced the news and I could finally tell everyone at school. I came back from gym class and the whiteboard said, “Saga’s sword” and there were balloons, and the whole class got to have ice-cream.

I had to give the sword to the local museum – Daddy explained that it’s part of history and important to share it with others. I felt “boo” that it’s gone away, but “yay” that other people will get to see it. I’m going to try to raise some money to make a replica sword that I can keep.

People on the internet are saying I am the queen of Sweden, because in the legend of King Arthur, he was given a sword by a lady in a lake, and that meant he would become king. I am not a lady – I’m only eight – but it’s true I found a sword in the lake. I wouldn’t mind being queen for a day, but when I grow up I want to be a vet. Or an actor in Paris.

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Original story.