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   I am half way through reading “A Knight of the White Cross”, by G. A. Henty. It is about when Gervaise started out as a page, then became a knight of the Hospitaller of Saint John.

   The knights are on the island of Rhodes in a castle. The castle has a prison to keep prisoners and make sure that they do not escape. Sometimes when they are not at Rhodes, they are at sea in galleys chasing pirates or fighting enemies or taking a trip to get someplace. Rhodes is in the Mediterranian Sea of the coast of Turkey.

   Gervaise started out as a page, then he became a knight of a galley. After being chased by pirates, he was crashed on an island, but he found a way to escape and get back home. Back at the castle at Rhodes, he was knighted because of his courageous act. After this, for nine months, he studies Turkish and because he could now speak Turkish, he kept thousands of prisoners from escaping because of discovering a plot! You’d expect someone to become a better fighter to become a better knight, but just by learning Turkish, Gervaise became a better knight. See you next time!

White Fang

Posted 6 years ago by OwenPitts

   I just finished reading “White Fang” by Jack London. I really liked it. It was a very exciting book.

   It was set in the Yukon territory. White Fang’s mother was part of a dog sled team. White Fang’s den and a Native American village are some other settings. None of my other school books I have read this year have any of these settings.

   The book “White Fang” was written from White Fang’s perspective. Whenever something happened in the story that White Fang did not understand, the Author would explain it. In other books, perspective comes from a human.

   There are lots of Themes in White Fang. Some of them are exposure to nature, hardship, curiosity, instinct, and happiness in rest. Some of these themes are in the other books I have been reading. For example, hardship is in Wulf the Saxon, happiness in rest is in all of them, and instinct is in no other book I have read.

   The book talks about White Fang’s whole life from a pup to when he is an adult. Wulf the Saxon is the closest book to that. White Fang also has to learn from trial and error. The people in the other books learn from teachings instead.

   Thomas was born in 1225 A.D. in Italy to a count and countess. At age five, he began school. When Thomas was old enough, he was sent to Naples to attend a university there by his parents. Thomas was influenced greatly by Aristotle’s writings and the Dominicans, a new order of monks.

   When Thomas was 19 years old, he became a member of the Dominicans; however, when he told his parents about this, they were very displeased, so they were kidnapped inside the castle they lived in for two years until Thomas’ mother helped him “escape”.

   After that, he rejoined the Dominican Order of Monks. Thomas’ greatest work is the Summa Theologica. Aristotle had the most influence on Thomas’ life. He died reciting the commentary on the Song of Solomon. He greatly influenced the thinking of the church. He also worked to increase the logical reasoning in the church.

   A project I had to do recently was part of my science. My assignment was to build a radio. I had to watch daily videos on how to build my radio. My dad helped me to order the parts I needed. I had six weeks to complete my project.

   I had to have copper coil, wire, scrap wood, paper, foil, tape, earphones, metal, a paper towel roll, and a toilet paper roll. I was excited to see it finished, and so was my dad. He knows a lot about electrical stuff, so he helped out a lot.

   I had to take a few steps to make sure my project was successful. I had to make sure we got everything correct and in the right spot. I also had to test it out once in a while to make sure it worked correctly. If I got something wrong, we would have to change it and move on.

   It was not really successful because I thought the wire was too short. I was very disappointed when I found out that I failed. I was looking forward to being finished with a real, working radio. We also made a radio transmitter, and that was successful. A radio transmitter can give messages instead of receiving them.

   The crusaders sometimes did their best but did not succeed. I did the same thing with my radio. The Crusaders also sometimes did their best and succeeded. Again, the same thing happened with my radio transmitter. The Crusaders did not even try to succeed in their mission, which usually never happened to me.

Cathedrals

Posted 6 years ago by OwenPitts

   Cathedrals were often big and very beautiful churches. They were made of stone and were often at the center of a town. “Cathedra” is the Greek word for chair, so that means that Cathedrals were the chair of authority for a bishop.

   Cathedrals often took centuries to build. Some people could work on one cathedral and still never see it completed. Romanesque, a type of style made in the 12th century, was the kind of cathedral that was the most common style in history.

   These types of cathedrals have pointed arches, flying buttresses, and very high ceilings. All cathedrals are made in the shape of a cross and are pointed west to east. Flying buttresses are pillars that support the high ceilings. Gargoyles are stone beasts that are sometimes added to the flying buttresses.

   It takes lots of money to build a cathedral, so the church sold indulgences. They said if you bought an indulgence, your sins would be forgiven.

   I am going to talk about three themes in “Treasure Island”, a book I just finished reading. Adventure is one of them. When a young boy named Jim finds an old treasure map, he begins a voyage across the ocean to find the treasure. The only problem is that pirates are looking for the map to find the treasure before Jim and his friends get it. It takes a whole lot of courage to find the treasure before the pirates find it, which brings me to my next theme: courage.

