For The Win

*Happy dancing*

I made my flatmate cry! *Off key singing* I made my flatmate cry!

*More happy dancing*

I might be a little sadistic...

No, I didn't hit her, or otherwise strike her in any fashion whatsoever. I had her read the ending of Overlord (Book 4 of The Great Man series). When she teared up, I laughed, because I'm supportive like that.

What? I cried when I wrote it. It's only fair someone else cries when reading it.

There's something strangely satisfying at watching someone else be touched by your words. Of course, now she's mad at me for making her sad. Whatever. I can live with it.

Don't forget that The Dying God, the titular short story from my e-Book The Dying God & Other Stories, is being serialised at All Things Books. Part 2 is up now.

Read Part 1 first, though, or it won't make sense.

Today's Forgotten English is a little confusing in that it's not what you might think it would be...

Beestings

The first milk after a cow has calved, which is thick and clotty, and in Northampton called cherry-curds. [From] German biest-milch... Anglo-Saxon beost, byst... French calle-bouté, curded or beesty, as the milk of a woman that is newly delivered... The earth was in the Middle Ages supposed to be surrounded by a sea of so thick a substance as to render navigation impossible. This was called mer bétée in French and lebermer in German - the loppered sea.

- Hensleigh Wedgwood's Dictionary of English Etymology, 1878

Fore-milk. To draw the first portion of a cow's milk.

- Thomas Darlington's Folk-Speech of South Cheshire, 1887

Colostre, the first milke, tearmed beest, or beestings.

- Randle Cotgrave's Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues, 1611

A disease caused by imbibing beestings; [from] Latin colostratio.

- Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888

See, told you.

I'm still on break from writing anything to do with The Great Man, so I'm off to play. Have a wonderful Monday everyone!