December 2009: Time bombs – or making impact on an era

My colleague Angus Donald, author of the excellent Outlaw series on Robin Hood, writes an excellent blog on his website. One of the more recent concerned the use of language in writing historical fiction and I have since heard a few other authors chime in on the subject, which seems the single most contentious issue for readers.

My own Dark Age efforts had some slings and arrows from critics. Originally, The Whale Road was turned down by one publisher (nameless, in case it makes them look like twats) because all those Viking names were too hard to pronounce. Presumably I should have called my hero Joe instead.

But the use of certain phrases and idioms is crucial to authenticity. There is nothing worse than being immersed in the period, plot and characters only to be jerked out like a gaffed fish by a single stupidity, such as some Norse character declaring: ‘Fuck this for a game of soldiers’ (the book shall remain nameless, again to preserve the twat levels). It might be argued that this is simply a translation into an understandable modern form of the feelings of our Norse warrior at the time. It might also be argued that it is badly-written cod by someone who could not be bothered to find a suitable phrase that held no 21st-century taint.

On the other hand, I have had to remove ‘posse’ from my own medieval efforts in the first book of the Kingdom series. Authentically medieval, it has been hijacked by John Wayne Westerns and, latterly, by north London rap wannabees with bad ‘tude and bling. Innit. Reading it back just grated.

Similarly, I thought to remove the word ‘army’ entirely and substitute ‘host’ since the word ‘army’ – the very concept as we know it – was unknown in the 13th century. But ‘host’ is now virtually unrecogniseable to a 21st-century reader, so I drew my own line and kept it as the instantly identifiable army.

You see the minefield us labourers at the coal-face of fiction have to negotiate? Can you have a minefield in a mine? Is that a pun too far?

Language plays a crucial role in my current efforts regarding the Scottish Wars. Lowland Braid, Gaelic, Norman-French and Latin, as well as an emerging form of English, were all swirling round. It became clear that simply having someone speak was not enough – the reality was that half of those listening would understand nothing.

But let’s face it: critics will carp one way or another and purists will nitpick about what Arabic influences exist in 14th-century English, or whether ‘acoustic’ is an acceptable word since it was not used until the 16th century.

Sod them, I say. No statue was ever erected to a critic; and the only way to please a purist would be to write my books by tallow using a quill, in Norman-French or Latin, and have it painstakingly copied by monks rather than printed. Special editions would have illuminated lettering at the start of chapters.

To offset the annoyances of this, we have some entertaining spats in the world of history, with Prof Devine v Neil Oliver. The former is the accepted Scottish voice on all matters 16th century and after, a man with a historical brain the size of a planet, an alphabet of letters after his name and the unfortunate look of something recently fallen from under the eaves of an old church. The latter is Billy Connolly Lite, a personable TV presenter qualified because he was once a bone-kicker, with a Loreal hair flick and a way of talking and walking to camera at the same time which is unmatched anywhere.

There is no contest when it comes to who should front any historical programmes on telly and whose definitive voice should carries the Devinity of matters historical. Sadly, the Prof has got huffy at not being asked in front of camera while – very wisely – BC Lite has body-swerved any historical head-to-head with Devine on telly.

I look forward to more of this sort of stuff, if only to offset the recent appalling attempt at what might be called future-history. I know it seems an age away now, but the taste of it won’t go away like a bad kebab. I hope ‘The Execution of Gary Glitter’ is a just that: a bad-taste blip, unlikely to be emulated or even repeated. I have my doubts.

The premise is that, in a parallel world where we have the death penalty, convicted paedophile Gary is put on trial, found guilty and executed by the state. That’s it.  I can honestly say I have never EVER seen anything quite like this vile "mockumentary". The makers claimed that this was "an intelligent and thought-provoking examination of the issue" which "confronts viewers with the possible consequences of capital punishment in the UK".

What a relief. Not just a cheap hug-yersel' thrill then, using someone so vilified and dishonoured he dare not object. Not a BNP manifesto. Not snuff porn for Mail and Sun readers, the supposed 54% of this country’s adults who support the introduction of capital punishment.
That’s okay then.

Thanks to Channel 4, the capital punishment I had always held as a strange, abstract, historical event existing only in ancient vellum accounts is made real for me and a searing moral clarity has now been unveiled. The recent public trial and execution of Saddam Hussein, of course, was clearly all CGI and held no moral lessons for anyone.

November 2009: Life imitating my art...

Funny how life imitates fiction. Here am I, detailing the saga of how a hoard of buried treasure is sought, fought for and brought back into the light of the Dark Ages – and real-life seems to having a laugh at my expense by showing that it has all been done before and will almost certainly be done again.

For a start there was the Anglo-Saxon hoard recently uncovered to much acclaim (see below). Now it seems the bone-kickers have unearthed a bit of Beowulf, in the shape of - well … an upmarket pub for heroes.

The hall, 48 metres long and seven metres across, overlooks the site of a Viking palace unearthed in 1986 in Lejre, near Roskilde, which is one of the most historical areas of Denmark.

The archaeologists are all kinds of excited, because the building is not only huge but littered with bits and pieces of exquisite golden jewellery, glass and bronze broaches, high quality artifacts such as drinking glasses and ceramics - which all seem to have been deliberately smashed in some ritual. There is also a huge pile of cooking stones from primitive ovens.

No great stretch of the imagination is needed to see a bunch of feasting Iron Age heroes of the Beowulf era, smashing the drinking vessels after making extravagant boasts, offering wealth to the gods for success or as reward for enterprises; and it all adds to the wealth of material us Dark Age fiction writers love to collect.

Meanwhile, in Scotland, the chief game warden at Blair Drummond Safari Park unearths a million quid’s worth of 1st and 3rd century BC gold from a field in Stirling - with a metal detector he has owned for five days; it seems the stuff is leaping out of the ground at us all now.

