The Druids

In my research, some of the 'rumours' was that the Druids engaged in human sacrifice. But in my world of Black Harvest that would be un-spiritual, inhumane and goes against their law of non-interference. This law dictates that no Druid interfere with the fate or destiny of a human being. What is meant to be is meant to be. From my point of view, if a Druid does interfere, it is a two-edged sword. What impacts one, impacts the other. (And who'd want to get stuck with the results of diddling with the icky, messy workings of the unwashed masses?)

Another rumour is that the Romans massacred the Druids when they arrived to take over Britain about 50 AD. This is undone in my novel due to the 'fact' that since Druids can shapeshift, they therefore can 'hide' themselves away from harm and annihilation. What they shapeshifted into gives one a lot of leeway for the imagination.

Just as there is light and dark, up and down, the Druids have the 'dark ones'. They are former Brethren who, the more power they gained, the more power they craved. They moved through the space/time continuum and tried to control the annals of history by 'inserting' their own people to bring humanity to its knees. What frustrated them was the fact that the more suffering they caused, the more people rose up to fight harder. Every time a dark Druid almost reached the pinnacle of success, he/she was waylaid by martyrs who sacrificed their bodies and souls for the good of the many. Again, I looked to Star Wars as an inspiration for this never-ending conflict. (Come to the dark side, Luke...)

Like with Arthur, the legend of the Druids was Silly-Putty in my hands. I could take any aspect and stretch it, flatten it or round it out like a ball; I could even lift imprints from other sources and mold them to suit my literary needs. And yet, in my gut and in my heart, I felt what I was playing with was the truth!

Happily, everywhere I looked, I read that the Druids advocated a belief in reincarnation and that suited me down to a T. I think if that were not the case, I would have had to invent a spiritual group for my book that did...

Shielagh

In much of my research about Druids, it was often reported that only men could be Druids but that did not make sense to me. To me, the Druids represented 'The Old Ways', which claimed the Goddess as a key component of that spiritual culture. As a form of rebellion to what I read, I created Shielagh, who is a powerful 'druidess' and daughter of Arthur and his great love, Fiona of Missive, Ireland.

So many of my characters inhabit two worlds and Shielagh is no different. As a child, she lived a sheltered life in the forest of Ireland, befriending the forest creatures but the part of her that was her blood father, craved more. In her dreams a loving shadow followed her and this entity was borne out to be Merwyn, her grandfather. He came in answer to her yearnings and brought her in as a novice to the Druidic Brethren. She learned how to use the power of her mind, learned to 'shapeshift' into the creatures she revered. In this enclave, she knew acceptance, power and protection but she also knew her love for her father must be hidden. She also learned that love for any one close to her was dangerous.

Shielagh is a character I could not get close to. And yet she impacted Kate, a modern day woman and a character that is a great deal 'me'. I wondered if she was more of a guardian angel than a human being. Yet in Black Harvest, if she was an angel, she was one with a twist...

Megan

While researching the myths surrounding Arthur, I constantly came upon a strong connection to medieval Ireland. St. Brigit is the patron saint of this beautiful land and represents the 'Christianizing' of the British Isles. If Arthur is a Christ-like figure, then Brigit is comparative to the Madonna. She is very earthy and carvings of her depict her milking a cow. She represents healing, poets, wells and springs - a very grounded but magical lady. To me, she is imbued in Megan, my Black Harvest character of 19th century Ireland. The only thing is, Megan is not as grounded as she might appear on the outside.

Megan is the daughter of Cathleen, an elemental elfie. Young Meg is a conflicted individual and constantly duels the aspect of who she is with who she thinks she should be. Her father, Josh, is human, a farmer who loves the land and dearly loves his wife and daughter. Megan's mother is not human but possesses the same qualities as her husband. Megan learns of her strange heritage after the brutal slaying of her father and instead of embracing the knowledge, she turns away from it and rejects her emotionality. Stubbornly she rejects Seamus, the man she loves and instead chooses Jamie, a child-like man with mythical good looks - raven's wing hair, cobalt eyes and Adonis body. Anotherwards - not real. Since Megan decides she is not real, then it stands to reason that she join her life with someone of the same ilk.

