5. Queen of Sheba

Think you know the Queen of Sheba? Take this multiple choice exam to find out!

Be careful! An ANSWER SHEET is posted immediately below the quiz.
Note: there may be multiple answers for each question.

Queen of Sheba-ish Quiz

A) Besides her famous encounter with Solomon found in the Old Testament, the Queen of Sheba appears in:

1. The New Testament
2. The Qur'an
3. Ethiopian traditions
4. Kenyan and Nigerian traditions
5. All of the Above

B) Sheba is located in:

1. Modern day Ethiopia 
2. Modern day Yemen
3. Egypt
4. wherever the Garden of Eden is 
5. the South

C) The Queen of Sheba's real name is:

1. Bilqis
2. Makeda
3. Nicaule
4. Oloye Bilikisu Sungbo
5. Sheba
6. Nakuti
7. She probably doesn't have a name

D) The Queen of Sheba came to King Solomon to:

1. Ask him a bunch of questions
2. Get Impregnated
3. Steal the Ark of the Covenant
4. Worship Allah

E) Some Christian interpreters see the Queen of Sheba as a foreshadowing:

1. Of the Virgin Mary
2. Of the Three Wise Men
3. Of the marriage between Christ and the Church
4. For the Grafting in of Gentile nations as God's chosen people
5. All of the above
6. None of the above

F) King Solomon:

1. Raped the Queen 
2. Gave the Queen the Ark of the Covenant
3. Steals the Queen's throne
4. Convinces the Queen to worship the one true God
5. All of the Above 
6. None of the Above

G) The Queen of Sheba is prophesied to:

1. Stand in judgment over a particular generation of people
2. Be given a place of honor alongside Balaam
3. Hand out the mark of the beast to the people; 666
4. Return to the Ark of the Covenant to worship God
5. Remain dead forever

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Answer Key

Correct Answers in Red

Reference Note: most of the information I have came from this page:

http://www.madote.com/2010/09/ethiopias-queen-of-sheba-and-ark-of.html

and, of course, wikipedia.

A) Besides her famous encounter with Solomon found in the Old Testament, the Queen of Sheba appears in:

1. The New Testament 
• Jesus talks about "the Queen of the South" visiting Solomon in Matthew 12:42 and Luke 11:31
2. The Qur'an 
• As is the case many times with the Qur'an, stories from the Bible are retold/retooled. The Queen of Sheba is no exception.
3. Ethiopian traditions 
• The Ethiopians trace their lineage supposedly back to the Queen of Sheba. They call her the ancestor of the "Solomonic dynasty", which was the first line of Kings of the Ethiopian empire which showed up around the 14th century… leaving roughly 2400 years between the Queen and her kingly descendants. 
4. Kenyan and Nigerian traditions 
• Yep. Both cultures have their own name for her.
5. All of the Above

B) Sheba is located in:

1. Modern day Ethiopia 
2. Modern day Yemen
3. Egypt
4. wherever the Garden of Eden is 
5. the South

• While the Ethiopians surely would be mad at me for denying their heritage, there appears to be no direct archeological-historical link between the Queen and the people that claim her. Meanwhile muslims tend to favor Yemen as her native soil. This isn't too unreasonable, in that Ethiopia and Yemen  are separated by only 25 kilometers. Since the Queen comes to Israel from the South, it's been postulated that she must have come from some place within Egypt… but again, there just isn't any strong evidence there to make that leap. As for the Garden of Eden, I just threw it in there because the simple fact of the matter is that not unlike Eden, we have no real idea where Sheba is. That's why I'll stick with Jesus' words. Rather than refer to her as the Queen of Sheba, Jesus merely calls her the Queen of the South. So I'm going to go on a limb and say that Sheba is South of Israel. 