In Gotland, Sweden, it is another story; an uncovered Viking hoard has been plundered by 21st century thieves, who posed as archaeologists, dug over 250 holes in a field in Alva and made off with 500 silver pieces – including 100 silver coins, a gold bracteate and silver crucifix - worth about £50,000.

And while it is sad to see that heritage disappear, you have to say that the Beowulf feasters in the above pub would be applauding and smashing toasting glasses.

You also have to ask some questions. Like how the hoard, clearly left unguarded long enough for a band of imposters to step in, was so cavalierly treated. I mean, we know enough about what was in it to discover that a lot of the coins, fascinatingly, were from Baghdad and further east: the famous Serkland silver dirham much used in trade. We know about a gold bracteate (a thin coin worn as an amulet, in case you were wondering - Medallion Man, it seems, is also no new concept) and a silver crucifix. Did the imposters dig ‘em up, catalogue them neatly then nick them? Weere they already uncovered and just waiting to be stolen in an unguarded muddy field?

You also have to ask how the imposters knew about it, and what lengths they went to to acquire the riches. The silver content, melted down, is hardly worth it, but the artifacts themselves are priceless to collectors. I have to assume this was robbery to order. Before anyone asks – yes, I would be interested and, no, I had nothing to do with it guv, honest.

Now there are Swedish calls for capital punishment, moans about national disgrace etc etc.

But, in the middle of all this, let us not lose sight of the irony of a Viking hoard being plundered…

October 2009: Gold's fools

It has been a perfect month for things Dark Age – treasure hoards of all sorts have been brought into the light, not least of which are the Lewis chessmen. There are 93 of these wonderfully carved pieces – 11 of them are in the National Museum of Scotland, 82 in the British Museum in England and there has been a on-going debate about the British Museum to stop using them as pawns in some game of one-upmanship. Geez them back, in short.

It is not a new debate, being marginally less old than Greece’s demand for the Elgin Marbles, but it has kept the chessmen apart, as if neither side can trust the other to hand their pieces back at the end of the show. It has also coloured other, similar demands – those who follow such things will remember the Maori heads and the Lakota Ghost Shirt, all returned to their homes from Scotland.

In England, though, they cling as tenaciously to the chessmen as they do the Elgin Marbles, the Lindisfarne Gospels and Benin masks. And yes, I acknowledge the irony that the Marble-nicking seventh Earl of Elgin was Thomas Bruce, a Scot.

Of course, neither the British Museum nor the NMS have signed up to the pompous declaration of non-returnability that 18 other institutions did. So we should be glad our chessmen, marbles – and, thank God, new hoards of silver - did not end up with the following:

• The Art Institute of Chicago
• Bavarian State Museum, Munich (Alte Pinakothek, Neue Pinakothek)
• State Museums, Berlin
• Cleveland Museum of Art
• J Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
• Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art
• Louvre Museum, Paris
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• The Museum of Modern Art, New York
• Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Florence
• Philadelphia Museum of Art
• Prado Museum, Madrid
• Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
• State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg
• Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid
• Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Otherwise we would never see them in this country again, save for a couple of weeks every decade.

Of course, in the spirit of handing it all back, the Staffordshire Anglo-Saxon Hoard, all 1500 gorgeous pieces of it, should really go to the cultural descendants of those Anglo-Saxons who lost it – namely, well … us, the Dark Age re-enactors.

We are already drooling over the significance of the finds rather than the intrinsic worth – new sword pommel designs, strange jewelled geegaws decorating scabbard fittings, brilliant helmets – in short, bling. You can bet that a dozen craftsmen are already poring over the designs and getting their crafting tools out – repros will be at a stall near you very soon.

As for me – I am interested in the story, or the potential story, of it. Over 1500 pieces and not a domestic implement anywhere near it? This is a blagged treasure - all the best bits with none of the rubbish to weigh you down. Was it ripped from a raid, then hidden by the raiders, who were later caught and killed before they could return for it? Was it stashed to keep it out of the hands of raiders?

The timescale of the find places it in the Northumbrian/Mercian wars of the mid-seventh century - Hatfield Chase 633AD, Oswestry 642AD or Winwaed 655AD. The dates fit the pieces, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for one of the battles refers to the deaths of ‘30 Kings and Princes’, a possible source for such a hoard.

For me, the plot devices are the richest part of it – as is the ‘revelation’ of Gisli Sigurdsson, a historian at Reykjavik University. He has come up with a new historical study of saga chronicles from the 13th century, which warns Norsemen to ‘beware of the dangerous natives of Skotland’ and details the story of Icelandic merchants who sailed into a west coast sea loch where they meet 13 ships bristling with fearsome Scots, one of who is identified in the saga as Grjotgard, a kinsman of Melkolf, king of Scotland (Malcolm II). He tells them: "You have two choices. You can go ashore and we will take all your property, or we'll attack you and kill every man we lay our hands on." The merchants were terrified, the saga says, but presumably lived to tell their tale.

Comforting though it is to think that thirteenth century Scotland had boatloads of Smeatos, prepared to ‘set about ye’ if you look like a terrorist Viking, you have to look at the plot in it. This is a saga, all of which were written by learned Scandies who, clever men that they were, knew the power of a good story and were not above embellishing the one they had. All the sagas are cobbled together from oral tales and some use the same tales more than once. Some of the sagas were, I suspect, written for good reason – these were the journos of their day and had an propaganda agenda.

In the thirteenth century, Scotland and Norway were having a long-running feud over possession of the Western Isles – it culminated, in 1263, with the Battle of Largs, which followed a campaign of coercion and ‘longship diplomacy’ by Haakon. The fact that there would be sagas revealing the perfidy and viciousness of Scots should come as no surprise to anyone, least of all Gisli Sigurdsson.

