Rowling confirmed for her more than fourteen million Twixter followers what we have been reporting here for several weeks, namely, that her annual ‘Birthday Party’ cruise this year took the Murray clan to Greenland. In a four part thread, she thanked the people whom she had met, shared pictures of the natural beauty there (to include feminists near the Artic Circle), endorsed a guide to the folklore of Greenland, and assured her readers that it was a working vacation, i.e., she had not been “idle” in finishing The Hallmarked Man.

One by one, then:

The Rowling Library helped those of us who have neglected to keep up with our Danish (Greenland dialect) by providing this helpful translation:

The natural beauty!

It looks like Rowling &Company had a costume ball for her birthday revel and that she dressed up as ‘The Mother of the Sea.’ Forgive me for wondering if she traveled with the necessary dress, tiara, cosmetics, and hair dyes to pull this off or they sell these things at most shops in Greenland’s port cities. 

The Maria Kreutzmann book she recommended, Bestiarium Greenlandica, can be purchased at Amazon. What’s it about?

Meet the motley crew of dangerous, cheeky, and fantastical beings of Greenland! 

The world of Greenlandic mythology is inhabited by creatures that have played a vital role in Inuit beliefs and stories throughout the ages. The Bestiarium is a collection of what is generally known about these diverse beings, spirits, and animals. Their stories are gritty, cruel, and reflect from the harsh landscape and lifestyle of ancient Greenland. Descriptions are paired with illustrations by contemporary Greenlandic illustrators that transport these mythological beings into the 21st Century. A brief history of Greenland and the shaman tradition launches the reader into the ancient world of Greenland and how myth and legend told generation after generation can mould and depict a place that was dark and grim as mischievous and lively and full of natural wonders. 

If the Fantastic Beasts franchise is ever revived (ho!), perhaps this bestiary from the great north will be part of Newt’s kit.

And then there was this bit of news, perhaps as much for Rowling’s editors as for her readers:

Taking a closer look at the written page, we find a quotation from Oxenham’s A Maid of the Silver Sea as the epigraph for Hallmarked Man’s Part Nine:

That passage has a note of finality to it and Running Grave only had nine chapter sets, Rowling’s ‘Parts,’ so we can hope that she is nearing the finish line. I have to doubt very much, though, that it will be available for your Serious Striker’s stocking stuffer this December. Alas!

For a in depth conversation about the Maid of the Silver Sea and Oxenham, Nick Jeffery tells all in ‘Sark, Snark and Censorship.’

One jokester on the thread noted the hysteria that had been going on in her absence about her Olympic boxing “cyber-bullying” and how her silence for several weeks had meant to her critics that she was retreating from her war against gender theory extremists (discussed here). Her response was characteristically buoyant, appropriate for a woman sailing back across the North Atlantic in her yacht.

Tomorrow, some thoughts on the influence of P. D. James on Robert Galbraith. Stay tuned!