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Gnomes, Dwarves, Pointy Hats, & Anti-Jewish Tropes [draft]

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The question arose on the OSR discord , Are gnomes anti-Semitic?  I've encountered the idea before, specifically that the conical hat worn by garden gnomes descends from medieval Christian impositions of distinctive dress upon Jews. I don't much care about gnomes, whether the D&D illusionist variety, decorations in gardens, or early modern earth elementals, and I hadn't followed up before tonight. Gnomes, as we now think of them, are at the intersection of fairy folklore and dwarf folklore, and emerged as fictional beings with their own identity in the 17th century before becoming the kitsch critters we know in the 19th.  The best scholarship I found on the question focuses on that conical hat, toward the end veering into dwarfs, their magic, gold, fine craftsmanship, and their habits of wearing pointy hats and being distrusted by European Christians. Extract from Naomi Lubrich, " The Wandering Hat: Iterations of the Medieval Jewish Pointed Cap ", (Jewish Hist
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Casimir Illig, Priv. Doz., Ph.D., J.D.

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Doc Illig, sometime celebrity science popularizer and streaming personality, best-selling writer, deep sea explorer, controversial treasure-hunter, mesmerist... Doc Illig has quiet quit from the intellectual influencer game, with rumors of substantial financing, both crowdfunded and donations from Silicon Valley futurists. The good Doktor observes exquisite data hygiene and operational security, but each of his monthly videos features intriguing objects placed oh so casually by his elbow or shoulder: a mastodon tooth and a picture frame incorporated bowhead whale teeth strongly suggest the Alaskan panhandle or islands of British Columbia. It is indeed a luxury mad scientist base, tidewater adjacent for interactions with deep ones, who are entirely blasé about their transactions with Illig. They borrow his cars without asking, apparently going for joyrides or private errand; they tinker with his observatory equipment at will, installing biological objects still dripping saltwater and m
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Napoleon was more like Godzilla

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So what follows started one day in '22 when I was looking for images of the world-tree, the ash Yggdrasil, like you do. This beauty was engraved 1886 by Friedrich Wilhelm Heine. I looked through Heine's art on wikimedia commons and was struck by his powerful depictions of European towns shattered by combat. Instantly I assumed he became a war correspondent for the Great War, then actually looked at the dates: it was the Franco-Prussian war, one I know mostly for the effect on French and German politics: the Commune massacred, Prussia levels up to Reich, Napoleon III decides he's more a London kind of jerk, it all gets blamed on Dreyfus. But I know nothing of it as a war, of its death and weapons: I guess I don't take western European warfare seriously between Waterloo and the Marne. (Imperialist warfare is another matter.)   But my God, my Life, look at these fresh ruins: artillery is a machine beyond comprehension, it landscapes Earth into Hades, it makes the stone, st
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