King Aethelhere of East Anglia was also killed in the battle and, in addition to Cadfael of Gwynedd, Penda was reportedly deserted at the crucial moment by Aethelwald of Deira, which gave Oswy the opportunity to take that throne as well. Altogether, it was carnage and it has been reported that there were disputes within the Mercian camp over money and other rewards. An army falling into fighting amongst rival factions is a far from unbelievable picture for the time. The defeat was crushing and effectively transferred power and the country’s overlordship from Mercia to Northumbria. Penda was beheaded.
It is claimed that Oswy and his army saw the image of a great Cross in the sky the night before the battle, and were told that it heralded a great victory for a truly Christian king. He is said to have prayed to God and sworn to make his daughter a nun and to establish twelve monasteries, if he was victorious. He kept his promise.
Clovis II
King of Neustria and Burgundy, two of the Frankish kingdoms of NW Europe - largely located in what is now France. He was born in 637 and succeeded to the throne when he was two years old; he was often referred to as the “child king”. His mother ruled as regent until she died in 642, when Clovis was just five years old. He fell under the influence of the Majors d’Omo, or mayors of the palaces, who arranged things to favour themselves.
Clovis died at just twenty or twenty-one years of age. At the time of this story and Ciaran’s encounter with him in it, the young king would have been seventeen or eighteen. He married Balthild, a high-born Anglo-Saxon who had been captured and sold into slavery. He was given her by Erchinoald, his own Major d’Omo, presumably to curry favour. She bore him three sons, the youngest of whom - Theuderic - eventually became sole king of the Franks.
Clovis was regarded as a prototype “roi feanant’ - a “do-nothing king”. Einhard, the biographer of Charlemagne - the founder of the Carolingian House, which replaced the Merovingians of which Clovis was a scion - described the late Merovingian rulers as “kings in nothing but name”.
Oswy of Northumbria makes a brief appearance in this book but will be a central character in Cromm’s Children, the concluding volume of this Triptych.
Ynys Witrin - The Isle of Glass.
Better known today as Glastonbury. It is located on a hill that rises out of what was salt marsh and land lying below sea level in the north of Somerset, in SW England. It is best known today for the nearby music festival that is named after it, but remains a centre of ’spirituality’.
Ynys Witrin was a religious centre before Christianity became established in Britain. It is associated with the Isle of Avalon, a bridge between this world and the next in the version that has come down to us via the Anglo-Saxons and the Norman romances of the Knights of the Round Table. The late Miss Marion Campbell of Kilberry, an antiquarian and extremely knowledgeable lady from Argyllshire, assured me that the name was some kind of corruption of Emain Avallach - the Place of the Apples, a pre-Christian (Druidic) place of rest where souls of the dead recuperated before their next reincarnation into this world. In short: Ynys Witrin probably wasn’t Avalon.
But it might have been seen as a gateway to the Otherworld. Witrin is Welsh for ‘glass’. How it acquired this name is ultimately speculative but there were many stories of the “Fairy King’s Castle” associated with the Isle. This castle is supposed to have been made of glass, and to have been seen flying over to Ynys Witrin or hanging by the Tor, the great hill that stands guard to the east of Glastonbury itself. Legend has it that the Fairy King brought his castle to Earth to take away the souls of the dead.
A legend of the Dark Ages, and the transition from Paganism to Christianity, has it that the Fairy King had brought his castle to the Tor on one of these trips and was seeking to tempt the good folk of the land around to join him, whereupon he would whisk them away. A certain Saint Collen was invited into the castle by Gwyn ap Nudd, the King of the Fairies. St Collen refused all offers of food and drink and finally threw a vial of Holy Water at the castle, which caused it to disappear. St Michael’s Tower was built at the top of the Tor, in order to gain the archangel’s help in the ongoing fight against the Forces of Evil.
The explanation for the persistent appearances of the fairy king’s castle is both meteorological and topographical. The area around Glastonbury, being below sea level, is damp. It often produces a visual effect whereby the Tor seems to rise out of the mist, like an island. It is also an area where a particular type of mirage, known as a Fata Morgana, can be seen. Rays of light are strongly bent as they pass through temperature inversion layers - where air at higher altitude is warmer than that closer to the ground - and watchers can get the impression that they are seeing buildings floating in the air and even lands, with farms and inhabitants. The name of this phenomenon - Fata Morgana - is derived from Morgan le Fay, the legendary sorceress associated with King Arthur and Merlin.
I have portrayed Ynys Witrin as a Pagan religious settlement, run by women and headed by the Lady of the Lake, which is crumbling and disappearing, driving the Old Religion out. This was inspired by several things. The Amerindian indigenous culture of North America made religious totems and centres of worship largely from wood. When the wood rotted, there was no trace left of those who had come before.
I was also, I freely confess, inspired by Rivendell, the Elves’ settlement in JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings saga. He described it as an ancient centre of learning that was approaching the end of its days. It has the beauty of Autumn, of decline and lingering sadness; a centre of Power that is powerless to prevent its fate.
This is a time when Christianity was replacing Paganism but the latter was still strong, in some parts. I sought to portray a beautiful place that was of itself driving out the Old and undergoing a kind of rebirth, ready for its new inhabitants.
The first Christian monastery on Ynys Witrin was recorded to have been established in the late 7th Century, so decades after the sad departure of the Grey Company of women portrayed in the story. The first recorded Christian patron of Glastonbury was Centwine, king of Wessex from around 676 to 685. According to Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne and a contemporary, Centwine was a Pagan for the early part of his reign, before converting to Christianity. He abdicated from the throne and became a monk.
Apple of Discord
A legend from Greek mythology. The goddess Eris tossed the golden Apple of Discord into the middle of the feasting at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, to which she had not been invited. Some sources say that it was inscribed “For the Fairest”. It triggered a vanity-fuelled argument between Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, which was supposed to have been resolved by the Judgement of Paris - but that led to the Trojan War and the destruction of Troy and its associated civilisation.
An Apple of Discord does not have to look like an apple, as Ciaran discovered.
“Come now, my Prince of Donegal”
Originally created to protect Ciaran (see Innisgarbh), This ‘phrase of power’ is now a vulnerability. Anyone who knows it can control him.
The Blood Red Game
An acknowledgement is due to Michael Moorcock. The Game in this story is nothing like that in his story of that name but the image of an overwhelming tide of blood shattering the psyche was too good to resist. My homage to a Master!
Mid 7th Century France and Southern Britain
Showing the Frankish kingdoms of
Neustria, Burgundy and Austrasia,
the British kingdoms of Dumnonia and Bro Erech,
and the Saxon kingdoms of Wessex and Kent.
Britain in the Mid 7th century.
British (Welsh) kingdoms: Strathclyde, Rheged, Gwynedd, Powys, Gwent, Morgannwg, Dumnonia, Kernow.
English and Saxon kingdoms: Bernicia, Deira, Mercia, Anglia, Wessex, Kent.
Irish/Scottish kingdoms: Donegal, Dalriada
Pictish kingdom: Alba
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Lockeran (Prince Ciaran the Damned Book 2) Page 22