Podcast Script

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The Saga of Grettir the Strong 1: Exile, Outlawry, and the Undead

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The Saga of Grettir the Strong opens with his grandfather leaving King Harald's Norway for Iceland. We follow its portrayal of Grettir's troubled childhood and his tests of strength against boulders, men, bears, and (for some Halloween appropriate listening) draugr, the undead of the burial mound.

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Medieval Lives 4: Chen Cheng, his Travels, and his Troubles at Work

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A standalone episode on the travels and career of a Ming dynasty diplomat and administrator. Chen Cheng would suffer professional setbacks outside of his control, and he would make the overland journey to Shah Rukh's Timurid Herat.

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Ghiyath al-Din Naqqash 1: A Timurid Painter in Ming China

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In the early 15th century, the son of Timur sends an ambassador east to the target of his father's last military campaign.

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Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 5: The Year 598

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Another year of drought, another of famine, and even more disasters pile on for the early-13th-century Egyptians. We also see Abd al-Latif make a surprising 20th-century appearance.

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Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 4: Consuming the Present

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What happens when the river fails to rise? In 597 (1200), Abd al-Latif found famine, crime, and cannibalism.

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Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 3: Harvesting the Past

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Like many people ever since, and even now, Abd al-Latif was fascinated by Egypt's ancient sites and structures, the pyramids and the Sphinx. He was fascinated, but also disgusted with how their stones and contents had been treated as his contemporaries looked to them less with wonder, more with greed.

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Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 2: On Egyptian Flora and Fauna

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We continue the Abd al-Latif series and dig into his observations on Egypt, its plants and animals, the hybrid banana and the terrifying sea horse.

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Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 1: Scholars, Sultans & Money

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Born in the 12th century, Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi travelled the Ayyubid world in search of students, mentors, and patrons. His curiosity stands out, and does his impatience with scholars who, as he saw it, wasted their time with alchemy or other unimportant topics.

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Prester John 10: The End is not the End

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It's the end of the Prester John story, or at least the end for now. The priest-king pops up in Tibet and dives into the world of fiction and comics, and the Dalai Lama makes an appearance.

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Prester John 9: The End Part One

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What happens to a mythical priest-king when you get too close to him? Does he just disappear?

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Prester John 8: Ambassador Mateus and his Many Doubters

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In the early years of the 16th-century, Ethiopia's regent, Eleni, sent an ambassador to Portugal to propose an alliance. She sent a man named Mateus. Unfortunately for Mateus, almost nobody believed him.

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Prester John 7: The Way from Lisbon

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It's part 7 of the Prester John story, on the trip to Prester John's Ethiopia, and on the Portuguese crown's pursuit of the priest-king and how that story was connected to the developing ones of exploration and colonialism.

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Prester John 6: The Ethiopian Prester John

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This is the first of two episodes on the next jump in the Prester John narrative, as the story pivots to Ethiopia and as Ethiopian envoys and pilgrims travel in 15th-century Italy and Spain.

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Prester John 5: The Mongol Priest-King

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The Mongols, their conquests, and the travellers who went to see them were all going to necessitate some changes to the Prester John narrative. This episode is all about those changes.