Showing posts with label Medieval. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Medieval. Show all posts

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Irish Wolfhounds in Medieval England: Guest Post By Regan Walker

AMAZON | GOODREADS
"Mesmerizing medieval romance! A vivid portrayal of love flourishing amidst the turbulence of the years after the Norman Conquest."
—Kathryn Le Veque, USA Today Bestselling Author

THE BOOK
York, England 1069… three years after the Norman Conquest

The North of England seethes with discontent under the heavy hand of William the Conqueror, who unleashes his fury on the rebels who dare to defy him. Amid the ensuing devastation, love blooms in the heart of a gallant Norman knight for a Yorkshire widow.

A LOVE NEITHER CAN DENY, A PASSION NEITHER CAN RESIST

Angry at the cruelty she has witnessed at the Normans’ hands, Emma of York is torn between her loyalty to her noble Danish father, a leader of the rebels, and her growing passion for an honorable French knight.

Loyal to King William, Sir Geoffroi de Tournai has no idea Emma hides a secret that could mean death for him and his fellow knights.

WAR DREW THEM TOGETHER, WAR WOULD TEAR THEM APART

War erupts, tearing asunder the tentative love growing between them, leaving each the enemy of the other. Will Sir Geoffroi, convinced Emma has betrayed him, defy his king to save her?

___________________________________________________________

Irish Wolfhounds in Medieval England
Guest Post By Regan Walker

When I first began my latest medieval novel, Rogue Knight, I saw the heroine in my mind with a great hound trotting beside her. And so Magnus, the Irish hound, became a much-loved character.


The name “Irish wolfhound” is a recent one but the hound itself goes back far in time. Ancient woodcuts and writings have placed them in existence as a breed by 273 BC. They were bred as hunting dogs by the ancients, who called them Cú Faoil (variously translated as hound, Irish hound, war dog and wolf dog). They are mentioned in Irish laws and in Irish literature which dates from the 5th century or, in the case of the Sagas, from the old Irish period, 600-900 AD.

The Romans had them. Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, in a letter to his brother Flavianus, thanked him for the gift of seven Irish hounds that had excited the Roman people. A hound named Ailbe was famed throughout Ireland to the extent that his owner received an offer from Connaught for the hound of “three score hundred milch cows at once and a chariot with two horses and as much again at the end of the year.”

Apparently Patrick MacAlpern, or St. Patrick as you may know him, had a way with them and because of that gained passage to England on a ship full of panicked, stolen hounds.

In the Bayeux Tapestry that documents William the Conqueror’s victory, there are hounds pictured that some believe to include Irish wolfhounds.


During the Norman conquest of Ireland, only kings and the nobility were allowed to own them. They are sighthounds bred for long solitary hunts based solely on the dog's ability to visualize its landscape and perceive, unlike scent hounds.

They were used as war dogs and as guards of property and herds. They were also used to hunt deer, boar, and wolves and were held in such high esteem that battles were fought over them. Wolfhounds primarily defeated their game by breaking its spine with their jaws. The hound is otherwise gentle and trusting, but when the occasion arises it can be intimidating and swift, qualities echoed in an ancient Irish king's motto, "gentle when stroked, fierce when provoked."

 
The 13th century monument at Beddglert Priory in Wales shows how highly regarded and valued a good wolfhound was. It is believed to have been erected by Welsh prince, Llewellen Fawr, in tribute to his beloved and favorite wolfhound, Faithful Gelert, a gift given to him by his father-in-law, King John.

During the 14th through 16th centuries, English monarchs requested these dogs, referred to as "large greyhounds, rough greyhounds or wolfdogs" and "like powerful shaggy greyhounds, but a good deal larger" to be sent from Ireland to England. In 1658, Oliver Cromwell ordered a ban on the export of the hounds from Britain, as their numbers were on the decline and they were needed in England to keep the wolf population under control.

The Viking's Daughter etching by Dicksee
As for their temperament, I particularly like this story of Olaf, son of an Irish princess, who offered his friend Gunnar a hound that was given to him in Ireland:

“He is big and no worse than a stout man. Besides, it is part of his nature that he has man’s wit, and he will bay at every man whom he knows to be thy foe, but never at thy friends. He can see, too, in any man’s face whether he means thee well or ill, and he will lay down his life to be true to thee.”

Yep, it describes Magnus perfectly.

Lest I forget, I must acknowledge the considerable expertise of Hilary and her wonderful website (http://www.irishwolfhounds.org/history.htm). She was one of my beta readers, assuring I portrayed Magnus as he should be.

THE AUTHOR
Regan Walker is an award-winning, #1 bestselling, multi-published author of Regency, Georgian and Medieval romance. She has three times been featured on USA TODAY's HEA blog and twice nominated for the prestigious RONE award (her novel, The Red Wolf's Prize won Best Historical Novel for 2015 in the medieval category). Regan writes historically authentic novels with real history and real historic figures where her readers can experience history, adventure and love.

You can see the trailers for her novels on her website. Regan loves to hear from her readers--you can also email her via her website.
 
WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | PINTEREST 
 


Labels: , ,

Sunday, November 9, 2014

What Really Matters: One Mother’s Story by Ned Hayes




Tour Schedule: http://hfvirtualbooktours.com/sinfulfolkblogtour/
Hashtags: #SinfulFolkBlogTour #Historical #Mystery #Medieval
Twitter Tags: @hfvbt @NedWriting
Sinful Folk 
A tragic loss. A desperate journey. A mother seeks the truth.

