A comparative inquiry into the origins, physiology and hereditary limits of the Principal Races, and into the errors and superstitions that surround them.https://www.alistair-veyne.com/en-GBhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-humorous/a-digression-concerning-a-mammoth-a-magistrate-and-one-extremely-unhelpful-gremlin/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-humorous/a-digression-concerning-a-mammoth-a-magistrate-and-one-extremely-unhelpful-gremlin/An incident with no bearing on Aesir respiratory physiology, recorded because colleagues pretend that every anecdote must illustrate something.MammothsGremlinsTravelhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/mixed-race-society/a-drau-guide-and-a-human-soldier/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/mixed-race-society/a-drau-guide-and-a-human-soldier/A Human military escort and two Drau guides, and a corporal whose exaggerated politeness did more damage than plain rudeness would have managed.DrauHumansPrejudiceEtiquettehttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/mixed-race-society/a-dwarf-a-gremlin-and-a-boiler/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/mixed-race-society/a-dwarf-a-gremlin-and-a-boiler/A Dwarven foreman and a Gremlin machinist disagree about a boiler. Supervisors would call it insubordination, and everyone involved calls it maintenance.DwarvesGremlinsEngineeringEtiquettehttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/mixed-race-society/a-gremlin-in-an-elven-household/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/mixed-race-society/a-gremlin-in-an-elven-household/An Elven family employs a Gremlin cook. Traditional Elven food customs and Gremlin appetite are poorly matched in theory, and were reconciled in practice.GremlinsElvesFoodEtiquettehttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/mixed-race-society/a-human-child-and-an-aesir-veteran/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/mixed-race-society/a-human-child-and-an-aesir-veteran/A Human child stares at an elderly Aesir veteran whose arm ends below the elbow, and his mother's repeated instruction to stop makes matters worse.HumansAesirEtiquettehttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/mixed-race-society/a-mixed-mining-crew/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/mixed-race-society/a-mixed-mining-crew/Several days underground with Humans, Dwarves and two Aesir labourers, where the social division of the work was not what the author expected to find.HumansDwarvesAesirMininghttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/mixed-race-society/a-note-on-practical-difficulties-in-certain-mixed-race-marriages/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/mixed-race-society/a-note-on-practical-difficulties-in-certain-mixed-race-marriages/Reproductive incompatibility between the Principal Races should not be confused with sexual incompatibility, a distinction more often needed than stated.ReproductionPhysiologyhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/mixed-race-society/aesir-courtesy-in-a-human-dining-room/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/mixed-race-society/aesir-courtesy-in-a-human-dining-room/An Aesir officer instructed in advance not to alarm the Human guests, and the heroic and entirely visible effort of complying with that instruction.AesirHumansEtiquetteFoodhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/mixed-race-society/an-elf-at-a-dwarven-funeral/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/mixed-race-society/an-elf-at-a-dwarven-funeral/An Elf is asked to speak at a Dwarven funeral, which was unusual enough to attract attention before anyone had heard what he intended to say.ElvesDwarvesDeathEtiquettehttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/mixed-race-society/an-ogre-at-a-market-stall/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/mixed-race-society/an-ogre-at-a-market-stall/An Ogre merchant and an Elven vendor argue over cloth while the surrounding Humans wait for violence. The dispute concerned colour.OgresElvesPrejudiceEtiquettehttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/origins-ancestry-and-reproduction/excerpt-from-a-treatise-on-the-reproductive-compatibility-of-the-principal-races/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/origins-ancestry-and-reproduction/excerpt-from-a-treatise-on-the-reproductive-compatibility-of-the-principal-races/The half-blood flourishes in tavern anecdote and penny romance while remaining wholly absent from the ledgers. Why the records and the stories differ.ReproductionMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/front-matter/foreword/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/front-matter/foreword/The author declines to apologise for intruding on the reader's time, and sets out the qualifications and the thirty-four years behind the present volume.Scholarshiphttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/aesir/on-aesir-beds/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/aesir/on-aesir-beds/Why a guest bed built for Humans invalidated a night of sleep measurements, and what Aesir proportions ask of the furniture around