Last winter (well, here in New Zealand June through August is “winter”) was sheer bliss with plenty of time to write. I finished the rewrites to The Black Crown and the first draft of Exiled in the Sweet Land of Liberty, my YA set in a fictionalized version of my home town on Long Island, New York in the mid-fifties. Then I accepted what was supposed to be a contract writing assignment for the school where I used to teach, and the B&B season got off to an early start at the same time.
Well, the principal said the contract writing assignment was one month’s worth of work. It’s turned out to be six. Between that and the B&B, I’ve done little else. Oh, yes, I got a lot of writing done. Four big, fat looseleafs worth of documentation for a new program that school is initiating. But between that and my exhaustion at the end of the day after cooking and cleaning for the B&B guests, it’s been tough to do any writing of my own.
Fortunately, Exiled in the Sweet Land of Liberty is in the rewrites stage. Rewrites are challenging this time because when I wrote the first draft, I simply wrote whatever came into my head (yes, I did have a plot outline) and refused to let myself go back and revise. As a result, the book was drafted in a record 5 months. But there’s a lot of cleaning up to do.
It’s kind of like painting and papering the house, but not bothering to put away the glue, paint brushes and drop cloths as you move from room to room.
I'm starting work on a new novel now. It’s a contemporary YA tentatively titled Me and the Alpha Jerk. Sort of my rebellion against all these alpha heros you see in all these romances. No pen to paper yet, but a lot of planning. I love and hate this stage. In some ways, it’s the most creative part of what I do, but it takes time.
This does not mean I’m a plotter. What I tend to do is set out the conflict and characterization and a rough idea of where it begins and ends up along with a few major landmarks along the way. The major turning points. How I get to those turning points is pure pantser territory.
Mentally, I don’t consider myself writing until I’m actually filling up pages (or revising them). Yet, when you come right down to it, planning is just as much writing as clicking keys on the keyboard. And that I do all the time, even when my hands are scrubbing the breakfast dishes.
Writing when I’m not writing.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Monday, January 3, 2011
Mistakes Writers of Historicals Make
It’s that time of year when the package arrives in the mail and I’m judging novels for an international contest. The last couple of years I’ve been doing historicals. Waiting for the package to arrive got me reflecting on what I’ve learned from what I’ve judged (and critiqued). While I’ve read quite a few good manuscripts, it’s the ones that fall short that teach me the most.
Here are some of the most common mistakes I’ve noticed. I’ve listed them with the most damaging first.
1) Lack of a plot. In too many of the historicals I’ve read, the main character is like a billiard ball, flying this way and that through the historical events of the novel without any direction of his/her own. Living through an historical event does not make a plot. Let me repeat that. Living through an historical event does not make a plot. Even if the historical is the fictionalized biography of a real person. Plots are built on the premise that the protagonist (and the antagonist) has a goal that is meaningful to him/her (in other words, motivation) and is striving to achieve that goal, no matter what else is happening around him or her. Plots have conflict, which arises from the people, things, events and situations that stand in the way of the protagonist achieving his/her goal. The main character cannot be a mere hanger-on, observing the events of the time or even reacting to them. The main character has got to be going somewhere, achieving something that would still be a plausible goal even if set in a different time period. For example, solving a mystery, winning someone’s love, saving one’s home, healing an internal wound, etc.
2) Cardboard characters. OK, they may be real, historic figures, but they still had personalities and idiosyncrasies that make them different from everyone else. Things get even worse if it’s a whole troop of cardboard characters, and except for the name and maybe the job, the reader can’t tell one from the other. Want to know if you’re creating cardboard characters. Take out the names and substitute “he” or “she”, but not both. Use only one gender, even if it’s a mixed cast. Now read the passage to yourself. Or to someone else. Three dimensional characters bring their personality into their actions and speech patterns. If after a paragraph or two you have no idea who is doing/saying what, you know you’ve got cardboard characters.
3) Villains and saints. This is a variation of the cardboard character theme. Everyone, no matter how heroic or despicable, has a little bad and a little good in them. Find the weaknesses and the strengths in your characters and exploit them. (In The Black Crown, one of the smartest things I ever did was to make Guenevere scared of heights.)
4) Not enough research. If you’re going to set your story in a grist mill, for pete’s sake, find out how one works. What kind of maintenance is required? What can go wrong? How is the miller paid? What’s the hierarchy of jobs and how much flexibility is there for one person doing another’s job (under the guild system, none.) Learn the vocabulary (for example, what does “fair to middling” really mean?)
