Pilgrim Reindeer in Pisa, 1348 a free multimedia novel by Thomas A. DuBois, University of Wisconsin-Madison

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 1. Part I Setting Out 20. Reval [October 4 , 1347]

Tallinn is a fantastic city: a place where the Hanseatic past is palpable in the narrow streets and ancient facades of the old city, while the architecturally brutal realities of fifty years of Soviet rule shapes the surrounding (and less touristed) modern sector.

I was fortunate to get to know Dr. Jack Thiessen, professor emeritus of German at the University of Winnipeg, in preparing the dialogue for this chapter. Jack has produced an authoritative dictionary of Mennonite Low German as well as many short stories and essays in the language. He took the time to read my draft of the chapter and check the dialect for accuracy. It would have been absurd for Bávlos to meet with a city guard speaking High German, and luckily we have ample enough texts from the Hanseatic era to know what the Low German of the fourteenth century would have sounded like. But I sure needed expert advice to make this dialogue believable...