Celtic Trivia – Page 10 – Red Branch Chronicles

Houses, Ráth and Dúns

Celtic Iron Age homes were generally timber framed round houses with conical thatch roofs. Doorways were low and protected by a porch to keep out wind and rain Spaces between the timber posts making up the walls were filled with woven branches of willow and plastered with straw, clay, mud and animal dung on the outside to form a waterproof shield (wattle and daub) and then whitewashed with lime on the inside if you wanted to be ThumbDCP04603_1_ fancy. Roof timbers were covered with a thatch made from reed or straw. Grain was kept in underground pits or storerooms and domestic animals often shared the same space as their owners. While most houses were round, the great halls at Eamhain Macha or Cruachain were rectangular.

Noble women often had exclusive use of a Grianán (a sunny bower) but furniture was limited to rough boards or trestle tables and stools or benches. Beds usually comprised of mattresses made of straw covered with animal skins and nearly all residences were surrounded by strong defensive walls.

Lake villages were built on artificial islands – crannogs – linked to the land by narrow wooden bridges.

Settlements were called Ráth or Lios and situated at or near the mouths of rivers. Something a bit more substantial or a noble residence was called a Dún. These, usually, hilltop forts were made by heaping up huge banks of earth around the summit of a hill and then topping these ramparts with wooden walls made by rows of sharp stakes driven into the steep earth banks.

Photo from http://www.technologytom.com/html/ancient_britons.html

A rod for my own back

I know, I know, I should be beavering away, churning out the pages of my new bestseller – oh, by the way, I think I am up to four sales so far on Raiding Cúailnge, not counting the two I made myself – and the fact that I didn’t do any writing at all on the day after Raiding Cúailgne made its debut, despite having publicly sworn to do so here on this blog, should make me feel guilty.

However, the truth is that I couldn’t sleep (for the excited anticipation of Hollywood calling?) the night before my novel entered the world of readers and I got up and started to scribble in a notebook and then swapped over to the computer and banged away at about two or three different scenes before going back to bed and sleeping until late that morning.

Anyway, I haven’t done any other writing since and I don’t feel bad because I have the perfect excuse for not doing anything. I mentioned a while back about a distinction between horizontal and vertical writing. Well, I’ve decided to go vertical again and if it takes me another dozen years, I don’t mind!

Lighting & Candles

Every habitation, whether it was a hut, hall, shed, lean-to or bothy, was dark and smoky inside.

To avoid the trouble of relighting it and for light and cooking, wood or peat fires were kept burning continually. A cauldron could be suspended from the roof beams above the central hearth.

No smoke hole or chimney overhead meant that the fish and meat hung among the roof beams were preserved by the chemicals in the smoke, giving the food a rich, tangy taste. Some smoke would eventually dissipate and seep through the thatch.

Early clay oil lamps were imported from Gaul, usually with no handle and the wicks made from pith of rushes.

Among the “barbarian” tribes of the colder climates of the North, beyond the reach of the legions, candles were made of tallow and animal fat due the scarcity of olive oil.

The tallow was rendered down in the cauldron over the hearth and then poured into shaped bronze moulds.

With the decline of the Roman Empire and the consequent disruptions to trade, luxuries like olive oil became scarce and tallow candles became increasingly widespread.

Gestation periods

Until recently I have felt a little embarrassed – ashamed even – that it has taken me so long to produce Raiding Cúailnge, my first novel – all in all, a gestation period of 12 years, more or less.

I remember the first words I scribbled, a rather awkward description of a fight between two, at the time, nameless and faceless characters. I had just finished The Gates of Rome, based around the childhood life of Julius Caesar, the debut novel by Conn Iggulden, a former schoolteacher, and I was inspired to something similar. With time on my hands – I was staying on an idyllic beach on Koh Samui – a favourite spot I have constantly returned to since 1982 – I went out and bought a cheap child’s exercise book and a pen and, fuelled with, initially, soda and lime, later cold beer in chilled glasses and much later cheap Thai whiskey, I started to write. That was, back in 2004 and it is only today, 20 April 2016, twelve years later that my book comes into the world.

A fairly lengthy gestation period, as a friend recently pointed out which made me stop and consider how I compare to the natural world.

