 | I have mostly inert dragons of many types, though, and I've named my underground house Drachenhöhle (dragon's cavern, which is why this is a "cave annex"), which ought to make them feel at home, don't you agree? It's not just a name; my home really is almost entirely underground. From the road, all one sees is the garage with, of course, a dragon painted on the door. To get to the actual lake-facing front of the house, you need to find your way down a usually-half-overgrown path, through a gate which is regularly frozen shut in winter. |  |
I also have another name, Mechthild zur Drachenhöhle, with a device(coat of arms) to match, which I use when I visit the Middle Ages. I've been interested in the Middle Ages for many years and like to visit them in person via SCA activities as well as studying the languages, literature, and culture of the period.
 | I also acquired a
lap harp a few years ago, which I'm learning to play, concentrating on
13th century music. (Well, I needed a medieval musical
instrument!) |  |
 |
In the "current Middle Ages" I also shoot arrows enthusiastically, if not always accurately(sometimes making dents in my garage wall when I miss). I'm also working to become a bard; I became a journeywoman in the Minstrels' Guild of Drachenwald while in Germany in 1999. I've even been known to teach a class on medieval poetry now and again and I've begun illuminating scrolls lately as well. The H from the Book of Kells is the fanciest one I've done to date. I do lots of other things, too. I read voraciously. I swim several mornings a week(in a pool; I live in Wisconsin and it gets cold in the winter) and would swim more often if the pool were open more mornings. | 
|
.jpg) | Apart from all the time I spend at the computer e-mailing, newsgrouping, playing with graphics, etc., since I retired, I've also been ham radio operator K9TUD since 1959, but don't get on the air much lately. I play around with all kinds of crafts. I have a yard which demands more time than I give it, too. I really don't have enough time for my hobbies! |
| And as for what an erilar is, I call it a kind of job description: literate person who can create runic inscriptions. This is the Rök stone, a Viking memorial. Many runic inscriptions include "signatures" like "I erilar carved these runes." I actually have carved a few runes, though not in large stones like this, but this erilar normally uses other media; stones are not very portable, after all. |
| And speaking of vikings, this is my
favorite verse from the Old Norse "Havamal". |
Another thing I really like to do
is travel, particularly in Germany. In the summer of 1997 I chased back and forth
all over Germany with my daughter and two grandchildren for a month,
traveling by train, bus, and foot and staying mostly in youth hostels.
It's not the only trip I've made to Germany by any means, but it was
certainly unique. Most of my trips have been with my high school German
students, but I've been there without them as well, starting with the
three semesters I studied in Bochum.
The last several student trips were
with the same airline, so I collected enough frequent flyer miles to go
to Germany all by myself and do exactly what I pleased in 1999. I only
had enough miles to go in mid-winter, but since I retired I can do
things like that, and there aren't many tourists around then to clutter
up the castles and museums. Not a bad time for a castle hunt. At the
time I thought it might be the last one, but I keep hunting.
My next trip was devoted even MORE
to German history. I started with a list of German youth hostels
actually IN castles and then figured out which ones I could reasonably
tie together with public transportation. I also had a list of open-air
museums I tried to combine with my castles and some of them would not be
open in October, while August is not only touristy but too hot for me,
so the trip was going to be in September. I also wanted to visit some
friends on weekends. . . I had fun planning it for months. I had to take the page down to make room for more recent trips, not all to Germany.
I don't just hunt castles, however. I'm also still interested in medieval Scandinavia, particularly its Viking past and its maritime aspects, which led me to Iceland.
For this one, click HERE.
In 2003, however, I got back to
castle-hunting, this time in both Germany and Austria, though not in as many youth hostel castles as I had assembled in 2001. For this one,
In 2004 I tried something new, first Viking-hunting in Scandinavia and then joining an Elderhostel tour for "Culture along the Pyrenees". For this one, click HERE for Scandinavia. (I took down the French part, again to make room for later pages.)
Then in 2006 it was time for another totally self-planned trip. I decided it was time for a little exploration of Switzerland. . . but I began it with a German detour. For that page, click HERE. The Swiss part of the trip is a little longer. To go directly to it, click HERE.
But after no trip in 2005, I let myself be carried away and made a second, shorter one in August, 2006. To find out what I was up to in Sweden. click HERE.
Then in spring 2007 I went castle-hunting in a new venue: Wales and Yorkshire.
But in spring 2008 I decided to try something totally different: I went island-hopping.