In short – the idea of a bunch of innocent, peaceful Icelandic merchants up a Scottish bay and terrified by sinister Scots is practically laughable. Proof positive that even twenty-first century Scandinavian saga-academics are not above a bit of plot devicing.

September 2009: Lambs to Libya

Fresh from Lanark, I can safely say that the star of the show was not me, or the gorgeously-attired knights of Tourney, or the brilliant Covenanters and Roundheads with their big, bangy cannons. The star of the event was our spit-roasted lamb.

We had mothers rushing up to take pictures to show their absent weans just what had to be done to real meat before it was shrink-wrapped for the supermarket. We had youngsters of both sexes turning their noses up – and one or two wishing they’d never seen it, because now they’d had the equivalent of eating the Eden apple and were planning to turn veggie. We had more than a few demanding to know if it was real.

Even to me, who has experienced this before, this year seemed to highlight how increasingly detached from reality folk seem to be getting. Like the Megrahi business, for example, which has now spawned all sorts of US vitriol against Scots and whose denizens – if you believe the media, who love to hype a good headlining story for as long as possible – are now cancelling holidays, refusing to buy our whisky and renouncing their much-loved ‘Scotch ancestry’ – in favour of, it would appear, the strangely interchangeable Irish. What happens if the Irish annoy them – do they suddenly discover they are Latvian? French? Or, God forbid it, American?

Anyway, regardless of whether you believe the right or wrong of Kenny MacAskill, I feel I have to point out that he is not, as we all suspected, the finest politician money can buy. He is a fiercely patriotic, grimly determined dominie, the 21st century incarnation of that dogged old Scottish teacher-cum-preacher who will stick to the rule of Law and the Will of God without fear or favour.

If it says in the Book that Ye will free the dying on grounds of Compa-shun, then that is whut we will dae. There will be a great wailing and gnashing of teeth, but we will dae it. Fur those without – teeth may be provided.

Now we have the equally reality-divorced US website Boycott Scotland rearing up on its hind legs to bark demands on Americans to stop filling up with BP, because clearly the UK and Scotland is more greedy for oil than to see justice done for the American dead in Lockerbie. Now there’s a breathtaking hypocrisy on so many levels, from the two allegedly oil-inspired invasions of Iraq to the fact that there were also Scottish dead in the disaster, to the reality that Scots are still dying on behalf of the US-inspired fight against terror in Afghanistan.

No more breathtaking, of course, than the shadowy FBI guy who came out of the closet long enough to castigate us for freeing a convicted criminal. The new evidence that will now not be heard in court because Megrahi had to drop his appeal, openly criticises the FBI case, points out the gaping flaws in it, the outright tampering with it and the fact that fellow security organisations in the US came up with considerably more credible scenarios as to who was responsible. Yet it was FBI evidence, from a department headed by this guy, which convicted Megrahi.

No matter. The deed is done and we will live with it and Scots are, in general, unfazed by US venom – why are we, as a nation, responsible for saltires waved by Libyans (the conscensus was that they had ‘Burley Must Go’ on the side we didn’t see) or for the policies of politicians, any more than the US can be held responsible, as a nation, for the policies of Bush or Obama?

Boycotts? I suspect the whisky will still flow – I see no let up in the addicts whacking heroin up them simply because it is grown by the Taliban. I suspect the Scottish universities, such as St Andrews, will still get their huge influx of US students, that BP will still be filling up American cars and that no US citizen will consider giving up phones, television or penicillin, simply because they are tainted by Scotland.

In short, America – geez peace.

No. Really …

August 2009: Addressing the haggis

I have just come back from swinging a sword at Burghead in the far north of Scotland and I am getting ready to swing another in Lanark at the end of the month. After that comes Largs, with a side order of Lindisfarne. All brilliant venues, steeped in history, where we, as a re-enactment group, can extend ourselves to entertain and educate – which is just as well, it seems, since we are battling against considerable Force of Darkness.

Celeb chefs and movie stars.

Most of us know that Hollywood's version of history leans more towards fiction than fact – that’s what historical fiction novelists depend on when they actively court the almighty dollar movie deal. The big problem, of course, is that the kids don’t get it. Suspending belief used to be the best part of being five to fifteen – but today’s kids, sophisticated wee Nintendo souls that the may be, have pushed the envelope of that up to about twenty-five, in my opinion, mainly through ignorance.

A study has found that pupils retain the dodgy history in films shown in class as the truth, even if they have been taught the real version of events. This shows, at once, that the research is American, since schools in the UK hardly have history classes at all, never mind ones likely to show you a movie like Amadeus, or U-571 or Braveheart.

Yes, I am spot on – Washington University in St Louis has discovered that a generation of American kids is growing up believing Mozart was a spoiled brat, that the US captured the Nazi Enigma code machine (not the British), and that Wallace was a short-arsed little Antipodean with an alleged anti-Semite tendency and a drink problem.

The study included nine Hollywood historical dramas with obvious blunders, from the slave rebellion saga Amistad to Cate Blanchett’s Elizabeth, The Last Samurai and others. Worst of them all were Braveheart and The Patriot, two class examples of crass history starring, yes, Mel Gibson - who, it seems, is to history what Genghis Khan was to world peace.

I have no argument with the findings – I heartily agree, in fact, never having seen a Viking film which did not make me cringe. Even the very best of Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis is deeply flawed in authenticity. Perhaps The War Lord – the role Charlton Heston was born to play, even more so than Ben Hur, in my opinion – comes closest.

But let’s not lose sight of the fact that this is entertainment; this is what historical fiction writers do and the fault does not lie entirely with those who have taken liberties – albeit, I have to hold up my hand and state that Wallace supposedly shagging the Queen of England in a hut in the woods is a step too far, even for me.

The true fault lies in the inability of the weans, from five to twenty-five, to differentiate between the history and the fiction – mainly because they are not tuaght enough of the latter. Even when they are, the value of showing Hollywood epic movies as an unqualified teaching aid is beyond me.

