In his Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus (Description of the Northern Peoples), Olaus Magnus describes races on bone skates that are "8--12 Italian miles" long. The question is, how long is that?
How long were the races?
Tag: bone skates
Skates Made of Bone
My book on bone skates is available for pre-order! You can get it directly from the publisher, McFarland, from Amazon, or from whatever bookstore you like best.
Skating party in Lödöse
The Lödöse Museum in Sweden hosts an annual skating event---on bone skates! This year, the skating is scheduled for February 11 from 1 to 3 PM; the details are here (in Swedish). Skating on bones in Lödöse, Sweden. Photograph courtesy of Marie Schmidt, Lödöse Museum. There are videos of previous years' skating events on the… Continue reading Skating party in Lödöse
H. W. Jacobi on bone skates
I recently got hold of a copy of De Nederlandse glissen by H. W. Jacobi, thanks to some kind people in the Netherlands. It's a paper written for a course at the University of Amsterdam in 1976. This paper has gone viral (in the bone skates sense) despite its obscurity. It has been cited far… Continue reading H. W. Jacobi on bone skates
Kalderhohdi Farm
In August, 1878, A. Heneage Cocks visited Iceland and got a pair of bone skates. Here's the story as he told it to J. Romilly Allen: I noticed the bone skates hanging up in Kalderhohdi Farm on the Log River SW Iceland when putting up there in August 1878. I remember carefully concealing my feeling… Continue reading Kalderhohdi Farm