Tag: history
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The Porous Self: Recovering Enchantment in Epic Fantasy
One of the most challenging tasks in writing epic fantasy inspired by ancient or medieval Europe is remaining faithful to the spirit of the age while avoiding the tendency to filter everything through a contemporary worldview. To some extent this is impossible. We can’t help but be people of our time, nor can we fully…
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Did ancient Celtic warriors actually have tattoos?
Did the ancient Celts actually tattoo themselves? Historians have debated this for decades. As with most things related to Iron-Age Celtic culture, our sources come, not from the Celts themselves, but from Greek and Roman writers who often portrayed them as barbarians to emphasize their otherness.
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Medieval Monsters: The Draugr
Vampires. Mummies. Zombies. The undead are everywhere in modern horror and fantasy, from Salem’s Lot to The Walking Dead. But they’re far from a recent obsession. Long before even the nineteenth-century Gothic novels of Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley, we find the undead represented in the folklore traditions of every culture—the Ro-Langs of Tibet, the…
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Five books that will help you understand medieval Britain
In an older post, I talked about why I think writers of fantasy and historical fiction should read primary sources to understand the period from which they are taking inspiration. In this post, I’m going to provide some examples of what kinds of sources writers should be reading.
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“Woe to the conquered”: How the Gauls sacked Rome and the geese saved it.
In the last post, we looked at the Battle of the Allia in 390 BC. At the Allia, the Gauls and Romans met in what was to be the first of many conflicts between their peoples, culminating in Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul in 50 BC. In this first battle, however, it is the Gallic…
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“All things belong to the brave”: Gauls, Romans, and the Battle of the Allia
As the Romans looked down from their fastness and saw the City full of enemies running up and down in all the streets, while first in one quarter and then in another some new calamity would be occurring, they were unable, I do not say to keep their heads, but even to be sure of…
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Inside the Anglo-Saxon Shield-Wall: Exploring the Battle of Maldon
The year is AD 991 and a Viking army rages across east England. Led by the fearsome King Olaf, the warrior crews of ninety-three longships pillage the undefended lands of the Anglo-Saxons and plunder the town of Ipswich. Riding to meet them is Earl Byrhtnoth, commander of the Anglo-Saxon army of King Æthelred. It has…
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What was a medieval battle really like? A detailed look at the famous Battle of Crecy
August 26, 1346. The sky above the fields of Crécy is black with arrows. It fills with the terrifying roar of English longbows, their iron-tipped bodkin arrows falling like a storm, tearing through heavy mail and plate. In a single afternoon, the landscape of medieval warfare was altered. A great battle was won, not by…