Original Sources for Welsh history
J. Beverley Smith, in his exhaustive history of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, lists primary sources for his research in the back of his book Llywelyn ap Gruffydd: The Prince of Wales, (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1998). In perusing the documents, it becomes clear that while the thirteenth century was no longer officially the ‘dark ages’, there is very little documentation for an enormous amount of what happened in Wales during Llywelyn’s reign. On one hand, we have the cryptic Chronicle of the Princes (from which I quoted a few days ago), but no other record, official or otherwise, of the events leading up to Llywelyn’s death. In addition, we don’t know: 1) When Llywelyn ap Gruffydd was born 2) If Senana was definitively his mother, though there is reference to him as the ‘uterine brother’ of Owain and Dafydd. 3) Read more…
Footsteps in Time Review (from Smashwords)
This was pretty cool, so I felt the need to repost it . . . so thank you Wil! I’m glad you liked the book! ________ Review by: Wilson James on Feb. 14, 2011 : Honor. That’s a word not often used today, in 2011. Honor, however, was one of the only things that American teenagers David and Anna took with them in their time travel to medieval Wales. Honor also describes the way in which Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffydd lived his life as the ruler of Wales in 1282. The best way to describe FOOTSTEPS IN TIME? An amazing tale of adventure, daring exploits, loyalty, and courage all wrapped up in a time travel young adult fiction story. This book was enjoyable from beginning to end, as it has plenty of action mixed with a truly remarkable degree of Read more…
Writing Historical Fantasy: a Conversation with Jules Watson
Guest Post by Anna Elliott: A Conversation with Jules Watson. Jules Watson writes amazing, lyric historical fantasy set in the Dark Age Celtic world. Her newest book, The Raven Queen, will be out next month. And she has an absolutely fantastic historical fiction workshop on her website. If you write historical fiction or fantasy, go check it out immediately, it’s one of the best resources for writers in the genre I’ve seen. http://juleswatson.com/fictionworkshop.html Where do your ideas for a book start? With a known historical fact or myth? A ‘scene’ that pulls you into a story? A particular character? Or maybe none of those? The Raven Queen and my previous book The Swan Maiden were inspired by the heroines of two ancient Irish myths. For The Swan Maiden, I had always adored the Celti story of Deirdre of the Sorrows, Read more…
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