Setting: The Perilous Realm

"Don't you see yon bonny, bonny road

That lies across the ferny brae?

That is the road to fair Elf-land

Where thou and I this night maun gae"

Thomas the Rhymer, traditional.

Having introduced trolls and shape-shifted humans into the story it seemed to be no great leap to introduce elves. My elves are neither the whimsical creatures of Victorian nursery tales, nor are they the noble, sometimes comical and yet slightly distant beings of Tolkein's Middle Earth and subsequently of much of modern heroic fantasy. I think they are closest to Alan Garner's Lios Alfar, which are drawn from Scandinavian sources and are very distant from humans, who they despise because of pollution. But I too have looked back at the traditions and have drawn my own conclusions.

There are not a great many sources that have much to say about the elves of Anglo-Saxon myth. The poem Beowulf lumps them together with devils and monsters in one line, which does not speak well of the way in which they are seen. The same fear and repugnance can be seen in the semi-magical remedies of Bald's Leechcraft, which includes a spell against Elf-shot, which seems to represent any illness in humans or livestock which strikes out of nowhere rather than a specific malady. Elves were thus seen as being creatures who were pitiless, spreading illness and misfortune. Bertred voices his repugnance the most when they are confronted by Gamol in the hills south of Jeddart. His brothers share the same culture (more or less) but it seems that it is Bert who speaks for them, being very careful with his words, and being incredibly polite, using formal language and nice titles for the other-worldly being.

Gamol is a high elf, lordly and well versed in magic, able to see things from afar, aware of the plight of the brothers, but most importantly only distantly relating to it emotionally. The affairs of men are of little consequence, but his curiosity is piqued and he furthermore has been troubled by some riddles that he has collected - presumably in other moments where his ennui has been overcome by the lure of the interesting. He has no desire to harm the brothers, but nor is he interested in helping them. Indeed, although he offers to give them some help if they can explain his riddles, he also threatens to make things very bad for them if they do not.

I did not want to have the elves to be particularly understandable, nor the land in which they live. Mist seems to have a connection with entering their world, but later in the book a rather minor elf makes his appearance and it seems that he is wholly in the real world; he even has a little local knowledge. When Frith asks his brothers what an elf is after meeting Gamol, they do not give an answer, although Edgar gives a guess. Edgar's guess is derived from the story of the Voyage of St Brendan, where at one point the saint encounters islands of birds who had been among those angels who neither rebelled against God with Lucifer, not aided the loyal angelic host in their struggle against the upstart. When Frith turns the question to the nature of the old gods followed by the Anglo-Saxons, Edgar becomes more defensive and the speculation ends. Edgar is the one who is most close to an understanding of Christianity, having been partly raised by Bishop Paulinus, yet he still does not understand Christianity, he just likes the stories.

Unlike Trolldom, which has a real presence in the world according to the book, Elfland is definitely Other, although it lies closer to the real world at some places than others. Although Gamol's Path is marked on the map, his hall is not. The lines quoted above suggest that the road to Elf-land can be discovered (it is revealed along with a road to Heaven and a road to Hell). Tam Lin is found by Janet at Cartershaugh, Thomas the Rhymer encounters his elven queen near Erceldoune.

So those are my elves: not quite as evil as the Anglo-Saxons seem to have seen them, yet not creatures of nobility and goodness either. They are alien and the concerns of their perilous realm of Elfland eclipse their occasional passing interest in the mortal world. If it suits them they can be helpful to mortals, but they would be just as happy to harm or hinder them. Potentially the equal of angels, they have no joy, no real purpose and the hint of an alliance with, or being in thrall to the lord of Hell. Gamol makes a passing reference to the Teind. This is a feature of Borders' lore that is seen in both Thomas the Rhymer and more urgently in Tam Lin. Both of these characters are enticed into Elfland and they seem to prosper there, but whereas the fairy queen seems to want to protect True Thomas, poor Tam Lin needs the intercession of his mortal lover Janet to save him. The Teind (another word for a tithe) is exacted upon the elves by the devil. They are allowed to make up the numbers with trapped humans - either enticed in as adults like Thomas or exchanged in the cradle for a fairy child (a changeling). If there are not enough humans to fill the Teind then they seem to have to offer up some of their own folk instead. It would seem that the changeling, although it meant the temporary loss of a child, was preferable to them to the permanent loss of the same child in this way.

There are some interesting Northumberland tales of elves who are very unlike the fairy elves of Victorian stories. These elves are fierce, being roused to chase a lad who rides his horse three times widdershins (anticlockwise) around a quarry which they have made their home; they are caring, leaving a child with a poor farmer with instructions to anoint his eyes daily from a pot of eye ointment - which of course he uses on himself to his detriment; they are cruel but loving of games, carrying away children which have to be ransomed back with gifts that are the answers to riddles. These fierce and cruel - yet occasionally noble - creatures are all additional sources of inspiration for the elves that you meet in the Adventures of the Billy Goats Gruff.