Camels have a gestation period of more than 400 days while walruses carry their young for 15 – 16 months, Even more impressive is the killer whale or Orca with a gestation period of about 17 months while some sperm whales need up to 19 months before producing their young to a wondering world. Unlike most fish, sharks are classified as “K-selected reproducers,” meaning they produce a small number of well-developed young as opposed to a large number of poorly developed young. Basking sharks can carry their offspring for as long as three years before giving birth.

Elephants have the longest gestation period of all mammals, carrying their young for nearly two years before giving birth. Long developmental periods are common among highly intelligent animals and I suppose I should take a renewed pride in the length of time it has taken me to produce my novel.

Interestingly, for me anyway, there has been a recent upsurge of interest in what is referred to as horizontal as opposed to vertical writing*.

Horizontal writing refers to the amassing of words and pages in the putative hope that a body of work will emerge after days spent pounding away at a keyboard or scribbling in a notebook (I do both, actually).

Vertical writing, on the other hand focuses on depth, valuing the building of setting and character rather than on merely conveying the essence of the plot, allowing the salient features to develop and grow over time so that organic growth can occur.

* Gestation of ideas: On Vertical Writing and living, an essay by Nick Ripatrazone on the Millions website.Gestation

Self Imposed Deadlines

I was withering on a while ago, either here in Curves or in Book Stuff, about knuckling down to it and beginning to write my second book – I’ve got loads of notes and ideas and scraps and bits of dialogue and that sort of thing – the day after my first book, Raiding Cúailnge, makes its appearance on an unsuspecting reading public on 20 April.

Days away from that now and I am getting cold feet. After all, the first book took me twelve years plus to write and now I seem to have given myself a rod to beat my own back with by announcing to the world that I am going to start work on “Three Spears” on 21 April 2016. (By the way, Three Spears is a title that popped into my mind about a year or two ago when I first contemplated the – at the time – absurd notion that I would ever write another book again in my lifetime. Anyway, that was all very well when I considered just tinkering with a novella of about 60 or 70 thousand words but now the concept of a full length novel of about 110,000 words has wormed its way into buy head and I lie awake at night, feverishly wracking the brains to find a way to connect all my scattered notes and form them into some type of cohesive and coherent whole.

So, a cautionary word – do not impose deadlines on yourself unless you are a) capable of delivering the goods and b) do not, especially vaunt to the (cyber) world what your plans are. Not, that is, if you want to leave a loophole so that you can escape from the awful responsibility you have dumped upon your own slender and sloping shoulders!

Artefacts

beaker1

Vessel from Ciempozuelos (Spain) dated from the Bronze Age (National Archaeological Museum of Spain, Madrid)

The Beaker Culture refers to a widely scattered European culture extending into the bronze age and is best seen not only as a style of pottery but as an entire and complete culture which developed a high standard of metal work in copper, gold and bronze along with certain stylised forms of decoration, while at the same time sharing certain cultural and religious traits among the various peoples at the time. Typical patterns used were straight and angular lines, curves and circles and overlapping waves. This so called Beaker Culture was a time of incredible cultural contact along the Atlantic seaboard and western Europe.

Some claim that the spread of this Beaker culture is linked to the prevalence of alcohol consumption and that the use of alcohol may have helperd to spread the attraction of the beakers. Certainly, beer and mead have long been associated with the beaker culture. Nevertheless, not all Beakers were drinking cups. Some were used for food storage and others for use as funerary urns.

In addition to large numbers of the beakers found in Ireland and the technical innovation of ring-built pottery it seems certain that the makers of these distinctive artefacts were also present and the tall, graceful vases with smoothly curving sides were produced on a potter’s wheel.

Later examples of pottery bowls s and dishes were more elegant with pedestal feet and handles were also in common use

More mundane objects like buckets were made out of wood or leather.

Mirrors of highly polished metals were treasured possessions as were ornaments and jewelery of gold, copper, tin, amber, jadeite but these were the reserve of the higher status groups in society.

The Táin and the Manuscripts

An Tána – or in English, the Táin – is the Old Irish word for a raid or a foray, usually involving attacking a neighbour and carrying off slaves and cattle and whatever else was available, although most wealth in those days involved cattle. The most famous examples are the Táin Bó Fraoch or the Cattle Raid of Fraoch and the Táin Bó Cúailnge, or the Cattle Raid of Cooley (an area in the north east of Ireland).

