by James Comins
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Acknowlogies and Apoledgements
Special thanks to Bob Spiller and Avi for moral support. Extra special thanks to Michael Scott for good advices and for checking my Irish.
When I go back and look at the stories I read as a kid, I can spot where my own ideas had their acorns. I figure, every time I write a book inspired by other people’s stories, I’ll try to share my inspirations, so you can go read them and get inspired, too.
Some Notes About Names
Most of the Icelandic names in this book come from Daisy Neijmann’s Colloquial Icelandic. “Brugda” is the Icelandic word for hitting. “Kaldi” is a light breeze. “Talvi” is a sort-of-invented word that comes from talvon, which means illusion. “Aitta” is adapted from aiti, meaning mother. Joukka Pelata (YOO-kuh pah-LOTTA) is adapted from Finnish words meaning “afraid of people.”
The Irish names mostly come from a wonderful book of Irish stories called Gods and Fighting Men by Lady Gregory. It’s hard to find and written in a complicated dialect, but the adventures are great for all ages. The stories about Bres come from that book, as well as the characters of the Dagda, the Manannan, the Old Ones, Brigid and the Morrigan. I messed around with some of the details to make them fit together better.
Lenna’s name is a shortening of a longer name which shows up in Book Two. I’ll talk about the origins of the name there.
Binnan Darnan was going to be named Bindargan, some sort of version of Pendragon. I changed it. I don’t know why. In Welsh, Bynnan Darnen means “little crumb.” In the Manx language, from the Island of Man, “Binn Donnan” means “the wretch in the corner,” while “Bineen Dhornane” means “rain on a sword hilt,” which I like very much. In Scots Gaelic, “Binnean Tàirneanach” means “thunder in the mountains.” But most importantly, in Old English, “Binnan Dyrnan” means “a secret kept inside,” and that’s probably what Binnan Darnan’s name really means.
Mo Bagohn is a character I met years ago, when I wrote the poem that Pol recites. She was mostly inspired by Biddy Early, the wise woman of Clare, who you can read more about in Nancy Willard’s great poetry book, The Ballad of Biddy Early. Mo was influenced by Tom Bombadil as well. Mo Bagohn’s name as Bres pronounces it, mo beagán, is Irish for “my little one,” only I made up the name before I knew any Irish at all, and it’s mispronounced anyways.
Indaell means “delight” in Icelandic. Intlás means “delight” in Irish. Ljos (“LEE-ohs”) means “light” in Icelandic. Lés means “light” in Irish. This is probably not a coincidence.
Caoilte and Tailltin are both real characters from Irish mythology. I only figured that out after I realized that my characters Kaldi and Talvi and Brigid and Bres were all relatives. Note that Caoilte is pronounced “keel-chee,” and the name of the original Irish character was Tailltin, not Taillvin. But close enough.
Some Notes About Inspiration
So those are the names. As for the story, it was inspired by a very vivid dream I had about the changing flavors of magic in the world and the wizards who control it. The dream, in turn, was probably inspired by a tabletop roleplaying game called Mage: the Ascension. I’ve never played it, but I’ve read about it, and sometimes that’s all you need to do. I had been reading steampunk and thinking about the historical American shift from steam power to electricity, too.
The idea of a kid suddenly learning that he or she is a special magic wizard person is, you might be surprised to find out, not my original idea. I got it from Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising, one of my favorite books. Also I’d like to thank J. K. Rowling for her excellent version of the trope. The idea of an orphan on a pig farm is from Chretien de Troyes’ Percival, which I was reading just as I started writing. The lost pig is from Lloyd Alexander’s lovely Prydain Chronicles. Why is it an Icelandic pig farm and not Welsh? Because Barnes & Noble didn’t have a book on the Welsh language, but they did have one on Icelandic, and I thought maybe that would be okay instead.
My dragons are stranger than traditional dragons for a couple of reasons. Ruth Chrisman Gannett’s illustrations for My Father’s Dragon is one of the reasons. Rankin-Bass’ The Flight of Dragons movie is another. I think traditional anything is kind of boring. The unicorns and skeletons were largely inspired by Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn and the cartoon adaptation.
The Irish dialogue was developed through a combination of reading rude Irish slang handbooks and watching many, many Tommy Tiernan comedy clips on YouTube. He swears a lot and is very funny.
A movie called The Secret of Kells was announced just as I was finishing the book, set in a different Kells and featuring a different Saint Brendan. I was worried when I heard about it, but then I saw it and I love the movie to pieces. You should see it.
To find out more about Baldur, Ragnarok and the World Tree, you should read Padraic Colum’s book The Children of Odin and Neil Gaiman’s Odd and the Frost Giants. The next Lenna book will have more Norse myths in it.
Thanks for reading my story. Maybe soon you’ll have stories of your own to tell!
About the Uther Author