Cadwaladr ap Gruffydd, brother to the King

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  If ever your family gets on your nerves, you can be glad that you don’t have a family like Owain Gwynedd. Cadwaladr ap Gruffydd was Owain Gwynedd’s brother.  A royal family in Wales wasn’t the same as in England, where the eldest son inherited most everything.  In Wales, upon the death of a king, an entire kingdom was to be split among the brothers, even the illegitimate ones.  (yes, the Catholic Church objected to this, but the Welsh didn’t much care).  This caused problems for Wales time and again–as the brothers fought over lands among themselves and what had been a united kingdom under the father became divided under the sons. Cadwaladr and Owain were often at odds.  Owain became the eldest son when his brother, Cadwallon, died, leaving Owain and Cadwaladr to rule without him. Owain and Cadwaladr seemed Read more…


Welsh Pronunciation

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“Names are not always what they seem. The common Welsh name BZJXXLLWCP is pronounced Jackson.” Puddinhead Wilson (Mark Twain, Following the Equator) For an English speaker, Welsh is not easy.  The following is a quick guide: a  ‘ah’ as in ‘rah’ (Caradog) ae  ‘eye’ as in ‘my’ (Cadfael) ai  ‘eye’ as in ‘my’ (Owain) aw  ‘ow’ as in ‘cow’ (Alaw) au  ‘eye’ as in ‘my’ (Dau) c  a hard ‘c’ sound (Cadfael) ch  a non-English sound as in Scottish ‘ch’ in ‘loch’ (Fychan) dd  a buzzy ‘th’ sound, as in ‘there’ (Ddu; Gwynedd) e  ‘eh’ as in ‘met’ (Ceri) eu  ‘ay’ as in ‘day’ (Ddeufaen) f  ‘v’ as in ‘of’ (Cadfael) ff  as in ‘off’ (Gruffydd) g  a hard ‘g’ sound, as in ‘gas’ (Goronwy) i  ‘ee’ as in ‘see’ (Ceri) ia  ‘yah’ as in ‘yawn’ (Iago) ieu  sounds like the Read more…


The Good Knight has a new cover!

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I spent twenty years telling myself I didn’t have a creative bone in my body.  I told myself I wasn’t a visual person. I don’t paint and photoshop is beyond me, but I know when something is beautiful and right.  Christine DeMaio-Rice (http://flipcitybooks.com/) is my cover designer.  So far she’s revamped Cold My Heart, The Last Pendragon series, and now The Good Knight.  And here it is:   It’s going to take a while to filter through all the channels, so please be patient if the old cover still pops up for you at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Apple.  She has also designed the full book cover for the paper copy.  Isn’t it gorgeous?  It should go live in a day or two as well. You may note that the tag on the Kindle book is now “A Gareth and Read more…


Guest Post at David Gaughran’s Blog

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I don’t usually link to all my guest posts, but today, David Gaughran (I was one of the authors featured in his book, ‘Let’s Get Digital’) is special and a friend. ________________ A New Strategy for a New Year – Guest Post by Sarah Woodbury To enroll or not to enroll, that is the question on a lot of writers’ minds. I have had several posts on KDP Select, because it’s a complex issue, without one “right” answer that will fit all self-publishers. If you are just catching up, I came out against the programbefore Christmas, but featured two authors recently that are doing well out of it: Marilyn Peake and Patrice Fitzgerald. To wrap up this mini-series, I have a guest post from bestselling author Sarah Woodbury, who hasn’t enrolled in KDP Select. Instead she’s exploiting the increased opportunities on other retailers. Here’s Sarah: *** Read more…


SOPA and Internet Piracy

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Wikipedia is blacked out today.  Here’s why: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SOPA_logo.png I am opposed to internet piracy.  I make my living off my books and if people pirate my books, they don’t pay me.  At the same time, I see no point in going after readers–who might actually like my book and want to read more, that they’ll then pay for.   This is Neil Gaiman on why we shouldn’t care about piracy of books:  http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/02/10/neil-gaiman-piracy-lending-books/ The present internet piracy acts before Congress don’t address the real problem, which is companies (foreign, mostly) that pirate work wholesale and sell it. Slate has a great article about why online piracy is not a bad thing. A TED talk that gives the history of this bill:   From the explanation at Wikipedia: What are SOPA and PIPA? SOPA and PIPA represent two bills in the United Read more…


Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn

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Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn was a contemporary of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the last Prince of Wales who died in 1282.  He was father to Owain, who with Dafydd ap Gruffydd, Llywelyn’s brother, conspired to murder Llywelyn in 1274. Gruffydd was born sometime before 1216, the date of his father’s death.   Llywelyn Fawr had driven the family from their lands in Powys and Gruffydd subsequently grew up in England.   “Gwenwynwyn seized Arwystli in 1197 when he was aligned with England. Following the marriage of Llywelyn Fawr and Joan of England in 1208, warfare broke out once more between Gwenwynwyn and Llywelyn. In 1212 Gwenwynwyn’s ancient royal seat at Mathrafal was destroyed and he was evicted from his territories. He changed allegiances again and was restored to his realm in 1215 making a new capital at Welshpool. In 1216 he was defeated in battle with the forces of Read more…


