Essays

Tolkien complained that critics studiously overlooked the monsters at the centre of Beowulf. I wonder whether we have done something similar with the Odyssey. We ask where the monsters lived, what inspired them, or whether they were based on real places. These are interesting questions, but perhaps not the most important ones...

For early modern Europeans, the unicorn was not just a creature of legend but a matter of fact. Its horn, or “alicorn,” was believed to cure all ailments and protect against poison. In reality, these miraculous substances often came from narwhals from the Arctic seas, which caused quite the marketing challenge when the connection started to come to light...

Thoughts on writing for a disappearing nature: how monsters became my refuge from environmental loss.