A Viking grave in a Scottish churchyard. (I don’t remember the name of the village, but it was very near Loch Lomond.)

The gravestone is carved so as to resemble an overturned boat— boat burials were still a thing.

The “viking funeral,” with the ship set on fire and pushed out to sea, is a creation of Hollywood, or maybe Victorian fictioneers. What they actually did was bury the whole ship with the corpse in it.

Here the deceased didn’t rate a whole ship, but he got a boat big enough to carry him to the (presumably Christian) afterlife.

This photo is 50 years old! And sort of looks it. I and Photoshop have done our best.

This, from 1975, looks down from Delphi toward the Gulf of Corinth. I had come to Delphi at the command of a couple of major figures— one from the Bible, the other from science fiction.

Not that I wouldn’t have gone anyway. I was in the bus station in Athens waiting for the bus to Delphi when a stranger approached me. He had long light brown hair and a beard, wore a blanket over his shoulders, and had a strange pale glint in his eye. He looked like Jesus (Northern European Protestant variant). He thrust one hand toward me. There was a book in the hand.

“HAVE YOU READ THIS?” he demanded— in a voice like, well, God.

I looked at the book and saw that it was the British paperback of Frank Herbert’s Dune, which I had in fact read.

However, I knew that when Jesus tells you to read a book about religion while on the road to Delphi, you should oblige. So I said thank you and took the book.

Since I knew about the history of Delphi and its oracle, I was able to do a mental compare-and-contrast with Paul Atreides’ manipulation of planted prophecy to create a religion to justify first, his survival, and second, his ascent to power. Being in a place where historical characters had manipulated religion in much the same way as Paul and his mother added considerably to my appreciation of the history.

And the amazing natural beauty certainly helped. Delphi and Parnassus are astoundingly beautiful, and you can understand how people thought the place was holy. (It still should be, as far as I am concerned.)

I even drank from the sacred fountain, though it didn’t give me the gift of prophecy, and when I climbed the stair to look at the fountain’s source, I found it full of green algae and trash. I’m amazed I didn’t get terribly sick.

And I never met Jesus again, so far as I know.

A reconstruction of the turret of the USS Monitor, open to allow a view of the mechanism and one of the two 11-inch guns. The turret was designed by American inventor Theodore Timby, and the rest of the ship by the Swedish-born John Ericsson.

A problem with the turret was that there was no brake— if the mechanism was engaged the turret would keep turning, one full turn in a little more than two minutes. There was no way for the gunners to see the target except by looking out through the gunport, which means the gun had to be fired at the first glimpse of the target, or wait another couple minutes for another chance.

Monitor was the first turreted warship built, and gave its name to a whole class of vessels that stayed in service at least through the First World War.

From the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, 2018.

Trees, pond, sandhill cranes. Sunset today.