I'm in the process of a
re-do on the book 'THEY ARE MY SONG' which has to do with a place called
Dunnottar, Scotland in the year 487 AD, and the survival of the Mother-based
belief systems in the face of male-dominated Roman Christianity.
Not wanting to
use the 'Pict' designation of the Romans, I chose Cruithnne instead for a
people-name but that's an Irish thing (although better than Pict, IMO) - for
the re-write, I've been looking for something that rings bells for me, in terms
of linguistics, associations with likely origins of my people, and (mostly)
something that makes spiritual sense to me and to my Characters.
Me being me,
I went in search of variations on the word Pict-Pect-Brect-etc. with a Germanic
base as I have a gut feeling that these early inhabitants came from that neck
of the woods, probably being one of the very early Celt or pre-Celt 'tribes' -
and found Perchta/Berchta - lo and behold a Goddess associated not only with
women but light/white.
So, given the
variables in linguistics my reasoning is that perhaps my people's early
ancestors came to this western isle in the north sea referring to themselves as
'Perchtanni' or 'Berchtannae' or some such; over the many centuries that could
well have 'evolved' into a pronunciation that resembled the Pritani or Priteni,
Brittanni, Pechts, and even Prydyn ... local pronunciations, let alone
spellings, vary so much that I've found in my own family history searches 'my'
family name spelled three different ways within single documents.
None of which
probably holds the slightest interest for you and I'm just blabbering on here
because I want to and I can!
Nobody now has any idea what the
'Picts' would have called themselves, let alone what meaning it would have held
for them as a people. Because I write fiction I guess I can call them whatever
I choose, but I would like to choose as wisely as possible.
The land itself came to be called
Alba, Alban, Albann (doubled consonants seeming to be a 'Pictish' thing)
meaning 'white' and I've gone with using Albann to designate what is all of
today's Scotland, as the subsequent books take place all the way from Dunnottar
in the east to Iona in the west, down to the Wall, and up to the Chatton territory
in the north.
Having said all THAT, and bearing in
mind that what I'm trying to 'portray' in THEY ARE MY SONG is a small community
of fairly ordinary folk of the time who find that they must choose to take a
stand not only for their own particular belief systems but for the rights of
their friends and neighbors to choose for themselves. It's not Pagan vs
Christian; it's freedom to choose vs being dictated to.
It's also about the equal value of
each Voice, hence the individual Voices of each of the Characters' various
perspectives, and the repeating medley of the Song that twines them all
together. If a person wants, they can choose one Character and easily follow
him/her through the events that take place, and their development.
This book is not designed to be a
traditional easy read, although it is simple in its use of language.
It's also designed to rely on artwork. I put it out (Kindle/Amazon) 'as is' instead of including the artwork to the
extent that I designed it for. That too will be a major change in the final
edition I'm putting together now. It's my bad that I allowed what amounts to a
really rough draft to be published - so it's up to me to fix it.
If you might
be interested in reviewing what I'm calling the P4 version of THEY ARE MY SONG,
let me know and I can email it to you - in parts or in total, whatever you
choose.
I also have
the next two books done; they're based on THEY ARE MY SONG's Characters and
have a double story line. One follows the SONG Characters while the other
follows the generational history of a family heirloom; it's the Long Dark,
story-telling time in the roundhouse.
These first
four of the subsequent books I call the Mamm Books; they do NOT have either the
individual Character Voices nor the artwork, and are written and presented in a
more 'traditional' manner.
I don't
expect the final version of THEY ARE MY SONG to be completed to my satisfaction
any time soon; it might well be the last of this series to come out - while I
thoroughly enjoy the writing of the others, SONG has been a mystic journey for
me from the get-go and I'm going to, in the end, get it presented the way it
was designed to be presented.
Thanks, if
you've gotten this far through all my maunderings. My lineage traces back to
mostly Celt origins and I've also got an INFJ personality type to contend with
... sigh. INFJ is a Myers Briggs Type Inventory thing so be fairly warned! Do not expect 'normal'. Do not expect 'ordinary'.
Blessings,
Shiela aka
Sidhelagh
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