“beardlessness, the sagas suggest, was not a desirable attribute. In the Saga of Burnt Njal, the eponymous hero is mocked as a ‘beardless old man’ (Old-Beardless) and his children as ‘little dung-beards’ (Dung-beardlings).” My editor once told me that I have a ‘marauding beard’. I’ve never been able to decide whether she meant that theContinue reading “The Marauding Beard”
THOMAS J. T. WILLIAMS 