270: THE LIKELY VLADS
(Reverse ‘trigger warning’: Vlad the Impaler does not appear in this column)
Having no Russian, I cannot say what ‘putin’ means (if anything) as a non-personal noun. But, since ‘Putino’ in Esperanto means a prostitute, let us at least strike one onomastic blow by pronouncing it like the French ‘Putain’ in its most derogatory sense.
Apart from many mentions of meteorological and other strange phenomena, Fort (, 647-8) has one strange tale to tell about Russia. A report by one General RG Burton describes a marauding ursine-looking creature that wounded and killed several people. Armed men hunted it in vain, then (shades of Jack the Ripper) the killings suddenly stopped. The Thing was never caught or identified. Various theories as to what it was include bear, dog, jackal. Fort left it an
