Wednesday...

We had a thunderstorm yesterday evening, which cooled things off a bit. The vegetables like the hot weather as long as I keep them watered. The cucumbers and squash are doing well, and the sweet 100 tomatoes are really getting into their stride. Still waiting for the other varieties - lots of green tomatoes, but only the black cherries (another small variety) are starting to show color.

Under these conditions, it's hard to imagine myself into Ireland with Gwernin, but I'm still plodding along. Had to pause briefly to research 6th century Emain Macha, though. Current reference for that: Armagh and the royal centres in early medieval Ireland : monuments, cosmology and the past.

Today's picture: the Magic Lantern rose is starting a new round of blooms:



-GRG

Friday...

Already? What happened to the week? Well, a lot of gardening and garden carpentry (pictures soon), plus yesterday indoor rearrangements and paper shredding (do I really need personnel records from twenty years ago?) to make more storage room for copies of my books, which were infringing on a bookcase (valuable space!). Anyway... Back to the subject of writing.

As an example of the sort of research I do for my books, here's my reference list so far for The Druid's Son. The link is to one of my "collections" on LibraryThing.com, a dangerous place which can induce book buying. Take a look at your peril - you have been warned.

Also new at Aldertree Books today - a Special Promotions page. Check it out for April's offering...

More pictures later today - in the meantime, back to work...

-GRG

Thursday...

... and still researching (and gardening, and...)

After a long break, I've decided to start brewing again. Here's a picture of my first 3 gallon batch of mead, started last sunday. Nothing complicated, just local wildflower honey: quaffing mead, I call it. Should be ready to drink as soon as it clears, probably in a couple of months. This is an approach I worked up a few years ago while thinking about the sort of mead Gwernin and his friends would have been drinking...



Back to work...

-GRG

Researching again. One thing leads to another, but some details are coming into better focus. Several of the books I'm currently working with are listed here, but these two are especially interesting to me at the moment.



The Iona book is one I bought a while back thinking it would be useful for book #6, but I was pleasantly surprised to find some of the discussion very pertinent to one of my current concerns.

Back to work.

-GRG

Progress...

No actual writing done over the weekend, but a good bit of research. I've been rereading A guide to early Irish law and Early Irish farming, both full of useful details and more entertaining to read than one might think. Pretty soon I'll have to just start putting words together again, and see where it leads me.

back from Wales...

...and I actually got some work done on #4 during the hours on the plane. Continental now has power outlets under the seats, which is brilliant - no battery worries! I added a page to the current chapter, changed its title, and now feel I'm back on track. If only I didn't have to go back to the Day Job tomorrow... oh well.

The first week in Wales I spent in Caerdydd, on a Welsh language course. Tutor was good, and I feel I made real progress (I'm in the nearly-fluent level). We finished up the week at the National Eisteddfod, where I bought - surprise! - a few books. The second week I wandered around, partly in England (Gloucestershire) and partly in Wales (Black Mountains), researching sites for #5. This was out of order, but since I had the opportunity to take the language course in Wales with a group I usually join every other year in North America, I couldn't resist. However, I'm glad to get back to work on the Irish book. I've changed the trilogy name slightly, from Gwernin's Quest to Gwernin's Quests, as I think this middle trilogy is not so closely linked as one quest would imply.

Pictures later.

(edited to add: one of the places I stayed... and another)
-GRG

Still here...

Where does the time go? Well, last week it went to Arizona, where we attended Estrella War... several days of primitive camping in the Arizona desert with several thousand other people. This year it didn't rain, thank the Gods!

Life has been a little distracting lately, but I'm still busy researching Ireland. Currently reading Gods and Fighting Men, a collection of stories about the Tuatha De Danaan and the Fianna. All these translations/retellings leave out or emphasize different parts of the stories, so reading several versions is a good idea. This one is also notable for bringing a lot of the sentence structures of the original Irish into the English.

Updates

I've done some site updates over the last few days, the most visible of which is to change the font color for some of the titles. The Blog Archive feature has moved to the bottom of the second sidebar, just above Labels. In its place I've added a set of Reading List links. These link to my Amazon Listomania lists, showing books I've used in my research -- or at least those still available through Amazon! (Specialized technical books sometimes have short print runs, and once they go out of print their prices may skyrocket. Moral: if you see something you may want and can afford it, buy it now. You'll be glad you did.)

Currently I'm writing again after taking a break around Christmas. I'm also researching 6th century Ireland and the Irish...

But that's a story for another day.

-GRG

Using Archeology in Stories

"I wish I could say that I won that contest ... but my perform-
ance was well received, and toasted afterwards by one of the local lords, who gave me a ring-brooch from his own shoulder in token of his approval. A simple thing it was, but pleasant, made of good bronze, with a red enamel design covering the two terminals of the ring and the base of the pin. It had been fashioned at his own court of Dinas Powys, a short journey to the south and west from Caer Dydd ... Though I have since had many finer jewels, I still keep that brooch as a talisman. Worth is not always measured in weight of gold." -- Gwernin, in Storyteller

Dinas Powys was a real princely site, if a small one. Located on a hilltop a few miles southwest of Caerdydd, it was occupied in the mid-6th century, the date of Storyteller, and its excavation revealed signs of imported luxuries such as the amphorae in which wine and olive oil were shipped. The feasting that must have taken place there also left its mark in the form of abundant bones of cattle, sheep, pigs, and chickens, with a few deer and salmon bones for good measure.

Metal-working and jewelry-making debris was also found at Dinas Powys. Gwernin's brooch (pictured above) is a replica based on a fragment of a lead mold-stamp. The brooch itself would have been cast in a two-piece clay mold, and afterwards may have been ornamented with glass or enamelling. Although simple compared to many of its contemporaries, it was sturdy and workmanlike, a good thing of its type, as I can testify, having worn and used its re-embodiment for years.

From such fragments, the storyteller makes his tale, and brings the past to life.

"Gold is lost in the ground..."

The quote above is from one of the interior stories in Storyteller, and is meant to emphasize the transient nature of physical treasure as opposed to the "undying fame" a bard's praise could give. Fortunately for the researcher, however, not all gold that is lost in the ground stays there. The British Museum has a good bit of it, and thanks to their Compass feature, you can view many of these treasures without leaving your chair.

Want to know what sort of belt buckles Anglo-Saxon kings were wearing in the 6th and 7th centuries? The Taplow and Sutton Hoo burial mound sites can show you. How about the purse that went on that belt? Or some of the money that may have gone into the purse? Talk about conspicuous consumption - the Anglo-Saxons were into it in a big way!

The tendency of people throughout the ages to hide something away for later has definitely made the archeologists' job easier. I particulary like coin hoards myself. In early Britain these range from Iron age gold, through Iceni silver of Queen Boudicca's time, to early and later Romano-British hoards, to Anglo-Saxon silver.

The one thing you won't find in the British Museum, or in the National Museum of Wales either, is Welsh coins. Unlike some south British tribes before the Romans arrived, the people in what was to become Wales never got in the habit of striking coinage. As to what they used instead - well, that's another post.