Better Know a Castle*: Abergavenny

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On Christmas Day in 1175, William de Braose, a Marcher lord (the 4th Lord of Bramber), summoned Seisyll ap Dyfnwal, Seisyll’s eldest son, Geoffrey, and a number of other local leading Welshmen from Gwent to Abergavenny Castle to hear a royal proclamation.   He then murdered them all.  This was justified in William’s mind because of a prior killing of his uncle by Seisyll (or so he suspected, though apparently had no proof).  “De Braose and his men then mounted horses and galloped the few miles to Seisyll’s home where they caught and murdered his younger son, Cadwalladr a boy of seven years of age and captured his wife, whose exact fate is uncertain.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seisill_ap_Dyfnwal Other sons, not in attendance that day, got their revenge by burning Abergavenny in 1182.  Gerald of Wales “alludes to the horrible event in the history of Abergavenny Read more…


The Welsh Robin Hood

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The idea of ‘Robin Hood’–one who steals from the rich and gives to the poor–or even someone who is on the side of the weak and downtrodden against the unjust ruler, is very old.  One of my favorite books, Sherwood by Parke Godwin, sets the story in the time of the Norman conquest, making Robin a Saxon thane.  Sadly, it’s out of print, but you can get it used from Amazon.com:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0688052649/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&qid=1326154880&sr=1-5&condition=used We have other choices for Robin Hood that are set in Wales: Bran ap Brychan:  Stephen Lawhead’s King Raven series focuses on this possible hero.  Like Parke Godwin’s, Sherwood, Lawhead places his Robin Hood at the time of the Norman conquest–though of Wales, not England.  Bran, the “heir to the throne Elfael, has abandoned his father’s kingdom and fled to the greenwood. There, in the primeval forest of the Welsh borders, Read more…


History of Paper

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The history of paper covers thousands of years, just one of many formats in which people kept records. Medieval lords had castle accounts, right?  On what were these written?  Did they call them paper, or parchment?  Were they made of dried skins, linen, paper? During the 8th century, Chinese papermaking spread to the Islamic world, where pulp mills and paper mills were used for papermaking and money making. By the 11th century, papermaking was brought to Europe. It was common enough by the 13th century for a decree from Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in 1221 to declare all official documents written on paper to be invalid! https://paper.gatech.edu/invention-paper-0 “Medieval paper was made from linen rags. It is much stronger and more durable than modern wood-pulp paper, and fifteenth-century scribes were wrong if they believed that it would not survive. Rag paper is manufactured as Read more…


Welsh Surnames

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This is Sir Taran ap Deiniol (my son) wearing a full coif and tunic of crocheted mail.  The ‘ap’ in his name means ‘son of’ for the Welsh.  If he were a girl, the ‘ap’ would become ‘ferch’, meaning ‘daughter of”. Among the Welsh today, the number of surnames are few.  In general, if you encounter someone with a first name as a last name, their ancestry may very well be Welsh.  In Wales today, Jones, Davies, Evans, Williams, and Thomas are the most common surnames. http://www.genealogymagazine.com/welsh.html The reason for this was that the Welsh adopted the use of true surnames very late–beginning in the 15th century and the process didn’t finish until the 18th.  This meant that 1) the use of English names and the Englishization of Wales had fully taken hold and 2) the Church’s use of English baptismal Read more…


One Year Ago Today …

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One year ago today, I uploaded my first book to Amazon.com, The Last Pendragon (not, however, with my beautiful new cover :)).  I had decided to take the plunge into indie authordom, after nearly five years of writing and querying and being rejected by publishers large and small.  I have a wonderful agent, Jacques de Spoelberch, who did his best for me, but no publisher wanted to take a chance on historical fantasy set in Wales. I had been giving the book away for free at other sites up until then, but two things happened the last week in December 2010 to change my perspective: 1) my writing partner, Anna Elliott, sent me to Joe Konrath’s blog; and 2) a reader sent me an email asking about the sequel and said, “Just for the record, I would happily have paid for Read more…


Surprise Holy Day Attack!

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One of the most famous instances of one army attacking another on a holiday was when George Washington crossed the Delaware on Christmas Day:  “During the night of December 25, Washington led his troops across the ice-swollen Delaware about 9 miles north of Trenton. The weather was horrendous and the river treacherous. Raging winds combined with snow, sleet and rain to produce almost impossible conditions. To add to the difficulties, a significant number of Washington’s force marched through the snow without shoes.  The next morning they attacked to the south, taking the Hessian garrison by surprise and over-running the town. After fierce fighting, and the loss of their commander, the Hessians surrendered.” http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/washingtondelaware.htm This attack gave Washington a much needed victory and gave his troops a reason to reenlist for 1777. Five hundred years earlier, on the morning of 22 March Read more…