"I’ve got myself an ax in case anybody breaks in through the window"

Three years ago, after Danish cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad enraged Muslims around the world, a Swedish artist named Lars Vilks had trouble finding a gallery willing to show his satirical drawing of the prophet’s head on the body of a dog. On Wednesday, it was suddenly hard to avoid Mr. Vilks’s drawing in Sweden — several Swedish newspapers published it, one day after seven people were arrested in Ireland in connection with a plot to kill him…

On Tuesday, Mr. Vilks, who is 63, seemed remarkably casual about the threat to his life, telling a Swedish news agency, “I’m not shaking with fear, exactly.” He also made what seemed to be a somewhat lighthearted reference to an ax-wielding Somali man’s attempt to kill a Danish cartoonist in January, telling The Irish Times, “I’ve got myself an ax in case anybody breaks in through the window.” On Wednesday, Reuters reported that Mr. Vilks “continues to live at his home in southern Sweden and has no bodyguards.”