Elspeth Payne on…

The Book of Taliesin is a late Middle Welsh version of the ales of Gwion Bach and Taliesin, mostly around the court of Maelgyn Gynedd.  It was written in the 1550s, the same time Henry VIII was on the throne (or maybe collected then? Middle Welsh is 12th-14th c, and Taliesin was tenth c).  […]

I used to teach Anatomy and Physiology – a twelve-month long, three hour a week course, half anatomy, half physiology.  A&P has a deadly reputation for difficulty and tedium that it completely deserves.  We instructors did what we could to lighten it up.  We had foot-high wooden skeletons and modelling clay; […]

The year is 1910.  The southeastern U.S. is still recovering from the Civil war, which devastated the region though it ended years before.  Edwin Mims and my great-grandfather Bruce Payne edit a volume – 454 pages in today’s edition! – to share the wealth of southern culture and make it […]

  By Robert Herrick, 1591-1674, London, England To the Right Honourable Mildmay, Earl of Westmoreland Come, sons of summer, by whose toil We are the lords of wine and oil; By whose tough labours, and rough hands, We rip up first, then reap our lands. Crown’d with the ears of corn, […]