C) The Queen of Sheba's real name is:

1. Bilqis 
•  the Queen's name as it appears in the Qur'an
2. Makeda 
• her Ethiopian name
3. Nicaule 
• the name 1st century historian Josephus called her
4. Oloye Bilikisu Sungbo 
• her Nigerian name.
5. Sheba 
1. Genesis 10:7 lists a man name Sheba as a descendant of Ham… but whoever he was, he wasn't the Queen who visited Solomon. So, tough luck, you're wrong!
6. Nakuti 
• her Kenyan name
7. She probably doesn't have a name 
• Nah! Everybody has a name, Silly! See what I did there? I named you Silly, thus proving my point that everyone has a name. 

So the correct answer is 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6… but the real point is everybody likes to make up a name for her in their own likeness.

D) The Queen of Sheba came to King Solomon to:

1. Ask him a bunch of questions 
• This seems to be the one point that everyone agrees on. 1 Chronicles 9:1 states, "Now when the Queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, she came to Jerusalem to test Solomon with difficult questions."
2. Get Impregnated 
• Although the Ethiopian tradition does have the Queen marching of with Solomon's baby in her, the tradition doesn't state that outcome as her motive for visiting the King.
3. Steal the Ark of the Covenant 
• Again, Ethiopian tradition has the Ark of the Covenant coming to them, but it's not from the Queen, but rather, her son (aka Solomon's son) who either steals the ark or is given it by his father.
4. Worship Allah 
• Not really. The story in the Qur'an has Solomon calling her to him, and she more or less comes to him out of fear of his Kingdom. After she sees the marvelous things he can do, she bows down and worships Allah.

Hey, look at that! A rather straight forward question! Props to you if you got it right!

E) Some Christian interpreters see the Queen of Sheba as a foreshadowing:

1. Of the Virgin Mary
2. Of the Three Wise Men
3. Of the marriage between Christ and the Church
4. For the Grafting in of Gentile nations as God's chosen people
5. All of the above
6. None of the above
• The Queen of Sheba seems to be a point of fascination, especially for Medieval artists and theologians. I don't really understand why she is sometimes depicted as a precursor to the Virgin Mary, but the Wise Men myth makes some sense. The Bible says that she comes bearing gifts of gold, spices and precious stones to Solomon. That at least is similar to the Wise men's gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The Gentile analogy also makes logical sense. There are not too many Old Testament foreigners who come to worship the God of the Jews, so this story presents a rather unique episode that shows the Jewish faith being extended to other nations. 

F) King Solomon:

1. Raped the Queen -- so, the Ethiopian tradition has the Queen being weary of Solomon, and so she makes him vow that he won't take her by force. He agrees as long as she doesn't take any of his possessions by force. She agrees, but smart-alecky Solomon feeds her super dooper spicy food for dinner. In the middle of the night the Queen ventures out of her bedroom and swipes some water. Sexy Solomon is waiting for this, and calls her out for breaking her vow. The two then spend the night together. Is that rape? Kinda seems like it… but the Ethiopians 
2. Gave the Queen the Ark of the Covenant -- I kinda expected that some tradition would say this… after all, the Bible says Solomon gave her any and everything she wanted. But apparently the Ark was not on her list of wants. 
3. Steals the Queen's throne -- In the Qur'an, when Solomon finds out the Queen is coming, he asks who can go steal her throne for him. A jinn says he can do it in the twinkling of the eye. When the Queen arrives and sees her throne, she knows Solomon's not messing around. She quits worshipping the sun, and starts worshipping Solomon's God. 
4. Convinces the Queen to worship the one true God -- While the Qur'an refers to the Queen's conversion, it should be noted that although the Old Testament has the Queen praising the God of Israel, she doesn't herself worship God. 
5. All of the Above
6. None of the Above

Solomon's gotta live up to that reputation of being the smartest dude in the world, doesn't he? Answer; yes, he does!

