MEARCSTAPA info, MEARCSTAPA swag, and 21st century Blemmye
What, you may ask, is MEARCSTAPA?
The acronym stands for Monsters: the Experimental Association for the Research of Cryptozoology through Scholarly Theory And Practical Application.
The word is from Old English, and is used to describe Grendel in the poem Beowulf:
Wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten,
mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold,
fen ond fæsten…
A mearc is a limit, boundary, borderland, “mark” – a liminal space.
A mearcstapa is one who walks those spaces – a mark-stepper, a border-walker.
The organization has a blog and a mission statement.
MEARCSTAPA officers and founding members Asa Mittman and Jeff Massey were seen sporting cool logo t-shirts in Kalamazoo, Michigan the other day. Trust me, you want one.
You can get your own shirt or other cool swag at cafepress.
In other news, when I got home from Kalamazoo, my mother and daughter had something to show me. They said they’d found a modern-day blemmye. What do you think?
Blemmye from the Cotton Vitellius MS.A
An Adipose (a short little villain from the 2008 Dr. Who series. These adorable little things are made out of human body fat. They form themselves and walk away from the body of their, er, ‘hosts,’ killing them in the process).
