** This is a cross-post from my personal blog, Ask Nicola ** Yesterday I was feeling torpid and decided to actually read some of the free books I downloaded a few weeks ago, last time I was feeling ill. I read King Solomon’s Mines by (Sir) H(enry) Rider Haggard. I’d always assumed I’d read it […]
Read more "H. Rider Haggard and the Venerable Bede"Perhaps this will surprise no one but I like the novel I’m writing. I’ve spent a 100,000 words taking Hild through childhood and am now poised to introduce her to young womanhood. Not a moment too soon. Don’t get me wrong. As I’ve said, I’m enjoying this novel–delighting in it, in fact. But writing that […]
Read more "an update"The Authors’ Foundation, administered by the UK’s Society of Authors, have just given me a grant. Now I can do my research in England in person. Can you spell Bedes World? I’ll be in Yorkshire and Northumberland mostly–Bebbanburg, Goodmanham, Sancton, York (again), Whitby (again), hopefully Yeavering… Any other suggestions? Oh, this is going to be […]
Read more "I just got a fabulous grant!"Thanks to Lisa, I’ve been apprised of a ‘lovely tantalising bit’ of woman-on-woman sexuality. It’s from the tale of Niall Frossach (a king in the mid-eighth century, High King from 763 CE), from the Book of Leinster, folio 273b-274a, lines 35670-35711 (Vol. 5, p. 1202). Also, apparently, in Liber Flavus Fergusiorum and a late version […]
Read more "Playful mating with another woman"A new issue of Heroic Age at last. Yay! Lots of ruminations on Arthur and folklore, leading off with a piece by C. Scott Littleton on parallels between two tales which may or may not have a common origin: Abstract: In this paper we consider whether the Norse story of the “Sword in the Branstock” […]
Read more "Heroice Age"After a careful reading of Richard Coates’ Invisible Britons (thanks, Marisa) I was pondering upon slavery, language, and cultural annihilation and, frankly, getting nowhere at the speed of light. And then in the Economist this week, I encountered an article about the evolution of language that ended (in typical Economist style): “As Noah Webster, the […]
Read more "Slavery, language, cultural annihilation"This is the novel that I’ve been aiming for my whole life. I didn’t really understand that until early last year when I wrote my memoir, And Now We Are Going to Have a Party: Liner Notes to a Writer’s Early Life (a multi-media memoir-in-a-box about my life in the UK before I came to […]
Read more "Where It Began"
Gemæcce 