G) The Queen of Sheba is prophesied to:

1. Stand in judgment over a particular generation of people
• Matthew 12 and Luke 11 both have Jesus stating that, "The Queen of the South will rise up with the men of this generation at the judgment and condemn them…"
2. Be given a place of honor alongside Balaam 
• Nope. No one tries to make any connection between the Queen and Balaam. Only me. In my spare time. 
3. Hand out the mark of the beast to the people; 666 
• No, BUT! Check this out… 1 Kings chapter 10 takes 13 verses to tell the story of the Queen of Sheba… and the very next verse reads as follows, "Now the weight of gold which came in to Solomon in one year was 666 talents of gold…" Of course, the book of Revelation later marks the number 666 as the number of the great deceiver. So, is this coincidence, or something more? 
4. Return to the Ark of the Covenant to worship God 
• Uh, no. I made this up. 
5. Remain dead forever
• No! You only wish she'd stay dead!

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Postscript

I chose to create this little quiz to focus in on the myth of the Queen of Sheba, rather than the person. She means a lot of things to a lot of different people. She's a sign of national pride as well as a launch point for religious zeal.

 This church, The Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion, in Axum, Ethiopia claims to literally have the Ark of the Covenant!

When I decided to write about her, I was mostly intrigued by her connection to the supposed Ark of the Covenant which the Ethiopian Church believes they currently have. But now it seems apparent to me that the appeal of this particular person in history is based precisely on the fact that we don't know anything about her. Everyone loves to speculate. She's an enigma; one that captured the interest of the wisest man alive. 

Queen of Sheba, whoever you are, I look forward to someday (after the fateful judgment day) learning who you really are, what you're really about. 

That's all… another mystery trapped in the sands of time. 

4. Seau and Caminiti

thesis question: Did my heroes defraud me?

Born and raised in the town of Oceanside, the northern tip of San Diego County, I had two local heroes  growing up: Ken Caminiti and Junior Seau.

Ken Caminiti

Caminiti, or Cami as locals called him, was the living legend of the San Diego Padres. The mid-nineties was a perfect time to be a young boy idolizing baseball stars. Between McGwire, Sosa, Bonds and Johnson, little boys nationwide saw goliath-sized heroes sprouting up in nearly every town. Cami was ours.

The San Diego Padres acquired Cami in a blockbuster trade with the Houston Astros after the 94 season. By 1996, our Friars, a team that had been full of "dumb bunnies" (a phrase my Mother liked to use for useless players) my whole life, made the playoffs. They did so on the back of their 3rd base star, who hit 40 home runs, ate a Snickers bar before every game, and three times, yep, three times hit a home run from both sides of the plate in one game. At the time, that'd never been done before.

In 1996, as I turned 10, the Padres reached the playoffs for the first time in my life and Ken Caminiti was named the National League MVP. If anyone doubted Cami's worthiness of that award, that person needed only to be directed to this insane highlight.

I went to every game I could the next couple of years. One night, my family went to "Christian Night" at the stadium. Everything was normal, just a regular night game, except after the game a half dozen Padres came out and gave their testimonies to the faithful fans who wished to merge their beliefs with their sports heroes. Caminiti gave a speech. I don't recall what he said, but he made it clear he loved Jesus. This enshrined him forever in my child mind as a true hero; a behemoth of virtue on and off the field.

Then, in 98, the Padres reached the World Series. It was the most glorious time ever to be a Padres fan. All our days were marvels. Our humble team was facing the Yankees -- the titans of the sport. Our little Friars had accomplished something unforgettable, and Cami was leading our warrior pack. 

After we lost the Series, a horrible, if not predictable, event occurred. Our beloved hero was traded. We knew dark times were upon us as our savior of third departed from our midst. This began a bad era for the Padres, but also marked the beginning of the end of Mr. Caminiti's life.

It was clear that Caminiti's body was breaking down -- he barely lasted two more seasons before calling it quits in 2001. But oh well, not every player can maintain life as a baseball star. I only hoped that he was enjoying retirement. 

With the 2000s came the steroids controversy. Cami's name stood in front of the pack. In 2002 he admitted to Sports Illustrated that he used steroids during his MVP season. That same year his wife divorced him. He started bouncing in and out of rehab centers. In 2004 he overdosed while taking a speedball, a mix of heroin and cocaine. What an idiot. 

