I suppose I was thinking more like VHS, with this series starting in 1980 and spawning 23 different titles that continued until 2007… when porn websites took up the slack

…last 40 years.

It never really dawned on me why Norway had such a random northern strip of territory. But the idea that it kept Sweden using the Baltic straight makes a great deal of sense now.

With caveats: if you tell the truth you’re carrying in your heart like a hidden treasure, sometimes there’s a reason you were doing that, and the people you tell may be less than appreciative that you did; sometimes when you’re weird all the time people don’t want o hang around you.

This was what I was going to posit as well. The late Roman Imperial term for this practice is coloni (quick Wikipedia article on it). Peasants from the late Empire through the Dark Ages were essentially serfs; beginning with contracting away rights for food and a part of land, and then just legally being owned by the local lord. Fascinating stuff.