The latter is the central tale in the manuscripts dealing with what is known as the Ulster Cycle comprising almost eighty tales of heroes. Unfortunately, most of early Irish literature has been lost. Originally, tales were passed down in a strictly oral tradition until the advent of Christianity in the mid fifth century. The mythological and heroic tales were then recorded by scribes in the early monasteries and centres of Christian learning and it is not surprising that they overlaid the pagan tales with Christian overtones. The manuscripts that survive show clear linguistic signs of having been copied from earlier manuscripts, now lost, having been destroyed between the eight and eleventh centuries during the incessant Viking raids of that period. Much of what was saved was then, in turn, destroyed during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by the organised policy of the English Penal Laws in a deliberate attempt to destroy Irish culture.

The oldest of the surviving manuscripts is the Book of the Dun Cow, or Leabhar na hUidre, an 11th century manuscript written in the monastery at Clonmacnoise, now preserved in the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin. Unfortunately, the MS contains a rather jumbled version of the Táin Bó Cúailnge, which is augumented by another jumbled account in The Yellow Book of Lecan, a 14th century manuscript now held at Trinity College Dublin.

The origins of the Táin are much older than the surviving manuscripts. The language of the earliest versions of the tales have been dated to the 8th century while some of the verse elements are possibly two centuries earlier. Most Celtic scholars now believe that the tales of the Ulster or Heroic cycle must have had a long oral existence before they were given a Christian overhaul bu monastic scribes.

Free!

I just want to let everyone know that my book Raiding Cúailnge will be published on Wednesday 20 April 2016 as a multi-format ebook. As many of you may know, the book is an historical / fiction novel based on Old Irish manuscripts. I hope you’ll take time to take a look at

Smashwords:

where you can download the book for free with this coupon YR29P which is valid for one month, when you go to the check-out.

Could you also take a moment to spread the word about my book to everyone you know?

Thank you so much for your support!

Cheerio

Stephen

PS Of course besides being available (free) on Smashwords.com, my book is also available on

Amazon:

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Beauty

If the old story-tellers and later scribes can be believed, beauty was an essential attribute to the Celtic way of life with analogies drawn from nature and the language was rich with similes such as “Eyes bright as flowers” or; “eyebrows dark a s a beetle’s wings”; and “teeth white like pearls” and “cheeks pink like foxgloves”.

Women seemed to have had long hair in braids while men kept their hair short – about level with the ears.

Warriors preferred to have blond hair –often bleached with crushed and burnt limestone mixed with water used to bleach and stiffen the hair! Grease was added to make their hair stand up before a battle. This mode was often favoured by warriors who had adopted the horse as their totem. The hair piled on top of the skull also served to protect the head from blows. However, extensive use of lime burnt the scalp and caused premature baldness!

Soap was made from urine and woods (Whose job was that, I wonder? But why would you bother?)

A blue dye made from woad – a plant related to flax – was used to paint and decorate the skin much like modern henna “tattoos today

Black Magic Wedding

I haven’t had much inspiration recently for my next book. Just over a week before Raiding Cúailnge is available as a free Ebook and I know I should be getting on with the next one. Ebooks tend to sell better, apparently, if they are part of a series, a trilogy at a minimum. On that point, I read somewhere, God knows where that Nora Roberts(?) has published over 200 books. How is that possible? Anyway, I know what my next book will be about and the who, what, where and when aspect but I just haven’t gotten around to building it into a story. I make excuses about not having enough time or being too busy to actually sit down and write. Another great excuse is that I have been attempting to make and maintain this blog thingy.

Anyway, enough excuses (soon) I will officially begin to write book 2 the day after Raiding Cúailnge appears in the retailers.

In the mean time, here is something I wrote some time ago which has nothing whatsoever to do with Celtic stuff.

A Black Magic Wedding

Aedh was getting worried about her cough which had just started recently. She coughed gently, incessantly and she couldn’t stop. She had to cough. It was a slow, dry cough deep down in her throat, but it was what was causing her to cough that worried her the most. And what was causing her to cough was the feeling of something stuck in her throat, a fish bone, perhaps, or a thorn that had fallen into her food, she didn’t know what or how. All she knew was she had to keep coughing.