them.AesirSleepFieldworkhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/aesir/on-aesir-furniture/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/aesir/on-aesir-furniture/Aesir domestic furniture is built to proportions that make ordinary Human seating impractical, which complicates measuring hip and knee articulation.AesirPhysiologyhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/comparative-physiology-and-psychology/on-aesir-thermoregulation/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/comparative-physiology-and-psychology/on-aesir-thermoregulation/Large bodies conserve heat, and peripheral circulation constricts without compromising core temperature. The mechanism behind Aesir tolerance of cold.AesirPhysiologyColdhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/gremlins/on-an-unfortunate-seasonal-confound-in-the-study-of-gremlin-cohabitation/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/gremlins/on-an-unfortunate-seasonal-confound-in-the-study-of-gremlin-cohabitation/A replication of Merrow's cohabitation study disagreed so violently with the original that the error took two days to find. It was seasonal.GremlinsScholarshipFieldworkhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/comparative-physiology-and-psychology/on-birth-rate-longevity-and-the-misleading-arithmetic-of-population/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/comparative-physiology-and-psychology/on-birth-rate-longevity-and-the-misleading-arithmetic-of-population/Reproductive statistics of the Principal Races are quoted more often than understood, chiefly because the annual birth rate is the wrong measure.LongevityReproductionMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/comparative-physiology-and-psychology/on-comparative-alcohol-tolerance/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/comparative-physiology-and-psychology/on-comparative-alcohol-tolerance/Dwarves metabolise ethanol efficiently rather than magically, and body mass explains more of the comparative figures than anyone drinking wishes to hear.PhysiologyFoodDwarvesHumanshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/miscellaneous-corrections/on-dragons/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/miscellaneous-corrections/on-dragons/The dragon has suffered terribly from literature. A very large flying reptile capable of speech and combustion is remarkable without the added philosophy.FolkloreMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/comparative-physiology-and-psychology/on-dwarven-bone/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/comparative-physiology-and-psychology/on-dwarven-bone/Dwarven bone is not Human bone made heavier. The microscopic architecture differs, which physicians assuming mineral density alone continue to miss.DwarvesPhysiologyhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/dwarven-history-and-institutions/on-dwarven-elevators/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/dwarven-history-and-institutions/on-dwarven-elevators/Dwarven mountain cities contain some of the finest lift mechanisms known, and their bearing on circulatory stress is smaller than this note intended.DwarvesEngineeringArchitecturehttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/comparative-physiology-and-psychology/on-dwarven-oxygen-tolerance/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/comparative-physiology-and-psychology/on-dwarven-oxygen-tolerance/The phrase underground lungs is useless without being wrong. Subterranean populations tolerate elevated carbon dioxide unusually well, and here is why.DwarvesPhysiologyMininghttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/dwarven-history-and-institutions/on-dwarven-surface-architecture/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/dwarven-history-and-institutions/on-dwarven-surface-architecture/Dwarven houses above ground keep thick walls, narrow windows and deep foundations. Visitors are surprised, though cultures carry their habits with them.DwarvesArchitectureMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/dwarven-history-and-institutions/on-dwarves-and-mountains/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/dwarven-history-and-institutions/on-dwarves-and-mountains/Every Dwarf lives inside a mountain, according to popular art, which leaves open the question of where painters believe the bread comes from.DwarvesArchitectureMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/elven-life-and-culture/on-elven-age-and-the-human-inability-to-believe-it/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/elven-life-and-culture/on-elven-age-and-the-human-inability-to-believe-it/Humans assume that a person of nine hundred years must look it, an assumption explicable only because Humans have spent so little time being nine hundred.ElvesHumansLongevityMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/comparative-physiology-and-psychology/on-elven-ageing/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/comparative-physiology-and-psychology/on-elven-ageing/Elves live about a thousand years and spend remarkably little of it looking old. What their ageing does instead of accumulating damage.ElvesLongevityPhysiologyhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/elven-life-and-culture/on-elven-bureaucracy/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/elven-life-and-culture/on-elven-bureaucracy/A people who live ten centuries keep excellent records, and the excellence is not always to the benefit of anyone applying for access to them.ElvesInstitutionsLongevityhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/elven-life-and-culture/on-elven-memory/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/elven-life-and-culture/on-elven-memory/Elves do not remember everything. An Elf who attended the coronation is simply a better source than a historian with three contradictory letters.ElvesMemoryMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/elven-life-and-culture/on-elven-patience/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/elven-life-and-culture/on-elven-patience/Elves are described as patient, which is only partly true. What sixty years of waiting on a legal dispute indicates about temporal perception.ElvesLongevityhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/elven-life-and-culture/on-elven-resistance-to-disease/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/elven-life-and-culture/on-elven-resistance-to-disease/Elves are not immune to disease. Their immune systems differ from Human ones sufficiently that the distinction has been repeatedly exaggerated into myth.ElvesPhysiologyMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/comparative-physiology-and-psychology/on-elven-wound-healing/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/comparative-physiology-and-psychology/on-elven-wound-healing/The reputation is deserved and the mechanism misunderstood: the early inflammatory stages proceed at Human rates, and the Elven advantage lies elsewhere.ElvesPhysiologyMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/magic-and-thaumaturgy/on-ghosts/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/magic-and-thaumaturgy/on-ghosts/The author has no objection to ghosts, a statement quoted so selectively that it requires elaboration. What the evidence for apparitions supports.MagicDeathScholarshiphttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/other-sapient-races/on-gorilla-sign-language/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/other-sapient-races/on-gorilla-sign-language/The objection that trained Gorillas merely imitate their instructors survives because its adherents refuse to watch Gorillas when the instructors leave.GorillasLanguagePrejudiceScholarshiphttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/gremlins/on-gremlin-dishonesty/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/gremlins/on-gremlin-dishonesty/Gremlins are not inherently dishonest. They are unusually comfortable with opportunism, and the distinction is lost on anyone whose tools have moved.GremlinsMisconceptionsPrejudicehttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/gremlins/on-gremlin-eggs-and-the-persistent-myth-of-the-gremlin-mother/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/gremlins/on-gremlin-eggs-and-the-persistent-myth-of-the-gremlin-mother/Two parents tending a clutch of eggs persists because illustrators find it charming. Gremlin reproduction is nothing of the kind, and is not charming.GremlinsReproductionDevelopmentMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/gremlins/on-gremlin-landlords/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/gremlins/on-gremlin-landlords/Gremlins are said to make poor tenants, being untidy and prone to dismantling fixtures. The claim is unfair, and the record is more complicated.GremlinsCitiesMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/gremlins/on-gremlin-language-acquisition-and-the-problem-of-the-unraised-child/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/gremlins/on-gremlin-language-acquisition-and-the-problem-of-the-unraised-child/A hatchling emerges among dozens of siblings and is raised by nobody, which leaves open the question of how so many become socially competent at all.GremlinsLanguageDevelopmenthttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/comparative-physiology-and-psychology/on-gremlin-metabolism/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/comparative-physiology-and-psychology/on-gremlin-metabolism/Gremlin stomachs are not bottomless, and the metabolism is merely rapid. What an adult actually consumes relative to body mass, and why the myth persists.GremlinsPhysiologyFoodMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/comparative-physiology-and-psychology/on-gremlin-sleep/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/comparative-physiology-and-psychology/on-gremlin-sleep/Gremlins do sleep, and the claim that they do not appears to have originated with landlords. Their rest is fragmented across the day rather than absent.GremlinsPhysiologySleepMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/miscellaneous-corrections/on-longevity-and-political-wisdom/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/miscellaneous-corrections/on-longevity-and-political-wisdom/Long-lived peoples are presumed to produce wiser governments. Dwarves, Aesir and Elves have between