Historical Fiction and Fantasy, Young Adult Fiction, Book Reviews and ruminations on life
30
Jun
Right underneath the flight path of planes taking off from the nearby Birmingham International Airport, mere yards from a modern housing estate and a few miles from the centre of the modern city of Birmingham is a tranquil reminder of a time when the surrounding area was just country side. Today we visited Castle Bromwich […]
29
Jun
When the Anglo-Saxons came to Britain they did not use Latin script. Instead when they did write anything they used the Futhorc or runic alphabet. This is a series of between 24 and 33 letters which we find engraved on weapons such as the seax owned by the British museum. It is also used upon […]
Tags: Anglo-Saxon, runes
23
Jun
Today is the feast day of St Æthelthryth. She is a fairly obscure saint who for reasons that are not exactly clear is the patron saint of throat ailments. Whilst her patronage is unclear we can trace the origins of the modern English word tawdry from her name. Tawdry: cheap and gaudy finery What am […]
Tags: Anglo Saxons, saint, St Etheldreda
21
Jun
Its is a shame in many ways that we no longer widely celebrate the Mid Summer celebrations focused around the summer solstice in the way we do the winter festivals of Christmas and Yuletide. Here in the UK there are places that still have special events but it is not widespread. There is the gatehring […]
20
Jun
Today I was on the way to deliver a talk to Macclesfield Writers group on historical fiction and self publishing. I had a little time to kill so decided to visit Sandbach. There, in the middle of the cobbled market square of this old market town are two stone crosses of great antiquity. They are […]
Tags: Anglo Saxons, crosses, monuments, sandbach
12
Jun
In the first decade of the 7th century, King Aethelburht of Kent laid down on parchment the first set of Legal Codes that survive from the Anglo-Saxon period. The codes still exist although in a copied volume of law codes and genealogical records called the “Textus Roffensius” – the Rochester Book – which was made […]
Tags: law codes, runes' anglo-saxon
8
Jun
In the world of e-books the ePub is the industry standard. It is the file that creates the ebook but it is in fact not one file but possibly dozens. If you unzip an ePub file and examine the contents you find that there are a number of different elements. There are html pages […]