5) Loading down the story with research. Just because you know it doesn’t mean you have to use it. It’s a novel, not a text book. Historical facts inserted into a story merely for the sake a background grind the plot to a halt. Usually, I find, they pull you right out of the POV character’s heads, as well. All of a sudden, the narrative switches to what I call the “professorial voice”. I’m back in Freshman History. Again.) Add just enough historical detail to make the setting come alive and move the story forward. Add it in tiny drips. If in doubt, leave it out.
6) Imposing your culture on the past. Nothing bothers me more than the scene in Braveheart where Mel Gibson, playing a 13th century Scottish knight (who would have been dressed as other knights, not as a 6th century druid), proclaims his desire for “freedom”. The only people in the 13th century who wanted freedom were serfs, and only those brave enough to consider running away and hiding out for the requisite year and a day. The Scots wanted a Scottish king, not freedom. Ditto Russell Crowe in Robin Hood. The concept of freedom, as a political idea, doesn’t appear until the American Revolution (and then only after the colonials finally came to the conclusion that independence from England was the only way they were going to get their rights as Englishmen). Don’t assume that because it’s important to your culture, it was back then.
7) Characters acting inappropriately for their culture. Most cultures of the past were extremely hierarchical. Even though Thomas Jefferson’s mistress, Sally Hemmings, was half-sister of Jefferson’s wife Mary, she was still a slave and would never have dared act familiarly towards her in public. Even in private, any liberties she took would have been those allowed by Mary, not the other way around.
As you can see, poor story-telling techniques, not historical detail, head my list. No matter how well-researched and accurate an historical novel is, if it lacks the essential elements that make all great books, no matter what genre, it will never find its way past the editor’s slush pile.
Here are some of the most common mistakes I’ve noticed. I’ve listed them with the most damaging first.
1) Lack of a plot. In too many of the historicals I’ve read, the main character is like a billiard ball, flying this way and that through the historical events of the novel without any direction of his/her own. Living through an historical event does not make a plot. Let me repeat that. Living through an historical event does not make a plot. Even if the historical is the fictionalized biography of a real person. Plots are built on the premise that the protagonist (and the antagonist) has a goal that is meaningful to him/her (in other words, motivation) and is striving to achieve that goal, no matter what else is happening around him or her. Plots have conflict, which arises from the people, things, events and situations that stand in the way of the protagonist achieving his/her goal. The main character cannot be a mere hanger-on, observing the events of the time or even reacting to them. The main character has got to be going somewhere, achieving something that would still be a plausible goal even if set in a different time period. For example, solving a mystery, winning someone’s love, saving one’s home, healing an internal wound, etc.
2) Cardboard characters. OK, they may be real, historic figures, but they still had personalities and idiosyncrasies that make them different from everyone else. Things get even worse if it’s a whole troop of cardboard characters, and except for the name and maybe the job, the reader can’t tell one from the other. Want to know if you’re creating cardboard characters. Take out the names and substitute “he” or “she”, but not both. Use only one gender, even if it’s a mixed cast. Now read the passage to yourself. Or to someone else. Three dimensional characters bring their personality into their actions and speech patterns. If after a paragraph or two you have no idea who is doing/saying what, you know you’ve got cardboard characters.
3) Villains and saints. This is a variation of the cardboard character theme. Everyone, no matter how heroic or despicable, has a little bad and a little good in them. Find the weaknesses and the strengths in your characters and exploit them. (In The Black Crown, one of the smartest things I ever did was to make Guenevere scared of heights.)
4) Not enough research. If you’re going to set your story in a grist mill, for pete’s sake, find out how one works. What kind of maintenance is required? What can go wrong? How is the miller paid? What’s the hierarchy of jobs and how much flexibility is there for one person doing another’s job (under the guild system, none.) Learn the vocabulary (for example, what does “fair to middling” really mean?)
5) Loading down the story with research. Just because you know it doesn’t mean you have to use it. It’s a novel, not a text book. Historical facts inserted into a story merely for the sake a background grind the plot to a halt. Usually, I find, they pull you right out of the POV character’s heads, as well. All of a sudden, the narrative switches to what I call the “professorial voice”. I’m back in Freshman History. Again.) Add just enough historical detail to make the setting come alive and move the story forward. Add it in tiny drips. If in doubt, leave it out.
