Review of 1820

It's no longer 1820 but The Weaver's Tale a historical tale based on the events around my old area in 1820. At school, I heard all about Henry VII of England and how astute he was, although he had nothing to do with Scotland except that his daughter married well and the result was a grandson, James VI, who took over from the other Elizabeth. What I didn't hear about was the ruction in our own district labelled The Last Armed Insurrection on Mainland Britain with banners calling for Scotland Free or a Desert. Hardly something you'd miss! I've dragged the hero of Drover and his shepherd Deaf Davie into it all and it doesn't look bad, just needs some TLC to bring it alive.

www.sullatoberdalton.com/books/drover

Bernard Cornwell

I've just finished The Flame Bearer, glad to find Utred was at last back home in Bebbanberg but found the battle scene at the end a bit too long and unrelieved by Cornwell's usual moments of stress relief. Maybe I've read too many of his books and am comparing it too much with my favourite,The Burning Land, but I'm just me. What I've done to help me write is to read passages I really admire now and then to remind me of the standard I am trying to reach. I also use P. G, Wodehouse, C.S. Forester, and bits and pieces of poetry, Burns and St Agnes Eve or The Deserted Village, for their descriptive power. I'm not as good as any of those but, one's does one's best as in Shadows in the Veldt.
People have commented that the flag on the cover of Shadows in the Veldt is not the German National flag, it isn't, it's the Kaiser's Imperial flag, the one they flew in WW1.

www.sullatoberdalton.com/books/shadows-in-the-veldt

Scottish Independence

I mus give a talk to the local historical society in September about the inter-relation between English and Scottish history. What I see is that events in one country influenced what happened in the other. The best example is the way in which James VI became James I of Britain,
but there are many other examples. In fact, central Scotland has always had more in common with northern England's coal mines and shipyards, than with the Highlands. The romantics who believe in a kind of Walter Scott myth would disagree but Bonnie Prince Charlie and Scott's hero, Alan Breck Stewart, had no wish to free Scotland, what they wanted was to have Charlie's father on the throne in Westminster and unite the two kingdoms, under him. I'll get round to the Act of Union another time.

www.sullatoberdalton.com

Bible Spin-offs

I'm really sorry the first time I heard the old testament stories was from a volunteer Sunday School teacher. Now that I write stories myself I wish I had read them written by Stephen King, Bernard Cornwell, or J.K.Rowling. I know Joseph was turned into a musical but we all knew what happened next. The suspense that one of those novelists could have created when Joseph was sold to the caravan, or when he turned down Potiphar's wife, in the hands of an accomplished novelist would be intense. For that reason, I often turn to the Old Testament for ideas. I'm rarely disappointed; there are so many sub-plots just waiting to be explored - like how did the butler tell Pharaoh he knew of a dream analyst?  You don't just go up to the guy and say, 'Hey, Jimmy, I ken somb'dy that can explain all that nonsense. You shouldna eat cheese before ye go to bed.'

http://sullatoberdalton.com/pen-sullatober/short-stories/what-the-butler-did/

Green Fingers

My Irish granny was full of stories about all kinds of 'wee folk' and it was natural I should find space for one about a man who found a leprechaun at the bottom of his garden. I included it with others in the collection  Bees in My Bonnet. The link to it in my web page is

http://sullatoberdalton.com/pen-sullatober/short-stories/an-anxious-wait

The Silk Road detour

The 'Silver Mine' above Pniel in the Cape was driven into the Simonsberg in the 1740's. At that time the Dutch East India Company was running short of gold and silver, the only thing the traders of the Spice Islands or India would accept. After all, apart from wool, maybe, they produced better quality materials and goods, silks and pottery, for example, than the west could provide. That way of doing business predated even the Portuguese. Initially, the Arab traders had set up a triangle of trade which included gold from Greater Zimbabwe, in itself a trading post for gold and, reportedly, tin and copper, from sub Saharan Africa. Following the details of that trade led me to East Africa and a place called Kilwa in Tanganyika.

The picture is of the Simonsberg with its Cape finebos cover and the views of the Dwarse River Valley from there are magnificent.

www.sullatoberdalton.com

The Snow Queen

The skiing season is at its end but I'm sure some have tried and found it far from the blissful exercise it looks on TV. My wife tried it but decided it wasn't for her. I'm sure she would have felt a strong kinship with the narrator of the story linked to this blog, which was originally called, The Snow Queen and is included as one of the short stories in Bees in my Bonnet.

http://sullatoberdalton.com/pen-sullatober/short-stories/the-spirit-of-skiing