It was a few days later, after she had been to the pharmacy and gotten some medicine that hadn’t helped, that she knew for certain. This was no accident or a temporary thing. Somebody had done this to her. She had been cursed by someone; someone had laid a spell on her – but who? It was then that she resolved to visit the black magic woman who lived nearly a day’s journey from there.

Sure enough, she was right, someone had laid a curse on her all right. To both prove this and, at the same time, lift the selfsame curse, the black magic women took a chicken egg and then gently rubbed the intact egg, in its shell, slowly and gently around Aedh’s neck. This she did several times muttering prayers and incantations all the time in a low, throaty voice. Then, the two women squatted on the floor and the black magic woman gently cracked the shell and the contents of the shell slipped out into the shallow earthenware dish on the floor.

Aedh still remembered that terrible moment, the shock of recognition, the stab of certainty when she realized that somebody had deliberately set out to harm her, for there protruding from the yolk was a small metal fish hook and already she felt her cough to be easing, the blockage in her own throat mercifully melting away.

So when Peta told her the story about the son of her older sister, Bhin, who was suddenly getting married to a young girl he had only known for a few months and that nobody in the family cared for – she was such a quiet little thing with not a word out of her and yet Bhin’s son was dead set on an early marriage – Aedh immediately knew then, she just knew it, that the girl had probably used some type of black magic spell or potion to make the boy, Cang, love her and never leave her.

However it was not until the boy’s sister, Bran, arrived from the outland across the waters that Aedh felt compelled to tell Peta and Bhin and now, Bran, her suspicions.

To her surprise, Bran not only accepted the idea that someone had used black magic on her brother, she also provided more proof that the couple, Cang, her brother and his betrothed, Morr, were ill-suited to each other. All you needed to do, she said, was to look at their star signs. Peta too was quickly convinced that black magic must be involved to cause her nephew to ignore all her advice and suggestions, even though she had been more than willing to throw herself into preparations for this impossibly rushed wedding.

Bhin was the least convinced that black magic was involved but she had to admit to herself that she too did wonder why Cang, so recently out of a 6 year relationship with Bee, a woman in the outland across the waters, with whom he had fathered a boy Aegon, now three years old and never to be seen again now by her hungry grandmother eyes, was so determined on this precipitate course.

And the girl Morr – she was such a little mouse, what could she possibly have that would make her son rush headlong into such a sudden and unpopular marriage? Although Binh lived next door to her son, she hadn’t made an opportunity to meet and talk privately, woman to woman, with the girl. There always seemed to be so many other things to do in preparation for the wedding that she really hadn’t had time to talk to the bride, a virtual stranger to her and the rest of her family. And besides, as Peta pointed out, Morr never had anything to say for herself.

And meanwhile the family was gathering. Binh was proud of her family. She herself had four children and six brothers and sisters. And then there were her cousins and uncles and aunties. As head of the family, she would have an important position in all of the wedding arrangements As was the custom in the country, she, in the role of the groom’s parents, would have to personally invite the bride’s family by visiting them at their home. The bride’s family would then host a bride party at their home, to be paid for, of course, by the groom, and already they were demanding a feast of roast suckling pigs and sticky rice.

And then there was Bhin’s ex-husband, Lang. An ex for more than 20 years now, he still regarded Bhin jealously and often acted as if they were still a couple, although everyone knew the truth and many had even seen her new outland husband, Sheff. At the last wedding, 10 years ago for Bran, Lang had danced outrageously with each and every woman sitting at his table. It was mortifying. As far as Bhin was concerned, he brought shame on her side of the family and at this time she knew he was going to do the same.

For that she could never forgive him. She just knew that this time was going to be exactly like the last time when she would have to endure his gross breaches of etiquette. And yet she knew that the day after the bride’s party, she and Lang would have to stand together as parents of the groom and greet the 200 guests arriving for the final reception in the restaurant in town. What her outland husband, Sheff, would think of that was another story and he would have to be handled diplomatically.

But for now all she had to do was get his help in sending a photo of her son from her phone to Bran so that she could give it to Aedh to take to the black magic woman. It seemed easy enough to send the photo and it only took a few seconds so she was quite surprised when Bran immediately phoned her and told her the photo was no good as the black magic woman would need a photo of the couple, not just one of them.