6) Imposing your culture on the past. Nothing bothers me more than the scene in Braveheart where Mel Gibson, playing a 13th century Scottish knight (who would have been dressed as other knights, not as a 6th century druid), proclaims his desire for “freedom”. The only people in the 13th century who wanted freedom were serfs, and only those brave enough to consider running away and hiding out for the requisite year and a day. The Scots wanted a Scottish king, not freedom. Ditto Russell Crowe in Robin Hood. The concept of freedom, as a political idea, doesn’t appear until the American Revolution (and then only after the colonials finally came to the conclusion that independence from England was the only way they were going to get their rights as Englishmen). Don’t assume that because it’s important to your culture, it was back then.
7) Characters acting inappropriately for their culture. Most cultures of the past were extremely hierarchical. Even though Thomas Jefferson’s mistress, Sally Hemmings, was half-sister of Jefferson’s wife Mary, she was still a slave and would never have dared act familiarly towards her in public. Even in private, any liberties she took would have been those allowed by Mary, not the other way around.
As you can see, poor story-telling techniques, not historical detail, head my list. No matter how well-researched and accurate an historical novel is, if it lacks the essential elements that make all great books, no matter what genre, it will never find its way past the editor’s slush pile.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Yule Logs
It being the Christmas season, I thought I’d do a little research on Yule logs. In The Black Crown, the yule log is being dragged into Camelot’s main hall just after Arthur is forced to pass judgment on Guenevere:
Most web sites claim that the Yule log is a very old tradition, going back to the pre-Roman Germanic peoples of northern Europe, or to the Celts. Other sources say it may have been Egyptian in origin, or part of the incorporation of the Persian sun-god Mithras into the Roman saturnalia. (Mithrasism spread into Britain with the Roman invasion in 54BC.)
On the other hand, other web sites say that this is all speculation, that the Yule log did not appear in Britain until the 17th century, when first mention of it was recorded by a British clergyman.
Well, the first mention of the Yule log was not the 1620s or 30’s. As early as 336 AD Pope Julius I, when he declared that Christmas should replace Saturnalia as a festival, stated that the burning of the log would symbolize the light of Christ. As the a fire, light the first night of the Saturnalia, was a Roman custom, it would, of course, have made its way into Roman Britian.
In addition, it appears that the Normans, pre-conquest, burned a log at Christmas, a custom they continued from their ancestors, the “Northmen” who invaded what is today Normandy.
Not matter what its source, the yule log as a tradition, appears to have been established in Britian by the 12th century. An English poem dated 1182 refers to it. The same custom appears in other parts of Europe. In 1184, a German parish priest recorded bringing in a tree to kindle the Christmas festival fire. By 1340 Queen’s College, Oxford, included a yule log in its festivities. The celebration included a song and readings.
So how did the log work?
Over that there seems to be quite a bit of debate. Some people say it would have had to be big enough to burn over the full twelve days of Christmas. Interestingly, I could find no historical reference to the twelve days of Christmas being celebrated in the Middle Ages, though certainly by Shakespeare’s time it was an established fact. In fact, in the Middle Ages, the last day of the period, the Epiphany appears to be more associated with religious practices than misrule – and twelve days of celebration do not seem to be a recorded fact. Gift-giving, by the way, happened on the Epiphany, not Christmas, which makes sense as that was the day the wise men were supposed to have arrived with gifts for the Christ child.
A log big enough to burn over 12 days would have had to be huge, indeed. And the big question is, in practical terms, would it have burned down the hall? Some references I’ve seen say that the big end was poked into the fireplace and it was slowly “fed” to the fire in time. Well, if the wood was dry or pitchy, what’s to stop the fire from creeping along the bark, out into the hall? Fireplaces with chimneys themselves (as opposed to an open hearth in the centre of the floor) did not appear until the 12th century. Another reference says the log was cut into sections and fed into the fire a section a day. This makes more sense.
So what if you had the old kind of hearth, where the fire is made in the centre of the hall and the smoke drifts up through hole(s) in the roof? If a big log got burning, it would create an uncomfortably hot room. In fact, the heat from a big fire like that would possible drive people from the hall. But if you tried to slow the burn by possibly using a green log or throwing water on the log, you would create so much smoke, you’d drive everyone from the hall.
If you live in a 6th or 7th century Saxon-style hall, you’ve still got the danger from fire. These halls were built from wood, with an A-shaped roof. There were one or more raised, earthen banks along the centre line where the fires burned. But these structures also contained a dug-out cellar below the main floor (this is where Sioneh and Medraut are imprisoned in The Deadly Peace) – and the flooring above was wood. Unless managed carefully, a Yule log rolling off the hearth could burn down the whole hall.
