September

Epstein's St. Michael, Coventry Cathedral

         September. A great time of year. I was out walking today, in the sun, but seeing  dead seed-heads, and blackberries, and the leaves turning colour. I enjoyed the mad whippets' account of rambling and brambling (I didn't know whippets were so fond of blackberries.)

       September's big day is the 29th, which is Michaelmas, the feast of Heaven's Captain, Saint Michael, the warrior Archangel, who doesn't mess about with turning the other cheek, but adopts a more robust approach to defending us from Darkness and Evil, with a spear. Somebody's got to do it. You can imagine him tapping his fingers and sighing a lot through those long meetings in Heaven.
          I've always had a fondness for St Michael, probably because I suspect Him of being someone pagan, thinly disguised.
          His feast day is one of the four quarter days, which mark the turnings of the year, and which were always celebrated with feasts and fairs. And there was never any pretence that Michael had ever been human, as there was with, say, Saint Christopher or Saint Bridget. Michael was always supernatural, an Archangel, no less.

St Michael by Raphael

          He is the patron saint of horses and horsemen.  Hmm.  Horses were sacred to the Norse God Freyr (who was also a young warrior, often identified with Christ in the early years of Northern Christianity. 'Freyr' is a title, not a name: it means 'Lord', and there was some confusion about which Lord the Christians were talking about.) Horses also seem to have been venerated by the people we loosely call 'the Celts'.
         Michael is usually represented with a lance or spear - often with the Devil stuck on the other end of it. Again, hmm. A spear was the symbol of the Norse God Odin, but a better match is probably the God who survives in the old Irish stories, Lugh of the Spear.
          Did Michael find a welcome and lasting place in British tradition because there was an empty niche - very suitable for a Saint - waiting for Him?  The Church might say there was only one God, but was there a collective sigh of relief when Michael turned up? Oh, there He is. Been wondering where He'd got to.

Michael's daisies

         And then, He has Michaelmas Daisies. I've always loved them.

    But Old Michaelmas Day - before the calendar was changed - was October 10th. I hope the whippets avoid blackberrying on that day and after because - so I was told - the Devil will come and hold the branches down for them to reach. No good ever comes of accepting help from Old Nick.
          Another version is that He makes it His personal mission to spit on each and every blackberry left on the bushes on October 10th. A doddle, I suppose, when you are the great Lord of Evil. And being poked with a spear every September must make you crotchety.

Icon of St. Michael, patron of horses

          As a child, I was never told why Old Nick had such a spite against blackberries - I assumed it was all part of his general grudge against the world - but it seems that when He was thrown out of Heaven, He fell into a blackberry patch. I can see how that would put you off them.
         Happy Michaelmas! And I hope you have a jug of michaelmas daisies.
          And here's a suitably supernatural Blott... Cover Brother Andrew dropped by my house today, just as I downloaded this week's Blott, but fought off all attempts to show it to him, because he wanted to see it for the first time, in its proper place, at the end of this blog in the early hours of Saturday morning.
          I love this Blott - but I want to see Demon Lord Ashteroth again!

The Sterkarm Relativity

The Sterkarm books by Susan Price

          I’ve finished summarising every scene in Sterkarm 3, in different coloured inks, with emoticons, and many notes to self.

          It has been very useful: and has made clear that the time-scale, in places, is impossible.

          I have different parties heading off in different directions to roam the soggy, midge-ridden hills while having varied adventures, before finally meeting up again… but the timing just doesn’t work.  Everything that happens to Party B just couldn’t be crammed into the time that elapses before they join Party A again.

          I have to admit that I haven’t worked out in enough detail where the places in the story are in relation to each other, how far apart, and what the terrain between them is like.  And, most importantly, how long it would take my characters to get from one place to another, do what I want them to do, and get back again.

          I have to do this for six different groups of characters, who’re all in different places, doing different things.  Trying to kill each other, mostly.

           The ‘terrain’ option on Google Maps has allowed me to hover over Sterkarm country, looking down on all the burns and waters, the fells and laws.  I could decide where to site the towers and the Time Tube.  So many streams!  It brought back memories of tramping those hills, meeting deer in the twilight.  I could hear the burns splashing down the hillsides and smell the heather; could hear skylarks and whaups as I hunched over my laptop.

          Some of my characters are riding the tough, strong, sure-footed little reiver horses – but how fast could they travel?  I’ve read that rievers could cover 40 miles in a night, but surely that was only in desperation?  Or would they, as Davy suggested, take spare horses with them?  Would 20 miles be more usual?

