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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
Hello Everyone: You will notice that this is a September/October issue combined. That is because I will be in Great Britain for the months of September and October, and not near a computer. I am not taking my laptop, as we will be on the move most of the visit, traveling by bus and train and only staying at one spot a day or two at a time. The days will be spent touring on foot, the evenings will be spent recovering from the days. We are taking side trips to France and Italy of a week each, and have planned about two weeks of touring for each of those weeks. So you will next hear from me in November, fat, tired, and happy. No matter how much walking I do on these jaunts, I always put on weight. I'll have the November Kildonan Times in your mailbox as soon as I can after I get back and recover from jet lag. Ruth
This month's recipes (there are two) date from Anglo-Saxon times during the 700s, a very early period of English history. I found a web site sponsored by Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science which features an archive of early cookery. The recipes for this month are all from The British Museum Cookbook, by Michelle Berriedale-Johnson, 1987, British Museum Publications. The recipes were chosen and posted to the web page by Jennifer A. Newbury, a Carnegie student, in 1995. The recipes in the cookbook have either all been translated in the book, or Jennifer only copied the translations and not the original text. So these are all in modern English.
HARE (or rabbit, veal, or chicken) STEW WITH HERBS AND BARLEY In 7th century England, herbs were one of the few flavourings available to cooks and were used heavily...
SUMMER FRUIT, HONEY, AND HAZELNUT CRUMBLE ....A baked dessert like this would have been sunk in the embers of the log fire with a cauldron or pot upturned over it to form a lid...
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. GIMLI Gimli is a minor character, all told. Though if I write the third book of the series, I have a bigger role in mind for him. On the surface, he is a stock character of medieval tales, Christian and pre-Christian. Gimli, in pagan Kildonan, is a religious hermit, a wicche. He lives a monastic existence in a hut cut into the side of a hill. Most of his cell is underground, with just a door and a round window in the hillside to mark where it is. He is hidden in the deep forest. Local people who know the forest well can find him, but a stranger would be lost. Gimli performs ceremonies of magick for celebrations in villages round-about and exercises healing treatments with charms and herbs. Much of his time, ostensibly, is spent communing with the gods and goddesses of Erthe at a small altar in his cell. His meagre diet depends on gifts of food from grateful villagers for whom he has performed services. The cell is typical of a poor peasant. There is a round firepit in the center of the room with a smoke-hole above it, and a sleeping shelf cut out of the earth of the cell walls. But, as Morpeth discovers, still waters run deep. Behind the curtain that supposedly hides his altar, the real Gimli lives in comfort. He has cut another room deeper into the earth, well furnished and next to a fat pantry, where he follows his true calling. Gimli is a Seeker, part of a chain of Listeners set up after the fall of Kildonan to the Hounds of the Darke. Gimli's work is to Listen to the Lifebreath, the atmosphere. “Perhaps,” mused Gimli as he leaned back in his chair, “perhaps the time is near for which we Seekers have worked for centuries. Perhaps, I, myself, will have a chance to serve the good of Kildonan directly. It overwhelms. It bears thinking on. But thinking is not good on an empty stomach. What say ye to a collop of a good haunch and a coppe of sweet wine?” “You have that here too?” laughed Morpeth. “I thought that jolly paunch of yours belied a recluse’s fare of hard bread and poor ale.” Stones Seven Chapter 7 Gimli Gimli is telepathic, a Listener so highly trained that he can Listen to mental voices at great distances and many levels. He can also detect the disturbances in the Lifebreath caused by the working of magick, and he can recognize the type of magick. His charge, and the charge of Seekers for more than 700 years before him, is to detect any sign of Darke Magick. Darke Magick was used to overthrow the leaders of an earlier, unified Kildonan, who were taken unaware of its existence. Darke Magick burned itself out, but the ravaged Kingdom has remained broken into small feudal kingdoms for these 700 years. If Gimli, or another, should sense the use of Darke Magick, the Seeker would spread an alarm that would, in theory, prevent another catastrophe.