Megan experiences a great deal of anger towards her mother. But her loyalty does not permit her to express it, so she bottles it up inside and continuously punishes herself. She punishes herself for barely tolerating her husband, for rejecting Seamus and then hiding her love under a bushel. The glaring fact of her life is that she is half-elfie and how could Seamus accept her when she cannot accept herself for who or what she is?

It is only when Megan leaves everyone behind and takes off in her buggy to search out her mother that she truly feels herself. It is just her, the horses and the open road ahead. She has always felt to be the responsible one to everyone in her life, including her un-human mother. Resting at the side of the road she comes to understand why she actually chose Jamie as a mate. "It didn't matter nor would it ever matter to Jamie if she was part elfie or whole elfie or a two-headed leprechaun. All Jamie ever cared about was Jamie and that was and would ever be to the end of his pretty days." As long as he focused on himself, the spotlight would never fall upon Megan and her dirty, little secret.

There is a lot of psychology here in terms of writing Megan. Who ever wrote in a story about the struggles of a half-human? Megan is a married woman in love with a married man and that is plenty to deal with. But then throw in the fact that she is the daughter of someone who does not age, who is part of the realm of magic and shares a connection with the mythical Arthur and Merlin/Merwyn, then you have a lot of baggage to sort out.

As a child, this sounds wonderful and don't we all wish to be a part of the magic? But how does an adult deal with it? In Megan's case, not very well at all. For her, it's like being the daughter of an alcoholic parent. Keep pretending and her unreal reality might disappear.

Merlin (Merwyn) The Magnificent

I watched Star Wars for the umpteenth time a few days ago and studied Obi-Wan Kenobi. Alec Guiness played this wonderful wise man who had hidden himself away until Luke needed him to guide him to the 'force'. I realized that I must have used the actor/character as a template for Merlin or Merwyn as I call him in Black Harvest. He is white-bearded with a mischievous, almost childlike-trickster way about him. He is a strong father/grandfather figure for both Arthur and Arthur's daughter, Shielagh. And yet we never think of these characters as having a great love or even being married, for that matter. (Arthur married Guinevere but it was almost a sexless union, bore no issue and his wife's heart belonged to one of his knights, Lancelot.)

Therefore, I wanted to tell the story about how Merwyn met Vivienne, the love of his life and the mother of his sire, Arthur. Like Arthur with Fiona, their meeting was lightening quick, passionate and their parting fraught with heavy sorrow. Both father and son do not belong to just one person, do not even belong to themselves. They belong to their society and even bear the burden of the proliferation of their ongoing mythology.

Merwyn is considered the archetype of the Magician of the Tarot. He is a creator, an active builder, healthy ego in action and one who is known for the power of will. And yet, yet... Doesn't he get lonely for someone to love and accept him? Someone who'll chide him with, "Yeah I know you can make a mountain out of a molehill, but take out the trash!" I decided to give him a story of his own about how he met Vivienne and it just poured out of me as if it had been waiting like a genie in a tight bottle.

Merwyn met his love on a hillside near Hart Fell in Scotland. He thought she was a shepherd and he had found an errant lamb. Dropping the lamb at the person's feet, he happened to look up. In his own words, he related, "And that is when I dropped the creature and fell to my knees. My heart dropped there on the hillside along with the lamb and fell to its knees." No longer an asexual magician, in one fell swoop he transformed into a man gobsmacked by love.

The gods of myth are there to remind us that even though they are, by definition, gods, they still can hate, can hurt, can love and this makes them very vulnerable. Yes, they can levitate, shapeshift and travel through time but see how silly they are when their emotions get the better of them. And this is certainly what makes them less than gods. Or makes we wee humans more god-like.

Eros - the great leveller.