This is why today’s kids think Churchill is a dog who sells insurance and that Colombo discovered America. It is also why the self-serving can get away with dishing up load of offal rubbish.

Catherine Brown, Scottish food writer and Herald coumnist has caused some consternation by citing the first printed reference to haggis as being in a book called The English Hus-Wife, from 1615 – well before the first Scottish mention, in 1747, and 171 years ahead of Robert Burns's paean to the ‘great Chieftain o’ the puddin’ race’. Brown says the book, by Gervase Markham, indicated haggis was first eaten in England before being popularised in Scotland.

Naturally, the Scottish great and good have reared up on their hind legs and started braying about it. Passionate in their defence, not one has come up with a decent rebuff, even though it is staring them in the historical face.

Haggis actually began life as Norse dish called ‘slatur’ - sheep innards tied up in sheep’s stomach and cooked. The Norse, of course, left a considerable legacy in Scotland and England, and this dish is still an Icelandic staple for the same reason it was in Dark Age Britain – cheap and available quantities of ingredients. Namely sheep and oats.

It comes in two varieties: the black (Bló_mör), which is made from blood, and the white (Lifrarpylsa), which is made from livers. Sometimes the slatur has been pickled with milk and, in these modern times, some sick, perverted sadists put raisins in it – or, even worse, sugar. Neither is recommended.

First written reference? The Prose Eddas, circa 1220AD.

July 2009: A Limerick limerick

There was a young man who fell sick
And had to be cured in Limerick
He went to the place
To see to his face
And he’s still there, aged 106

No joke – southern Irish hospitals make the NHS look like the Starship Enterprise and if you ever are faced with the choice of being attended in A&E or being flown home at vast expense, sell the first-born and take the flight.

I know this because, as the only still-sober one left, I drove a colleague to one to have his eye seen to, a precaution because he was a diabetic and had – ironically, after all the sword and axe swinging that had been going on earlier – sat down by the campfire and managed to get a spark of turf (peat to you and I) right in his eye.

It was treated expertly on site, but diabetics are always paranoid about their eyes so, when he was asked if he wanted to go to the hospital, he said yes. How long could it be, after all? We would all be back in a couple of hours, having a laugh and more Guinness.

EIGHT HOURS later, we staggered out into the first rays of a new, brilliant summer dawn. I don’t know about his eyes, but mine were pissholes in the snow, as you can see from the accompanying picture – even for a Viking that looks like a man who has had a hard life. By 8am I was heading for my sleep. By 11am I was armed and fighting; it was not a glorious performance.

Apart from that, the Glasgow Viking trip to Bunratty was astounding – more power to Fingal Living History lads for providing drink, Irish stew and some top craic as well as a good series of combats in the unrivalled setting of a beautiful summer weekend in the grounds of Bunratty Castle.

It was memorable also for the characters in A&E. I know such places have a wealth of aliens in them, but Limerick’s were notable for their stoical acceptance of the wait and the amiability of their drunks. I can’t imagine many A&E departments that can lay claim to that.

It also seems to be a popular meeting place. Halfway through the night, a herd of taxis drew up and vomited out paw, weans, uncles, cousins and brothers, all wailing and weeping for their mother, newly dead of a heart attack. In the A&E they met a family friend, nursing his burst nose where the next-door neighbour had banjoed him. They were all joined by an aunt and another sister, in their dressing gowns and PJs, who were already resident in the hospital and the wake got under way.

A drunk then insisted I was a Hari Krishna, having spotted the freshly-shaved napper of Yours Truly and the long Viking tunic. Presumably he thought the beard rings were part of the Krishna tradition.

After he had sung the theme tune a few times, his mates pointed out that not only was I not Hari Krishna, I was possibly exactly the opposite. Still, he wasn’t getting it and sidled alongside to peer owlishly at me, then invite me to try and convert him. I told him what I was once again, in words of one syllable, as you would to a child, a dog … or a Limerick drunk. He nodded as if he had taken it all in. There was a pause, then he looked at me with desperate seriousness.

“How can ye be so sure about yer religion?”

Eventually, he was dragged away and peace reigned until the arrival of the identikit Rab C drunks with bandaged heads and the weeping party girl with her mascara down her cheeks and her boyfriend down for surgery.

I got back to the Viking camp at 8am, with the sun full up and even the sight of the diehard drunks still singing like maniacs round the half-roasted pig on a spit seemed like home after all that I had witnessed.

Fecking brilliant, Fingal – there’s enough material in that one trip for a library of books.

Equally surreal is Jim Fogarty, a graphic specialist from Orkney who not only does excellent custom work on cars, trucks and guitars, but wrote to me to ask if he could name a jetski The Fjord Elk and use the Oathsworn as the theme for decorating it.

Turns out that the jetski is to be used in a round the UK challenge in aid of cancer charities and I was blown away by the work Jim has put in. Check out his website and see what I mean.

June 2009: Last of the Oathsworn

Summer has hatched at last and the Vikings are on the move – last week we did a show at Dufftown in 26 degrees of heat wearing wool, helmets, swords, shields, the lot. At least now I know, first-hand, what my Oathsworn must have felt like in the Middle East deserts of The Wolf Sea.

The hot summer nights meant we could sleep practically under the stars, certainly in the authentic sail tents – and opposite the Glenlivet Distillery, which helped Sandie and Jim Gillbanks celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. Balvenie and Eton Mess (crushed meringue, rasps and double whipped cream) did nothing for the following morning’s performance and I suspect that the star turn was watching us try to move a Portaloo down a hill before the official opening.

The reason for Eton Mess? I was sent to forage for double-cream to put in the hand butter-churn and, after an hour of fruitless pumping that left her with an arm like Popeye, the churner was red-faced and furious to discover I had bought double-cream with 33 per cent fat removed. Not to self – low fat cream will never make butter.