In December of 1377, four children were burned to death in a house fire. Villagers traveled hundreds of miles across England to demand justice for their children’s deaths.

Sinful Folk is the story of this terrible mid-winter journey as seen by Mear, a former nun who has lived for a decade disguised as a mute man, raising her son quietly in this isolated village. For years, she has concealed herself and all her history. But on this journey, she will find the strength to redeem the promise of her past. Mear begins her journey in terror and heartache, and ends in triumph and transcendence.

The remarkable new novel by Ned Hayes, illustrated by New York Times bestselling author/illustrator Nikki McClure, Sinful Folk illuminates the medieval era with profound insight and compassion.

Publication Date: January 22, 2014
Campanile Press
Formats: eBook, Hardcover, Audiobook
Genre: Historical Fiction/Mystery/Medieval



Buy the Book 
What Really Matters - One Mother’s Story by Ned Hayes

Yesterday, I was at my daughter’s school. One of her teachers nicely asked about my new novel. Here’s how I described the book: “SINFUL FOLK is set in the 14th century - the Middle Ages - it’s about a former nun who has lived in secret for 10 years. Then her son is killed, and she goes on a terrible journey to find out the truth about her life, and prove that her son’s life mattered.”

The teacher looked at me and cocked her head to the side. “That’s so different,” she said. “I thought since you work for your day job in high tech and in business, you’d write a techno-thriller or something like that. Why this story?”

It’s a great question.


For several years, I commuted from my home in Olympia to Seattle. I rode the commuter train an hour each way. I worked a demanding job in high-tech with some very smart people. Lots of email, many hours on spreadsheets and business plans. If you work, outside the home, your busy job in today’s world is probably pretty similar!

But for an hour a day on the train each way, each day, I had time to think.

And I started thinking about what really matters.

Mothers. Children. Friends. Love. Our connection to each other. Our legacy in our children. Mother's Love.

I wanted to write a story about these things. Not about software, or iPads, or spreadsheets. I didn’t want to write about the ephemera of modern life — even though I love books like The Future of Us.

I wanted to focus the lens tighter. What happens when you strip life down to its essentials?

And I remembered a bit of history from the 14th century. Children died in a tragic house fire in a distant village. The families were in such agony that they took their dead children across England to the King’s throne to demand justice!

I could imagine their pain. The torture of losing your child. Their angry search for answers.

Children. Families. Loyalties divided in a village.

In the Middle Ages, there was no Facebook to distract, no email, no websites. Just the realities of what really matters.

So I started writing, in the early hours, as my train wended its way through the misty countryside.

The story became about one woman’s story. One mother loving her child. One tragedy. One relentless urge to find answers.


I wrote my book Sinful Folk because I wanted to think deeply about children, mothers, families, and loyalty. How far would a mother go to protect her child’s memory?

The character of Mear showed me what strength is hidden in the most unlikely heroines. She showed me how strong a mother can be. What power can be concealed in silence. She showed me what really matters.

And as I began writing from Mear’s perspective, I found myself going in new directions, directed by Mear. I found myself entranced by her powerful voice and enthralled by her perseverance and intense courage.
 
Novelist Alice Walker
At first, when I began writing this novel, I thought that I was in control of my characters and I was making this all up. Years ago, I had heard that the wonderful feminist novelist Alice Walker believes that all of her novels are narrated by “ghosts” from her family’s past – and that she is actually transcribing real experiences from the past, creating a living legacy for stories that have been lost. I always used to kind of laugh at that, thinking that it was silly to think of a story as being “transcribed” from ancient spirits. But my opinion of Alice Walker’s idea changed as I wrote the novel SINFUL FOLK.

Now although I never heard ghostly voices, I did find that my main character, Mear, became increasingly real to me – so real that I couldn’t help but find myself impelled to write down her story as her own story, not a construction I had created. Mear was insistent, in wanting her story told her way, and from her proper perspective. She ended up correcting my voice, my assumptions, and my prejudice about what she was capable of, as a woman.

One of my published poems came out of the same experience of being a channel for her voice, and I’m republishing the poem here for all of you to read (the poem originally appeared in the national literary magazine The Mid-American Review).

transfiguration.      
                                                              
White men’s bodies turn green under the billows of the sea
I have been told so; when the young are dragged from the tide
their lips have melted into a delicate slash of emerald.

Black bodies turn blue in the brine
none of the longshoremen here notice, for there are too many dead;
in Jamaica or Barbados it is rarer.   There, the heavy pictish tinge
is obvious — their friends, dark and strangely indigo, found
among the flood of tourist caucasian suicides.

There is a color women’s bodies turn
the change is as oblique as the departure of the soul
when our flesh takes on the scent of waves, our skin tone melds away.
But no one has ever noticed the change of shade; these corpses often float for years.

then, sometimes, they return to shore, marry, take up jobs or clean
house, have children, laugh and talk.  I am walking
around still, tasting of ocean, undetected.

Happy Reading! – Ned Hayes


Connect with the Author

Website:  http://sinfulfolk.com
 

 
Labels: , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)