Frontier Partisans

I love and respect good graphic designers. A huge part of the appeal of The Nugget Newspaper is down to the stellar design work Jess Draper contributes week in and week out. The good looks of Frontier Partisans and my book Warriors of the Wildlands has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the aesthetic talents of Lynn Woodward. So … [Read more...] about 40 Lashes For Egregious Anachronism

We’re on a Frontier Partisans roll with severed heads this month. (Sorry). Couldn’t let the ghoulish season pass without touching on at least one more episode of frontier decapitation: the gruesome and well-deserved end of Arkansas Dave Rudabaugh. * Dave Rudabaugh was no damn good. He was a rustler, a mean drunk and a killer — one of a … [Read more...] about Arkansas Dave Loses His Head

No October is complete without a viewing of Tim Burton’s dreamlike Sleepy Hollow. It is Clan Cornelius’ favorite cinematic tale of the Halloween season — and the Headless Horseman has long been my favorite icon of spookiness. Apparently, the great Frank Frazetta liked the image, too. He painted him twice: In the original Washington … [Read more...] about A Hessian Jäeger Headless Horseman

Last week, I had the opportunity to play five beautiful custom guitars hand-crafted here in Sisters. I also got a story out of it that I had not heard. That makes for a pretty good day. One of the guitars featured a top made of Tunnel 13 Redwood. Instrument-makers are known for extolling the virtues of woods with strange and sometimes … [Read more...] about Tunnel 13

Though overshadowed by men like Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton, William Whitley was their equal, a great frontiersman and a remarkable man who deserves to be remembered as much as any of Kentucky’s founders. —          Jace Gabbard, Vengeance on the Thames, Frontier Partisans, October 5, 2013   William Whitley was an all-time badass … [Read more...] about Guardian Of The Wilderness Road

October 6 marks what would have been the 60th birthday of Steve Tompkins. As I have noted before, the very existence of Frontier Partisans owes a lot to Tompkins and to Deuce Richardson, whose work with the excellent Robert E. Howard blog The Cimmerian set my moccasins on the blogging trail. Tompkins’ analysis of Howard’s Hyborian Age frontier … [Read more...] about A Birthday Salute And This Day In Middle Earth History

Ace frontier artist Gary Zaboly scouted up some old folk songs from the New England Frontier. They were collected during the Great Folk Scare of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Smithsonian Folkways released Witches and War Whoops in 1962. Title probably wouldn’t fly these days. This album brings together a sinister and unusual collection of songs … [Read more...] about ’Witches And War Whoops’

The Irish Lacrosse Team has given up their slot in the 2022 World Games so that the Iroquois National Team can play. From NPR: When invitations went out to men's lacrosse teams to compete in the 2022 World Games in Birmingham, Ala., there was a big omission. The No. 3 Iroquois Nationals, a team that represents the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, wasn’t … [Read more...] about The Creator’s Game

“Never turn your back on a broadsword.” — Neil Oliver This is a brutal test of patience for me. BBC is currently running more savage tales of clan warfare in Scotland with Neil Oliver’s Blood of the Clans. As the ladies of Clan Cornelius can attest, we got our money’s worth purchasing Oliver’s Rise of the Clans from Amazon Prime. I've … [Read more...] about ‘Blood Of The Clans’

Picked this up from Corb Lund: A Canadian doco, John Ware: Reclaimed, premiered at the Calgary International Film Festival on September 24. The film tells the tale of the Black cowboy who settled in Alberta after landing there in 1882 in the first cattle drive into the region. Lund said that his family was friendly with Ware in southern … [Read more...] about Rodeo Legend Recreates Life of Alberta Cowboy