Miranda's Musings about Irish Meanderings...

Darlings, I've just had the most fabulous holiday in Ireland. Yes, I can see you're green with envy, and I would be too if I was you! Actually, the whole of Ireland is emerald green because it rains every day. Your brolly and raincoat become your new BFFs there. I saw castles and libraries (those magnificent old books!), learned about Vikings and Celts, famines, the 1916 Easter Uprising and The Troubles, blundered through two film sets, and heard lots of stories - and some might even have been true. I enjoyed terrific dancing and singing, drank Guinness, ate potatoes (they taste far better in Ireland) and saw so much incredible scenery my eyes and heart went into overload.
 

The Dark Hedges, Ballymoney, a
Game of Thrones scene for
'The King's Highway'.

I did a literary tour, so drenched myself with literature from Irish greats such as James Joyce, Seamus Heaney, Patrick Kavanagh, Lady Gregory, WB Yeats, CS Lewis, Oliver Goldsmith, Maria Edgeworth, Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Swift, JM Synge, the delightful Maeve Binchy - the list goes on and on... At times, as when mired in the fat bio of Patrick Kavanagh, I wondered why on earth I was doing this. But it paid off tremendously. I appreciated Ireland a million times more because of the reading.

However, darlings, I do adore coming back to romance. It is my go-to genre, the one I love and will always come back to between big, fat classics and all other genres. So imagine my delight to discover this pretty green gem at the exchange bookcase at my Dublin hotel:

Image credit: amazon.com

I literally pounced on it and then discovered all four authors have signed it. Wow! WOW! I was going to read it and leave it there for the next romance addict, we are many after all, but somehow this little treasure made its way home with me. Whoever left it has my undying love and thanks.

When you travel, do you immerse yourself in the stories of the area? Do you trawl the local bookshops and drool and wish your weight limit was 100kg and you could buy it all? I certainly did, and all the others in the group were also irresistibly lured. Some desperately hoped their carry ons would never be weighed because they were full of books and probably weighed as much as the plane itself. Some tossed out toiletries and clothes (I'm not making this up) to squeeze in just...one...more...book...



Charlie Byrne's Bookshop, Galway, a treasure trove of new and used books
with rooms that went on and on... I spent most of a heavenly afternoon here.

Since I've come home I've read four more Irish stories; I can't seem to stop and I've loved them all. But the romances are elbowing their way back in and I'm loving them too.

What you do on holidays? Put your feet up with a romance? Read local authors to get the 'local flavour' before and during? Download them then and there onto your Kindle and launch in? Write down every new book you discover and plan to read it when you get home?

Can't wait to hear from you!

 

Love from Miranda xxx

Love to Love:     All things Irish. Seriously.
Love to Laugh:  At the Irish blarney. My bus driver told the best jokes.
Love to Learn:   Irish history. I was staggered at how much I didn't know.

 

It’s All Good Until the Raven Arrives

by Cassandra Samuels

Using myths and legend in storytelling

In my book A Scandalous Wager my heroine, Lisbeth Carslake, Countess of Blackhurst, is accused of killing her husband. Although she is acquitted in a court of law, the high society of London (the ton) start calling her The Black Raven – bringer of bad luck and death. They cross themselves as they cross the street to avoid her and generally give her such a hard time she becomes a social pariah who seldom leaves her house. Thus this was the precedence for the wager which the hero, Oliver Whitely, Earl of Bellamy, takes on at the beginning of the story.

Before writing this story I had come across an article regarding folklore, myths and legends and was especially drawn to those of the raven. Firstly, there is a common misunderstanding that crows and ravens are the same. They do come from the same family of bird but are not the same. The raven is larger, shaggier and has a deeper, croaky call than that of its crow cousin. However, both feature heavily in mythology. 

Raven at the Tower of London taken on my visit there.

In Welsh myths the raven (Mabinogion) is the harbinger of death. The often bleak reputation surrounding this magnificent black bird is likely to be because it is a scavenger and often found picking the flesh of dead things.

Odin in Norse mythology had two ravens. One called Thought and the other Memory which he sent out daily to spy and report on the goings on in Midgard (Earth).

Odin with his Ravens - Thought and Memory

Some tribes in North America knew the raven as a stealer of souls, while others saw it as a symbol of transformation.

Anyone who has gone to the Tower of London will be familiar with the legend surrounding the ravens there. It is said that if ever the ravens left the tower the kingdom of England would fall. Charles II even went so far as to move his royal astrologer and his whole observatory from the tower rather than relocate the ravens. Even now they always keep a breeding pair of ravens at the Tower of London.

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Even in more modern literature the raven is a popular character.

•     Shakespeare mentions the raven in both Macbeth and Othello.

•     Charles Dickens’ Barnaby Rudge features “Grip” the raven.

•      In Edgar Allan Poe’s poem The Raven, the bird is a supernatural messenger.

•      In Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Roac son of Crac is the leader of the ravens of the lonely mountain.

•      And in Game of Thrones ravens are used as messengers as well as prophets (three eyed raven) and the character Bran is Gaelic for raven.

All this distrust and superstition surrounding the raven made it perfect as a moniker for my heroine. After all, who would trust a raven?

Do you like stories where myths and legends are used as part of the premise? 

Have you read another story or film I haven’t mentioned that features a raven?

Love to love the three men guarding my desk 

Tyrion, Job Snow & Rob Stark from Game of Thrones

Love to laugh at sayings on mugs.

Love to learn and research new things that can enhance my future stories.

My visit to Corfe Castle in England.

Cassandra's book is available now. 
Amazon Aus | Amazon | & all good e-bookstores