His autopsy reported that his "overly enlarged heart" was partially to blame for his death. 

It didn't appear to me that his heart was big at all. 

Junior Seau

Seau's story hits even closer to home. I used to brag to my friends that local legend Junior Seau used to cheat off my big sis' tests in high school. His jersey was the only recognizable name that hung at my alma mater. Seau came from my town… and he grew up to be one of the most dominant linebackers in NFL history. Even better than that, he played his best years for the San Diego Chargers, leading them to their only Super Bowl in 1994. 

I've read that the average NFL player stays in the league for 3.5 seasons. Seau played for twenty. He retired in 2010 as a beloved football player, and an adored local hero. I got his autograph when I was 11. I kept the autograph in a place of honor. The autograph is still on display in my old room in my parents' home. 

Seau retired in 2010. He shot himself in the chest on May 2nd, 2012. 

What do I do with that? 

Worse still, an autopsy showed that he suffered from CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), which is a brain disease closely linked to concussions. Did the NFL kill him? -- Well… I don't know.

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What do we do when our local heroes are made into monsters? What do we do when our heroes are made miserable by the very thing that made them legends in the first place?

Should I disavow the NFL? Should I not watch, knowing that the sport is more akin to gladiator games than anything else? 

The Chargers made the playoffs this year. I was SO excited. And again, I found my specific heroes on the field… but maybe they should receive more of my pity and less of my adulation. Maybe that would help things. Maybe Caminiti and Seau didn't have to die. Maybe things could have been different. Maybe my heroes could have been heroes in other people's lives, in other ways. Maybe they could have been firefighters. Maybe they should have been. Maybe, maybe, maybe. 

Damn. 

3. H.P. Lovecraft

Here again we find ourselves studying a man who happens to have an ironic name. A last name the likes of Hatecraft, Fearcraft, or Terrorcrafterson would all be much more inline with the character of Lovecraft's life. But this is life, and life likes to hand us spoons of irony from time to time.

Lovecraft's fame appears to be on the rise here in the 21st century at a much swifter pace than it ever was during his lifetime or the subsequent decades after his death. My main hypothesis for this: Mr. Lovecraft created a coherent universe throughout his writings. Nowadays, everywhere one looks there's another "franchise" bursting onto the scene. This is, in my summation, a logical progression from that which I'll call 'sequelism'. If a story is wonderful, then naturally the audience will want to return to that place with those people. The most base way to bring people back is to create a sequel; another story dealing with the exact characters. But therein lies a problem; the characters we use grow weary over time. Familiarity breeds (a sort of) contempt. Therefore, things like Star Wars and Star Trek can be so infinite because they exist beyonds the edges of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo's lives. They are multi-dimensional places... places to sit down and rest in. Mr. Lovecraft, it would appear, composed a terrifying and complex universe in his writings that the good people of the 21st century are only now beginning to fall victim to.

For those not in the know, H.P. Lovecraft lived from 1890-1937. He was an American who pretended to be an Englishman. He made his living writing short fiction for various magazines. He never made much money, and more or less died just above the poverty line. He remains, however, one of the architects of modern horror; a precursor to the likes of Stephen King and John Carpenter.

But dear friends, there are near endless tides of conversations and debates we could sift through concerning Lovecraft's work and legacy. There are already hundreds of books dedicated to parsing out the essence de Lovecraft. I don't much care to guesstulate about his Mommy issues or rant about his rampant racism. All I care about is what I perceive Lovecraft to be. This then being my blog, I heretofore loft us into that specific conversation about which I design to have. High-ho Silver!

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Misotheism is a fancy word easily defined as, "the hatred of God or gods". I've run into many-a atheist, agnostic, polytheist and pantheist in my day, but I don't think I've ever had a conversation with a self-aware misotheist. For my money, Lovecraft was such a man.

