Chelm, the City of Fools
January 23, 2018
In Jewish folklore, the city of Chelm, Poland, is a city of fools. The ‘wise men of Chelm’ overlook laws of nature, fail to perform basic tasks, and just generally make silly and inappropriate decisions. There are many stories explaining why Chelmers are so foolish. One says that the angel responsible for seeding the world […]
Elephants vs. Dragons
September 19, 2017
I stumbled upon this wonderful bit of Pliny the other day, and there was no way I wasn’t sharing it. Pliny the Elder was a first-century A.D. Roman author, natural philosopher, military officer, and senior Imperial official. His Naturalis Historia was an encyclopedia covering much of what Romans knew about the natural world. It also […]