Better Know a Castle*: Abergavenny
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
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
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
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 …
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!
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…
A Child’s Christmas in Wales
Dylan Thomas wrote A Child’s Christmas in Wales in 1954. It begins: “One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six. All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find . . .” For the full text: http://www.bfsmedia.com/MAS/Dylan/Christmas.html
Pixel of Ink today!
Footsteps in Time is being featured on Pixel of Ink today! http://www.pixelofink.com/bargain-ebook-footsteps-in-time-a-time-travel-fantasy/ https://www.facebook.com/PixelofInk As always, it’s available everywhere 🙂 Buy at: Amazon At Apple Ibooks: Footsteps in Time At Barnes and Noble: Footsteps in Time Amazon UK: Footsteps in Time For international customers: ebook: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/38722 paperback: https://www.createspace.com/3566163
A Thank You and Book Give-Away!
The 28th of December will be my one-year anniversary as an indie author and to express my thanks to all of my readers, whether of my books, my blog, or both, I’d like to give you a gift of a free book! Between now and January 10th, you can download a copy of Daughter of Time or The Last Pendragon from Smashwords for FREE! Click on the book cover for the Smashwords web page for Daughter of Time: Coupon code for The Last Pendragon: GN59S
The Wildwood — the lost forest of the UK
Imagine all of the UK covered in a thickly wooded landscape, much like portions of the western United States. I just spent the last 1/2 an hour looking up native plants in Wales, trying to come up with a couple that would have reliably flourished in Gwynedd in the 13th century. My sister-in-law is a botanist, and she agreed that agrimony and juniper would good choices. What has been difficult to determine, as with the Roman and ancient roads, is what the landscape looked like in the Middle Ages. England was mostly denuded of trees by then, but it is possible that wasn’t the case in Wales. So when we see these broad lanscapes in the uplands with no trees, was that what they looked like eight hundred years ago? How do we find that out? According to scientists, only Read more…
Happy Thanksgiving!
I have a houseful of people today, for which I am very thankful. In celebration, I have new book covers for Footsteps in Time and Prince of Time. I am so excited to have them updated. It will take some time for them to populate through all the outlets, but hopefully the paperbacks and ebooks will soon be in sync!
Vortigern? Who was he again?
Vortigern was a King of the Britons who is remembered for welcoming the Saxons into Britain during the dark ages and then being unable to get them to leave. This site: http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk/artwho/who.htm would very much like to rehabilitate Vortigern. He has extensive information on this site. Our knowledge of Vortigern comes from some early sources. Gildas, who wrote a moral history of Britain, states, around 540 BC: “At this meeting, the council invited the Saxons in three keels from Germany, as a counter to the threat from the Picts in the north. This is followed after some time by a conflict over the annona (payment in kind), after which the Saxon federates devastate the country. Vortigern, who may have been named by Gildas, is not portrayed by Gildas as a sole ruler, or a High King if you will. He rules Read more…
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