them produced very little evidence for it.LongevityInstitutionsMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/comparative-physiology-and-psychology/on-longevity-expertise-and-the-limits-of-accumulated-knowledge/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/comparative-physiology-and-psychology/on-longevity-expertise-and-the-limits-of-accumulated-knowledge/Why an Elf of nine hundred years is not, by simple accumulation, wiser than every Human scholar alive. The question is posed by Humans rather than Elves.LongevityMemoryElvesScholarshiphttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/magic-and-thaumaturgy/on-magic-and-the-things-it-does-not-do/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/magic-and-thaumaturgy/on-magic-and-the-things-it-does-not-do/The difficulty in writing about magic is that everyone believes himself already familiar with it, having heard the stories. What it does not do.MagicMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/other-sapient-races/on-ogre-politeness/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/other-sapient-races/on-ogre-politeness/Ogres are said to have no manners. Their manners are calibrated to a society in which being struck during a disagreement is considerably less theoretical.OgresEtiquettePrejudiceMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/other-sapient-races/on-professor-ardell-s-proposed-taxonomy/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/other-sapient-races/on-professor-ardell-s-proposed-taxonomy/A reply to Professor Ardell's monograph on cognitive limits, which the author had intended to let exhaust itself quietly and found that he could not.ScholarshipPrejudicehttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/magic-and-thaumaturgy/on-prophecy/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/magic-and-thaumaturgy/on-prophecy/Verified precognition exists and is no longer seriously disputed. The subject is improved greatly by refusing to discuss it with prophets.MagicMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/miscellaneous-corrections/on-rail-travel-and-the-supposed-weakening-of-the-constitution/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/miscellaneous-corrections/on-rail-travel-and-the-supposed-weakening-of-the-constitution/Travel above forty miles per hour was once argued to shift the organs backward within the body. The railways have existed long enough to settle it.RailwaysPhysiologyMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/magic-and-thaumaturgy/on-runic-restoration-of-the-dead/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/magic-and-thaumaturgy/on-runic-restoration-of-the-dead/No subject in practical thaumaturgy is more burdened by bad terminology than the resurrection rune, a name that invites precisely the wrong image.MagicRunecarvingDeathhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/miscellaneous-corrections/on-steam-carriages/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/miscellaneous-corrections/on-steam-carriages/The respiratory effects of urban industrialisation are relevant to this volume. Steam carriages are not, and the author wishes the record to show it.EngineeringCitieshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/aesir/on-the-aesir-and-mammoths/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/aesir/on-the-aesir-and-mammoths/The mammoth is not enormous cattle. An account of its intelligence, sociality and memory, and of what the Aesir association actually consists of.AesirMammothsMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/origins-ancestry-and-reproduction/on-the-aesir-and-the-giants/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/origins-ancestry-and-reproduction/on-the-aesir-and-the-giants/Scholars who cannot encounter anything large without declaring it a remnant of giants have long had opinions about the Aesir. The northern legends examined.AesirOriginsFolkloreMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/aesir/on-the-aesir-and-the-herding-of-mammoths/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/aesir/on-the-aesir-and-the-herding-of-mammoths/The phrase mammoth herding invites comparison with cattle and pack goats, and misleads in every particular. What Aesir herders do instead.AesirMammothshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/aesir/on-the-aesir-and-the-myth-of-the-slow-mind/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/aesir/on-the-aesir-and-the-myth-of-the-slow-mind/Aesir are large, speak deliberately and pause before answering, from which hurried people have concluded that they are slow-witted. They are not.AesirMisconceptionsPrejudicehttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/comparative-physiology-and-psychology/on-the-aesir-heart/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/comparative-physiology-and-psychology/on-the-aesir-heart/The Aesir heart is structurally adapted rather than merely enlarged, to a body whose mass and blood volume would strain an ordinary circulation.AesirPhysiologyhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/gremlins/on-the-alleged-absence-of-gremlin-religion/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/gremlins/on-the-alleged-absence-of-gremlin-religion/Gremlins