Over and over again, Lovecraft's characters find themselves discovering some dark secret. Typically, this dark secret relates to a creature who landed on Earth in the distant past, and is hideous in its incomprehensibleness and unimaginable power. The vastness of that newly discovered enemy is beyond understanding. You don't fight these creatures. You don't have a prayer. They destroy you.
More than typically, knowledge of such a reality leads the protagonist to utter insanity. You cannot visit the unfathomable without losing your grasp on the fabric of reality. A brief summary of three of Lovecraft's stories will suffice to make the point:

The Call of Cthulhu: Anthropologists discover a primitive culture wherein a giant octopus creature is worshipped. A quote:

"They worshipped, so they said, the Great Old Ones who lived ages before there were any men...and...formed a cult which had never died...hidden in distant wastes and dark places all over the world until the time when the great priest Cthulhu, from his dark house in the mighty city of R'lyeh under the waters, should rise and bring the earth again beneath his sway. Some day he would call, when the stars were ready, and the secret cult would always be waiting to liberate him."

At the Mountains of Madness: A group of explorers find the remnants of a vast ancient civilization shrouded deep in the mountains of Antartica. They discover that great races of aliens descended on Earth long years ago and fought horrific wars. Here too, the Old Ones are waiting to rise again.

The Colour out of Space: A small asteroid hits a farm. Over the course of the following year, the family who works the land goes mad. The crops tastes putrid, the animals are disintegrating, and the family members who go mad first start whispering some horrible sounding foreign tongue. This is my favorite Lovecraft work as it doesn't try to give an explanation -- it just painstakingly let's us watch a series of strange events unfold.

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As one collects Lovecraftian stories, the importance of staying in the dark is applauded. 

In his preface to the Call of Cthulhu, Lovecraft wrote,  

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

An artist's take on the monster Cthulhu

From my vantage point, (I, being one who loves and worships Jesus Christ as God) I can find a deep resonance of truth behind Lovecraft's theology of fear. 

I just got through a study of the book of Luke, and this go-round, what really bore out of the pages as a major theme of Christ's ministry was that of hypocrisy. God is not a fan of hypocrisy. In the church we must always be on guard of pharisee-ism. The tricky part of hypocrisy is that it often strikes us without ever revealing is ugly face. 

In this way, when I enter into conversations with people outside my faith, I search for hypocritical leanings. If the hypocrisy slaps me in the face, I'll quickly let go of any logical discussion of Christianity. It feels like a fruitless effort. BUT! On the flipside, if there's a person who stands firm on (from my worldview) their heresy and remains true to that, I feel a kinship with that person... and I feel like fruitful discussion can follow. 

For all of Lovecraft's weirdnesses and wrongs, at least he comes off as consistent. If you are not in community with God, if you don't know who he is, then it makes perfect sense to hide from him.  If you don't understand God as a spectacular dude who loves you, then there is only room enough for fear.

As for me, I see Lovecraftian writings as bearing two right ideas about the world with exemplary vision. These ideas, I think, are almost nowhere else in the world depicted as meticulously clear as Lovecraft performs them. 

IDEA ONE

God(s) are worthy of our fear. We like to depict God as the old guy in white robes with a long white beard. That's a pretty innocuous vision. Rather, God is so unspeakably powerful that merely looking on him should mean death for us. Or, to take "the gods" view, we can almost say the same things of demons. 

When the Carthaginians worshipped their god Ba'al, they constructed a gigantic thirty foot high statue. The statue had long arms outstretched that, by a pulley system, could be dropped at any moment. Below the statue, a pit of hot, burning coals steamed. The Carthaginians would put their first born children into the outstretched arms of this god, and then have the arms dropped. Carthaginian children would pass through fire into the next life. 

That is terrifying. 

IDEA TWO

In The Colour Out of Space, after a group experiences an absurd aberration, Lovecraft writes that they were, "Too awed to present theories." AWE. 

We need awe.

In this, our scientific age, awe is a dying virtue. We are slowly marching up the arm of knowledge, believing ourselves to be champions and conquerors over nature. A small pill that wards off disturbing thoughts gives us comfort and counsel. We need not become overwhelmed by the scope of the universe. Nothing is impossible, right? We will overcome. Lovecraft reminds us that we're wrong. 

