‘King Athelstan’s iPhone?’

    

Athelstan King,

Lord among Earls,

Bracelet-bestower and

Baron of Barons,

He with his brother,

Edmund Atheling,

Gaining a lifelong

Glory in battle,

Slew with the sword-edge

There by Brunanburh,

Brake the shield-wall,

Hew’d the lindenwood,

Hack’d the battleshield,

Sons of Edward with hammer’d brands.

Tennyson knew what he was talking about. That’s excerpted from his poem “The Battle of Brunanburgh,” published in 1880. Athelstan of course was king of the Anglo-Saxons in the early tenth century, and is remembered as the first king of England. His significance in Masonic lore is summarized quickly by Albert Mackey in his Encyclopedia (first printed in 1873):

But this edition of The Magpie Mason was meant to be a quickie to inform you of the Athelstan merchandise available from The Rest Is History podcast.

The Rest Is History’s Athelstan phone case.

On their X account, they joked “King Athelstan (r.924-939 AD) wouldn’t have understood what an iPhone is.” In the comments, Oliver Memories Bayley noted “Knew all about Bluetooth though.” Gotta love historian humor. Anyway, it’s the season of giving, etc., etc. Click here.

An Athelstan mug for your mead. More gifts here.

And click here to hear the podcast’s episode on Athelstan!

     

‘Maybe Freemasons aren’t devil worshipping lesbians’

   

Richard Brookhiser is an author and historian I have followed since his days long ago at National Review. And literally following today—on Twitter. Saturday, Freemasonry came up in conversation among some of his acquaintances, and you can appreciate how that word stands out, so I couldn’t help but notice. And then I saw strange comments.

Anyway, the tweeting about Freemasonry mentioned the appearance last Thursday of author John Dickie on The Rest Is History, a podcast I’m very pleased to have found. Dickie wrote the popular The Craft: How the Freemasons Made the Modern World. (I haven’t read it yet.)

It’s a fun interview. If you’ve been around a long time, you might not find it particularly informative, but I think it’s a fair discussion—with some humor too. (Ergo the title of this edition of The Magpie Mason. And catch the mentions of cricket.) Actually, I learned something about the Cathars.