          The riders were ‘light cavalry’, but would have worn helmets and heavy leather ‘jakkes’ stitched with pieces of metal, and carried lances and swords.  Other equipment too: blankets, food, bows, arrows, axes.  And the country was difficult – steep slopes, boulders, scree, thickets and many streams and rivers.  Come on, Karen (aka madwippit) and Kath Roberts, those expert riders– and any other expert riders out there - what’s your opinion?  (And Kath - wow! I like your website's new look!)

         Another party’s on foot.  If they were all fit, strong men, I could use the yomping experience of my ex-army acquaintance, but some of my characters are ill, or unfit - and they’re not all suitably dressed for scrambling over border hills either.  (One is dressed like a 16th century lady, in clothes that would hamper you walking across a room. I should add, this character is a 16th century lady. I've no doubt the rievers had their cross-dressers, but that's for another book.) My guess is that, under the circumstances, they’d be lucky to cover much more than six or seven miles in a day, if that. Walking that country is hard work.

          So, can I cut some of the events?  I’ve read through them with a hard eye, while asking those damning questions: Is this scene introducing or developing a character?  Is it introducing or developing something important to the plot?  Is it necessary?  Even so, it’s hard to see what I can lose.  Maybe I just need a good editor.

          Can I reduce events by combining  them?  Kill two Sterkarms with one arrow, so to speak.  I’ve already divided the parties differently, so one character doesn’t have to go to and fro so much.

          Time, distance, speed - I’m beginning to see what Einstein was on about.

          Davy, unable to put his cup down because of my sketch maps scribbled in coloured inks, my laptop open on a satellite scene of empty moors, my index cards and beat-sheets, said, “I dunno why you’re doing all this, getting yourself all of a fash.  You can bet other writers don’t bother.”

          Tell him, people, tell him.

          And to get you in the Border reiver mood, here's the wonderful June Tabor, from her album An Echo of Hooves -           

And here's Blott:

A TRUE GHOST STORY

Nightcomers by Susan Price

          Over at Do Authors Dream of Electric Books, the other day, Stuart Hill was talking about true ghost stories.  He collected a few good ones!

          I left a comment there about my family’s long struggle to be rational and not believe in ghosts – a battle fought by generations before me, while my family were beset by ghosts and heavy-footed things that tramp in the night (of which, more later this month).

          In my collection of ghost stories, NIGHTCOMERS -  which I’ll be bringing out as soon as my brother can finish the cover – there’s a story called ‘The Baby’ which I based on one of the flesh-creepers my aunt told me. 

          Doris was my grandmother’s niece; and Emily one of my grandad’s sisters.  They were close neighbours and, as Emily was heavily pregnant, Doris was looking forward to seeing the baby when it was born.

          But Doris contracted pneumonia – pretty much a death-sentence in the early 1930s, especially if you were poor.  She was put to bed and her mother and sisters sat with her.

          Doris was sick for days.  The other women knew that Emily had given birth, but no one told Doris.  The baby wasn’t strong, and they thought it best not to mention it.

          Doris kept asking that the bedroom window be opened, but it wasn’t, because it was cold.  Again and again Doris demanded that the window be opened.  She struggled to sit up, saying, “Open it!  Open it!”

          Obviously, she was delirious.  They tried to calm her.  “Let her in!” she said.  “She wants to come in – she wants to be with me.  Let her in!”

          “Who’s outside?” one of the sisters asked.  “Who wants to come in?”

          Doris said, “Emily’s baby.  She wants to come in and be with me.  Let her in!”

          Doris begged for the window to be opened until, eventually, someone did open it, despite the cold.  They left it open after she died too, for a whole day, for fear of what they might shut inside if they closed it too soon.

          The women sitting with Doris knew that Emily’s sickly baby had been a girl.  And two days after Doris’ death, the baby that had wanted to be with her, died too.

          My Aunt told me this, but, a true Price, ended it by saying, “It’s easily explained – Emily never had a baby that lived longer than a couple of days.  And it would have been on Doris’ mind.”

          Somehow, these sensible remarks never stopped that cold grue going down my back.

          I think I might tell true ghost stories all this month – and if anyone wants to leave theirs as comments, I'd love to read them, and we can build up quite a collection by Hallowe’en!

         But before any more ghost stories, here's Blot - 

RIDING FOR THE STERKARMS

          One of the things I love about writing is that it’s always driving you to research new subjects and learn new skills.  I once learned to ride for a book.

          The book was The Sterkarm Handshake, which is about a multi-national corporation from the 21^st Century (developing a time machine, and travelling back in time to exploit the past’s untouched natural resources.  They fetch up on the borders of Scotland 500 years ago – a time when, in fact, there was no border between England and Scotland, but only a lawless ‘debateable land’, where the ‘riding-families’ or ‘reivers’ ruled by blood-feud.