We have not yet even uncovered one percent of the vastness of the universe. It remains an enigma to us. Anyone who says otherwise is ignorant of their utter ignorance. 

Lovecraft's fear gives us reason to pause, and reflect on the bigness of the cosmos. We are but ants. 

Awe is a powerful idea that, I think, the great cathedral architects understood much better than we do today. We like things small. We prefer things that can fit in our hands. It is a fortunate thought to dwell on just how small we are. 

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Lovecraft's advice/warning is for us to, flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. 

Get that?

Flee to the dark.

We know the dark. There are no terrors there in that place of solitude. Juxtapose that with some of the opening words of John's gospel:

In him (Jesus) was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it... The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming in the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him... But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God... And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 

2. Stephen, Count of Blois (aka Stephen the Blah)

This is a classic case of emotionalism turning into stupidity, which spits out returns of
blah, blah, blah.

Let me explain… 

There was this Count, you see; his name was Stephen. Stephen ruled over a part of France called Blois. This Blois is pronounced, according to Professor Thomas F. Madden (in his excellent "History of the Crusades" course on Great Courses) as "Blah". Blah, as in, "Blah, blah, blah". My fifth grade-level boy mind finds this hilarious. And the hilarity is made ironic by the subsequent yarn that is the life of Stephen of Blah.

Note: heretofore I'll just call him 'Stephen the Blah' to avoid confusion of pronunciation (Darn French!).

So, I take it that Stephen the Blah saw his life as shaping up as anything but blahblah-boring. You see, he inherited a rich estate of prime Frankish land. He got to marry the daughter of William the Conqueror (and anyone who gets "The Conqueror" placed after their first name has got to be rad, right?). And now, here in 1098, the Pope was calling for an armed pilgrimage, the first of its kind. How fun! Now, with any luck, our friend Stephen the Blah could rightly turn that name into something more admirable like Stephen the Conquering Blah! That sounds more like it!

Off Stephen the Blahblah went to go conqueror Jerusalem and kill a bunch of heathens. I reckon he figured he'd grab some booty and bear the bounty back to Blah bin bo bime. I mean, in no time. Sorry about that… I'm getting carried baway...

Stephen the Blahblahblah's wife, Adela of Normandy, by all accounts was a bossy pants, so spending a sweet two-year siesta away from the nagger probably didn't seem like such a bad idea. Additionally, to wrap it all up in a tight little bow, one of the foremost leaders of this, the 1st Crusade, was a man named Peter the Hermit. Hermy was more or less a rockstar built in a John the Baptist frame. He was going to be a blast to pal around the Middle East with! Score.

Here's Peter the Hermit leading the way!

History tells us that at the getgo, Ste-blah was all about this Crusade. He trolled every medieval conversation from France to Constantinople with talk of the Crusade's up-and-rising epicness. That is, he was gung-ho until things started getting a little bit sharky. A sharky they got!

First, he and his army had to march through Constantinople, the capital of Byzantium. The dude in charge at Constantinople (not yet Istanbul) made him pledge that he couldn't take any land for his own won in battle. That pretty much eradicated any hope of Steve Blah getting a nifty "The Conqueror" appendicized to his name. Shucks. But there was an insurance policy put into place. The Byzantines vowed to put together an army of their own to combine forces with the Western Roman Empire to form a mega-super-duper Crusader army! Hooray!

Stephen Blah-hard never got to Jesuralem.

The next bump in the road, however, would show Steve's true blah colors. On their way to the Holy Land, the Crusaders needed to besiege the big town of Antioch. The only problem was, no one wanted to let them in. They huffed and they puffed, but they just couldn't blow down those walls. The Crusaders, with nowhere to go, started to starve outside the gates of Antioch. Months wore down the morale of the men. But they weren't worried… right… the Byzantine army was bound to be a-fixin toward Antioch to help the Crusaders siege the day at any moment, right? (Hehe… get it? I wrote "Siege the day" instead of "Seize the day"!)

