Nothing new under the sun?
Vikings ripped off by fake swords:
Some Viking swords were among the best ever made, still fearsome weapons after a millennium. The legendary swords found at Viking sites across northern Europe bear the maker's name, Ulfberht, in raised letters at the hilt end. Puzzlingly, so do the worst ones, found in fragments on battle sites or in graves.
The Vikings would have found it impossible to tell the difference when they bought a newly forged sword: both would have looked identical, and had razor sharp blades. The difference would have only emerged in use, often fatally.
Lucy Mangan's deprived childhood - lack of Arthuriana. Currently not findable on the Guardian website. I had various collections of the tales in childhood, and I was certainly able to appreciate the meta in T H White's take by the time I got to it.
Decline of the tomboy - yet again one of those columns at which one wonders if the sample in question equals 'my street and part of the next one', or how many children the writer actually knows, if she had to do so much looking around to find examples. Could it not be that they don't make the immediate startling impression that pink sparklies do?
Further French ancestral fuss - Descendant of Louis XIV tries to ban exhibition. Bourbons b learnin nuffin n forgettin nuffin.