Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: pulp history


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Any cold iron

An interesting discussion started last day with a friend of mine, a fine author, about what the Italian equivalent is of cold iron – as cold iron is well known as a tool against spirits, witches and demons.
The sort of thing that writers tend to notice, and file for later.
And it turns out there is no equivalent of cold iron because, basically, cold iron is plain old iron, but sharpened.

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Francis Grose’s 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue defines cold iron as “A sword, or any other weapon for cutting or stabbing.”

… says Wikipedia.
And Kipling, of course, used the expression to mean “weapon”. Continue reading →


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Nicholas Roerich & The Sacred Union of the East

Like most readers of supernatural fiction, I first heard the name Roerich in H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness, in which the Gentleman from Providence references the

“strange and disturbing paintings of Nicholas Roerich”

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I would meet this unusual character much later, as I started collecting books and stories about the Silk Road, the mysteries of Central Asia, and the Himalayas. Continue reading →


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Have you seen the stars tonight?

This post is about the intersection of ancient history, poetry and science. It is the sort of thing I love, and I decided to share – and I think this is perfectly on topic1.

Let’s start with the ancient world.
One thing we often forget, as we live in our cities, is how dramatic and impressive the night sky must have been to the ancients.
And this not because we know the stars are thermonuclear furnaces burning in the void, light-years away, and they had no idea.
No, the reason is simply that they had darkness – no electric lights, no great cities filled with neons and light.
To the ancient, the night was dark, and the stars were many, and bright and clear in the night sky2.

 

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The ancients navigated by the stars, tried to predict the future and interpret fate by the stars, and in general looked up and wondered. Continue reading →