The Sterkarm Handshake by Susan Price

          The Sterkarms are one of my riding families; and my problem was that they spent their lives surrounded by dogs and horses.  I was fine with the dogs – I spent a lot of my childhood with dogs of various kinds and sizes, and could well describe them.  But the more I wrote about the Sterkarms, the more acutely aware I became that I didn’t know much about horses.

          I had to admit that the horses in my book might as well have been bikes.  My characters got on them when they needed to travel, and got off them and forgot them once they’d arrived.  But I well knew, from being around dogs and cats, that a close relationship with a living animal isn’t like that.  They’re dependent on you: you have to think about their well-being.  And they have characters of their own -  gentle, aloof, affectionate, or stubborn or mischievous - to which you have to adapt.

          I decided that I would learn to ride a horse.  I had no ambitions to be a horsewoman, but I did want to learn the basics.  So I looked around, and found a Northumbrian riding-school which offered week-long courses, in riever country, on exactly the sort of horses which the rievers rode – cobs.  I signed up.

          On the first day I was introduced to the cob who would be teaching me to ride.  He was was stumpy-legged, thick-necked, barrel-bodied, shaggy, and as black as the bottom of a coal-mine.  He was called ‘Misty’.  Why, I’ve no idea.  I, for one, would have looked at him for aeons before anything like ‘misty’ occurred to me.

          The way to get on Misty’s good side, I was told, was to feed him polo mints; so I armed myself with a packet and doled out a few.  I can’t say that it made Misty any fonder of me, but he was certainly quick to learn that I was a source of his favourite sweets.  He frisked me at every chance, with gentle inquiring nudges that nearly knocked me over.

          I learned how to put on his head-gear – after pursuing him across three fields - and his saddle, and had my first gentle rides around fields and lanes.  Misty plodded along without enthusiasm, and I can’t blame him.  I wouldn’t be enthusiastic about carrying me around either.  Some excitement was created by Misty’s habit of stopping dead every few minutes, to eat grass; which nearly sent me over his head.

          When we got back, I was instructed to feed him, and to lead him to the yard for grooming.  This is how I first learned what ‘horse-power’ means.  I pulled gently on his reins to lead him away from the last of his oats – but Misty didn’t want to go.  With one flick of his head he lifted me right off my feet, dismissing my efforts to move him as if I was an irritating fly -  and I am no light weight.

          I came off three times.  The first was when we tried a gallop over the moors.  Us three learners had to go, one after another.  Misty and I were last – but Misty wasn’t prepared to wait.  He’d done this hundreds of times before.  He knew what was coming.  So away he went, out of turn.  I lost a stirrup in the first few seconds and, as Misty moved up through all the gears, I lost the other.  I knew I wasn’t going to stay on.  It seemed to me that if I waited for the inevitable, I was going to go under his hooves – so I leaned out and abandoned horse.  The deep moor turf was quite soft and welcoming – but the safety helmet the school had insisted I wear delivered a stunning blow to the back of my head.  I was slightly sick and giddy for the rest of the day.

          Later in the week, we were taught how to take our horses over small jumps.  I think this was sheer madness – however, Misty deigned to hop over the first jump quite neatly.  At the second attempt he stopped dead, and I went forward and hit his neck with my face.  It was like hitting an iron bar; and off I fell.  The sand of the jump-school wasn’t nearly as soft as the moor turf – but up I got, and climbed back on dear old Misty’s back.  I hold this against Misty – he knew what he was doing.  He could have gone over those jumps if he’d wanted to.  But I’d run out of polo-mints, you know what I’m saying?

A Sterkarm Kiss by Susan Price

          He refused the third jump too; and I hit the dirt again.  This time I sat up and said, “Enough!” so fiercely that even the drill-sergeant of an instructor quailed, and said nothing as I limped back to the digs - but Misty sneered.

          The next morning, when I woke and tried to put my specs on, they wouldn’t sit right.  I went into the bathroom to investigate, and discovered that I had a fine black-eye and a swollen nose.  Thanks, Misty.  After the riding-school, I went on to do some more research in Carlisle.  (The by-laws of the town still forbid Armstrongs (aka Sterkarms) to be within the town walls between the hours of sunset and sunrise.)  By the time I booked into my hotel, I looked like I’d been in a brawl.  Everywhere I went, I drew lingering, pitying glances.  I could see people thinking: Why doesn’t she leave him?

          I never have caught the horse-riding bug, but I learned what I needed to learn – how horses behave with people, how strong they are, and something of their care and maintenance.  In the finished book they seem, I hope, a little more alive than bikes.

          But I prefer cats…

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