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Welcome to Kildonan Times ezine! Kildonan Times is the occasional newsletter/ezine of the novel, Clovenstone, Stones Seven, and beyond to things medieval, Celtic, literary, and mythic. BACK ISSUES OF KILDONAN TIMES are published on the Kildonan Times website. If you wish to read or print any of the back issues, the Kildonan Times website can be accessed from pages on Clovenstone Chronicles or you can go directly to the website at Kildonan Times You can also subscribe to Kildonan Times at either site. KILDONAN TIMES
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MEDIEVAL FOODS Here is one version of the famous "figgy pudding" heard do often in English song and story. (from Curye on Inglysh p 118 No 91) FYGEY Take almaundes blaunched; grynde hem and draw hem vp with water and wyne, quarter fyges, hole raisouns. Cast (th)erto powder gynger and honey clarified; see(th) it wel & salt it, & serue forth. In Modern English: FIGGY. Take blanched almonds, grind them and put them in water and wine, quarter figs and raisons. Cast therto powdered ginger and clarified honey. Boil it well and salt it. Serve it forth. (Comments from an SCA member who makes the recipe.) Put all the first ingredients together. I use more wine than water, but you don't have to. I cover the fruits and nuts with liquid. I put in about 1T of ginger for a medium saucepan full of stuff and about 3T of honey. Adjust this to your taste. Heat it thoroughly and bring to boil. You will get out most of the liquid and it will be very thick. Watch it closely. Add a dash of salt when done.
PORTRAITS This topic draws a word portrait of one of the characters from the Kildonan Chronicles. I not only describe the character, but tell how I created the character, and what influences helped shape it. MORPETH Morpeth led a colorful life as a wandering harpist for much of her thirty-odd years. She was not only a musician and dancer, but also along the way she learned to read and write. She had been knocked around and was road-wise to the hard life. However, she found a secure home in Dartha Community a couple of years before our tale opens, where she could have shelter and regular meals in return for managing their unweildy ledgers of the wool trade. Fiona stops in at Dartha Community on her way north to Béagran-Byrig to claim a job as an arrowwoman there. With Morpeth's help, she searches some ancient wool-trade parchments hoping for a clue in her quest for Clovenstone. She is only at Dartha Community a few days, then leaves again on her northern trek. Some months later, Fiona, Cormac, and Talorg are at Trelawney Community. She has met Jerrmit, and since her quest fits in with his research into ancient magicks, he has become involved in the work. Jerrmit is teaching Fiona to read the ancient runes, the key to the carvings on standing stones. Fiona sends Talorg to Dartha Commune to ask to borrow some wool-trade parchments from Morpeth. Talorg returns not only with the parchments... ...finally Talorg strode through the doorway. On his back, sitting straight up like a queen, bags and bundles hanging from herself and Talorg's harness, was Morpeth. Her harp was in her hands, and her bright red harper's veil was wrapped around her neck and streamed down her back. "We met," she cried as she hopped off Talorg's back. "I've come to learn to read the runes!" Clovenstone Chapter 22 So Morpeth leaves the community and joins the quest. It is Morpeth who decides they must earn their way as a group of wandering players, and bullies and teaches until the group can perform an acceptable show. It is she who names them the Nonesuch Players and who shows them the ways of life on the road.
NOTES
Well dressing, a custom of decorating wells, dates back to Celtic times. It is thought that it was probably a ritual of thanks for the fresh water. Since early peoples tended to hide spirits everywhere, there may have even been a spirit of the well that they were appeasing. The fact that many well dressings have a "well queen" suggests echoes of ancient fertility rites, perhaps, of very primitive peoples before the Celts. When the Christian religion moved in, early Christian ecclesiastics banned well dressing as being a worship of pagan gods. The custom persisted, however, and in the manner that has made Christianity so successful, well dressing was simply reinterpreted as a Christian act. So the wells were dressed as always, and a Christian blessing was given to the well with thanks to God for its bounty. Since Tissington was recorded as dressing a well in 1349, Derbyshire in England claims it as their especial custom. The blessing of water supplies, springs, wells, etc. was pretty well a dead custom, though, in the 1950s. Then someone saw the tourism possibilities of reviving the practice, and now there is are regular calendars put out of well dressings and blessings in Derbyshire. The well dressing programme starts in May and runs through until mid September. A well dressing is a sort of a sculptured picture in a wooden frame that is leaned against or propped on the well. It is an outgrowth of early times when flowers might have been placed as offerings at wells and springs. Or maybe blobs of web clay were festooned with natural objects and stuck to or set on a well or beside a spring. There had to be some long ago practices that have grown into modern customs, though there is not record of them. Today an wooden frame is built, and then the wood soaked for several days in a river or such. Then the frame is filled with wet clay. The clay is smoothed off, and the outline of a previously drawn pattern is pricked into the clay. Then the work begins of filling the picture with natural materials like nuts, seeds, twigs, or pebbles. The clay is kept wet with weth clothes for several days of this work. The night before the blessing, the fresh petals of flowers are applied to finish the work. This often keeps people up all night and is an event in itself. Despite the commercial cast to the custom, the revival has enriched the culture and enlivened the villages. Well dressing has become a week-long festival in many instances. Concerts, plays, dances and other events usher in the well dressing and blessing. I'm sure it has brought in many tourists. I'll be in Derbyshire myself in September. That is late in the well dressing season, but I hope I can find one. I promise to take pictures.
