Women of History

This morning I went over to Innerpeffray Library again.
I am actually supposed to be working on the edits to The Demons of Ghent, which I hope to have finished around Easter time, and generally when I am working on a book I am very tough about not allowing myself mornings off unless I have finished all the work I had planned for the week. However, I knew I was going to have the car today (a rare event) because I had to take one of the children to an appointment, so it made sense to make the most of it.
It can be wonderful cycling over to the library through the beautiful Perthshire countryside, but you need good dry weather; cycling for half an hour each way would not be pleasant in driving rain!
I went to Innerpeffray to discuss a possible event there - full details in due course - but as usual I couldn't resist perusing the books. (Who could?) My usual haunt is the main reading room with its fabulous 16th and 17th century tomes, but there is a smaller room with more modern books (I say "modern" but there is nothing less than fifty years old!), and it was there that I spotted this small and intriguing volume (pictured above).
It is entitled Women of History and appears to have been brought out as a kind of companion to a well received book called Men of History. I was intrigued because given the antique appearance of the book, I thought it would be interesting to see which women had been selected for inclusion, and how their lives would be described. I should be rather surprised if it had Emmeline Pankhurst in it, for example.
Unfortunately a proper perusal of the book will have to wait for another day, because most of my time at the library was taken up with the meeting and after that I had to leave to go to the next appointment. I did however manage to read the introduction and the list of contents.
The introduction said that unlike the book about men, for this book "it has not been considered necessary to attempt a classification of the subjects in the manner followed in the preceding volume, from the fact that the feelings and motives which generally influence the lives of celebrated women are of a nature different from those of the opposite sex, and from the consequent want of a standard sufficiently distinct to adhere to." Make of that what you will.
At any rate, the contents list includes Lucretia (a Roman matron famed for her chastity), Sappho, Anne Boleyn, Marie Antoinette, Queen Anne and Charlotte Bronte. I perused the story of Lucretia very briefly and considering the knots into which the writer had tied himself in trying to express that she had been raped without actually saying so, I cannot imagine what he will make of Sappho. I shall read some of the biographies properly on a future occasion and report back on this blog!

Above: Women - not easily classified? 

Sleep well? I don't think so.

