VIdeo: The Magic Ring of Hermes Ritual

Dr. Kirsten Dzwirza is an archaeologist studying Egyptian, Greek, and Roman magical writings and artifacts. She's working on a sourcebook with new translations of a lot of magical spells and inscriptions and has been making the occasional youtube video about her work. (Her channel is called The Archaeology of Ancient Magic & Ritual Practice, in case the links stop working.) I wanted to embed a recent video she made about the ritual for making the magic ring of Hermes from the Greek Magical Papyri, but I am unable to. It's worth heading to youtube to see it HERE. She's also made a free online course explaining what the Greek Magical Papyri are.

Video: How Healthy were Medieval People?

Found this interesting video by History Hit on health care in the middle ages. It goes over what the various forms of health practitioners were and what they would do to diagnose and treat your problem.

Video: Every Major Crusader Order Explained in under 14 minutes

Found this interesting video by the Based Plato talking about the medieval Crusader Orders. The video mentions a few I'd never heard of.

Video: What it was like to visit a medieval tavern

This is an interesting video by Tasting History with Max Miller on what medieval inns, taverns, and alehouses were like. He even teaches how to make a medieval meat stew.

Video: When You're Married to a Helldiver

I've been watching some youtube videos of people playing Helldiver 2, so this video by the Warp Zone made me laugh.

Video: The Warp Zone's A.I. Written sketch

The Warp Zone have done a great sketch, partially written by A.I. (Chat GPT) that really gets to the heart of our fears about artificial intelligence.

Video: WAKENER

When a derelict ship arrives at a space station orbiting Earth, one that has a nuclear engine, a soldier and a technician are sent to investigate.

This is a sci-fi Lovecraftian horror short film written and directed by Anthony Ferraro of Create Sci-Fi (website,  youtube channel). The sets are fantastic and the special effects remarkably good for a short indy film. The actors do a great job. It's worth the watch. 

Video: Monk's Modern Medieval Cuisine

I recently stumbled across a new youtube channel: Monk's Modern Medieval Cuisine. The idea is to offer 'easy' medieval recipes. I watched several of his videos and would love to try some of these myself. I love how Dr. Monk tastes the food at the end, giving some idea of what it tastes like, and thoroughly enjoying himself.

Video: Ancient Magical Artifacts Explained "Solomon's Seal has Annihilated You"

I started following Antikemagie recently, an "archaeologist with a research focus in ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman magic". She's put out a video on a fascinating bronze amulet from ca.600 AD with Christian, Jewish and pagan elements that protects the wearer from a particular demon. 

Video: The Roots of Magic Signs

Last month I stumbled across a kickstarter campaign to make a sourcebook for magic signs (sigils, etc). The author has done a couple of youtube videos on the topic, including the one below. I find magic a fascinating topic. So much time and effort has gone into carving amulets and blessing or curse tablets, praying to or trying to manipulate higher powers for aid, creating formulas, symbols, potions, etc. It's also interesting how older traditions got folded into religions.

Video: Lo Pan Style

 Here's a double blast from the past. Wekejay did a parody video of PSY's "Gangnam Style" using Lo Pan from John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China. It is awesome! It's not a new video, though I only stumbled across it recently. James Hong, the actor that played Lo Pan in the film, even makes a cameo. 

Video: Introduction to Islamicate Occult Sciences

 I've been learning more about other religions lately, and how they view various magical practices (both those on the religious side, as well as the occult side) and stumbled across this video by Filip Holm at Let's Talk Religion. This is the first in a series of videos on magic in the Islamicate world over the centuries (in the 'shocktober' playlist). He's got videos on other religions too, which I may check out once I'm done with this series.

Video: Medieval Bardcore Holding Out for a Hero

 Two youtubers I greatly admire, Whitney Avalon and Hildegard von Blingin' teamed up to create a medieval bardcore version of Bonnie Tyler's Holding Out for a Hero. Their music video, inspired by the artwork from books of hours is fantastic.

Video: The Forsaken Mandalorian and the Drunken Jedi Master

Createscifi has made a Star Wars fan film wherein a Mandalorian completes a bounty and runs across a drunk Jedi Master. It's two scenes that basically set up further adventures between the pair. The acting's quite good and the props are excellent. 

Video: Troll Bridge

Troll Bridge is a fan made film of short story by Sir Terry Pratchett of the same name. The special effects are surprisingly good and it's clear that everyone involved cared deeply about the Discworld and wanted things to look just right. Pay close attention to the end credit ballad, which continues the story.

Cohen the Barbarian was angry. Angry that he never died in battle, angry that the world had forgotten him, and angry that his knees were starting to play up in the cold.

He was also angry that his faithful mount had been gifted the ability of magical speech. The horse was insisting that they had made a wrong turn back at Slice.

He was also angry that the horse was probably right. This was not how it was supposed to end for the barbarian. This was not how the Discworld’s greatest hero imagined it at all.

Video: Meet some of the last papyrus makers in Egypt

 I saw papyrus for the first time in 2019 on my trip to Ethiopia. It's a beautiful plant and an important historical skill. I'm glad to hear there are people keeping papyrus paper alive and hope the industry recovers quickly when the pandemic ends.

Video: The Impostor

Came across this hilarious video by Tom Ska last week. He's rated it 12+ for mild gore and strobing lights.

It's about the robot uprising in the future.

Video: Lord of the Rings theme song with lights

I saw this video on youtube and had to share it. The Lord of the Rings theme is a wonderful piece of music, and the light effects (making it look like the game Rock Band) is fun. The pianist is Patrik Pietschmann, who has a lot of other theme songs on their channel.

 

The Warp Zone: Harry Potter: Hogwarts in 2020

The Warp Zone has put together a hilarious video of what Hogwarts schooling would look like under Covid 19 social distancing (ie, at home, with classes on zoom). 

Video: Hildegard von Blingin'

Saw this recently and just had to share it. Hildegard von Blingin's youtube channel is pretty new but their song rewritings, turning modern pop songs into medieval lays, is awesome.