Anyway, that problem was easily solved – Peta could go to Cang’s paternal grandmother’s house and she would find a photo there of Cang and Morr which she could give to Bran who in turn would pass it on to Aedh to show to the black magic woman.

Aedh said the photo was fine but that she would have to leave to meet the black magic woman at 3:30 in the morning in order to get a number. Many people needed to see the black magic woman and in order to see her, you had to get a number, just like going to the doctor. If Aedh left at 3:30, she would be in time to get an early number. In fact, she managed to get number 9 so she didn’t have to wait too long.

Anyway, the news was bad. Yes, the black magic woman was sure that Cang had been placed under a spell. That news, combined with Bran’s assurance that their star birth signs, that of horse and chicken, were totally incompatible, seemed definite proof.

There was only one thing to do, the black magic woman assured Aedh. Get the boy, Cang, to keep this black stone on him at all times, she said, handing a small oval shaped stone to her. Hang it around his neck and leave it there. And, here, take this too, and the black magic woman had given Aedh a piece of paper on which she had written a special incantation. What Aedh must do was give the paper to one of the boy’s close relatives and get them then to burn the paper and mix the ashes into a glass of water. When the ashes had settled, the boy was to drink the water. Later the ashes should be mixed into a bucket of water and the boy should wet himself all over with the water to remove all traces of the spell.

The only problem now was what to do with the stunning revelation and how to save the boy from entering into such a tainted relationship which would not only destroy him but also tarnish the whole family.

One week exactly before the planned date for the bride’s party, Bhin, Peta and Bran called to the boy’s house where he was living with the witch and took him out for a coffee so that they could tell him what they had discovered.

Cang listened to his three women relatives, his mother, his sister and his auntie lay their facts before him and beseech him to abandon all thought of his wedding to that little witch. At first Cang thought it was all some sort of practical joke and he sat there politely, listening with respect to the women. But as they went on, telling him that they loved him and didn’t want him to make the same mistake that he had already made with the other woman Bee and the child, Aegon, in the outland, a slow anger began to rise in him. The anger was cold at first as the reality of the situation began to bear down on him but he already knew how that coldness could turn to a fiery explosion if he stayed much longer. Drawing on his reserves of restraint, he stood up and faced the three women. Speaking directly to Bran, his sister, he told her that she would not be welcome at his wedding the following week. Fighting to keep his emotions in check, he walked home and, unable to face Morr’s enquiries, fell into a deep sleep.

Bran decided that she and her husband would take the opportunity to travel outland with her husband’s family, returning to the town the day before the bride’s party. Just tell him that we love him and are doing this for his own good, she told her mother and auntie as she left the next morning.

Peta, too, discovered that actually she was quite busy also and that she hoped Bhin would be able to talk some sense into Cang’s head because, oh God, she had tried often enough to point out that Cang’s wedding was too rushed. I mean, she said, nobody would want to get married that fast and to a slip of a girl like that.

And that left Bhin with the disaster sitting fair and square on her hands. Perhaps she could just attend the bride’s party with her son, but she wouldn’t go to the groom’s reception because that was sure to be ruined by the antics of her ex husband who would only add shame to the anguish she was already feeling.

Perhaps the best thing would be to contact Peta and ask her to help cancel her whole side of the family’s acceptance of the invitation to the wedding. Then, maybe, Cang would realize the error of his ways and cancel the wedding. That would solve everything. But if Cang didn’t cancel the wedding what could she do? How could she hold her head up? But, oh God, she loved her son and all she wanted for him was to be happy. Her own first marriage had been a disaster even though her union had produced four wonderful children but this, this was threatening to tear her whole family apart.

Bo, her eldest son, was due to arrive in town in two days time. What would he do – would he side with his brother and support the imminent marriage or would he side with his sister and urge Cang to cancel everything? Either way, the family, all that she had ever worked and hoped for, the family would be split, sister against brother, auntie against nephew, grandmother, her own mother, in opposition to Cang’s paternal grandmother who now seemed to be taking over more and more of the wedding preparations as both Bran and Peta, having thoroughly stirred the pot, now absented themselves from the immediate consequences, knowing full well that the particular pot would boil over in less than a week.