But Stephen da Blahblah had no time to sit around waiting for some Greek speaking slowpoke. He had no time for fun and starvation games. He decided to just march right on home.

That walk home must have been sad… knowing he was coming home to ball-and-nagger Adela. It must have mad him grumpy. So grumpy, in fact, that when he happened upon the Byzantine army on their way to help out his Crusading buddies in Antioch, Stephen Blahpants told them that the army was defeated, so the Byzantines were better off just heading home. So they did.

When Stephen got back to Blahville, he told Nagger Adela that the Crusade was a failure and everyone died. Surely that was the truth. With the Byzantine army gone home, the Crusaders didn't have a prayer… except they did. Little did he know that our old friend Peter the Hermit had miraculously led the army to victory in both Antioch and Jerusalem, Huzzah! When word came 'round that the Crusaders had indeed won the Holy Land back, you betcha the Nagger was full of piss and beans for our precious Stephen Blahman. She tattled up-and-down France about Steve's wussiness until all the empire knew of his manless-ness.

Adela even made sure the papers covered the story.

I'm sure S-blah begged Adela to let sleeping dogs lie, that there would inevitably be another major Crusade soon enough that he could jump aboard (there indeed would be many, many more opportunities), but Adela would have none of that. He needed to go back NOW!

Thusly, having been beaten up by his wife, Stephen, Count of Blois led a minor crusade the next year. That crusade has come down in history to be known as the "Crusade of the Faint-Hearted" because Stephen was joined by many-another wife-insulted, poo-pooed 1st Crusade abandoners. Stephen, with much speed and agility found himself killed on the battle field in Egypt. The faint-hearted crusade lived up to its name… just like Stephen.

Stephen Blahblahblacksheep did leave us with one bit of success. His son, also named Stephen, reigned as King of England for thirteen years. That's saying something, right?

Here's Stephen Blah-er's son Stephen of England being all awesome-y on his throne!

The question that remains is whether we remember Stephen blahhumbug for what he did, or for his son's legacy? I'll leave that to you.

Here's to hoping you don't have a Stephen the Blah sort of day!

1. Henry Hudson

More water is named after Henry Hudson than any other person on planet Earth. New York, New Jersey, and Canada itself can all esteem Mr. Hudson as their progenitor. And yet, as far as I can tell, the man was an utter failure.

Ol' Henry made a name for himself for being a competent Captain with eyes toward fame and glory. His lifelong mission was to find a western seafaring passage to Asia. He gave it the old college try, running into Greenland and New York, only to come back home empty handed. But, God bless him, he was a man on a mission. In pursuit of this mission he would ultimately lay down his life.

1610: the year Henry Hudson began his final journey. He took a crew of roughly twenty men (his teenage son numbered among their ranks), and set sail from Europe on a boat aptly named Discovery.

As the story goes, Hudson found what's now called the Hudson strait, and, WHAMMO! the world became his oyster. The crew became convinced that Hudson's Gospel of a passage to Asia was now theirs for the discovering'! And there was much joy on the shores of Hudson's mind! Hudson was going to make history, and connect the world entire by water.

Sadly, by August of that year, their vessel led them from the strait into the horror that was to be named Hudson Bay.

Week after week, over and over and over again, Discovery was mocked by dead ends. Despair at every shoreline. The passageway to the Pacific was collapsing in on them. Then, horror. By November their ship was overcome by ice. Trapped. The crew ditched the Discovery and held up on land until June of 1611.

And this is where the story gets foggy... and mysterious. A mutiny occurred in which Hudson, his son, and seven other crewmen were forced into a shallop. The Discovery headed home for England. Hudson's new, much more modest boat would never be found, nor would he. His fate remains a mystery. The story of the mutiny is, understandably, quite suspect in that we only know of it from the retelling of the surviving mutineers. Supposedly, as Hudson undocked the Discovery, he refused to listen tot any talk of retreating home. Henry lusted for that passageway across the dark globe, and so he walked the plank off his own vessel, into mystery, and most assuredly, into death.