At the end of the week, a longship of UK Vikings sets off to Norway and the annual festival at Karmoy (mentioned before in this blog) and the week after that sees the bulk of Glasgow’s finest Oathsworn off to Bunratty – less the new mums. We are breeding a new generation, with two babies practically at the same time – congrats to all concerned.

My thanks, too, to Paul Carpenter, the leather-worker who was making a shield to celebrate the Oathsworn books. Much to my surprise and delight, he turned up at Dufftown and presented it to me and a work of art does not begin to describe it. I am in awe of the man’s talent and generosity and, if you want to know more, check it out here:
http://www.mtn-m.co.uk/html/adventure.html

The paperback of The White Raven is due out soon, so look out for that – look out, too, for the new cover (click the image for larger version). What was wrong with the old one? Nothing, as far as I could tell – except that a certain supermarket chain didn’t like it and such is the way of things that they can get it changed. Not that the new one is bad – on the contrary, I think I prefer it. See what you think See if you can guess why the supermarket didn’t like the old one  - and, if you do, let me know, because I am buggered if I do.

The Prow Beast (Book 4) is now at the printers and I am quite sad to see the last of the Oathsworn – but the excitement of working on the new trilogy is equally strong.

May 2009: The Not-So-Great Circle

He has always struck me as an anthropological phenomenon, the modern equivalent of that medieval creature which has one large foot – though David Starkey’s talent is sticking the digit in his mouth.

He has form for it, usually when he is desperate to self-publicise, so you should not really bother too much when Starkey, right, calls Burns a deeply boring provincial poet, or tells us that the bagpipes suck as well as blaw (I am not too far away from him on this latter; they are only joyful when played well).

But Dave’s playful comments, flippantly made on BBC’s Question Time, are extremely revealing – and not because of the nasty lick of racism flicking dangerously close to them.

No, his comments were made in response to a question about supporting St George’s Day as an English public holiday, opening a debate on the whole issue of English national identity.
Dave’s take it on was that, to go down that route made England ‘a feeble little country like the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish’. The sadness in that is that Dave still thinks England is a great big country and does not need a national identity. The truth is, of course, that England’s national identity was once the dominant force of the British Isles, lording it over the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish.

Now that this no longer pertains, England is discovering that it might have been a good idea to have a national dress, national music and the sort of 19th-century sense of identity Dave denigrates.

The problem is that Dave, when he looks up at all, sees a Tudor England ruled by a fat, bearded misogynist king, a country with all its greatness still ahead of it.
Poor deluded, one-trick pony that he is.

I mention this because it is an old argument, as I have been discovering in the murky underbelly of 13th century Scots/English politics. I surface from it every now and then; and each time I do I discover that we are, it seems, condemned to repeat history because no bugger was taking adequate notes first time round.

Like Wallace, for example. No sooner do I finish reading accounts of his travesty of a trial in 1305 than I discover that Scots are still demanding a recount – and are as unlikely to get it now as then.

Two miscarriage-of-justice watchdogs have formally ruled that the name of Scots hero William Wallace can never be cleared. The body that examines potential miscarriages in Scotland was asked to review the 700-year-old conviction – but the  Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission has decided it has no jurisdiction over the London court that found him guilty of treason. This is called, in legal terms, booting the hot potato somewhere else.

The SCCRC's English counterpart, The Criminal Case Review Commission, said it would not review cases such as Wallace's because of tougher appeal court rules south of the border. This is legal terminology for ‘right back at ye, ye Scotch gits’.

Ironically, the Pilate washing his hands of it in Scotland is Gerry Sinclair, chief exec of the SCCRC. I have just finished reading about his illustrious ancestors, particularly the Sir William Sinclair who died gloriously defending the heart of Bruce en route to the Holy Land. Now known in sepulchral terms as Spinning Billy.

Nothing is new, it seems. There is an old argument raging in Caithness which has echoes of an older time – locals have decided they don’t want all those road and street signs in Gaelic. Don’t like them, can’t see the point of them.

I have to admit to a personal interest here – we have them in Largs and I have yet to bump into a Gaelic speaker other than Kevin the Builder and he is actually from Skye. Largs did host the Mod one year, I remember, but events are hazy, much like the folk who came for it. They could have been speaking Serbo-Croat for all anyone was sober enough to know but, peculiarly, everyone got along chust fine, another Macallans will be very acceptable, thank you very much.

Caithness is due to host next year’s Mod and the inevitable tutting and head-shaking about their suitability is occupying the douce folk of the north.

I wouldn’t worry. Gaels have been hating those Norman-French Lowland incomers for 800 years and vice versa. In the 13th century, Scotland was divided by Gael and Lowlander right along the line of The Mounth – the Grampians as we know them now – and not much has changed. We were also divided by incomprehensible braid Scots even from one side of the country to the other – nothing has changed. We were divided on class – nothing has changed. We were divided by political factions – nothing has changed. We were united by a suspicion and downright dislike of the English.

I leave you to answer that last one – but bear in mind that, in 2709, we will probably be failing to answer the same questions, unless someone has found a crayon and is taking furious notes.

April 2009: What not to ask

THERE is a point in the season when it becomes apparent that Spring has uncoiled. In my home town it is the arrival of Buggies, the kiddy-car ride which parks itself on the seafront from the time the first daffs appear until the time the lashing waves force it to evacuate. At this point, you know your town now belongs to bikers and tourists.

Similarly, the Vikings also have a season which can truly be said to start with the Training Weekend, which is where everyone blows the dust and rat-turds off their winter-stored weapons and kit and heads for a still-muddy field somewhere in central England, easily reached by re-enactors from Land’s End to Caithness.