I think we can safely guess that the log would have had to fit in the hearth (whether the chimney type or the open fire). And that it would have had to be chosen carefully so that it provided a good blaze without burning down the place or creating so much smoke everyone was miserable. It would probably have been a hardwood, cut earlier in the year and seasoned so it would burn without producing too much smoke.
The perfect wood for this, by the way, is oak. Oak burns very slowly and without much smoke. In fact, a couple of oak doors saved my life many years ago when the oil furnace in the hundred-year-old house I was living in caught fire. There just happened to be a couple of old oak doors propped near the furnace and they contained the blaze. The oily smoke pouring from the cellar alarmed a passer-by, who got everyone out of the house.
Anyway, getting back to the Yule log, considering the careful planning it would have taken, its procurement was probably the job of one man – possibly the manor’s forester. He would have had the necessary skill and experience to judge the correct tree and when to cut it.
But I wonder how many halls burnt down at Christmas time?
Medraut shivered as he and Arthur strode towards the king’s work room. There was a draft in the Great Hall. They had opened the doors to bring in the Yule log.That got me thinking about the Yule log tradition. My Camelot is still set in an alternative 12th century, although, yes, as you know, I am playing with changing it to the 6th. I wondered how the Yule log would play out in each of those scenarios.
“I want you to take charge of the execution,” Arthur said as they paused to let pass a group of giggling pages carrying garlands of holly. Absently he mussed the hair of the smallest lad, who looked up at the High King with adoration in his eyes.
Arthur had never mussed his hair like that. For a second, jealousy overshadowed the task to which Medraut had been set. Then he realized what his father had just commanded. “Sire?”
Arthur’s eyes swept the hall, taking in the Christmas preparations, his brow raised in surprise. Shrugging, he hurried on past the dais where maids spread fresh, white linens across the board. “It’s to be in two days. I want the wood good and green. Plenty of smoke. Less painful that way.”
Most web sites claim that the Yule log is a very old tradition, going back to the pre-Roman Germanic peoples of northern Europe, or to the Celts. Other sources say it may have been Egyptian in origin, or part of the incorporation of the Persian sun-god Mithras into the Roman saturnalia. (Mithrasism spread into Britain with the Roman invasion in 54BC.)
On the other hand, other web sites say that this is all speculation, that the Yule log did not appear in Britain until the 17th century, when first mention of it was recorded by a British clergyman.
Well, the first mention of the Yule log was not the 1620s or 30’s. As early as 336 AD Pope Julius I, when he declared that Christmas should replace Saturnalia as a festival, stated that the burning of the log would symbolize the light of Christ. As the a fire, light the first night of the Saturnalia, was a Roman custom, it would, of course, have made its way into Roman Britian.
In addition, it appears that the Normans, pre-conquest, burned a log at Christmas, a custom they continued from their ancestors, the “Northmen” who invaded what is today Normandy.
Not matter what its source, the yule log as a tradition, appears to have been established in Britian by the 12th century. An English poem dated 1182 refers to it. The same custom appears in other parts of Europe. In 1184, a German parish priest recorded bringing in a tree to kindle the Christmas festival fire. By 1340 Queen’s College, Oxford, included a yule log in its festivities. The celebration included a song and readings.
So how did the log work?
Over that there seems to be quite a bit of debate. Some people say it would have had to be big enough to burn over the full twelve days of Christmas. Interestingly, I could find no historical reference to the twelve days of Christmas being celebrated in the Middle Ages, though certainly by Shakespeare’s time it was an established fact. In fact, in the Middle Ages, the last day of the period, the Epiphany appears to be more associated with religious practices than misrule – and twelve days of celebration do not seem to be a recorded fact. Gift-giving, by the way, happened on the Epiphany, not Christmas, which makes sense as that was the day the wise men were supposed to have arrived with gifts for the Christ child.
A log big enough to burn over 12 days would have had to be huge, indeed. And the big question is, in practical terms, would it have burned down the hall? Some references I’ve seen say that the big end was poked into the fireplace and it was slowly “fed” to the fire in time. Well, if the wood was dry or pitchy, what’s to stop the fire from creeping along the bark, out into the hall? Fireplaces with chimneys themselves (as opposed to an open hearth in the centre of the floor) did not appear until the 12th century. Another reference says the log was cut into sections and fed into the fire a section a day. This makes more sense.