The Widow Riley - Crone of Our Dark Side

The main character in Book I of Black Harvest is the Widow Riley. She is a royal pain in the ass because you just can't figure her out. She is a character who created herself; I just sat at the keyboard and she dictated what I was supposed to say. Like the archetypal 'crone' she is treated as a throwaway female who no longer serves a purpose to society. And believe me, when I wrote her, I wanted to throw her away sometimes! And yet this old lady holds the power of salvation.

Sometimes if you do something, the consequences are pretty dire. And if you do nothing, the consequences can be equally dire. In the widow's case, she was damned either way. But what I learned from her and about her is that she is a sensation seeker, someone who must be the one to set things in motion. In the first chapter we learn she is old, widowed and frightfully alone. Through her cottage window she witnesses an evil sight and she knows why it is there. Because of a decision she made - for what she thought was the good of the many. But truly, was her main motive to occupy centre stage? Did the safety of others actually play into her plans?

The widow confides she is gifted with 'second sight' - the ability to see into the future. She can see past everyone's banal existence but not past her own. Many psychics have said they can always see for others but not for themselves; their power is for others to learn and benefit from. Sometimes they are too busy saving the world to save themselves and that is the dilemma of my character. Not only that, she wages a constant war with her religion as well as the old ways of a land steeped in the pagan ways. To stave off fear and as a form of comfort she constantly rolls her rosary beads through her fingers while well aware of the hypocrisy of the Catholic faith. She has been able to see the invisible ones since a wee child and now a demonic curse has been set upon her beloved village, a curse she'd help set in motion.

The crone is a wise woman, one who has seen life with its dark and light sides. She was once a virgin and a young wife but it is not in these stages she is at her most powerful. Only when she has nothing left to lose does she gain ascendance over life and death. I love this character because she represents the stage in a woman's life when she dissolves her illusions, when she no longer fights against the current and finally allows events to play out without needing to control outcomes.

If we would just let our dark side come out and play, fear has no place to hide.

In Search of King Arthur

This blog is about my book, Black Harvest. I have been working on this novel for about 12 years and every year I take it out and edit the crap out of it. This year I feel it is ready for publication and ensuing fame and fortune. Humour aside, I got a brilliant idea from my son Robert. Since a few of my characters include mythic icons like King Arthur and Merlin, he suggested I write about the research I've done, then discuss how I have incorporated that research into my novel.

Since what we know about Arthur is very amorphous - great word, eh? - it is so easy to create buckets out of this persona. The more research I did, the less I knew about him. It is easy to fall in love with Arthur because of what we do know about him. That he was an orphan adopted by Uther of Pendragon, that he was treated less than equally by his equals, that he pulled the sword out of the stone and made King of England, that he created the democratic 'knights of the round table' and that he was cuckolded by Lancelot who diddled with his wife, Guinevere. This last makes Arthur a very human creature. In movies, his character is created as invincible and usually quite gorgeous to look upon. In my novel, Arthur is the son of 'Merwyn' - it is what came to me and stuck - and he is a plain-looking sort of man with nut-brown eyes, brown hair and facial features that only come together when he smiles. Then he is beautiful.

In my novel, Arthur is sent to Ireland by Merwyn for some rest and relaxation. It is about the 7th century and he lands up in Missive, a small Irish village, which is the main setting of the story. He meets Fiona, his fated one and only true love. Their union is passionate and short-lived. Though it was his fate to join with her, his destiny awaits him as the future King of England. After spending three magical days together, he leaves. Fiona grieves for her lost love while knowing a life together was not meant to be.

What is interesting is that, after researching Arthur and Guinevere, I learned that when she died, Arthur had the inscription My Second Wife be placed above her tomb. This was discovered after I had written the chapter about his pre-kingship union with Fiona. I was excited and wondered if Arthur had experienced true love with someone other than his wife. Many associate Guinevere as more in love with Lancelot, that their illicit union was perhaps a soulmate connection. So if that were the case, then the marriage was a marriage of mere convenience for the good of the many (consolidating power within aristocratic and warrior families), rather than a meeting of like souls. How sad, I thought. Thus I created Fiona, a soulmate connection for Arthur. His love would live on forever, not just in his heart but through their love child, Shielagh.