I've just been reading another story from my recent acquisition, The Ruby Fairy Book, and I am marvelling anew at what people thought was suitable reading for children in the early 1900s.
Reading this particular story - it's by Luigi Capuani and is called The Cotton-Wool Princess - has given me a most unpleasant feeling that I have rarely felt since childhood, a kind of claustrophobic repulsion, the sort of feeling I used to get when waking up from a particularly nasty nightmare.
I mentioned this on Facebook and fellow author Keren David exhorted me to "tell" - as there isn't really space on Facebook I thought I'd put it all down here, so I can horrify you too, dear reader.
The story concerns a King and Queen who live "a thousand years ago" and have a beautiful young daughter. The King of France and then the King of Spain both seek her hand in marriage, but her parents are too fond of her to part with her. In a fit of pique, the disappointed Kings club together and hire a magician to wreak revenge on the princess. The magician gives them a magical ring which will do something horrible to the princess once it has been on her finger for 24 hours.
The Kings now have the problem of how to get the ring onto the princess's finger, since they are no longer on speaking terms with the palace. The King of Spain disguises himself as a goldsmith and is thus able to present it to her. Twenty-four hours later the palace is rent with screams but when everyone grabs candles and rushes to the princess's room she shrieks at them to take the lights away, because she has turned into cotton wool.
I don't know why this strikes me as being so very much more horrible than dropping dead, falling into a sleep for a hundred years, having a toad drop out of your mouth every time you speak or any of the other nasty fates a maiden can undergo in a fairy tale - but it does. In fact it gives me a churning feeling in the pit of the stomach!
The princess's father the King then resorts to the obvious measure of saying that whoever can cure the princess may marry her.
Along comes the kind-hearted son of a shoemaker, who proves his goodness by rescuing a toad from some boys who are stoning it. The toad turns out to be a powerful fairy in disguise, and she then advises him how to help the princess. She tells him how to get to the castle of the evil magician who has cast the spell on the princess, and gives him a magic sword. The magician is terrified of the sword and apparently agrees to help, by giving the lad a second magic ring, which he says will make everything right.
The young man goes to the palace and assures everyone that he can cure the princess, but when he puts the ring on her finger she bursts into flames (see pic above) and screams the place down! The shoemaker's son wisely legs it and calls upon the fairy for help.
The fairy tells him the magician has double-crossed him (no sh*t, Sherlock...) and gives him a magic dagger with which to threaten him. The lad goes back to the magician's castle and loads him in chains, fastening them to the ground by the dagger, and says that he will not let him go until the princess is alright. The magician tells him to remove the first ring from the princess's finger and all will be well.
The shoemaker's son hastens back to the palace and having assured everyone that this time the princess really will be alright, he removes the ring from her finger. Instantly she turns from cotton wool back into a flesh and blood princess - but it now appears that she has no tongue, ears or eyes because all of them were burnt away by the flames!
The shoemaker's son rushes back to the enchained magician, intending to kill him for his trickery, but the magician, seeing that it is all up with him, finally tells the young man how to remove the spell. Then follows much shenanigans with the magician's siblings, all of whom appear to be as unpleasant as the magician himself; rather bizarrely they give him a piece of red cloth, two lentils and a pair of snails.
The lad returns to the palace and puts the piece of red cloth into the princess' mouth, and it turns into a tongue. You would think that the princess would be grateful for this, but in fact the minute she can speak she gives him an earful, calling him a miserable cobbler.
The young man is somewhat taken aback at this ingratitude, but he puts the lentils into her burnt eyes and all of a sudden she can see again. The very first thing she does is to put her hands over her eyes and complain how ugly everything is.
By this point, were I the young man, I would probably be tempted to make the princess eat the snails, but he patiently claps them to the sides of her ungrateful head, where they are instantly transformed from molluscs into "sweet little ears." This does not prevent the princess from giving him another earful of abuse.
The shoemaker's son storms off to find the fairy, who laughs herself silly over the whole sorry affair and reminds him that he has not yet removed the second ring from the princess's finger. "Oh dear! I did not think of that in my confusion," exclaims the youth, 'seizing his head between his two hands in mingled terror and shame' - an early instance of #facepalm. He rushes back to the sour-tempered princess and removes the second ring, at which her sweet and kindly nature is restored and the pair of them are finally able to marry and live happily ever after.
I suppose I am pleased for them, but I don't think I shall be reading this story again in a hurry, nor reading it to either of my children at bedtime...

Above: not suitable for children?

Crime and Punishment

I am thrilled to say that today (1st March) Innerpeffray Library re-opened after its annual hibernation, so I took a morning off and went over to see its new exhibition, Crime and Punishment.
I very rarely have the car during the working week so I had made my mind up to cycle over, whatever the weather. Fortunately, it was a really gorgeous dry sunny morning, so it was very pleasant indeed to cycle through the Perthshire countryside. My bicycle (pictured, outside the library) has been christened La lanterne rouge, after the competitor in the last place in cycle races such as the Tour de France, because whenever we go cycling as a family I am always at the back! Also, handily, it is red.
Whenever I cycle anywhere I pass keen sporty cyclists in head-to-toe lycra and high vis jackets; generally we greet each other cheerfully, but I don't belong to that particular club (not fit enough, hem-hem). La lanterne rouge is a means of transport, one that hugely extends the range I could manage on foot, and using it to get about always gives me the delicious sensation of having stepped back into the 1950s. Really, I should put a bottle of ginger beer in my backpack!
When I arrived at the library it was to find that the gardens outside were full of snowdrops. Sometimes I stop to look at the leper squint in Innerpeffray church, or some of the old gravestones, but I didn't do any of that today; I have missed my visits to the library over the winter months so I was dying to get inside.

The new exhibition is excellent. I never get tired of telling people that if they are in the area they should visit the library, and here is a new reason. I am not going to detail every single book on display because that might discourage you, dear reader, from actually visiting the library if you find yourself in the area. But I have to tell you about one that for me really was the star of the show. It is Richard Sanders' book of Physiognomie and chiromancie, metopopscopie, published in 1653.
The book purports to be a scientific work demonstrating how a person's disposition can be judged from his physical appearance. This includes, apparently, relating the facial features to the signs of the Zodiac!

