Hi everyone!
The hiatus is over, though my posts will only be once or twice a month as I'm currently doing a crap-ton of paleontology research and writing. The Sarmatian post I promised in July is still in the works, I'm just making sure I have all my resources straight before writing it.
For now, though, I would like to announce that the Shire of Shadowdale is having an event this year! It's called St. Denys' Day and will be held on October 8th in Oxford, IA, which is just outside of Iowa City and Coralville. I'm the autocrat for the event, which, in non-SCA terms, means I'm in charge of it. The event website is here: http://www.uiowa.edu/~shadowda/StDenys.html It should be a lot of fun.
St. Denys found his fame in Gaul. Gaul was also home to some of the Alans for a while. I plan on giving a lecture on the Alans in Gaul at the event and will post my materials for it afterwards for those who can't be there.
EDIT: It's looking more and more like I won't be giving the lecture. I've spent the past two weeks doing paleo work, which means I haven't had time to do a lot of research into the Alans and get comfortable with them. The only open spot in the schedule was early in the morning when not many people would be there and my time would be better spent making sure everything is being set up as planned.
