I have retrieved thousands of arrows from battlefields and, along the way, made some good friends. I have gathered arrows that were loose on the ground, pulled them from dead soldiers and horses, and even removed one from a mouse. (The mouse lived!)
My father, a rich landowner, didn't want me to become an arrow retriever. He wanted me to become a barrister. I thought he meant "bannister.""I don't want children sliding down on me!" I would yell. Finally, he relented and hired me an arrow-retrieval tutor.
When I finished my studies, I thought I knew everything there was to know about arrow retrieval. But I was young and naïve. I soon came to realize that finding an arrow on the battlefield is very different from finding one on a manicured lawn, with a servant pointing at it. And pulling an arrow out of a month-old corpse, provided by grave robbers, is much easier than pulling one out of a burly, muscular Viking-especially if he's still alive!
Using my father's connections, I joined the army of Hendric the Pecked. I had to start out as an apprentice retriever. That meant scaling tall oak trees, where you could be hit by falling acorns, or wading into bogs, where you could be bitten by salamanders.
Denne historien er fra May 13, 2024-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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Denne historien er fra May 13, 2024-utgaven av The New Yorker.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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LIFE ADVICE WITH ANIMAL ANALOGIES
Go with the flow like a dead fish.
CONNOISSEUR OF CHAOS
The masterly musical as mblages of Charles Ives
BEAUTIFUL DREAMERS
How the Brothers Grimm sought to awaken a nation.
THE ARTIFICIAL STATE
A different kind of machine politics.
THE HONEST ISLAND GREG JACKSON
Craint did not know when he had come to the island or why he had come.
THE SHIPWRECK DETECTIVE
Nigel Pickford has spent a lifetime searching for sunken treasure-without leaving dry land.
THE HOME FRONT
Some Americans are preparing for a second civil war.
PRESIDENT FOR SALE
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll.
SYRIA'S EMPIRE OF SPEED
Bashar al-Assad's regime is now a narco-state reliant on sales of amphetamines.
TUCKER EVERLASTING
Trump's favorite pundit takes his show on the road.