About tirnanog

From the very beginning, my favorite character from Highlander: the Series has always been Darius. I was intrigued by the idea of a barbarian general who gave up his chance to rule the world for a thousand years and chose instead to become a monk and spend the rest of his life promoting peace. I was also very moved by Werner Stocker's wonderful portrayal of Darius, which lives on in memory long after the deaths of the character and the actor, and the demise of the series itself. That is why I decided to create this website, The Book of Darius, to honor and celebrate them.

In case you were wondering, my online pseudonym tirnanog is of Irish origin. In ancient Irish folkore Tír Na nÓg is the name of a Celtic Otherworld, said by some to be an island off the west coast of Ireland which from time to time still appears and then disappears into the mists. Tír Na nÓg means Land of the Young, a place where no one ever grows old or dies. It is inhabited by the Sidhe (aka Fair Folk, Tuatha de Danaan), but sometimes mere mortals reach its shores. As long as they remain there they do not age, but as the Irish hero Oisín learned the hard way, those who return to mortal lands do so at great peril. Oisín was warned never to let his foot touch the soil of Ireland, but he accidentally fell from his horse and instantly the weight of all the years he he had spent in Tír Na nÓg fell upon him, and he became an old man. I chose the name of this Celtic Otherworld as my online pseudonym because it sounded like a possible place of origin for the Immortal race of Highlander: the Series, and because there is a bit of Irish in my ancestry, along with Scottish, Saxon, and Cherokee, plus I have always been interested in folklore. ("Interest in Folklore" is really just a euphemism for "Never Outgrew Fairy Tales". No doubt that is the real reason I loved Highlander. We all have our guilty pleasures, right? Better fairy tales than some things I could mention.)

I was warned when I first began to explore the Web that it is not a good idea to reveal a great deal of personal information on the internet, because it makes you a target for all sorts of nasty things. I happen to think that the personal information on many websites tends to be very dull besides. Without going into a lot of boring details, I can tell you that I work at a library, I love books, and I have far too many of them for the amount of shelf space I have to store them. My other interests include history, poetry, drawing and painting, medieval architecture, and edged weapons (purely an academic interest, rest assured). I also like to travel, but I don't get to far-off places nearly as often as I would like, except in my imagination. Oh, and I value my privacy, but you've guessed that already, right? Well, that's probably all anyone really needs to know about me anyway. You can return to the main site now if you like, by clicking on the link below.