A further twist of the knife is found in the testimony of one of the head mutineers. The man claimed that after abandoning Hudson and co. to the tiny skiff, they battled with all their might to follow the mutiniedDiscovery. Apparently the little boat that could, the UNdiscovery, trailed its big sister for days, before the mutineers decided to double down the sails and leave the specter of the past to fade into shadow. What a terror to track your murderer like that…

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That leaves us with a mysterious path to contemplate…

What happened to Hudson, and what reverberated through the halls of his mind as he led his crew to doom?

Surely Sir Hudson, perhaps more than any other man lost in history, could empathize in his inner soul with the words Shakespeare wrote (right around the same time, to boot!):

But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?

Hamlet, Act II, Scene I

Worse still, as Hudson found not Asia, but death, he did so with his near-adult son by his side. What is that like, to find the pangs of death slowly haunting you and your progeny -- to know its scent so personally?

Dante Alighieri relates a final story of Homer's Odysseus in his Divine Comedy, wherein he finds the wayward Greek protagonist at a low level in hell. Here, Odysseus tells Dante his final story… After returning home to Ithaca and living out his old age in splendor with the love of his youth Penelope, Homer slowly settles into despair. He is a man of adventure, and without it, feels lost. So then, Odysseus saddles up his boat and crew and heads towards the Western sea. Yes, the Western sea, just as Hudson did. After five months of sailing, Homer stumbles upon a great mountain rising up from the sea. At that moment a storm strikes Odysseus, and he along with his crew enter into death.

Odysseus awoke to find himself governed by the demons of hell for eternity; his obsession leading him not into the light of knowledge, but the darkness of hell itself.
Worse still, as Hudson found not Asia, but death, he did so with his near-adult son by his side. What is that like, to find the pangs of death slowly haunting you and your progeny -- to know its scent so personally? 

There are some countries, some places beyond our imagination, that we won't ever find in this life. And if we dare to travel there, we'll first find ourselves slipping off this mortal coil before the form of their answers reveal themselves to us. 

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The band Vampire Weekend included a song entitled "Hudson" as the denouement on their newest album "Modern Vampires of the City". As a close, here's a link to that song, and pasted below are the lyrics. Enjoy. Over and Over again.

Hudson died in Hudson bay, 
The water took his victim's name, 
Now rivers rise told riverside, 
To change their names again.

A stranger walked in through the door, 
Said "All apartments are pre-war", 
We laughed and I asked him for his name, 
He stayed until the end.

We watched the Germans play the Greeks, 
He marked the ninety-nine-year lease, 
Our father's which I declined, 
To try and comprehend.

Over and over again are these never-ending visions, 
Over and over again like a prize that's changed in hands, 
The time has come, 
The clock is such a drag, 
All you who change your stripes, 
Can wrap me in the flag.

The legendary wooden gate, 
First established real-estate, 
It's lost a time like other crimes, 
The one this pleasant land.

Over and over again are these never-ending visions, 
Over and over again like a prize that's changed in hands, 
The time has come, 
The clock is such a drag, 
All you who change your stripes, 
Can wrap me in the flag.

Hudson died in Hudson bay, 
But I was born on sodden place, 
The rising tide helped me decide, 
To change my name again.

Some men tend to linger on, 
And some make haste from Babylon, 
Some were on the ruined home, 
Rejoicing... To the end.

Over and over again are these never-ending visions, 
Over and over again like a prize that's changed in hands, 
The time has come, 
The clock is such a drag, 
All you who change your stripes, 
Can wrap me in the flag.

The lines are drawn, 
The map is such a drag, 
All you who change your stripes, 
Can wrap me in the flag.

Introduction

Hi there.
This blog exists to give me an outlet to reflect (and remember) weird people caught in history and time.

My hope is that the number of mini-biographies I compile will grow, and so will my understanding of the depths of the mystery of this world God's plopped us into.

Peace be the Journey,
dante stack