have no common priesthood, ancestral cult or creation myth. It does not follow that they are irreligious, and the conclusion confuses two things.GremlinsReligionMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/dwarven-history-and-institutions/on-the-alleged-automatic-coronation-of-exceptional-examinees/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/dwarven-history-and-institutions/on-the-alleged-automatic-coronation-of-exceptional-examinees/Each year the newspapers rediscover the story that an exceptional candidate is crowned by examination alone. The Final Examination does no such thing.DwarvesEducationInstitutionsMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/origins-ancestry-and-reproduction/on-the-alleged-common-ancestry-of-the-principal-races/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/origins-ancestry-and-reproduction/on-the-alleged-common-ancestry-of-the-principal-races/The five Principal Races are held to descend from some vanished progenitor. The proposition is persistent among educated men and supported by very little.OriginsMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/dwarven-history-and-institutions/on-the-alleged-dwarven-aversion-to-open-sky/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/dwarven-history-and-institutions/on-the-alleged-dwarven-aversion-to-open-sky/Generations of subterranean life are said to have left Dwarves dependent upon ceilings. Entire agricultural regions above ground suggest otherwise.DwarvesAgricultureMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/origins-ancestry-and-reproduction/on-the-alleged-renewal-of-the-elven-body/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/origins-ancestry-and-reproduction/on-the-alleged-renewal-of-the-elven-body/Elves are said to replace the substance of their bodies periodically, shedding age in some hidden renewal. A more sophisticated absurdity than most.ElvesLongevityMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/dwarven-history-and-institutions/on-the-alleged-stone-eating-habits-of-dwarves/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/dwarven-history-and-institutions/on-the-alleged-stone-eating-habits-of-dwarves/Dwarves do not eat rocks. The myth derives from two genuine facts about mineral requirements and traditional foods, neither of which supports it.DwarvesFoodPhysiologyMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/elven-life-and-culture/on-the-alleged-superiority-of-elven-wine/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/elven-life-and-culture/on-the-alleged-superiority-of-elven-wine/Elven wine is not intrinsically superior to Human wine, a conclusion reached through three blinded tastings and reported here with some reluctance.ElvesFoodScholarshipMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/mixed-race-society/on-the-architecture-of-a-city-built-for-several-definitions-of-a-person/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/mixed-race-society/on-the-architecture-of-a-city-built-for-several-definitions-of-a-person/Veyrholm has been occupied long enough that its streets constitute a record of racial anatomy, which its architects cannot have intended to contribute.ArchitectureCitiesPhysiologyhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/origins-ancestry-and-reproduction/on-the-artificial-creation-of-the-gremlins/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/origins-ancestry-and-reproduction/on-the-artificial-creation-of-the-gremlins/That Gremlins were manufactured by a vanished civilisation is hard to kill as a theory, chiefly because Gremlins find it hilarious and encourage it.GremlinsOriginsFolkloreMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/gremlins/on-the-cohabitation-tolerance-of-adult-gremlins/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/gremlins/on-the-cohabitation-tolerance-of-adult-gremlins/That adult Gremlins dislike the company of other Gremlins is correct and scientifically useless. What dislike means here, and how it scales with numbers.GremlinsScholarshiphttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/gremlins/on-the-developmental-stages-of-the-gremlin/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/gremlins/on-the-developmental-stages-of-the-gremlin/Few of the Principal Peoples have a life history so thoroughly misrepresented. Popular accounts begin with the adult and omit everything before it.GremlinsDevelopmentMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/aesir/on-the-familial-character-of-aesir-mammoth-bonds/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/aesir/on-the-familial-character-of-aesir-mammoth-bonds/Traditional herders object to calling the herd family, and object again to any account that leaves the relationship out. What the bond actually is.AesirMammothshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/origins-ancestry-and-reproduction/on-the-five-lost-kingdoms/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/origins-ancestry-and-reproduction/on-the-five-lost-kingdoms/Each of the Principal Races is said to descend from a separate primordial kingdom, all five destroyed in one catastrophe. The curious observation behind