Blog

I suspect that I am not alone in feeling that the best way to spend a dank February day is curled up under a cosy blanket, clutching a hot mug of tea in one hand & a suitably distracting tome in the other.  So here are some of my favoured titles which may assist you in escaping the dreariness of the season:

Thomas the Rhymer by Ellen Kushner

Once upon a time, Hellige was not the hirsute vision of loveliness that we now know & adore, but just another pretty little rich girl.

When not playing in the chateau grounds she was taught by a veritable battalion of tutors, schooled in the vital feminine arts of hairstyling & harpsichord, watercolour & waltz, floristry & fencing.

Thus it was at vast expense that young Hellige was moulded into the finest marriage material and looked upon as a grand investment by a father intent upon using her to advance himself amongst the creme of the aristocracy.

The Queen of Elphame

Often cited in Scottish folklore - Tam Lin, Thomas the Rhymer et al - & described in Scottish witch trials - Andro Man, Isobel Gowdie, Bessie Dunlop.

Fair complexion, red hair, "peerlessly beautiful".  Clad in green or white, riding white horse or accompanied by white deer.

Uses physical attractions to entrance human men (often poets) & bind them to her, usually with their consent & for agreed period.  Also abducts women as nursemaids for her children.

Nicnevin/NicNemhain

I do love digging through dictionaries of curious, rare, obselete & otherwise forgotten words - so many gems to unearth!  Hence I thought I m ight make a record of some of them, both for my own reference & in the hopes that someone else may also find amusement therein.

Let us begin with A...

Addlepated - Eccentric, first recorded in 1614.  A simple conflation of addled (confused) & pate (head).

Aeromancy - Divination according to the condition of the air/atmosphere, first recorded in 1594. 

Malinja was somewhat precocious, learning to fly before she was three years old, & venturing upon on solo hunting expeditions at the age of eight. Oh, so many many years ago!  And many were the kind-hearted souls who stopped to assist the lost young girl, sobbing gently at the roadside. I wish I could say that they lived to regret their charitable instincts, but, alas, they did not live at all.

Although some of the most iconic iterations of the vampire in popular culture were created in England (including Bram Stoker's Dracula himself, of course, but also Christopher Lee's portrayals in the Hammer Horror movies of the 1960s & 70s, & Bauhaus's gothic rock Bela Lugosi's Dead come to mind) there are surprisingly few instances of undead blood-drinkers in British folklore. They are scarce, but not entirely unheard of...

Medieval Menace

Any new themed collection of work is an excuse for yours truly to make a trip to the bookstore.  This time I have been immersed in the realm of Nosferatu's kin, & what follows is - in no particular order - a mixture of "fact" & fiction that has kept me occupied as the nights draw in.

Vampire bat sketch, October 2024

My every trip to the Scottish capital seems to include a jolly ramble around a cemetery or two, so I thought I should compile a little list of some of my favourite graves.  (Surely I'm not the only one who has such things?)

Sir George MacKenzie of Rosehaugh (Greyfriars) 1691

This is the story of the haunting of Nun's Bridge in Thetford, Norfolk - the nearest town to my childhood home.  In the 17th century, at the height of Matthew Hopkins' reign of terror, the bridge was the site of the town's ducking stool ... yet this tale concerns neither nuns nor witches.

Somerset is awash with mystical, historical & just plain weird places, with Myths & legends, spirits & inexplicable traditions: the ghosts of the Battle of Sedgemoor & of Shepton gaol, the witch of Wookey Hole, castles aplenty, phantom horsemen & the stone circles of Stanton Drew.