HERBS In my discussions of herbs in all the issues of Kildonan Times, I present only general information. It is not intended to be a guide for the use of the herbs. If you wish to use any of the herbs described in Kildonan Times, consult an herbalist or a definitive guide book to using herbs. ************ alder/black alder /European black alder: I think everyone recognizes the alder tree. It is a tall thin tree, as compared to the massive trunks or oaks and such, and a member of the birch family. Like most birches and alders, its leaves flutter in the breezes.The European black alder is distinguished by having round leaves instead of elliptical ones. Characteristically, it grows in low, damp, moist places. Like the buckthorn last month, the alder has a long history of medical use. It is a emetic, diurtic, and astringent. Fresh alder bark will cause vomiting, so should be used only for that purpose. A tea of dried bark is good for sore throat. But the real powerhouse is the inner bark boiled in vinegar. It is good for—(are you ready?) lice and for skin problems such as scabies and scabs, psoriasis, rheumatism, inflammations, for burning and aching feet, dropsy, shingles, impetigo, pruritis, poultice for swellings of all kinds including enlarged glands, scrofula. You can use the liquid to clean your teeth and firm gums. It is a worm medicine for children, and is good for toothaches. Nicholas Culpeper, an English physician (1616-1654) stated: "They said leaves gathered while the morning dew is on them, and brought into a chamber troubled with fleas, will gather them there unto, which being suitably cast out, will rid the chamber of these troublesome fellows." So if you're lucky enough to have some black alder near you, you might just boil up a little inner bark in vinegar to have on hand for brushing your teeth and any other small ill that might come along. ***********
My basic herb references for the herbs I use either for food or medicine in this feature are: The Herb Book by John Lust (Bantam Books), Brother Cadfael's Herb Garden by Robin Whitman (Bullfinch Press) and Herbs by Lesley Bremness (DK Publishing), plus several websites.
A FEW THOUGHTS FROM THE EDITOR (me, Ruth) We got a new computer last week. It's a laptop, and it's sitting here on my computer desk next to my snowball iMac, looking glamorous. I look down and admire its sleek lines and elegant gray and white coloring - sometimes. Other times I look at it and think about all the work I have to do to organize the hard disk and transfer all the data from the desktop computer to the laptop. But I will do it. I'm a computer junkie, and suffer withdrawal symptoms if I don't have a computer in reach. In self defense, my husband had to get his own computer, because he never could get on our joint computer. We share the laptop, which means that I use it most of the time and he uses it when I'm showering or sleeping. Without the internet, Kildonan Times wouldn't happen. I'm typing along on an article, say on well dressing. I want to say something about the history of it beyond the heresay I've picked up along the way. I slide the mouse up to Google on my menu bar, click, write" well dressing," click, and almost immediately have 110 pages of websites on well dressing to research. Last Saturday a few of us were wanting to set up music sharing with Susan, who has amassed 12,000 tunes on her computer. We couldn't find the IP address of her computer due to some technicalities. Susan went to Ask Jeeves, typed in "What is the IP address of my computer?" and Jeeves displayed it for her. I read the daily news on the computer, and get the daily weather. I get poetry in my email box every week, and tips on how to improve my writing. You can get fishing tips, fashion ideas, auto news, and recipes sent to your email box regularly, or find them on the web. The power of computers to enlarge our windows on the world and enrich our lives is tremendous. Are you getting the most out of your computer? Could it do more work and solve more problems for you than it now does? Could it entertain you more than it does now? How many hours a day do you spend on the computer compared to how many you spend watching TV? Maybe some of those TV hours could be switched to computer hours. It not only exercises your brain, but when your hands are busy on the keyboard, you can't eat snacks.
And, as always, tell your aunts, uncles, cousins and friends about the novels of Clovenstone Chronicles. Give them an adventure! Order your copy of Clovenstone or Stones Seven from: or your local bookstore.
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ELL DRESSING