The most entertaining aspect of this work is that there is a series of pages depicting different facial types and explaining what type of character each of them represents:

One of these pictures represents a murderer and "one that shall suffer a violent death"! See below - ring any bells? If your boss looks exactly like this, then according to Sanders it is time to be worried. Very worried. 

The picture below, from a different page, shows a gentleman with a couple of parallel wavy lines on his forehead, which is supposed to predict "drowning, or great perils by water"! 

Other intriguing books on display include my perennial favourite the Discoverie of Witchcraft, as well as the supremely nasty Foxe's Book of Martyrs. Interestingly, the library also has a Victorian copy of Foxe's, with very much milder illustrations than the original, so that you can compare and contrast, should you so desire. 

If you find yourself in Scotland and would like to visit the exhibition, you can find directions, visiting hours, etc. on the library's website here: http://www.innerpeffraylibrary.co.uk/

The Ruby Fairy Book: Horrors for Kids

Today the postie brought me a treat - another "new old book"! This one is The Ruby Fairy Book, an anthology first published around 1900  with illustrations by H.R.Millar. This edition, published by John F. Shaw & Co., is probably from 1936 and also includes some of Frank Papé's colour plates. 
The book is one of a series of four comprising The Golden Fairy Book, The Silver Fairy Book, The Diamond Fairy Book and The Ruby Fairy Book. They are not to be confused with Andrew Lang's series of coloured Fairy Books (blue, pink, olive, etc).
 So why, you may ask, am I, a grown (some might say mature, cough) woman, so excited about a book of fairy stories? 
Well, firstly, this one isn't all that easy to get hold of. It's by no means impossible to get, nor is it wildly expensive when you do find it (though I couldn't afford the first edition at forty-five pounds), but there aren't all that many copies about. Also, as far as I can tell, it has never been digitised. I have found the Silver, Gold and Diamond books online but only one story from this one. So if you want to read it, you have to make a bit of an effort to lay hands on a copy!
Secondly, these are most definitely not cutesy sanitised fairy stories. Some of these are nasty. 
Take the story of Prince Egor and the Raven ("from the Russian"). It begins with a kind of Bluebeard-in-reverse story. "Remarkably handsome" Prince Egor, upon the advice of a talking raven, woos the beautiful Queen Agraphiana the Fair, who has an army of "strong, handsome men in armour" but surprisingly, no partner. Queen Agraphiana periodically wages war on her neighbours, and during one such outing she makes the Prince stay at home in case he gets hurt(!) but warns him never to open a particular cupboard. Naturally, the minute she has ridden off surrounded by mail-clad hunks, he opens the cupboard, and inside he finds this:

Yes, it is a "hideous-looking skeleton" hung up on one hundred and thirteen chains. The skeleton, in spite of being...er...a skeleton, is not in fact dead, but very thirsty. Disregarding the raven's advice, the Prince unwisely offers it an invigorating drink of water, at which it breaks free of its chains and leaps out of the window, not before announcing that it intends to make Queen Agraphiana its own.

The Prince evidently bursts into tears at this turn of events, since the talking raven has to tell him to "dry your eyes and follow the skeleton like a man." He sets off in pursuit, and the raven tells him to procure a horse from a witch who lives near a fiery river. 

There is an illustration here of the witch's house, "which was surrounded by a hundred poles, on ninety-nine of which were human skulls."

At this point in the story I felt I had wandered into Heart of Darkness by mistake. It is amazing what was considered sweet bedtime reading for children in the early 1900s! I am glad to report however that the story ended happily for everyone except the skeleton, and especially for the talking raven. 

I haven't read all of the stories yet and I doubt that they are all as grotesque as that one, but I have read the very first one in the book, which is called Cinderella's Daughter and begins thus:

" 'So Cinderella married the King's son.' And a few months later the King died, and Cinderella's husband was King. Shortly after this the Queen had a little daughter, who was called Mimi."

Admittedly this particular story is translated from the French of Jules le Maitre but still Mimi struck me as a surprising name for a Princess - I can't see the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge calling their baby that if it's a girl! (It'd make a lovely name for a burlesque dancer, mind you.) 

Princess Mimi is (naturally) drop-dead gorgeous, but soon runs into marital problems as the law of the land requires her to marry at the early age of 15, and the groom has to be a prince. The only two princes to be found are Polyphemus, who is seven times taller than she is, and Hop o' my Thumb, who is seven times smaller. Decisions, decisions...