So what if you had the old kind of hearth, where the fire is made in the centre of the hall and the smoke drifts up through hole(s) in the roof? If a big log got burning, it would create an uncomfortably hot room. In fact, the heat from a big fire like that would possible drive people from the hall. But if you tried to slow the burn by possibly using a green log or throwing water on the log, you would create so much smoke, you’d drive everyone from the hall.
If you live in a 6th or 7th century Saxon-style hall, you’ve still got the danger from fire. These halls were built from wood, with an A-shaped roof. There were one or more raised, earthen banks along the centre line where the fires burned. But these structures also contained a dug-out cellar below the main floor (this is where Sioneh and Medraut are imprisoned in The Deadly Peace) – and the flooring above was wood. Unless managed carefully, a Yule log rolling off the hearth could burn down the whole hall.
I think we can safely guess that the log would have had to fit in the hearth (whether the chimney type or the open fire). And that it would have had to be chosen carefully so that it provided a good blaze without burning down the place or creating so much smoke everyone was miserable. It would probably have been a hardwood, cut earlier in the year and seasoned so it would burn without producing too much smoke.
The perfect wood for this, by the way, is oak. Oak burns very slowly and without much smoke. In fact, a couple of oak doors saved my life many years ago when the oil furnace in the hundred-year-old house I was living in caught fire. There just happened to be a couple of old oak doors propped near the furnace and they contained the blaze. The oily smoke pouring from the cellar alarmed a passer-by, who got everyone out of the house.
Anyway, getting back to the Yule log, considering the careful planning it would have taken, its procurement was probably the job of one man – possibly the manor’s forester. He would have had the necessary skill and experience to judge the correct tree and when to cut it.
But I wonder how many halls burnt down at Christmas time?
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Urien of Rheged vs Urien of Rhyged – A Peek into My Creative Process
For those of you who missed my last post on Urien, he’s one of the candidates for the “historical” King Arthur, primarily because there are so many parallels between his own history and that of the King Arthur legend. He won a series of battles, which were cataloged by the same Nennius who listed Arthur’s battles. He’s even credited with having defeated the Angles at Lindesfarne. In later versions of Urien’s history (by this time highly fictionalized), he’s a strong supporter of Arthur. So, in terms of the legend, he was definitely one of the “good guys”.
I found all this out after I’d selected Urien to be my villain. That caused a dilemma, at first, as in my trilogy, Urien plots with Morguase to overthrow Arthur. But then I realized it could actually make him into a more interesting character. What kind of man would turn against the king he once supported? And what would drive him to do that?
My original vision of Urien was that of burning ambition. He wanted my heroine’s throne for himself and his sons. But then one of those serendipitous things happened. I wrote the first scene in which we see Sioneh, my heroine, together with her father. And I decided to set it in Urien’s point of view, just to see what would happen, as I thought setting it in Sioneh’s point of view would create a pretty predictable scene.
Wow! What I discovered, as I let the scene unfold through Urien’s eyes, was a man in conflict. One who wanted the throne, but who also admired and was frustrated by his daughter, who was, in reality, a far better candidate for the ruler of Rhyged than any of his sons. Something Urien knew deep in his heart but wouldn’t admit even to himself.
He’s like a hawk watching his prey. Everything Urien does is tinted with hoping Sioneh won’t succeed, and hoping she will. Here’s a bit of that scene:
The same ambivalence accompanies Urien’s treason. He’s angry at Arthur for what he thinks is Arthur’s betraying him, but there’s a corner of his heart that regrets his anger and would gladly forsake his plots.
They say that fact is more interesting than fiction. After all the research I’ve done, I’m convinced that anything pre-eleventh century is probably as much fiction as fact. But fact can help discover new depths in fiction.
I found all this out after I’d selected Urien to be my villain. That caused a dilemma, at first, as in my trilogy, Urien plots with Morguase to overthrow Arthur. But then I realized it could actually make him into a more interesting character. What kind of man would turn against the king he once supported? And what would drive him to do that?
My original vision of Urien was that of burning ambition. He wanted my heroine’s throne for himself and his sons. But then one of those serendipitous things happened. I wrote the first scene in which we see Sioneh, my heroine, together with her father. And I decided to set it in Urien’s point of view, just to see what would happen, as I thought setting it in Sioneh’s point of view would create a pretty predictable scene.
