I just keep thinking of Dick Tracy and his wrist watch in the 1940s. Today it would be a toy. In a message dated 8/1/2022 9:37:01 AM Pacific Standard Time, [log in to unmask] writes: In the novel, the period & setting are only notionally the 6th c. MT is riffing on Malory, and Malory's setting is churchified, and heavy plate armor is standard, tilting is a game, "Saracens" are a category of opponent, and so on. Mallory was also in on it (as was T H White) ,-- any Anglo-French fellow of any military experience who died in 1471 would have known about cannon; he simply (and wisely, I think) opted not to speak of them in his Arthurian tale. If there is an extant printed solar calendar from Hank's time (MT's time) that indicated a total solar eclipse visible from the someone standing in any part of the British Isles at any time in the 6th c., well, that would be a cool thing. On Mon, Aug 1, 2022 at 8:43 AM Daniel P. B. Smith <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > In A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, the narrator says "But all > of a sudden I stumbled on the very thing, just by luck. I knew that the > only total eclipse of the sun in the first half of the sixth century > occurred on the 21st of June, A.D. 528, O.S., and began at 3 minutes after > 12 noon.” > > When I read the book as a kid, I just took this at face value; and of > course Mark Twain didn’t have any problems using unlikely coincidences in > his other books. > > But since then I’ve always wondered: are we really supposed to believe > this? Or was Mark Twain poking deadpan fun at unbelievable coincidences in > literature? >