This year it was in Walesby, Notts, which has the advantage of having the world’s biggest Scout camp, complete with camping facilities, dorms and even a pub. In my day, yer Scout drank cocoa, but it seems the modern one prefers Guinness.

The Training Weekend is where the newbies – encouraging to see we have so many of them – get to learn from the oldies, while having a chance to officially pass the tests necessary to get them fighting the rest of us on the field. And you thought our Health and Safety was simply toning down the Odin-bellows so as not to scare the weans.

Since it comes at the end of a long winter of inactivity, the Training Weekend could easily become a prime target for enterprising stalls selling bandages and bruise ointment. Better, the reasoning goes, to get the blood and limping out of the way while we are out of the way of the public, who tend to become upset at the sight of real blood. Well, the parents do. The kids want a matinee repeat.

In the end, the only serious casualty was one of my own – a Glasgow Viking called Stu, who managed to find himself on the wrong end of an inept spear and ended up having the muscle underneath his eye severed. He is, I am assured, fully recovered of his sight, though it was a worry for a while.

The result is, of course, that the handling of spears in combat, always tricky to srart with, is now under closer scrutiny, which is all well and good.

What I wish was under closer scrutiny was the public. I think we should invite them to Training Weekends and educate them in avoiding the Irritating Questions, also known as Ignoring the Bleeding Obvious.

A sample poll of the UK’s finest Vikings came up with this collection from last year’s shows. Remember – these are not all kids asking.

Is that a real fire? The smoke and ash was a dead giveaway, I thought.

Is that the same baby as last year? Not sure if the woman who asked this thought it was a blow-up one we kept in a box...

Is that a real fish you're gutting? This to a woman covered in blood, guts and fishscales. 

But if all the Viking men wore jewellery, were they all just poofs, Miss? Small schoolboy.

Now boys and girls, this is what life was like in Viking times and it doesn't look very nice, but then the Romans came and made everything better.  Primary school TEACHER, whose degree was clearly not in History.

In Viking times, children, school is where monks take boys and girls into little rooms and do things with them. Primary school teacher whose degree was clearly not in political correctness.

Is that a real person? Small child pointing at Glasgow Viking’s Einar the Black, model for the one in The Whale Road. Mind you, he did have a point…

Is that a real fish you're cooking? Plastic ones tend to melt and smell terrible. Having said that, the mackerel on a spit was not of the best quality either.

Did the Vikings and Romans have nails? This to our smith – the infamous Einar the Black, whose reply has probably destroyed all semblance of SATS tests in history: 'Naw, son, they gaffer-taped Christ to the Cross'.

Did the Vikings have metal?

Did the Vikings have colour?

Why did the Vikings become extinct? An eight-year-old. Actually, a very GOOD question. Asteroids are not the answer.

Are ducks ok? I mean are they authentic? Shamefully this came from one of the Vikings, obsessed with getting the composition correct at the recent photo shoot. You KNOW who you are.

Special mention must also be made of the organiser at Largs who thought to brighten up the Viking Village by introducing some livestock so brought in a rabbit - not introduced to Britain until the time of the Normans, three hundred years later. Not only that, it was white with pink eyes. So we put it in enclosure of straw bales, threw in a skull and some meat bones and stuck up a sign warning everyone to Beware Of The Killer Bunny. It was removed shortly afterwards.

So, there you have it. Now all of us, Vikings and audience, are ready for a new season. And you can see us soon, on May 2 and 3 at Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Museum. They are having an Arms and Armour Day, so we will be showing what the well-dressed warrior wore in Pictish, Viking and Medieval times in Scotland.

Don’t miss it – we have all been training hard.

March 2009: Old truths and new lies

It has to be grant-scrambling time at the universities and it seems news of the credit-crunch has filtered through to the ivory towers. This can only explain the sudden rash of statements of the bleeding obvious pronounced by academics recently, from both Cambridge and St Andrews.

Dr Julian Luxford from the University of St Andrews, pottering about in Eton College, has come up with a 550-year-old manuscript in which a monk – wait for it – declares that Robin Hood was not a nice man.

Dr Julian said: "The new find contains a uniquely negative assessment of the outlaw, and provides rare evidence for monastic attitudes towards him.”

Ignore the fact that Hood may or may not be a myth and may or may not have lived during the time of this manuscript, which is that of Edward 1, Hammer of the Scots. The fact that he robbed from the rich and did not give to the poor is scarcely going to be much a revelation, even to rabid fans of Errol Flynn or Kevin Costner.

Dr Julian is not alone in his trumpeting. Dr Máire Ní Mhaonaigh is a nice, smiley person who can be found at http://www.asnc.cam.ac.uk/people/senior/mmhaonaigh.htm with an impressive list of credentials. I point this out so you will understand that, when the doc pronounces with all the weight Cambridge’s Department of Anglos-Saxon and Norse Studies you have to take it seriously.

The good doctor has announced to the waiting media, that the Vikings were not rabid rapists, pillagers and berserkers. They was, she declares at a conference she is  co-organising, a "cross-fertilisation" of practices, including Anglo-Saxon communities adopting Norse names. "They were mutually transformed in the process, it was two-way interaction," she said. "Those who settled had to become different, and adapt to the society around them and learn to communicate with each other."

So far, no argument from me. I only have to question why this has been punted out to The Independent, the Telegraph and the rest of the gasping press as if it was something new.

This, for serious scholars of all things Norse and Anglo-Saxon, has been common currency for 20 years. Along with the myth of the horned helmet, it has been something said serious scholars have been trying to point out to legions of interested re-enactment visitors, primary school weans and others who think Up Helly-A is accurate and The 13th Warrior a documentary.

She enthuses: “What is clear is that the popular picture of Vikings is not quite as it seems, and when viewing their long-term presence, it is quite untrue. The communities were mutually transformed in the process. Of course, there was plundering and pillaging, but those who started to build camps and started to settle began interacting in a very different way."