Cang, waking the following morning felt the black cloud press down on him immediately and rolling over her took Morr in his arms and told her the whole story. Alone together they swore their love to and for each other and vowed to continue their wedding plans and determined to enjoy the happiest day of their lives, but without the presence of Peta and Bran.

Knowing that whatever occurred, one thing was certain, Cang knew the family would never be the same again. His auntie would never forgive him for excluding her from the party while he and his sister would never speak to each other again. The problem now was what to do about Bhin. Cang knew that she had no hand in this meddling and interference in his life other than her tearful confession of sending his photo to Bran. However, she had sided with his sister and auntie against him and that was what really rankled. But the nagging thought persisted, it would be his actions, and his actions alone in marrying Morr, that would break up his family and sear the divisions into their lives forever.

What had the women been thinking when they had told him of their suspicions and fears? Did they really think he would break off his relationship with Morr and cancel the wedding when it was less than a week away? One thing though, whatever about his mother, his auntie and his sister would not be welcome at his wedding.

When Sheff, Bhin’s outland husband, heard the story from a troubled Bhin, he was incredulous that such stupidity had been undertaken in the name of love. He ridiculed the notion of black magic and pointed out that Bran, being a devout Nazrene, could not include black magic among her beliefs. However when Binh went on to explain that she would have to stand side by side with her ex during the groom’s party to welcome the guests, Sheff began to realize the situation was no laughing matter. He suggested talking to Cang, man to man, in the role of a surrogate stepfather to find out how matters stood with him and to finalise the definitive wedding invitations. Bhin wasn’t sure what that would achieve but could think of no reason to oppose it.

During dinner that night with Cang, Sheff sympathized with Cang about the situation and told him how furious he would feel if such black magic accusations had been made against him. Nothing, it seemed, could change the date, both Cang and Morr were set on it. However, as Peta and, to a lesser extent, Bran and even Cang’s mother Bhin, had a significantly reduced presence, Cang’s paternal grandmother took over more and more of the proceedings, further isolating Binh from all the arrangements. Neither the auntie, the sister or his mother were invited to attend the bride’s party in her home village, although, by rights, the mother of the groom should have gone, the only attendance being some close male friends of Cang.

Peta, effectively barred from all wedding preparation and attendance, was disconsolate while Bran, in a bit to ingratiate herself, busied herself with minor touches to the groom’s party. Bhin put a brave face on things and focused on the embroidery for both of the traditional costumes she was having tailor made for the occasion.

As a special concession, on the morning of the groom’s party, Cang allowed his mother to accompany him back down to the bride’s home village in order to collect her for the final celebration. Back in the town, Bran fussed over decorations and the flowers, all ready for the big account. She had organized the food too and was inordinately proud of that.

Much to Bhin’s relief, her ex, Lang, behaved impeccably, probably because, as Bhin later uncharitably put it, there was no room for him to dance because of the size of the venue. The only dancing took place just prior to the bride and groom entering the function room. A troupe of young men and women pranced up the main aisle in the room, for all the world like the warm up act for the main event. Certainly if dance and song could banish evil spirits, the dancers with radiant faces, as they swooped and shimmied past and between the tables, easily achieved that.

The spell seemed broken and the chatter and loud music resumed as the couple made their final entry. Uniformed attendants escorted the parents, the bride’s mother and father and an obviously reluctant Bhin along with her ex, Lang, up onto the stage. The MC extolled the virtues of all and passed the mike to the bride’s parents. A few muttered pleasantries before the mike was passed to Lang. Exquisitely dressed and coiffed, Lang was the consummate showman with suitably exaggerated gestures and much bowing and scraping. Binh, on the other hand was more reticent, knowing full well that the family was damaged and the antics of her ex could never make up for that.

After the wedding celebrations were finally over, an unhappy Bran returned to her outland home and told the whole story to Bee, Cang’s former partner and mother of their child. Bee sympathized with the treatment Bran and her family had received when all they had tried to do was stop a disastrous wedding, but inwardly she was secretly delighted at the suspicions, recriminations and hurt that had arisen among not only Cang’s siblings, but also among the extended family of grandmothers and aunties of the man who had lied to her that he had loved her. Every penny was well spent, Bee reflected, on the long distance spell that could reach out over the far waters from the outland to wreck Cang’s happiness. Let him now endure the consequences of the effects of love on the family he deserted and the natural family of which he had been so proud to be a member of.