If you’re a scholar of The Chronicles of Narnia, you’ll know that the White Witch’s Captain of the Secret Police, a wolf named Maugrim, received a name change when The Lion, the Witch, and Wardrobe was published in the U.S. in 1950. That change was to Fenris Ulf, a name familiar to those who read …
One of the things I dislike about Prince Caspian is that, after many, many, centuries, hags and werewolves are still around, even though Lewis told us they had been eliminated at the end of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Seems like someone didn’t do the job they were supposed to. Nevertheless, they’re there, …
Cats get short shrift in The Chronicles of Narnia. Oh, sure, Aslan is a lion, and leopards and panthers are also mentioned. But domestic cats, unlike dogs, do not get to be heroes. In fact, a domestic cat is one of the notable villains of the series, the creatively named Ginger of The Last Battle. …
What is G? Good things, that’s what. G is the most social letter of the alphabet. It’s garrulous, giggly, generous, gregarious, and full of giddy genius. Hard or soft, it’s full of greatness, a grandiose gadabout of a glamorous guest, garbed in glittering garnets. The letter G Is pure showbiz. With growing green leaves, it’s …
When Zhu Zhu Pets came out in the beginning of the 2010s they were the hottest toy around. These little stuffed creatures were modeled on hamsters and came with wheels, so they could zip up and down trackways and do all the things Hot Wheels cars could. In addition, they made cute noises when they …
Some of the first human beings ever to leave Africa colonized southeast Asian tens of thousands of years ago, using continental land bridges for transit as the sea was much lower. Since the end of the Ice Age, the islands were isolated; but the beginning of recorded history brought more visitors, among them Indians and …
For a change let’s look at dog names rather than people names. Humans love their dogs, and it helps in training if the dog has a name that’s short and easy to say. Tucker, these days, is a popular name, as is Raven, Zelda, and Zeus. Some names don’t mean anything but they sound cute, …
Authentic-sounding (NOT actually authentic, I want to make clear if you’re writing fact-based historical fiction) Greek names for men are just as easy to generate as those for women. And to accompany them, here’s a painting of the most manly man in Greek myth of all — Heracles! He’s pictured in his struggle against a …
I covered Greek female names before on this site, in this post about female centaurs. For that I drew on actual, lesser-known names from the myths of Ancient Greece. But since I had researched so much for that, how difficult would be to generate some in a completely random way? So, you need a Greek …
The phrase “Venus and Mars” is a potent one. Not only does it bring to mind Venus, the goddess of beauty and love, and Mars, the god of war and brutality, in all their opposition, but also nights of stargazing, self-help books on relations between the sexes, astrology columns, and (as above) anthemical rock albums. …