“Gunter, glieben, glauten, globen…”

Ocean City, Maryland—desolate in January, and surely a place of respite from medievalism in all its myriad forms.

No way! A hammer-wielding madman! Whither doth he beckon?

Great Odin’s opthamologist!

It’s as if I’ve wandered into sixth-century Norway.

Unlike this coward, I am undeterred, for I behold…

…a runestone! A long-neglected remnant of our distant Viking past!

(Plus the papier-mache skull of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.)

My rune-lore is feeble, but I believe this stone is trying to speak to me. Its approximate message appears to be “anthskloanuijaggnksinsukjtf.”

Meanwhile, the runic message carved into the beam on this this miraculously preserved Viking outhouse warns me, “riflthzwarir.”

Great enchantments surely haunt this place.

No matter. I’ll leave trite riddles to less ambitious colleagues. They’ll all go berserk when I publish this photo, which reveals the real reason Erik the Red journeyed westward.

Endowed professorship at Oxford, here I come!