Wow! What I discovered, as I let the scene unfold through Urien’s eyes, was a man in conflict. One who wanted the throne, but who also admired and was frustrated by his daughter, who was, in reality, a far better candidate for the ruler of Rhyged than any of his sons. Something Urien knew deep in his heart but wouldn’t admit even to himself.
He’s like a hawk watching his prey. Everything Urien does is tinted with hoping Sioneh won’t succeed, and hoping she will. Here’s a bit of that scene:
Urien of Rhyged held the hoof of one of their new stallions between his knees as he pared off the excess wall. A trickle of sweat dripped onto the shavings gathering at his feet. In the heat of the glowing forge he was stripped to his braes despite the chill of the early spring air. Glancing up, he paused to wipe his brow and was not at all surprised to see his daughter, still in armor, back from her three-day patrol of Rhyged’s coast.
“My luck, you’re in the hottest place in Carduel.” It was like Sioneh to complain over everything he did. She wiped her brow with her sleeve. Road dust smudged her cheek. “Why don’t you get a new farrier instead of insisting on shoeing the war horses yourself? Anyone could do as well.”
As he lowered the hoof to the ground, a scowl pulled at the scar above his eye, reminding him of the battle where he got it. “I’ve had the balance of too many hooves ruined by idiots who think they can shoe a horse.”
Pursing her lips, Sioneh dipped a ladle of water out of a nearby bucket. Her eyes sized up the stallion he was shoeing, their flare telling him she approved. She wasn’t going to be happy when she found out he’d given it to Domnall.
Anticipating the fight to come, he wiped his hands on his leather apron, tonged a red-hot shoe out of the forge and began hammering it into shape.
His youngest, still in the quilted gambeson Rhyged knights wore to protect their skin, lazily pulled on the bellows. Domnall turned to Sioneh. “How do you like my new horse?”
“What?” Water spilt on his daughter’s hauberk.
Trust Domnall to provoke her. The boy scratched at a flea bite. “Da says I’m to have him, now that I’m knighted.”
Sioneh puffed up like an angry hawk. “I thought I was getting him.”
Urien’s own voice was calm. “Domnall needs a war horse. Bonniblack’s a bit to handle. Narron suits you fine.”
“I can handle any horse.” She flicked the rest of the water at Domnall, who dodged with a mocking bow. Urien wondered why she let him get away with that kind of insubordination. He’d have a strap to his son by now. But she was going to have to learn herself to command, if she intended to lead Rhyged. And there were times when he wondered if she ever would.
The same ambivalence accompanies Urien’s treason. He’s angry at Arthur for what he thinks is Arthur’s betraying him, but there’s a corner of his heart that regrets his anger and would gladly forsake his plots.
They say that fact is more interesting than fiction. After all the research I’ve done, I’m convinced that anything pre-eleventh century is probably as much fiction as fact. But fact can help discover new depths in fiction.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Sigh
OK, time to confess. I missed two scheduled posts. Life has gotten too complicated. November, which is supposed to be shoulder season for the B&B, has turned into a mirror image of high season -- without Phil here to help me (he's still teaching.) On top of that, the contract job I took writing some documentation for the school where I used to teach has turned into one of those massive never-ending projects that demands what little spare time I have left. And now Qualmark says they're coming next month to assess our property (Qualmark are the guys in NZ who award the stars.) I'm lucky if I get one hour a week of creative writing in.
OK, I admit, two weekends ago I actually took three days off. Phil and I went to the Bay of Islands, took an overnight cruise weaving in and out of the islands, breakfasted with dolphins, shopped and relaxed. I did absolutely NO WORK at all. On anything. Quite an accomplishment in itsefl as I'm a workaholic. But I finally managed to get the message into my head that sometimes a rest is good and its OK not to work.
Even for a writer.
Call it a writer's date. That's what Julia Cameron (The Artist's Way) would call it.
It worked. I came back recharged with new ideas. Including a neat one for a novel set here in Thames.
Now if I only had the time to put them on paper.
Sigh.
Do you take artist's dates with yourself? What do you do?
OK, I admit, two weekends ago I actually took three days off. Phil and I went to the Bay of Islands, took an overnight cruise weaving in and out of the islands, breakfasted with dolphins, shopped and relaxed. I did absolutely NO WORK at all. On anything. Quite an accomplishment in itsefl as I'm a workaholic. But I finally managed to get the message into my head that sometimes a rest is good and its OK not to work.
Even for a writer.
Call it a writer's date. That's what Julia Cameron (The Artist's Way) would call it.