NOTES THE SIDHE (pronounced "shee") The Sidhe are creatures of Celtic folklore; they are the faeries. They are named after ancient barrows found in Ireland, called sidh. In Celtic mythology, after a defeat in war the Sidhe followed their leader into the barrows, and that is where they live—not in the musty old chambers of the barrows, though. If you were to follow a faerie into a barrow, you would find yourself in a faeriland of beautiful forests and fields that are always green. And if you were allowed to stay there, you would be like the magickal little people, you would not age. But if you were, after many, many years, to return to earth....you would crumble away. (However, if you go into a barrow, which were prehistoric burial chambers, without a faerie, you see just the musty gravesites.) There are many myths and tales of people being stolen by faeries and spirited off to Sidhe, from which they return with tales of the wonders of the land. Famous kings have visited the land of the Sidhe for magikal help, and a few folk have been lucky enough to find a faerie and follow it into the barrow and the land of Sidhe. Sit yourself down with a pint in a pub in a small isolated village even today, listen to the talk of the oldsters, and you'll be surprised how many there have seen the Sidhe. Take a long walk on the misty moors at night, and you might just see one yourself.
The moors of Holyhead Island, in the Irish Sea I patterned Erthe, the dwelling-place of the gods and goddesses of Kildonan, after the land of the Sidhe. It is a parallel world that can be accessed by "gateways," often found in barrows, or sidhs. In the Clovenstone books, the Woman in White, a goddess, appears out of a barrow. The gods and goddesses move freely between the two worlds. When they desire, they can appear to humans, just like the faeries of the Sidhe. However, Erthe is much more concerned with the doings of Kildonan than the Sidhe are with Ireland. Erthe is ruled by Gwyan, a sort of a Mother Nature figure, who is worshipped as a supreme deity in the earth-based religion of Kildonan. The gods and goddesses oversee the winds, water, the crops, and are, like the Greek gods and the Sidhe, subject to human emotions. The gods and goddesses of Erthe, like the Sidhe, sometimes influence and meddle in the lives of mankind, mostly on the side of the good. The goddess Tuatha, the Woman in White, bows to communicating with Fiona and Arrochar, to help them in their quest.
inner chamber of a sidh at Newgrange, County Meath, home of the love god Oenghus
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. ************ valerian: Valerian is also called Garden Heliotrope. Some botanists think that the "spikenard" brought from the East in the Bible was a species of valerian. It is also told that the Pied Piper of Hamelin used a little more than his pipes in getting those rats out of town. There are those that hold he used valerian to get the job done, as it intoxicates cats and attracts rats. If you want to make your cat very happy, get him a valerian pillow. If you want him to roll in your garden, plant valerian. Conversely, if you don't want him to roll on your valerian......don't plant it. Valerian has had many medical uses throughout the ages, but foremost is its effectiveness as a tranquilizer. The leaves and flowers have been since ancient times used for various conditions such as headaches and muscle cramps, but the outstanding use is the dried root as a tranquilizer. You can buy dried valerian root at your local health food store. Hold your breath when you open the bottle, though. Valerian is a foul-smelling plant. Ugh. When I take it, even holding my breath, I can taste the smell! One species of the plant is actually named Phu. But it works for a lot of people as a relaxer and a sleep aid. My husband takes it when pain from some surgical adhesions he has keeps him from sleeping. It's more gentle than chemical sleep aids, with no known side-effects if taken with care. It should not be taken in large doses — follow the label on the bottle—and not taken continually, day in and day out. ***********
A FEW THOUGHTS FROM THE EDITOR (me, Ruth) Yesterday I did a book-signing in Dickens Reed, a local bookstore in Mt. Dora, a town about 30 miles from here. It has a little coffee shop and extensive programs to lure people through its doors, programs that promote culture and learning in a social, fun, setting-like my book signing. It was part of a summer series, Sunday Coffee with Authors, which featured a different one of us writer-types every Sunday afternoon hawking our books in the coffee shop. The coffee shop, which is just a few tables in a corner of the store, promoted a casual atmosphere where I could sit and chat with folks about my books while they sipped their lattes. The bookstore has, of course, a readers' group that meets to discuss books. These are always popular, and the bread and butter of the bookstore offerings. Next is a writers' group, another basic. After that, bookstore owners get imaginative. There are children's reading theaters, a philosophic discussion group, a mystery readers' club, various speakers reading poetry and showing slides of Ireland or Bosnia, a Macintosh computer club group and a Mac computer Rap Group. All these diversions are available at bookstores within thirty miles of my home. And all these diversions take place in nooks in the shops where the seating is comfortable and the latte foams. I applaud these books store/coffee shops that have cultural offerings. There's something much more appealing in sitting at a little table or on a couch with a hazelnut cappucino in hand for a small meeting than sitting in rows of folding chairs. The neighborhood cultural coffee shop/bookstore has filtered down from the big cities to small towns now, and it's great. If you have one in your area, support it. Keep these places in business. Your local authors, musicians, and artists will thank you. So will the bookstore owner. R
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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