Alfheimr Renaissance

There has been a bit too much social contact with people, so I excuse myself to rest in my bedroom. I just tell them to come get me or wake me up in a couple of hours, since I might fall asleep. It's so nice that most people are at the pavilion, and it's on the other side of the building. I just wish I could get more solitude and alone time than that, but the feast will only be a few days more. A few long days more.

Asbjörn and Myrun catch me as I walk down the stairs, and ask about at the wind turbine. They are not the only ones that have wondered what the wind turbine above the gable is for – and they noticed it during the auction too - and then there is the new strange thing with copper wire hanging between and from the flagpoles above the roof and into the guards day room, but I'm just reply that it's a project I'm working on, which in the future leads to something else. Asbjörn has heard about all the copper wire I've ordered, so of course he is curious and have wondered.

Tricky subject, but I reply it's for different types of projects and sejd, which Myrun doesn't doubt considering she has an IUD that has copper wire. But the amount I use is surprising. What they would say if told that the mansion already has about two kilometer of copper wire running on the ceilings and hidden in the walls? Regarding the strange things on the roof, I reply that there is likely to be a couple of similar things on the mansion and maybe up on the mountain west or north of here. I absolutely get why they can't figure out what copper wire strung between tall flagpoles do, or the strange thing rotating by the wind. But they also find humour in my overall 'love for copper', since the roofs, water pipes, radiators and tanks are in copper, although Asbjörn now knows why, and I assume it's just a matter of time until Liv have informed Myrun.

Myrun's curious eyes on the feed line that comes in and hangs below the ceiling in the day room, proves that she is now well aware of the scale of the mansion's secrets that may be fully visible but only the initiated know. Luckily, they respect that a Sejdmann has secrets and Asbjörn just shakes his head, laughs and says that there is always something new and strange here every time he visits, which Myrun agrees with. Every time she visits, she also experience new things she wants to build. She and her children really likes the security windows she got put in their home, even though those windows are only like the slimmer windows here. But she did include stained glass upper parts for some of them. She wants to install a couple of fireplaces with chimneys this coming summer and have carefully studied the ones we have. The pavilion fireplaces are very easy to study, but she have also talked with Pedr about the construction, especially the kitchen fireplaces, which are far more complex.

The wind vane is another strange thing on the roof, but they get that it tells the wind direction, they just don't see much point in it. So I have another show and tell about it, along with the rain gauge and my thermometers. All gets to try using the indoor thermometer in a hot cup, cold cut and just carefully hold the bulb in their hand and watch its mercury rise. They see it reaches about the same regardless of who is holding it. Of course Myrun asks if it's a large thermometer I have in the wooden box, so I explain the barometer as well.

This have turned into a quite fascinating discussion about weather, and that I'm gathering daily data into a weather book that they are shown, and how that might be useful in the long term. I explain how a barometer can help predict weather changes, and that I hope to spread the these instruments and have collections in many places, since gathering information helps understand and see patterns, and just because it is interesting. Gathering the measurements is the first step, and will be hugely important for the future, although I don't expect good weather prediction in my lifetime. It is also just too difficult to be able to predict far in the future, and that is under the influence of the gods.

Of course many are good at interpreting signs in nature to predict weather, or know simpler things like a night with a clear sky is a colder night, but they have not really thought about the weather. Why it is like that or how it works. Weather is something that the gods effect, and good weather is something you pray for. Saying it's a chaotic system ruled by the sun and chance wouldn't really be a good idea right now, but there are several who seem quite interested when I tell them how the sun heats the ground and the warm air rises, and they can see birds circling and rising over spots in nature due to thermal rise or wind. Then I need to explain what air truly is, which becomes a small experiment to prove that air exists, and it contains oxygen that we breathe and fire needs. I do the experiment with a narrow candle that stands in a bowl of water and use my widest glass test tube over it, which causes the candle to quickly go out as the oxygen is consumed. I add a little more water and the level inside the upturned tube is lower so what is keeping the water from rising up inside? Why doesn't the candle continue to burn? It makes me really happy to see that apart from Iselin who has already seen these experiments and of course likes it, Siri is glued to the table where I perform it, and Elvira and Ida have plenty of company as they watch with discrete but obvious curiosity from behind those sitting at the table. I have already planned to give a variation of Faraday's 'The chemical history of a candle' at the Academy.

Of course the gods decide the weather, but I just give them my view that I believe the gods decide the weather effectively and subtly by influencing these phenomena in the environment, because what better sign of power and control than a small subtle influence that has big effects a day or many days later?

Kari helps me by again showing the weather book and telling us that the night before the wedding the barometer showed signs that the weather would be good, continued to show it in the morning, and who else but a mighty goddess like Freya could have set the wheels in motion so subtly, on the day before, so that the sun would come out during the ceremony, and then stay until the evening. They all accept that answer and see it as a sign of Freya's power, and when Iselin tells other anecdotes, the barometer begins to be seen as a magical instrument that can decipher subtle signs from the gods, that ordinary elves can read and use. The barometer can't predict anything far into the future, and without knowledge of the higher air layers, satellite images, supercomputers that simulate millions of small weather cells, and other deep knowledge, weather prediction is limited to a day or maybe two, but for them the barometer is mighty sejd. If anything, weather should probably be put under Loki's influence.

In the end, I decide to make and probably give a weather station to Asbjörn and Myrun sometime in the future, because if they start to get interested in science and collecting weather data, maybe it will become fashionable. It definitely looks like what they want at least a barometer in their homes, and Völva Gauthild seems to want one too. If I can make meteorology interesting among the rich and Völvas, it should be good for science, because then surely others will want to show themselves learned and that they also support research and science. I guess Maurr should get one too, but I'd rather have it at Rivendal inn since there's hopefully going to be a Telegraph station there.

There will certainly be quite a lot of quackery and mysticism, but I hope that the Academy has enough weight to establish better scientific thinking, with documentation and methodical studies to prove something that others can repeat, and really understand what is happening or how things are connected. When I start printing books it will hopefully lead to scholars sending their manuscripts here, or showing up here with them, to get them printed and distributed. My knowledge is shallow in many areas, has big holes and I'm probably remembering some of it wrong, but I do have very important information that can speed up general technology and science, even when it comes to knowledge of weather. Just how the air layers extend upward, how the temperature falls, Hadley and other latitude cells, the jet streams, cyclones, rain shadows, etc. I'm not even an amateur meterologist, but I have accumulated some knowledge, although I wonder how useful knowing about such things as 'sprites' above thunderclouds are, and how to present them in a good way. They must learn to question, create experiments and test. Hopefully I will have people trying to prove me wrong, and not just that I was right. Good science is as much about failing, but learning from those failures and spreading knowledge about those failures, as it is about proving what you know to be true. And accepting and adapting your viewpoint when science proves you wrong.

We have a pleasant evening and the grilled meat is really good. The musicians aren't bad, but it is just not my style, and neither is the dancing, so I avoid dancing. My late evening bedroom dance with Iselin that turns to horizontal dancing suits me better, and I am also more skilled at that to our mutual joy. This wonderful and sexy woman is my wife, and that makes me proud, as well as just wanting to enjoy her body and company.