October, 2020

The Treasure of Smaug: Tolkien’s Mythological Source

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit we learn that the dragon Smaug has taken the massive wealth of the dwarves….so many gems and coins, the wealth of nations in this world and more. It almost seems unreal to conceive of such a collection. According to the Prose Edda (Vikings) the dwarves were the maggots of the […]



The Naïf in Literature

The world today needs the Naïf more than ever. For thousands of years Western Culture taught us about an aspect of ourselves that could transcend the “failed myths” that no longer served them in the culture. This was done through the Naïf – the naive yet seemingly delusional reality of a simple sort of hero […]



Gildas the Wise

One the last things I researched before I started my Phantammeron novels was a series of very old Latin texts. These old manuscripts were written in Britain right after the Romans left the island around 410 AD. It’s a long story, but basically Britain had fallen into chaos after the last Roman Consuls and legions […]