Utah State University DigitalCommons@USU Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects Honors Program 5-2019 N: A Sea Monster of a Research Project Adrian Jay Thomson Utah State University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/honors Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Thomson, Adrian Jay, "N: A Sea Monster of a Research Project" (2019). Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects. 424. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/honors/424 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Honors Program at DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. N: A SEA MONSTER OF A RESEARCH PROJECT by Adrian Jay Thomson Capstone submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with UNIVERSITY HONORS with a major in English- Creative Writing in the Department of English Approved: UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY Logan, UT SPRING2019 Abstract Ever since time and the world began, dwarves have always fought cranes. Ever since ships set out on the northern sea, great sea monsters have risen to prey upon them. Such are the basics of life in medieval and Renaissance Scandinavia , Iceland, Scotland and Greenland, as detailed by Olaus Magnus' Description of the Northern Peoples (1555) , its sea monster -heavy map , the Carta Marina (1539), and Abraham Ortelius' later map of Iceland, Islandia (1590). I first learned of Olaus and Ortelius in the summer of 2013 , and while drawing my own version of their sea monster maps a thought hit me: write a book series , with teenage characters similar to those in How to Train Your Dragon , but set it amongst the lands described by Olaus , in a frozen world badgered by the sea monsters of Ortelius.