Lucius Sergius Catalina cuts his way deep into legion lines, early January 62 BCE. https://misterscribbles.blogspot.com/2017/04/cataline.html

Whether slave or general, Flamma is a merciless opponent.  The wolves follow a winner, and just because he is a rabbit can be overlooked, not to mention that he has killed or maimed all challengers.  The barbarian head on a pike is that of a person with insufficient manners.  Flamma is brutal even by New Rome standards.  I fear that the policy of encouraging loyalty to the legion and not the state may come back to haunt the Emperor. This is a very ambitious rabbit!  

The last words of Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos before he charged at the Ottomans were "The city is fallen and I am still alive"! His body was never recovered as he tore off all marks of rank before plunging into the fight.  There were no known (surviving) eyewitnesses to his death.

 July 4th, 1187.  In an unbelievable display of Crusader stupidity, Guy of Lusignan leads out the bulk of the army and is destroyed at the battle of Hattin.  Captured, he and Raynald of Châtillon, prince of Antioch, are taken before the Sultan Salah ad-Din.  The victorious Sultan gave a goblet of water to Guy, who passed it to Raynald.  Saladin dashed this from his hand and beheaded him. Raynald was a mass murderer who had broken an existing truce to prey on caravans of pilgrims.  Frankly, he got off light.  ( Frankly !  Ha ha ha ha ha). The Crusades are over. https://youtu.be/KbTGWuRGKxw Brendan Gleeson as Raynald, Kingdom of Heaven.  2005.

Early this morning I heard such a clatter, I ran downstairs to see what's the matter. And, of course, there was my trouble cat Mingo on top of the stove.  I had left last night's chicken in a pan when I staggered off to bed.  Mingo is always ready for the main chance.  He looks like a cannon ball with a cat skin sewed tightly over it.  He was delighted to see me and rubbed his huge cheeks against my hand.  Just for the form of it I fussed at him but that just makes him purr louder.  The clock thing I did not bother to render very well, it's a malevolent Cheshire Cat clock. Behold.   https://misterscribbles.blogspot.com/2022/05/beltaine.html  

 The bun stood on the burning ship Whilst flames raced to the powder. Then at last a mighty blast, Blew him all to chowder. I worked on this for two weeks until it made me sick to look at it.   I was trying to illustrate Casabianca, but as can be seen this isn't a boy, the poem sucks anyway, and I got tired of dealing with it.  Anyone looking for talent and self discipline isn't gonna find it on this site. HE boy stood on the burning deck Whence all but him had fled; The flame that lit the battle’s wreck Shone round him o’er the dead. Yet beautiful and bright he stood, As born to rule the storm; A creature of heroic blood, A proud, though childlike form. The flames ...

It had been raining, and the water soon turned to ice.  I was a long way from my destination, and the trees and moonless night kept me from seeing anything in the way of a guidepost.  As I reached a crossroads, there on a hill above the forest I spied what looked like firelight through a window.  Maybe someone will give shelter to a hapless traveler, I thought, and made my way up an old stone pathway that apparently led to the building above.  It did, and when I stepped out of the trees I saw the place was a crumbling ruin of an old manor, but there was a fire seen through the one ground floor window that was intact.  I walked up some steps to a door and lifted the heavy, skull shaped knocker and hit the door with it three times.  Nothing.  I tried again, pulling my old coat around my shoulders and adjusting my tail to keep some of the rain off it.  Still no answer.  Well, shoot.  I pushed against the door in a gesture of f...

Illustration by Fred Gwynne. Yes, that Fred Gwynne.