It worked. I came back recharged with new ideas. Including a neat one for a novel set here in Thames.
Now if I only had the time to put them on paper.
Sigh.
Do you take artist's dates with yourself? What do you do?
Monday, November 8, 2010
Urien of Rheged
In the search for the historical Arthur, there are at least twenty candidates various scholars have put forward. My own favorite doesn’t even have Arthur’s name. It’s Urien of Rheged.
For those of you who have read bits of my Arthurian trilogy, the name should sound familiar. Urien of Rhyged is the father of my heroine, and the antagonist in The Black Crown. His plotting leads to Arthur’s final battle.
You’ll notice I changed his name slightly – the historical Rheged became Rhyged. Mostly that was to give myself a bit more poetic license.
So who was the historic Urien and why did I pick him as a possible Arthur candidate?
Well, my first clue came from Gildas. Yes, that Gildas. In De Excidio Britanniae (On the Fall/Ruin of Britain), the source of invasions is the north. In other words, the invaders during that period are the Picts and the Scoti (Irish).
All right, I’ll acknowledge he does mention foreign “dogs” being brought into Britain in the east and rebelling against their British hosts.) But the big military threat comes across Hadrian’s Wall.
This is bolstered by the archaelogical evidence. During the fifth and sixth centuries, the abandoned Roman forts along Hadrian’s Wall were restored and reinforced. People were obviously trying to stop something from coming down from the north.
According to legend, Urien was the king of Rheged, one of the numerous late Celtic kingdoms that sprung up after the Roman armies withdrew from Britain. Rheged stretched down the eastern side of England from Hadrian’s Wall (and possibly further north) to Chester. That made it one of the largest kingdoms in the land.
Dating puts Urien in the 6th century – post Battle of Badon (and post-Gildas, as well.) But the parallels with Arthur are striking.
Then I started picking the facts apart. To be continued…
- Urien is credited with fighting off the invaders from the North in a series of battles. He is supposed to have defeated the Angles, as well.
- He united several kingdoms and possibly became “High King”.
- He was married to a Morgan, who in later legends becomes Morgan La Fey.
- The famous poet Taliesin was his bard (later, Arthurian legend made Taliesin Arthur’s bard).
- His capital was at present-day Carlisle, which has gone through at least four name changes. One of its names was Carduel, which the twelfth century poet Chrétian de Troyes, in his early works, called Arthur’s “seat”, until he later invented Camelot.
- Depending on which version of Urien’s story you consult, he was either killed by his own son or by a retainer named “Morcant”.
Monday, November 1, 2010
A (somewhat) Brief History of Jousting
About a month ago, when I was researching sword fighting, I noticed something interesting while looking at photos of the Bayeux Tapestry. The charging Norman knights aren’t carrying lances in the traditional way we think of Medieval knights. No. Instead they were throwing them – more as if they were spears than lances.
This got me thinking about spears and lances and research I did centuries ago while I was still a graduate student doing a PhD in Medieval Studies. In my first or second year, I wrote a paper about spears and lances in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival.
When Parzival gets to the Grail Castle, he witnesses a procession that culminates with his seeing the Grail. Most scholars, of course, focus on the Grail, which in Parzival is quite different from the standard chalice that most people picture for the Grail. What I was interested in was the other items carried in the procession, in particular “der bloutec sper” – the bloody spear.
Notice, I said “spear”, not lance. This is a different weapon.
In fact, at least one Mittel Hoch Deutsch scholar – probably the great Joachim Bumke, but it’s been so long ago that I can’t remember for sure – pointed out that young Parzival’s sin wasn’t just killing his cousin, i.e., killing kin. But also that the weapon he used – his spear – was a common hunting weapon, not a knightly weapon, so it was a sin against knighthood as well.
OK, Parzival was written over the last decade of the twelth century and the first of the thirteenth. Something had definitely changed between the Bayeux Tapestry and the writing of Parzival.
I started to wonder how jousting evolved.
First, let’s get a little terminology straight.
The issue is one of equipment. Because of their lack of stirrups, Roman cavalry were not very effective when it came to directly engaging with the enemy through sword fighting or lance. Stirrups are an essential ingredient in keeping you in the saddle, as your feet in the stirrups provided leverage. Roman saddles had four horns to help stabilize a rider, but you could still be toppled off your horse.