She adds a for instance - King Amlaib, who settled in Dublin in the 10th century, became a Christian and was venerated by the local poets. Not, perhaps, the best of choices.

King Amlaib is actually Olaf Sithriccson – Amlaib is the Irish bastardization of his name – who got thrown out of York despite getting baptized, then went to Dublin and tried to endear himself to the people there by adopting a few of their habits, notably their sandals and Christianity. He became known as Olaf Cuaran (Irish-Shoes) and neither his footwear nor his politically-inspired baptisms helped him a jot, since he eventually ended up out on his ear and fled to the nearest refuge, which happened to be Iona. There, about two seconds before he died, he became Christian. Again.

Not a lot of cross-fertilisation in that and one presumed the venerating local poets were typical praise-singers of their day – a good silver arm-ring spawns a deal of fancy saga.

But her most telling statement in all this is reveals more of why this has excited the media.
"It's a good historical model when a relatively small number of people can adapt into a complex, sophisticated society," she said.

Whoa – wait a minute. I can understand the new touchy-feely, tree-hugging,  21st century Viking as revisionist history and dismiss it in same vein – but the Vikings as model multiculturalists? A benchmark for getting along with your neighbours that the ethnically-divided  21st century can embrace?

Away and bile yer heid. It is bad enough that the Norse suffered the bad press of medieval monks which gave them the rape and pillage image in the first place, but now it seems that, a thousand years later, they are about to be handed a bad press image of being pioneers of mutual acceptance.

There was no mutual acceptance. There was a long, painful assimilation.

On December 2, 1002 every Dane living in England was slaughtered by order of King Ethelred, who was not as Unready as all that, it appears. The St Brice’s Day massacre does not show a love-thy-neighbour culture at work in England. Nor did the subsequent invasion by Sweyn Forkbeard in revenge. After that, you have a Norse culture in England, slowly hybridising with the Anglo-Saxons until the arrival of the Normans in 1066 – themselves Vikings long since assimilated into Frankish culture.

Bottom line - there are no Vikings living today. There are only place-names. There is no Viking language, only a whispered mystery of sagas on faded runestones, as dead as Latin. There is no-one in any street, in any town that you can point to and declare ‘Viking’. Except, perhaps, the one with Dupuytren’s Disease, which is a gradual contraction of the fingers and is called the Viking Disease because it is a hereditary condition which occurs most often in close-knit families of Northern European descent.

In short, the Vikings came, saw, conquered and then faded into the background. End of story.
Is this the future of multiculturism, the Valhalla a troubled 21st century world should aspire to?

February 2009: No Christ please – we're British

God help us – if I am still allowed to say that... I was recently accused, by my nearest and dearest, of living in the Middle Ages far too much. I had been feeling guilty about the truth of it – but not now. I have just surfaced from a long immersion in early medieval researching to find that the real world seems to have gone… well, medieval.

There I am, detailing the meticulous horror of the early days of the Order of Preachers, better known as the Black Friars and better known still as the Domini Canes, the Hounds of God. Given permission to counter heresy, schism and paganism – a wide and sinister brief – the Dominicans flourished.  It comes as no surprise that the first Grand Inquisitor of Spain, the notorious Torquemada, came from their ranks.

I have been moving through their world, where church walls are luridly painted with vivid depictions of Hell, complete with demons vomiting fire, writhing serpents and screaming sinners pitchforked to the feet of a savagely grinning Lucifer. Counterposed to this is the agony of Jesus, suffering on the Cross for our sins.

Back in the 21st century, I discover that a new Inquisition is under way, where the Crucifixion is ‘putting people off’ and the Cross itself is now considered too radical and likely to upset.

St John’s Church in Broadbridge, Heath has removed a 10ft crucifix and plan to replace it with a new stainless steel cross. The Reverend Ewen Souter said: “Children have commented on how scary they find it and how off-putting they find it as a symbol outside the church. As a key exterior symbol for us it was putting people off rather than having a sense of hope and life and the power of the resurrection.”

Ah. Scaring the weans, was it? Perhaps, then, they should have had a nice friendly scene from, say. Grand Theft Auto. Some mofos offing some other mofos with baseball bats. Something the kids of today can relate to in a non-threatening, non-violent, non-sectarian sort of everyday way.

Meanwhile, Community nurse Caroline Petrie has been threatened with disciplinary action by her local primary care trust because she committed the sin of asking a 79-year-old patient if it was all right to say a prayer for her.

Even Coronation Street covered up a crucifix in a church wedding, in case it caused offence. To whom? Not sort-of atheists like me. No Odin-worshipper I know is hacked off. No mad Loki fire-leaper in my circle of friends is offended – after all, the struggle between pagans and Christians has been going on for millenia in the north and, if it looks like the Christians are losing the belly for the fight, my pagan friends merely note it with an I-told-you-so nod.

Of course, it isn’t pagans the PC Domini Canes fear. It is… whisper it… the other diverse ethnic cultures of our country. Hindus. Sikhs. Muslims. Who are not, in my own circle of friends and acquaintances, bothered any more than the followers of AllFather. In fact, they are bemused, if anything.

It seems the PC brigade and the Church have forgotten the ideals that made the 13th century houses of God a combination of education, terror and entertainment. It is now socially unacceptable to believe in God (though Allah still has a certain cachet here and there, I am told).

So anyone standing up and declaring “I am a devout Christian. . . accepting Jesus Christ in my life has been a powerful guide for my conduct and my values and my ideals” is likely to get the PC Domini Canes of this country howling round their ankles for being a Bible-thumping, right-wing evangelical wierdo, and will be dragged down into the acceptable.

They may have trouble. Those are the words of President Barack Obama, currently idolised in Britain by the very same people who, in the name of cultural and religious diversity, would hide the crosses and muffle the prayers.

