INTERVIEW BY KATHERINE MEZZACAPPA Lucy Pick is a historian of the thought and culture of medieval Spain who has published on Christian, Muslim, and Jewish relations and the intersection of gender, religion, and royal power. She taught for over twenty years at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. Her first historical novel, Pilgrimage…

On Boxing Day it was 20 years since the terrible tsunami in the Indian ocean. Remembering our shock on hearing about that disaster, which killed 230,000 people, started me thinking about floods which have happened nearer to home, all of which occurred in January.  ‘A true report of certaine wonderfull ouerflowings of waters, now lately…

During the 18th century, Europe witnessed a growing fascination with the occult, fuelled by a mix of Renaissance magic, medieval mysticism, and Enlightenment-era curiosity. Among the most infamous grimoires of this period was The Lesser Key of Solomon, also known as Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis. The grimoire was a compilation of earlier magical texts, attributed to…

  The broch of Mousa: by kind permission of David Simpson. Mousa is a small island off the coast of mainland Shetland with a Norse name. The ‘a’ at the end, as in many British place-names, means ‘island.’ ‘Mous’ means ‘mossy.’ The ‘Mousa boat’ ferries you across to the moss. It’s a nature reserve now,…