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

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 Part III. Italy. 57. After the Healing [April 13, 1349]

Well, did you expect a parade? The Plague generated a lot of fear, and Bávlos becomes of victim of it. Up until the Plague, as I tried to show in the novel, the institution of pilgrimage created a justification for a lot of travel, and strangers wandering through town were considered a normal and expectable phenomenon. After the Plague, itineracy becomes equated with villainy, and foreigners (or ethnic Others) become suspected of every piece of ill luck or misfortune that occurs.

I wanted Nieiddash and her calf to end up on Mount Morello, because when wandering around that mountain once, I came upon a lot of tracks that looked like reindeer. There are wild boar on the mountain, as well as deer, and I suppose the tracks I saw belonged to one of these species. But I couldn't help imagining that it would be possible to transplant a herd of reindeer to Tuscany and that they might manage just fine in an environment like Mount Morello.