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 21. Tiiu [October 5, 1347]

Getting Bávlos to meet a real Estonian was a goal of mine in the text. Estonians and Sámi are kindred peoples, and I wanted Bávlos to get to know this culture a little before leaving the region for the south. So here he is, off at a little cottage outside of the city of Reval. I also wanted to contrast the cultural information and expressive genres that would be accessible to Bávlos in languages that he cannot understand well (e.g., Low German) with those he can enjoy in a language that he knows well (here, Estonian). Of course, Bávlos probably could not understand all the nuances of the song Tiiu sings, but he could follow enough of its words to understand its intensity. Incorporating Tiiu into the plot also gave me a device for allowing Bávlos to gain some distance on the views he is hearing from the priest. The situation in Reval in 1347 must have been incredibly polarized and tense, and I wanted Bávlos to be able to observe both sides of the dispute. In the next couple of chapters, he will get to meet sympathetic characters on both sides of the cultural divide before returning to Gotland.