Kildonan Times issue 20 November 2001

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The first draft of Stones Seven, the sequel to Clovenstone, is done and is being edited. As soon as I can produce a final draft, off it goes to the publisher. Stay tuned!

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Soon t'will be the Yule time! A copy of Clovenstone would be a perfect holiday gift for whatever December holiday you celebrate. I just heard from a fan who bought six copies of Clovenstone for gifts to all of her immediate family. If you email (clovenstone@aol.com) me the name of the recipient, I will be happy to postal mail you an autograph you can include with your gift. Be sure to give me the address to which to send the autograph!

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MEDIEVAL FOODS

SAMBOCADE CHEESECAKE

Here's another recipe from Lady Beatrice of the Cynaguan Culinary Guild of the Society for Creative Anachronisms. She made this for the 2000 Yule Feaste of the society. The website of the guild is http://www.silverdesert-sca.org/culinary/guildhome.html

Sambocade Cheesecake

This recipe is a cross between the one from Forme of Cury and The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby, Opened.
Forme of Cury 179 Sambocade:

Take and make a crust in a trap & take a crudd and wryng out &Mac223;e wheze and drawe hem &Mac223;urgh a straynour and put it in &Mac223;e crust. Do &Mac223;erto suger the &Mac223;ridde part & somdel whyte of ayren & shake &Mac223;erin blom of elren & bake it up with eurose & messe it forth.

translation:

Take and make a crust in a trap & take curds and wring out the whey and draw it through a strainer and put it in the crust. Add thereto sugar the third part & some egg whites. Shake therein blooms of elderflowers & bake it up with rosewater & serve it forth.

Modern recipe for Sambocade Cheesecake

This is Lady Beatrice' adaption of the medieval recipe, which she made for the feast.

* 2 nine-inch pie shells

* 2 tbs heavy cream

* 1/2 lb cottage cheese

* 1 lb ricotta cheese

* 3 eggs

* 1/4 lb butter

* 1/3 cup sugar

* 1/4 tsp each cloves and mace

* 1 tbs rosewater (to make rosewater: steep crushed rose petals in boiling water)

* a handful of elderflowers (pansies, rose petals, goldenrod flowers, or nasturtium flowers could be used instead)

Combine all ingredients (except the pie shells) in a food processor until smooth. Pour mixture into shells and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes (this is variable, watch your oven and altitude) or until set, the crust should be a golden brown. Let cool and serve.

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GLOSSARY

I have had requests for definitions of some of the words I use in the text. The identification behind each word in parentheses indicates either the word is derived from a similar word in an older language, or that the word is used today in that language. Also, there are some words in the book that I just plain made up out of my head- (identified as "mine.") If you want to know about a certain word, please email me at clovenstone@aol.com, or look it up in your dictionary.

scrog: (Middle English skrogg) used in Scottish and related dialects: stunted bush, a branch

scrogs: brush, thicket

seax: (Anglo-Saxon) short sword

sherte: similar to chemise or shirt, but collarless and usually long and full with long full sleeves.

shiel or shieling: (Scottish and North England) hut or shanty, herdsman’s hut

sigil: (Latin) occult or magic sign: seal or signet

skeld: (mine) a chief rank in a warrior force, commands 12 tals (264 armsbearers)

skry: (v.t, v.i.) to see the future, to prophesy A term used primarily in witchcraft.

skyrlie: (Scottish) Brown onions in fat. Add oatmeal and stir into a firm paste. Season.

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NOTES

THE HOBBY HORSE

I've talked about several customs that date from pagan times that have endured as aspects of modern social holiday practices, such as bonfires at the solstices. One such custom is the "hobby horse" practice in Britain.

Following is a description "hobby horse" play in Padstow, Cornwall, a picturesque village on the sea.

<<The May-Day celebrations at Pastow in Cornwall retain the fullest vigour of Beltane (pagan first day of summer) customs. After serenading the town through midnight and the small hours, the Mayers (celebrants) re-emerge with the Oss — a fearsome pointy-beaked hobby horse which covers its wearer by a six-foot hoop covered with black tarpaulin. It processes the streets, led on by its Teaser, a white-clad Mayer. Its dance dives and swoops, ever seeking for a young woman to bring under its skirts: to be the object of the Oss is considered to grant fertility and to be lucky. >>

(from the Celtic Book of Days by Caitlin Matthews)

Dame Ngaio Marsh, a popular mystery writer, wrote a murder mystery entitled Death of a Fool (originally published in 1956 as Off with his Head) that is based on the hobby-horse ritual. In her book, the ritual takes place on the Winter Solstice rather than May Day and is set "somewhere in England," not specifically Cornwall. The Oss is called Crack in her book, and the Teaser is called the Fool. These are probably local variations with which she is familiar. Otherwise, the practice is the same. It's a good murder mystery, a 300 page paperback for an evening's entertainment.

You can buy Death of a Fool from Amazon.com for $5.99. The actual page URL is

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312968329/qid=1003587381/sr=12-3/103-8770765-4799839

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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.

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cucumber: Now, most people would not say that cucumber is an herb. Yet they know that women rub their faces with cucumber and pile cucumber slices on their faces to help the complexion. Cucumber heals and smoothes the skin. It is also good for inflammations and burns.

Cucumber has a long history as a folk medicine. Cucumber is an excellent diuretic. It's ability to eliminate water from the body helps kidney and heart function. It helps dissolve kidney and bladder stones, and is helpful for constipation. So have a cucumber salad. It's good for what ails you.

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dill: Dill is not only for dill pickles, or dill dip, or fish. It can calm your upset stomach. Just steep some dill seeds in a mixture of water and white wine, and make yourself a calming tea. In medieval times they heated just wine and steeped dill in it to make a "cordial" for gripe (stomach/intestinal pain).