Above: Little and Large?

Other tales include one about a girl who becomes Queen of the Ants, and one about a Princess who is turned into cotton wool by a wicked fairy! I've just dipped into those though, so I can't tell you what happens yet. Presumably they have happy endings...

  

"Do you just write whenever you feel like it?"

One of the things people are always asking me is "How do you work? Do you just write whenever you feel like it, or do you do a set amount every day?" I am asked this often enough that I thought it might be worth a blog post. 

I first started writing "seriously" in 2004 when my youngest child started Kindergarten. At the time we were living in Bad Münstereifel, a small but very pretty town in the wilds of the German Eifel. I had longed to write for years but life always got in the way: first a demanding job, then two babies in short succession and then the move abroad. By the time I actually had some time to myself again I was so full of ideas that I felt as though I would burst if I didn't write some of them down! The very first morning I found myself at home alone I powered up the family PC (those were the days; now we have one each) and started work on an article about Steinfeld Abbey. Much later, after a false start that was mostly about proving to myself that I could write something 100,000 words long, I wrote The Vanishing of Katharina Linden. 

When I was writing The Vanishing I had no idea whether it would ever be published. I knew absolutely nothing about publishing except for what I could glean from the well-thumbed pages of the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook. All the same, I was determined to write the book. I loved Bad Münstereifel more than anywhere I have ever lived - its beauty, its history and its weird legends - and I wanted to put all of that into the book. Because I had no publisher breathing down my neck at that point, it would have been very easy to spend five or even ten years writing it. However, the thrill of finally having any time at all to myself to write things, and the pressure of only having from 08.30am until 11.35am every day to write them, spurred me on. I finished the first draft in a year.
Since then I have written a number of other books and my working schedule has settled down into a pattern. I consider every weekday a working day but I don't expect to be able to get any creative work done in the school holidays. I have a target word count for each day and if I manage to get the target for the week completed by Thursday I have Friday off! This probably sounds very mechanistic but it works well for me. Sometimes if I am feeling uninspired, the only way to get the writing engine warmed up is to start work - even if I have to delete it all later. Before Christmas I decided to delete an entire 9,600 words from my work-in-progress because it really wasn't working. So sometimes I go backwards as well as forwards! The main thing is to keep going.
One of the hardest things for me is not letting other things intrude into my working time. Since I work at home, and my husband has a two-hour commute to work, it makes sense that if someone has to take the cat to the vet I do it. More difficult if you are a full-time writer are the invitations to meet for coffee etc during the day. There is no good time to do this! If you meet for breakfast you start the working day late. If you meet at 10.30am you feel as though you cannot really get anything done beforehand, and afterwards it is nearly lunchtime. If you meet at 2pm there will be no time to do anything afterwards because the kids will be home from school by then.
Even more difficult is the question of having people to stay. Try as you might, the time when you thought you would be relaxing between books always seems to turn out to be the time when you are frantically racing against the clock to finish one. It would take a flinty-hearted writer indeed to stand at the door greeting people who have travelled a long way to visit with the words, "The kettle is over there; I'm getting back to work so BE QUIET." Also, since my "office" is the dining-room table it would be pretty much impossible to get the solitude to work anyway.
I don't know what the answer to this is apart from work like mad when there isn't anyone around. I suppose ideally we would live on a huge estate surrounded by pine trees, so remote that there would never be a ring on the doorbell from a courier wanting me to take in next door's parcel again nor passing roofers wondering whether I would like anything done about the hole in the barge boards (no thanks; there is a family of starlings living in it, you know). My writing room would be a little chamber at the very top of the highest turret, reached only by a spiral stone staircase, so that even if any hardy visitors made it past the iron gates, the roaming hounds and the moat they would not be able to disturb me with their distant cries...
On the other hand, I don't find Facebook and Twitter a problem, as some people do. Since I work alone, Facebook is my "office water-cooler", where I can spend two minutes chatting with someone whilst I have my mid-morning cup of tea. I shall have to make sure that my lofty turret has wifi.

Left: my MacBook, which appears to have been "blessed" by a passing pigeon. Where are the screen wipes?!