Saxon customs on facial hair, one presumes. Many Germanic peoples of this period wore thick mustaches as a cultural affectation, and depict themselves/are depicted with such.
Fun fact: there's no Classical Latin word for mustache. The term 'Gothic Beard' ('barbam Gothicam') is suspected to refer to it.
He came back though, and then wrote Ace of Spades.
I thought he wrote a federated reddit clone?