OLIVIA SWARTHOUT is a chronicler of strange stories from our distant past, especially the Middle Ages. She has more than 600,000 followers on Twitter/X and more than 20,000 on Substack. Her first book, Weird Medieval Guys, was published in the UK in 2024 by Square Peg Books. She has not yet been published in the U.S. Her first name is derived from the Latin oliva, meaning olive, and her surname is of Middle Dutch origin, roughly corresponding to black forest.