   Courage is very important in a super long journey to find treasure, especially against pirates. Courage helps Jim to be brave while the pirates are trying to find him and the map. Courage also helps the ship’s crew, the captain, and the doctor to be brave in times of trouble. When Jim finds out that the ship’s cook and some of the crew are actually the pirates who are looking for the treasure map, it takes courage to stand up to them! The captain, the doctor, and Jim will need more courage than ever before to defeat the pirates.

   The last theme of this paper is loyalty. Loyalty is also very important as well. Jim stayed loyal to Captain Smollett, even when there were more pirates than loyal crew. He also was loyal to a hermit named Ben Gunn who lived on the island. Long John Silver was not loyal to anyone, the captain or his pirates. You would probably need these three themes to write an exciting book.

   The culture of the Saxons was extensive, but I will include only a small portion of it because I do not know a lot about it. The Saxons always had a king to rule over them. The prince is always the successor of the king, which means the prince becomes king after the previous king dies.

   the Thanes also have a high position in Saxon culture. The king gives them a large territory of land that they have to take care of. The Thanes worked for the earls who worked for the king. The knights worked for the Thanes. When there was a war going on, the Thanes would be the generals of the army.

   Wars were a problem in Saxon culture. The enemy could attack at any time when the Saxons least expected it. The enemy could take over the farms first so the city or the army could not get fresh supplies to live so that either of them could be too weak to overcome the invasion of the enemy. Another strategy is to lock people up in barns or churches and then set them on fire. It is actually extremely sad.

   I would not at all want to live there because of all the wars. There was barely enough time for peace. I read a Saxon book called “Wulf the Saxon”. It is a happy and sad book, but I liked reading it.

   One, cold Friday night, some boys and I were supposed to camp, but it was canceled so we got to spend some of the night at my Dad’s Shire. We could not camp out there because there was not enough room for all the tents, so we had to just stay there for a while. We had a fire, hot chocolate, and lots of fun. We even have a swing and a zip line there!

   Later, my friend Jaden and I wanted to get to the bottom of the zip line through the woods, but my brother Wyatt wanted to come along with us. Jaden and I did not want him to come with us, but we had to take him with us.

   When we were about halfway there, it started snowing really, really hard; so hard, in fact, that we could not see very well. Wyatt brought along a flashlight, so he went in front to lead the way to light the way for us and regretted not wanting Wyatt to come along. We eventually got back to the others and the fire and warmed ourselves up a bit.

   When it stopped snowing the result was that we got really cold and snow was all over the place. Fortunately, we had hot chocolate to warm ourselves up and we played for a while or just sat by the fire till it was time to go home.

   A great king of England, King Edward, did not anoint a specific heir to his throne, so when he died, at least three people claimed to have the rights to rule England. The Earl of Wessex, Harold Godwinson, was chosen to be the new king. William of Normandy thought he was the rightful heir to the throne, so he immediately began creating an army to help him take the throne. At the same time, he was marching to invade England.

   Meanwhile, in the Battle of Stamford Bridge, King Harold and his Saxons fought against King Harald’s Norwegians. The Saxons won the battle, and King Harald and Tostig both died. This battle marks the end of the Viking Age.

   William arrived on the southern beaches of England just three days after the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Harold had to drag his entire army across the vast country just to fight William and his Normans. Harold, at the top of a hill, held the high ground. William attacked from below while trying to climb up the hill to attack Harold. Harold kept the high ground and made the Normans retreat for some time, however, victory was not the Saxons. William and his Normans eventually chased the Saxons down the hill and crushed them. King Harold was killed by an arrow straight in the eye. His army retreated while being picked off by arrows. William was crowned King of England on Christmas day, 1066.

Viking comes from the Norse words “seamen” and “expeditions”, which are pretty good words to describe Vikings. The Vikings only used two kinds of ships, the longships and the knarrs. The longships are primarily used for transporting troops to battle. The knarrs are quite different. They are merchant ships that transport and trade goods. The longships are propelled by oar power or wind power. The knarrs are propelled primarily by wind power, but it could be propelled by oar power.

   A runestone is an amazing king of stone because it is a stone that reminds people about a certain event. For example, a battle, a funeral, etc. It even had words written on it. The Vikings even made their own alphabet! Every letter is made out of just straight lines, which probably made it easier to carve in words on the runestones. The Vikings had three main gods. One of them is Thor, a Marvel superhero to this day. Three days of the week are named after the three Norse gods.

   The Vikings used swords, spears, and axes (primarily axes) to fight with. Only the rich people could afford axes to fight with. The poor people only used swords and spears to fight with. They had a very chaotic style of fighting. Some common misconceptions about the Vikings are that they always acted like barbarians and they always wore helmets with horns, but only one helmet with horns has ever been found.