Medieval Scottish Clans

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All my books have so far been set in Wales, and my ancestry is Welsh, but it’s also Scottish. Lately, I’ve been exploring that history more.  Here’s a map of the lands of the great Scottish clans:  http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/the-great-clans-of-scotland/ One of my clans is MacKay (also known as Morgan? Really? Another Welsh connection?), from the far north. My ancestor, Donald McKay, fought for one of the Highland divisions against the United States in the Revolutionary War.  As payment for his service, and because the Crown did not want all these Highlanders coming home to Scotland with nothing to do and no land to do it on (since the Highland Clearances had already occurred), he was given land in Nova Scotia.  My multiple great grandfather, also Donald McKay, was born in Shelburne, though he emigrated to Boston, where he built clipper ships Read more…


The Black Death in Wales

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The Black Death is generally understood to have been caused by the flea on a rat that appeared in Europe from Asia, having come from the steppes.  The Black Death came in three forms:  bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic, all caused by a bacterium called Yersinia pestis.    These three forms had a mortality rate of 30-75%, 90-95%, and 100% respectively. http://www.insecta-inspecta.com/fleas/bdeath/Black.html Skip Knox writes:  ‘The Black Death erupted in the Gobi Desert in the late 1320s. No one really knows why. The plague bacillus was alive and active long before that; indeed Europe itself had suffered an epidemic in the 6th century. But the disease had lain relatively dormant in the succeeding centuries. We know that the climate of Earth began to cool in the 14th century, and perhaps this so-called little Ice Age had something to do with it.  Whatever Read more…


Morgane/Morgan le Fey/Morgana

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Unlike Arthur, Gwenhwyfar, and Lancelot, the origins of Morgane are somewhat more obscure. (And given then their origins are obscure, this has to be really bad, right?) Morgane is first mentioned in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Life of Merlin, so right off, you know that this is going to be fantastical and historically inaccurate.  Still, he found her somewhere, most likely in Welsh mythology.  ‘Morgan’ is a man’s name in Welsh, but the creation of this character appears to have its roots in The Morrigan, the Celtic triple goddess (see https://sarahwoodbury.com/women-in-celtic-myth/) who is a goddess of war among other things.  Morgane is also possibly related to Modrun, a specifically Welsh mother-goddess: The “name means “divine mother”. Often conflated with the Roman Matrona, she is the Tutelary of the Marne in Gaul. In Britain, she appears as a washerwoman, and thus there would seem Read more…


Who was Guinevere?

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Guinevere, or Gwenhwyfar in Welsh, was King Arthur’s wife. That’s pretty much all that we know about her conclusively (bearing in mind that we can hardly be conclusive about King Arthur’s existence, either–see my posts here: https://sarahwoodbury.com/all-about-king-arthur/). She is first named in the Welsh story of Culhwch and Olwen, a tale about a hero connected with Arthur and his warriors.  We have two manuscripts: a complete version in the Red Book of Hergest, ca. 1400, and a fragmented version in The White Book of Rhydderch, ca. 1325. It is the longest of the surviving Welsh prose tale and likely existed before the 11th century, making it the earliest Arthurian tale.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culhwch_and_Olwen In it, Arthur says:   “Since thou wilt not remain here, chieftain, thou shalt receive the boon whatsoever thy tongue may name, as far as the wind dries, and the rain moistens, and the sun revolves, Read more…


Annwn, the Welsh Underworld

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Annwn, or Annuvin in the Chronicles of Prydein by Lloyd Alexander, is an ‘other’ world, from the one that mortals live in.  It is the realm of the gods, or of the dead, depending upon the source. This site states:  “The Welsh word annwn, annwfyn is traditionally translated “otherworld,” and is akin to some of the Irish worlds of the gods (Tír na mBéo, “Land of the Living,” etc.) One will recall that in the First Branch of The Mabinogi, Pwyll exchanges place and shape with Arawn, king of Annwn, whose realm is there depicted as co-existent with Pwyll’s Dyfed. In another poem from The Book of Taliesin ( Angar Kyfyndawt, 18.26-23.8) the speaker declares annwfyn to be underground: yn annwfyn ydiwyth, in Annwfyn the peacefulness, yn annwfyn ygorwyth in Annwfyn the wrath, yn annwfyn is eluyd in Annwfyn below Read more…


Children of Time is coming!

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Here’s the cover for the print book!  I just couldn’t wait to share it. Currently, Children of Time, the fourth book in the After Cilmeri series (fifth, if you include  Daughter of Time), is in the editing/copyediting process.  I am planning on a November release date.  If you want to know the moment it arrives in stores, sign up in the side bar! November 1288. Bereft of a king or rightful heir, England hurtles towards civil war for the second time in a generation. When David, Prince of Wales, and his wife, Lili, travel to London to attend the wedding of William de Bohun and Princess Joan, they have no intention of involving themselves in local politics. But as infighting leads to murder, David and Lili find themselves at the center of a far-reaching conspiracy. Trapped between history and legend, Read more…


Archaeology news in the UK–exciting update!