Midsummer

Well, that's half of the summer gone, we are at the mid point, so now we can look forward to the nights closing in, the days getting shorter.

Remember the Words of House Stark ...

You have to admire George R Martin for coming up with such a catchy and easily parodied hook for his books. Every time someone Tweets or puts on Facebook, some comment about it soon being cardigan weather, they are advertising the Song of Ice and Fire series, even if they are thinking more of the Game of Thrones TV series. Either way, it's good money coming in to the author.

I'm sure he didn't imagine that these Words would have the impact they have, I would see it as being more of a reflection of the position of House Stark, that in a world where the seasons are unpredictable, it is the ones in the north who will need to remember winter the most through the long summers, for it will hit them hardest when it returns, with or without the White Walkers.

Living in Newcastle upon Tyne, I have often wondered on the use by the TV series of the Yorkshire dialect for the Starks and their allies. I approve, by the way, but it does then rather beg the question ... does that mean that Geordies are the Night's Watch? After all we are far to the north of the "Northerners" and we have a wall running through our fair city. By extension, north of the Wall there are the wildlings of Northumberland  and the Borders, and of course the White Walkers must have Scottish accents.

Trolls

I really felt that my trolls had to be something both like and unlike humans. They have an earthy, stony quality, but they are not made of stone. They look quite human in their body proportions and many of them are either much taller or much smaller the human average. I use the name Orcneas for them, using a word used once to describe Grendel in Beowulf. English did not have a word cognate with troll, it seems to have come into mainstream English usage in the 19th century, although it is recorded in the 17th century in a witch trial from the Shetlands.

I hint that trolls eventually leave Britain in order to find lands less densely inhabited by men; that they now live in Iceland and Scandinavia.During the 7th century they live in areas which are sparsely populated, but the human population is already on the increase and new lands are being cleared for human settlement and agriculture. In Northumberland, the spine of hills that we now call the Pennines meets the Cheviot Hills and the Southern Uplands of Scotland. This area is perfect for the trolls, and this is the area referred to as Trolldom in the book. There are other trolls living outside of Trolldom; one lived near Yeavering under a bridge over the River Glen. Communications with trolls living south of Hadrian's Wall have been lost, so there is no news of any who may have been alive further south.

Trolls and humans can have children together, although it is clear from what Alfreda says that trolls consider humans to be ugly - and most humans similarly consider the trolls to be ugly. Fortunately this is not always the case! Half-trolls may exist, and over time their descendants merge fully into the human population.

The Gefrin Trust

Just when you thought you had seen every significant thing on the Web to do with Yeavering, up comes something remarkable. This is the first that I have heard of the Gefrin Trust, the current owner of the site of Gatburgh.

It is all down to a chance encounter between archaeologist Roger Miket and an estate agent in Wooler, the latter casually stating that a piece of land with an interesting bit of history behind it had come on the market. The upshot was that he raised the money to buy the site and has since set up the Gefrin Trust to manage the site. The Trust is a registered company and a charity.

The company logo is interesting - they have taken the head of Ceredig's staff (well, technically the head of his father's staff, but they looked very similar) and transformed the front of it into a modern graphic. A lot of logos of this sort lose the power of the original but this works very well - it just goes to show how stylised the original was!

The website has some interesting resources, including a pdf of Hope-Taylor's monograph and an interesting piece aimed at kids (pun intended) called "What the Goats Saw" This is an account of the history of the site from a goat's eye view. No Grufflings get mentioned.

The board of the Trust includes a good mix of scholars (Rosemary Cramp!) and the local area - Northumberland National Park, the County Council and the Glendale Gateway Trust.

I recall using some of Roger Miket's material as a source of very detailed information on Anglo-Saxon cemeteries and other sites which provided some background material for my dissertation on place-names in Northumberland. Roger's data included OS references and so it was very easy to georeference the locations and present them as a distribution map.

I would like to wish Roger and his associates the very best in their endeavours at Gefrin. It is good to know that such an important site is in good hands!

I have the proof!

Just a quick word to say that I received the proof for The Adventures of the Billy Goats Gruff this week. It really is a book! I'm making good progress going through it and should be ready to confirm by the end of the weekend.

Sorry to any conspiracy theory fans misdirected to this post. It's all part of some Google - led plot!

Treasures of the Anglo-Saxons

Going (slightly) off topic, I have just watched one of the best programmes I have ever seen on Anglo-Saxon art presented with passion and knowledge by Dr. Janina Ramirez on BBC4, a criminal slot for such an excellent piece. It is airing (presumably) as part of the BBC's current Norman Season (see what they did! Those rotten Normans overturning centuries of artistic development!).

I was disappointed by her simplification of the Anglo-Saxons following Rome, the rest of the country following native Christianity when it was the fact that the two had to co-exist for a time in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that brought about the decision to change. She was of course right in identifying the figure of St Cuthbert as the figure around whom the two traditions could mix and grow (even if he may have been obedient rather than enthusiastic about the change).

