Bergen

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Comments

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Maritus and I had a long discussion about why the message was scratched on a stick instead of being sent orally. We came up with about ten different explanations -- the recipient was deaf or hard of hearing; the person carrying the message wouldn't be allowed into the place where the recipient was; Gyda thought that the recipient would take a written message more seriously than a verbal one; etc. Who knows what it was really all about, but it's fun to think about. And there's something wonderfully blunt about the message. It's easy to imagine that whatever was going on, Gyda was out of patience!

[heliopausa]

Yes! For starters, "the recipient" rather than assuming that Gyda would naturally:
a) have a husband, and
b) be writing to her husband

Presumably there's no language-marker which shows the recipient to be certainly male? (Oh, museums! Havens for unexamined assumptions!)