it.OriginsFolkloreMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/dwarven-history-and-institutions/on-the-great-dwarven-empire-as-a-supposedly-unified-culture/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/dwarven-history-and-institutions/on-the-great-dwarven-empire-as-a-supposedly-unified-culture/The Empire ruled the continent, which does not mean that anyone inside it agreed about anything. Shared law and script are not a shared culture.DwarvesEmpireInstitutionsMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/origins-ancestry-and-reproduction/on-the-human-race-as-the-original-pattern/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/origins-ancestry-and-reproduction/on-the-human-race-as-the-original-pattern/Humans have contributed a theory placing Humanity at the centre of creation as the original and unaltered pattern. Its advantages are chiefly to Humans.HumansOriginsMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/origins-ancestry-and-reproduction/on-the-limits-of-hope-in-cross-racial-conception/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/origins-ancestry-and-reproduction/on-the-limits-of-hope-in-cross-racial-conception/The failed pregnancies represented in tables and case histories were wanted by someone, a thing easily forgotten when the discussion is purely anatomical.ReproductionHumansElveshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/other-sapient-races/on-the-myth-that-ogres-cannot-plan/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/other-sapient-races/on-the-myth-that-ogres-cannot-plan/Ogre violence is said to preclude long-term planning, which would persuade if raiding parties did not demonstrate coordinated movement across distances.OgresPrejudiceMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/gremlins/on-the-persistent-fiction-of-the-gremlin-homeland/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/gremlins/on-the-persistent-fiction-of-the-gremlin-homeland/There is no Gremlin homeland, which ought not require saying while schoolroom maps continue to print Ancient Gremlin Territories over convenient wilderness.GremlinsOriginsMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/elven-life-and-culture/on-the-popular-belief-that-traditional-elves-refuse-to-harm-plants/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/elven-life-and-culture/on-the-popular-belief-that-traditional-elves-refuse-to-harm-plants/Traditional Elven cultures do not hold that vegetation must never be damaged. If they did, they could not walk through grass or gather food.ElvesAgricultureMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/miscellaneous-corrections/on-the-preservation-of-specimens/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/miscellaneous-corrections/on-the-preservation-of-specimens/Improvements in long-term anatomical preservation, preceded by a warning about storing preservative fluid in a bottle previously used for spirits.ScholarshipFieldworkhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/gremlins/on-the-reliability-of-gremlin-witnesses/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/gremlins/on-the-reliability-of-gremlin-witnesses/Contrary to stereotype, Gremlins are often exceptionally reliable observers, which matters here because several case histories rest on their accounts.GremlinsMemoryMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/magic-and-thaumaturgy/on-the-supposed-aversion-of-magic-to-machinery/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/magic-and-thaumaturgy/on-the-supposed-aversion-of-magic-to-machinery/Romantics insist that enchantment weakens near steam engines and dynamos. The notion is aesthetically pleasing and unsupported by any measurement.MagicEngineeringMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/elven-life-and-culture/on-the-supposed-fragility-of-elves/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/elven-life-and-culture/on-the-supposed-fragility-of-elves/Elves are called delicate, which is an aesthetic judgement mistaken for anatomy. A slender build and lighter bone are not the same as fragility.ElvesPhysiologyMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/aesir/on-the-supposed-immunity-of-the-aesir-to-cold/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/aesir/on-the-supposed-immunity-of-the-aesir-to-cold/Aesir feel cold less because they are large rather than because they are brave, a distinction that heroic verse has never found room for.AesirColdPhysiologyMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/dwarven-history-and-institutions/on-the-supposed-inability-of-dwarves-to-become-lost-underground/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/dwarven-history-and-institutions/on-the-supposed-inability-of-dwarves-to-become-lost-underground/Among the more flattering misconceptions Dwarves have allowed to stand is an innate sense of direction underground. What actually keeps them oriented.DwarvesMiningMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/origins-ancestry-and-reproduction/on-the-supposed-lithic-origin-of-the-dwarves/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/origins-ancestry-and-reproduction/on-the-supposed-lithic-origin-of-the-dwarves/Antiquarians