With special thanks to my editor, Lucienne Diver, my husband, Serge Mailloux, and my good friend Geri Lynn Matthews, for their ongoing support and enduring faith in me;
To Mary Kay Norseng, Professor Emerita, Scandinavian Section, UCLA , for her help with Norwegian words and phrases;
To my sister, Lauran Weinmann, for taking me on a tour of San Francisco after all my years away;
To Jeri and Mario Garcia, for their help with colloquial Spanish;
To MacAllister Stone, for her information and advice about blacksmithing.
And also to Genevra Littlejohn, for information about Kendo terminology.