I was slightly intrigued by why her boots seemed to play such a star role in the programme though, as they wended their way in close up through St Paul's in Jarrow, across the turf at Lindisfarne Priory and through the halls of the British Library and the British Museum.

That aside, I learned a few new opinions, saw some objects I had never seen before and finally got to see the hall that Regia Anglorum were building in Kent back when I was a member.

Setting (1) The time and place at the beginning of the book

The book opens in the autumn of AD633 in a place I call Gatburgh. The ruler in the region at the time was King Eadwine. This land would later to be known as Northumbria but there was no such political sense of unity at the time and each separate component of the realm ruled by Eadwine had its own history and traditions. Gatburgh lies in the province that I have called Dinware from the Welsh Din Guaire. This later becomes merged in the popular mind with Bernice (Bernicia) which lay further to the south, centred on Tynedale and especially Corbridge.

Eadwine had converted to Christianity a mere six years earlier and so the religion from the south had strong backing but relatively weak roots. Christianity had been known of for much longer among the Welsh population of Britain, but although there had been Welsh Christians in the north of Britain for a long time, it would seem that this corner of England had remained pagan even up to the coming of the English. In my book I have assumed that it was the threat of encroaching Christianity that persuaded the leading families of Dinware to offer the rulership to Ida, a Saxon pagan already strong in Bernice to the south. By bringing in a strong pagan of a different tradition, they safeguarded their own ancient ways against the tide of Christianity. The tactic works for about two generations, maybe slightly longer. By this time the population is thoroughly mixed and the language of Ida and his successors dominates everyday life to the point that names of places are becoming English names.

Gatburgh is an attempt to give an English name to modern Yeavering; a place known to history as Ad Gefrin. This itself is a Latin rendition of Welsh Gafre Vrin which translates as the hill or place of the goats. My name Gatburgh derives from the Old English gat (goat) and burh (fortified place). The place is named in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Bede) as being a royal palace site, from where we get the Latinised name. Excavations by Brian Hope-Taylor (H-T) at Yeavering revealed a sequence of occupation whose earliest stages probably pre-date the Anglo-Saxon presence in the area but whose development clearly shows evidence of a change in building style that suggests the arrival of a new culture. I have assumed for the book that the name Gatburgh will fall out of use once Eadwine's people are no longer in command of the site.

You can see the attraction of the place for my story about goats. Yeavering was probably a site which in pre-Christian times was the centre of what can only be called a goat cult. This is echoed in Grave AX from H-T's site report which is mentioned in passing in my book and has both an animal skull and a broken staff in it. The animal skull, identified as a sheep by H-T, I have re-assigned as a goat. The two skull types are difficult to tell apart as the two species are very close (hybrids are possible). More importantly, the staff (which is discussed in terms of being a surveying device by H-T) is surmounted by a bronze and wood figurine that closely resembles a goat. This staff and another identical one come into the story at different points in time and are a significant part of the development of the story.

I still find it somewhat strange that I learned all of this long after I had chosen Yeavering as the origin place for the brothers; before I had really researched the place. Even the place-name was at that point an unknown factor, all that I knew was that it was a known site of Anglo-Saxon date. It was one of several times that I found things falling neatly into place as I developed my story. That I subsequently developed the story around the site I can only hold up my hand to but then it really is a fascinating site.

Links/further reading:
H-T's book Yeavering: An Anglo-British Centre of Early Northumbria is usually pretty expensive; I was fortunate to have access to it while studying at Newcastle University.
A more accessible format for information on this subject is Paul Frodsham's recent book Yeavering: People, Power and Place
More immediately you can view the Past Perfect website devoted to the location. Check it out (especially the sparrow's flight), it is well worth a visit!

Introduction

Hello world, this is the blog for the Adventures of the Billy Goats Gruff, a novel by Kevin Futers (that's me!) about the Three Billy Goats Gruff, available from Eloquent Books in the near future.

I'm not certain at this stage what you can expect from this blog but I will try to keep things nice and simple, tell you a few things about the book and other things that are going on connected to the book, such as promotions and book signings.

For now I can tell you that the story takes the traditional story as a starting point and then takes the three protagonists (or antagonists if you take the trolls' viewpoint) on a quest to undo a curse. The action takes place against the background of the Cheviot Hills in Northumberland, England and The Borders Region of Scotland during the seventh century AD. It is a world still in touch with other realms of reality, a world where trolls walk freely in the waking world (so long as you are awake at night) and a walk in the mists can transport you to the delights and horrors of Elfland. It is a world on the cusp of change, a change that is fragile and could easily be halted.

The brothers Gruff are in Trolldom against their will because they have been turned into goats and only the trolls have the solution to their predicament. As we all know, things get off to a bad start over a simple bridge crossing. Can they turn the situation around and dispel the curse?