hold that Dwarves were awakened from living stone beneath the oldest mountains. The evidence offered is poetic rather than material.DwarvesOriginsFolkloreMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/dwarven-history-and-institutions/on-the-supposed-night-vision-of-dwarves/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/dwarven-history-and-institutions/on-the-supposed-night-vision-of-dwarves/Dwarves do not see in complete darkness. The belief persists because visitors misread comfortable movement through near-blackness as an adaptation.DwarvesPhysiologyMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/aesir/on-the-supposedly-perfect-memory-of-mammoths/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/aesir/on-the-supposedly-perfect-memory-of-mammoths/Mammoth memory is excellent and not perfect, a distinction that has somehow become controversial. What Aesir accounts get right, and where they overreach.MammothsMemoryMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/elven-life-and-culture/on-traditional-elven-agriculture-which-is-not-agriculture/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/elven-life-and-culture/on-traditional-elven-agriculture-which-is-not-agriculture/Human ethnographers call traditional Elven communities primitive agricultural societies, a phrase that manages to be inaccurate in three separate ways.ElvesAgricultureMisconceptionshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/elven-life-and-culture/on-traditional-elven-gardening/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/elven-life-and-culture/on-traditional-elven-gardening/An Elf may tend a patch of forest for decades while insisting that he has planted nothing, cultivated nothing and altered nothing. What he means by it.ElvesAgriculturehttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/elven-life-and-culture/on-traditional-elven-hospitality/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/elven-life-and-culture/on-traditional-elven-hospitality/Traditional Elven hospitality is generous, sincere, and founded upon assumptions about what constitutes food that are not universally shared. A warning.ElvesEtiquetteFoodFieldworkhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/aesir/the-case-of-halvar-and-mett/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/aesir/the-case-of-halvar-and-mett/A single case, admitted with reluctance because it sits close to anecdote. Halvar Norr was three years old when Mett was assigned to his family.AesirMammothshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/front-matter/third-edition-revised-and-expanded/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/front-matter/third-edition-revised-and-expanded/The third edition, with new appendices on Aesir pulmonary capacity, recently excavated pre-Imperial remains, and a reply to Professor Hest's objections.https://www.alistair-veyne.com/magic-and-thaumaturgy/three-cases-of-runic-restoration/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/magic-and-thaumaturgy/three-cases-of-runic-restoration/Three men restored by full-body runic array, interviewed in person. All three were Human, and all three worked where violent death was a hazard of trade.MagicRunecarvingDeathHumanshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/front-matter/title-page/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/front-matter/title-page/The title page of the collected writings: the full title of the work, and the appointments, honours and prior volumes of its author.https://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-sombre/11-february-outside-kher-vann/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-sombre/11-february-outside-kher-vann/An abandoned Dwarven surface settlement rather than a ruined one. The doors still hang properly, the wells are capped, and the distinction matters.DwarvesArchitectureTravelhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-sombre/14-december-north-of-hradsk/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-sombre/14-december-north-of-hradsk/A young Aesir boy loses two fingers to the cold, having hidden the injury too long out of shame at having become cold at all.AesirColdTravelhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-humorous/18-july-aesir-summer-camp/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-humorous/18-july-aesir-summer-camp/Field notes: an attempt to obtain baseline respiratory measurements from six adult Aesir herders, and the ways a calibrated tube can be misunderstood.AesirFieldworkTravelhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-sombre/19-july-karad-tor/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-sombre/19-july-karad-tor/The old examination hall at Karad Tor, where young Dwarves still sit the Final Examination beneath imperial stonework carved when the Empire had borders.DwarvesEducationEmpireTravelhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-sombre/2-january-southern-rail/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-sombre/2-january-southern-rail/A man dies in the carriage ahead, and the author is asked whether he is a physician. He said yes, which was true enough for the purpose.HumansDeathRailwaysTravelhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-humorous/2-october-southern-elven-grove/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-humorous/2-october-southern-elven-grove/Field notes: an investigation of traditional Elven medicine produced a methodological problem when the author appears to have insulted a shrub.ElvesAgricultureFieldworkTravelhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-humorous/21-september-northbound-rail-outside-karad-tor/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-humorous/21-september-northbound-rail-outside-karad-tor/Field notes: observations of Dwarven tolerance for prolonged vibration, interrupted by a dispute concerning two specimen cases in the luggage rack.DwarvesRailwaysEtiquetteTravelhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-sombre/22-september-western-drau-territory/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-sombre/22-september-western-drau-territory/A Drau guide shows the author a burial place where there are no graves: the dead are laid in shallow stone chambers and allowed to return to the land.DrauDeathTravelhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-humorous/27-may-east-ward-bellcross/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-humorous/27-may-east-ward-bellcross/Field notes: a Gremlin machinist claims that he can identify most common engines blindfolded, an assertion the author assumed to be exaggeration.GremlinsEngineeringFieldworkTravelhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-sombre/3-april-belleren/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-sombre/3-april-belleren/Seraiel introduces an old friend of seventy-one years' acquaintance. The woman is ninety-six, and the author nearly laughed before understanding.ElvesHumansLongevityTravelhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-humorous/6-march-lower-kobold-warrens/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-humorous/6-march-lower-kobold-warrens/Field notes: a survey of Kobold thoracic proportions, abandoned when the measuring tape disappeared and the search for it produced an explanation.KoboldsFieldworkTravelhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-sombre/7-may-east-ward/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-sombre/7-may-east-ward/A Gremlin hatchling less than a day old is brought into the clinic after a scatter went badly. There had been dozens of them that morning.GremlinsDevelopmentDeathTravelhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-humorous/9-november-western-ogre-territory/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-humorous/9-november-western-ogre-territory/Field notes: cranial measurements from an Ogre warrior named Brakk, who agreed willingly and was patient throughout. The difficulty lay elsewhere.OgresFieldworkTravelhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-sombre/from-belleren-concerning-an-elf-who-had-outlived-a-street/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-sombre/from-belleren-concerning-an-elf-who-had-outlived-a-street/Supper with Seraiel Therin, who is eight hundred and twelve, followed by a walk through a district that has changed rather more than she has.ElvesLongevityCitiesTravelhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-sombre/from-karad-vell-concerning-an-imperial-road/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-sombre/from-karad-vell-concerning-an-imperial-road/A portion of the old Imperial Road beneath Karad Vell, which the word road does not adequately describe, and what remains of the network it served.DwarvesEmpireArchitectureTravelhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/gremlins/from-the-east-ward-concerning-a-gremlin-funeral/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/gremlins/from-the-east-ward-concerning-a-gremlin-funeral/An account of a Gremlin funeral in the East Ward, and of why several Gremlins present objected to that word for what they had gathered to do.GremlinsDeathCitieshttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-sombre/from-the-northern-road-concerning-an-old-mammoth/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/travel-journals-sombre/from-the-northern-road-concerning-an-old-mammoth/One of the oldest mammoths in a herding camp dies during the night, having belonged to the same Aesir family for nearly two centuries.MammothsAesirDeathTravelhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/other-sapient-races/from-the-western-drau-territory-concerning-a-school/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/other-sapient-races/from-the-western-drau-territory-concerning-a-school/There is a school here, which matters because maps produced in the capital continue to label this region unadministered wilderness.DrauEducationPrejudiceTravelhttps://www.alistair-veyne.com/origins-ancestry-and-reproduction/dictation-notes-examination-of-stillborn-human-elven-fetus/https://www.alistair-veyne.com/origins-ancestry-and-reproduction/dictation-notes-examination-of-stillborn-human-elven-fetus/Examination notes from the third documented Human-Elven pregnancy, taken by dictation, with external development inconsistent with expected chronology.ReproductionHumansElvesDeath