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I am always on the lookout for interesting archaeological finds or digs in the UK.  I have three today: The first is the ongoing quest for the grave of Richard III: http://www.northwalesweeklynews.co.uk/conwy-county-news/uk-world-news/2012/08/24/archaeologists-in-richard-iii-dig-55243-31688154/ “King Richard III, the last Plantagenet, ruled England from 1483 until he was defeated at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. It is believed his body was stripped and despoiled and brought to Leicester, where he was buried in the church of the Franciscan Friary, known as Greyfriars.” Richard III is the king defeated by Henry Tudur, the descendent of Ednyfed Fychan, the seneschel to Llywelyn the Great. Henry became Henry VII.  The interesting problem in this case, and it has happened all over the UK, is that they lost the location of the original church where they think he is buried!  You wonder how that could have happened Read more…


The Best and Worst of King Arthur Movies

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    While we’re on the subject of King Arthur, which of course, we always are, except when we’re talking about Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, I thought we could talk King Arthur movies.   Since I’ve ranted about the King Arthurs I don’t like to read about or watch (https://sarahwoodbury.com/the-fictional-king-arthur-rant/), how many King Arthur movie depictions have there actually been?  And how many have been done well? Here’s the list from Wikipedia of straightforward King Arthur movies: Parsifal (1904) Launcelot and Elaine (1909) Il Re Artù e i cavalieri della tavola rotonda (1910) Parsifal (1912) The Quest of the Holy Grail (1915) The Adventures of Sir Galahad (serial) (1950) Knights of the Round Table (1953) Parsifal (1953) The Black Knight (1954) Prince Valiant (1954) The Adventures of Sir Lancelot (serial) (1956) Lancelot and Guinevere (1963) Siege of the Saxons (1963) The Sword in the Stone (1963) Camelot (1967) Arthur of the Britons (1972) Gawain and the Green Knight (1973) Lancelot Read more…


The Ninth Crusade

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Edward I of England took the cross in 1268.  His father, King Henry, was still alive at the time so he was able to take the opportunity to campaign in the Holy Land. The eighth crusade, which was very short and only lasted a few months, is sometimes lumped into the ninth.  It’s leader, however, was Louis the IX of France, “sailing from Aigues-Mortes, initially to come to the aid of the remnants of the crusader states in Syria. However, the crusade was diverted to Tunis, where Louis spent only two months before dying.”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades By 1270, things had deteriorated for the Christian states in the Middle East considerably.  Jerusalem had fallen in 1244 AD and was never recovered.  For Edward’s purposes, the Baron’s War against Simon de Montfort was over and the Welsh threat contained with the Treaty of 1267.  Read more…


Sharing some pics from Wales …

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My husband has kept these hidden on his drive until now, so I hadn’t even seen them!   These two pictures were taken on a nothing of a road from Devil’s Bridge (east of Aberystwyth) through the Elan Valley to Cilmeri.  The road was protected by a cattle guard on either end, was really only one lane (albeit paved), and we saw two cars and a million sheep for the two hours we were on it.   The rock is broken over the English translation and at first I couldn’t believe what it said.  It is at ‘Llywelyn’s Well’, which you reach by following a narrow path and some stairs behind his monument at Cilmeri.  It should read “Legend has it that this is the well where the head of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd was washed.” Dinas Bran:   Dolwyddelan and Read more…


The Mortimers

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The Mortimers were a powerful Marcher family that begin with Ranulf, who became lord of Wigmore after 1075.  He was Norman, naturally, and was the Seigneur of St. Victor-en-Caux in Normandy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralf_de_Mortimer Once in England, however, the family rose to power and as far as I can tell, did everything in their power to hold onto it, regardless of how many times they switched allegiances between the English crown, the Welsh crown, and outright rebellion. “In historical terms we can go back to the Domesday Book for the first clear reference to Wigmore Castle. The relevant entry read “Ralph de Mortimer holds Wigmore Castle”, but he was not the nobleman to whom we can attribute the building of the stronghold. That honor goes to William Fitzosbern, but this Norman, one of the Conqueror’s captains, incurred William’s wrath in 1075 with an act of treachery and he Read more…


My Welsh Ancestry

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I say in my bio that my ancestors came from Wales. While Woodbury is a Saxon name, my umpteenth great grandfather, William Woodbury, self-identified as a Welshman when he came to Salem in 1628.  I discuss the origins of the name ‘Woodbury’ and its Welsh possibilities here:  https://sarahwoodbury.com/about/the-origins-of-the-name-woodbury/ I am also descended from a host of Morgans, Thomas’, Kemries, Johns, Rhuns etc.  The line I’ve researched most successfully descends from Llywelyn ap Ifor born around 1300.  Six generations later, Sir John Morgan (1448) was knighted and is featured here:  http://tredegarhouse.blogspot.com/2006/05/sir-john-morgan-7.html One of his sons, Thomas, married  Elizabeth Vaughn and had Rowland (who became sheriff in 1588).  The line then goes Henry-Thomas-Robert to Samuel, who had two children:  Anna and Robert. Anna, born in 1685, married Hezekiah Ober.  Their child, Joanna, married Elisha Woodbury, 8 generations up from me through my father.  In turn, Read more…