Interestingly, the foe the classical Romans feared the most was the cataphract – the heavy horse cavalry that originated in Parthia (modern Iran). This force featured huge warhorses specially bred for the purpose (the first historical record of a breeding program). Both rider and horse were covered from head to foot with scale armor.
Cataphracts carried spears that were unusually long and heavy. These are still spears, not the heavy jousting lances we know from tournaments.
According to one source I researched, cataphracts used them to pierce their enemy. Without stirrups, though, a spear would have minimal impact. If you were galloping at full tilt at someone and ran him through, assuming you didn’t get knocked off your horse with the impact of the blow, you’d certainly get your spear tangled in the person you just ran through and have to, at best, abandon the weapon.
The power of a cataphract charge came from the mass of heavy horses themselves frontally assaulting a line, and supported by a barrage of arrows fired by archers stationed at the rear. The archers kept the enemy busy while the cataphracts charged.
Ironically, by the late Roman period, cataphracts have been absorbed into the Roman army and form the basis of its heavy cavalry. They’re also a key ingredient in Byzantine military strategy. And the source of the medieval knight and his equipment, as we know it.
(As another interesting aside, cataphracts were also a feature of Chinese armies during the San Guo – Three Kingdoms – period that followed the Han Dynasty.)
OK, fast forward to 1066 and the Bayeux Tapestry.
Stirrups appeared in northern Europe in the 9th century, so our Norman knights would have had them. But they haven’t changed their tactics yet from spear thrower to lance thruster.
By the mid twelfth century, things had changed. Tournaments as competitions to provide practice opportunities for knights had become so popular that Henry II of England forbade them. Interestingly, these tournaments usually began with melee, a mock battle. It featured a “lance charge”, in which the two sides charged each other and attempted to unhorse with their blunted lances as many of the opposition as possible. In other words, stirrups have changed the way knights fight.
As a result of Henry II’s forbidding tournaments in England, many English knights resorted to tourneying in France – including Henry’s own sons.
Success in a tournament didn’t just win a reputation; it also was worth a lot of money in prizes and ransoms. You could also win -- or lose -- your armor or your horse. This could be the making of a poor knight. (Yes, the movie "A Knight's Tale" does have some historical veracity.) In fact, it's how William Marshall, who started as the younger son of an insignificant lord, earn both wealth and the attention and trust of the Plantagenant kings.
While Henry may not have approved of the sport, his heir did. Richard I (the Lionhearted), when he ascended to the throne, granted licenses for five areas where tournaments could be held in England. The tournaments included jousting.
Early jousts appear to have started with the tilt – running at each other with lances – and then progressed on to battling it out with swords. The use of a piece of cloth down the middle to separate the combatants is a late development, arising out of the 15th century.
Jousting also resulted in some modifications to the chest piece (or cuirasse) of the set of armor. To help shield the chest from a powerful blow, armorers started shaping the piece so there was a hallow between the metal and the wearer's chest. Hence the reason why the armor worn during the Rennaissance and later has a pot-bellied look.
Jousting continued right on to the period of Henry VIII, who held some of England’s last tournaments. In fact, it’s postulated that a head injury sustained at a joust may have caused a personality change in Henry that turned him from a charming prince loved by all to a tyrant.
- Spear – a long pole with a sharp point at the end, possibly even a separate point, such as a spearhead. Can be thrown or thrust.
- Javelin – smaller lighter version of the above. Usually meant to be thrown.
- Lance – a heavy, long pole meant to be held and thrust.
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| Roman Saddle -- 4 horns but no stirrups |
Interestingly, the foe the classical Romans feared the most was the cataphract – the heavy horse cavalry that originated in Parthia (modern Iran). This force featured huge warhorses specially bred for the purpose (the first historical record of a breeding program). Both rider and horse were covered from head to foot with scale armor.
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| Cataphract. This one is from the 5th century -- roughly "King Arthur's" time. |
Success in a tournament didn’t just win a reputation; it also was worth a lot of money in prizes and ransoms. You could also win -- or lose -- your armor or your horse. This could be the making of a poor knight. (Yes, the movie "A Knight's Tale" does have some historical veracity.) In fact, it's how William Marshall, who started as the younger son of an insignificant lord, earn both wealth and the attention and trust of the Plantagenant kings.
Jousting also resulted in some modifications to the chest piece (or cuirasse) of the set of armor. To help shield the chest from a powerful blow, armorers started shaping the piece so there was a hallow between the metal and the wearer's chest. Hence the reason why the armor worn during the Rennaissance and later has a pot-bellied look.
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