Here's a recipe from Lust. For gas pains or hiccups, steep 2 tsp of dill seed in a cup of hot water for 10 or 15 minutes. Drink it a half cup at a time, up to 2 cups a day.

If you have bad breath, chew dill seeds. You can swallow them, and help your stomach at the same time. Chewing dill was used for relieving hunger pangs, too.

Dill water has been used since medieval times for baby colic and to promote the flow of milk in nursing mothers.

I didn't have any dill in my garden this summer. Those huge lubber grasshoppers we have down here in Florida ate up my little plants. And yellow caterpillars ate up my fennel. But the lemon balm sprawls all over everything, and I have basil that's three feet high. Everything else is doing fine, thank you.

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My basic herb reference books for the herbs I use either for food or medicine in Clovenstone and Stones Seven 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).

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A FEW THOUGHTS FROM THE EDITOR (me, Ruth)

Books. I have a passion for books, especially adventure tales and British novels. I collect books. So does my husband. He collects books on W.W.II. What was intended to be a dining room in our house is a library with bookshelves all around the walls. If you call on us, you eat in the kitchen. For recreation our whole family haunts flea markets and second hand book stores. I carry a list with me of books I want to add to my library. A really big afternoon is one spent in Borders or Barnes and Noble wallowing in books.

I have little artistic arrangements of books all around the house on end tables and the tops of cabinets. Sherlock Holmes lives on the bottom shelf of one end table, and old copies of the Decameron, Pilgrim's Progress, Don Quixote, and the Three Musketeers with gold print on their bindings rest between gold bookends on the top of a cherry armoire. Clovenstone, of course, has a place of honor on a brass display stand on an end table, and on the half table behind the couch is a book holder that you can keep a book open on. I have a Celtic Book of Days on it, and I change the page to match the date. You can wander by and just stop a minute to read a little Celtic legend or cultural note written for that day.

And on the library table, there are at this moment (I just counted them) 34 murder mysteries waiting to be read. My daughters pass them on to me faster than I can get to them. There is also a new copy of Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett that I want to re-read. It's a great portrait of Maine life in the nineteenth century. Books are decorative objects, books are to read, books take you away and open new windows on the world. What can I say? Love 'em.

All that said, let me talk about a few of my books.

Lorna Doone by Blackmore: This is a romantic tale of the Scottish Highlands. It details rivalries and outlawry of the clans, and describes the glens and bens of Scotland so that you are there. It's a wonderful tale to give you a "feel" for life in the legendary Highlands.

The Waverly novels by Sir Walter Scott. There's an amazing monument to Sir Walter Scott on Princes Street in Edinburgh. It's almost like a little temple with a huge statue of Scott in it. The Waverly novels deal with tales before, during, and after the Battle of Cullodon and defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie. The large Celtic cross that marks the grave of Flora McDonald, who spirited Prince Charlie out of Scotland after his defeat, stands alone on a windy plain in northern Scotland. I patterned Fiona after Flora McDonald.

Out of gratefulness, Prince Charlie gave his recipe for his private liqueur to the MacKinnon family who aided him on the Isle of Skye. It is Drambuie, and really is very good if you like liqueurs, which I do.

Edgar Rice Burroughs: The John Carter of Mars series. Burroughs is famous for his Tarzan tales, but he wrote another series about a fellow who goes into a cave and finds himself on the dying planet of Mars. It is a series of fantasy adventures. I would like to have the whole series, but they are expensive and hard to find. I found a couple of them published on the internet, but to have them in my library, I would have to print out the whole book.

H. Ryder Haggard: His most famous book is King Solomon's Mines, made into the famous movie with Bogart and Bacall. He also wrote She, Alan Quatermain, and many other books of Eastern adventure. I was lucky enough to find a matched set of 17 Haggards in an antique shop in Chicago a year ago. Sax Rohmer is another author of Eastern adventure that is exciting to read. He's most famous for the Fu Manchu series. One of my daughters has a good collection of his books. And then there's Talbot Mundy and his famous character, Jimgrim.

I have a whole shelf of Dickens, and am a fan of British "manners" novels by authors like Jane Austen and Anthony Trollope. I think Pat McManus, who writes every month in "Outdoor Life," is hysterically funny, and have all his books. Of course I have a ton of Tolkien, and all the Dragon Riders of Pern series. I also collect novels that were written for "young women" in the early 1900s, such as the romances of Grace S. Richmond and Gene Stratton Porter. And I like Thomas Hardy, Alexander Dumas, P. G. Wodehouse—and on and on.

I should go around with a bumper sticker on my forehead that says "Honk if you love books!" Want to talk books? Send me an email.

R

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WEBSITES TO EXPLORE

Do you like movies about medieval history, or just any movie that has a medieval setting? Here's the website for you. It lists all the movies that have been made with a medieval theme or setting. Just print out the list and take it with you next time you go to rent a movie.

The PSC Medieval Society Official Medieval Movi…

http://oz.plymouth.edu/~medsoc/movies.html

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Do you have a coat of arms or family crest? Here's the place to find out. They have over a million names in their coats of arms database. Not just English or Scottish, but most European countries, and others like Jewish or Yugoslav names. You can get your coat of arms from them as a plaque, on a mug, or what have you. Or you can just download your coat of arms and print it out for yourself.

Coats of Arms / Family Crests / Last Name Histo…

http://store/yahoo.com/4crests

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And, as always, tell your aunts, uncles, cousins and friends about Clovenstone. Give them an adventure!

Good Fate Be Yours —
Ruth

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