On a much more uplifting note – a fan, Paul Carpenter, introduced himself and his family to me recently at a show and asked permission to use the Oathsworn in pursuance of his leatherworking hobby. I did and thought no more of it. Now comes this splendid shield, complete with runes. I am stunned by the work and effort that went into it – and all the other crafting he does. Check out more of it at www.mtn-m.co.uk

January 2009: Bard to the bone

SO Burns is a misogynist, racist drunk. Not Rabbie Burns at all, but Rab C. Burns, according to historian and author Michael Fry, who now says that Burns is hardly a role model for the 21st century: “It is only right to mark Burns’ 250th anniversary in a literary sense,” he declares fruitily. “But in 2009 his example, in a practical sense, could well send Scotland straight down the tubes. Are there not, at the very least, other heroes preferable for a period of adversity? It is difficult to see Burns as an inspiration for testing times.”

Is this the same Michael Fry who was a former rampant Tory and is now a fervid Scottish Nationalist? A self-described 'bon viveur'? The man who has already annoyed politicians and historians with his claims that the Highland Clearances were 'greatly exaggerated'?

There are, it seems, few who can stand as role models for the 21st century – but let’s give it a whirl. Here are ten of Scotland’s finest from history.

SAINT COLUMBA

You can hardly go wrong with a saint – this is the man who founded Scottish Christianity and is probably elbowing St Andrew at the head of the Top 10 Scottish Saints queue. What better role model could you have for young men in the modern era?

Apart from the copyright dispute, that is. And the mass killings.

It seems Colum Cille tried to diddle his teacher, Finnian of Moville, out of a manuscript in 560AD. The subsequent quarrel escalated into the Battle of Cúl Dreimhne the following year in which as many as 2000 soldiers lost their lives. Almost excommunicated as a result, Columba was chucked out of Ireland and went to Iona – the first place he came to from where he could not see Ireland.
Different days, different ways – the history of Irish monasteries is one of frequent clashes. The monks were always at each other’s throats over some difference or other, so Columba WAS a role model for his time.
 
WILLIAM WALLACE

Once you get past the Mel Gibson image – which itself is based on Blind Harry’s epic, rambling verse in impenetrable old Scots – you find that there is little documentary evidence for Wallace’s career prior to him killing Heselrig, the Sheriff of Lanark and burning the town, this starting the southern Scottish rebellion of 1297.

Lanercost calls him “a certain bloody man … who had been chief of brigands in Scotland” - but that is an English view. In fact, the only documentary evidence for the time is a court document which reveals that, in August 1296, a disreputable cleric, Matthew of York, was found guilty of robbing Christina of Perth in that town, of goods, chattels and beer to the value of 3s. With him in the dock was his partner in crime, a certain William le Waleys. Not exactly a role model for 21st century youth.

The now popular evaluation of Wallace is of an ex-soldier turned outlaw who found himself at the focal point of a Scottish rebellion against the English and, when his competent mentor Sir Andrew Moray died after the victory of Stirling Bridge, was propelled to the fore. Out of his depth with the command of large armies and in dealing with the nobility, he made a mess of the return match and fled the country.

Different days, different ways – out of all the Scots commanders of the day, Wallace was the only one who was focused on fighting the invaders rather than power-struggling with rivals and a man who never compromised with the enemy. Not a bad role model for the time. Or now.

ROBERT THE BRUCE

Scotland’s hero king, one of the perfect knights of Christendom. Did that thing with an axe on a charging knight at Bannockburn. Led Scotland to victory and freedom.

Mind you, he also changed sides and betrayed Wallace in 1297, then changed back again after Stirling Bridge. Changed again after the Scots' defeat at Falkirk. Changed back in 1302, in return for a wife (Elizabeth de Burgh) and a lot more land. Finally plotted his own elevation to the throne and, if he did not personally take part in it, was in collusion with those followers who murdered his only rival, the Red Comyn, Lord of Badenoch.

A dissembling, untrustworthy murderer then. Different days, different ways - Bruce maneuvered and plotted his way ruthlessly to the throne of Scotland and was, as a result, a role model for the young, thrusting knights of his time.

Out of that came years of independent peace, the Declaration of Arbroath as a model for the US Delcaration of Independence and a legacy that persists to this day, of the one battle the Scots won convincingly and with lasting results – Bannockburn.

BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE

The subsequent romantic longing for this last attempt at Scottish freedom has created the memory of the brave, handsome young Scottish hero, surrounded by equally romantic kilted Highlanders, with blue bonnets and broadswords and natty plaids.

However … Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Silvester Severino Maria Stuart was born in Rome, spoke French and would not have known a Highlander if one had sat on his face. Which he might have liked, allegedly.

Came to Scotland in 1745 as the great hope of those who wanted rid of the House of Hanover. Fled to France one year later when, despite a string of Scots victories, it became clear that England had little sympathy with a lisping French-speaking Italian born Stuart.

Lived with his mistress, a Scots woman called Clementine Walkinshaw who eventually left him because of his drinking and abuse. Married an Austrian Princess, who eventually left him because of his drinking and abuse.

Different days, different ways – he took to drink with the collapse of the cause he and his father before him had devoted their lives to, and became that most pathetic of irrelevancies – an exiled, unwanted Royal Pretender. This, in fact, is the least attractive role model for young men of any age – yet Michael Fry holds Cherly up as a reasonable alternative to Rabbie Burns.

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS

Wilful, beautiful and ruthless, Mary Stuart was an unrepentant Catholic in a country of Protestants, next door to another Queen, Elizabeth 1. Mary was also unable to resist a handsome face and paid for it in the long run – her first choice, Darnley, became such a liability (and murdered what was possibly her second choice, David Rizzio, in front of her) that it is alleged she conspired to blow him up, aided by her third choice, the Earl of Bothwell.

When the subsequent uproar forced her to flee to England, it resulted in 19 years of captivity and her eventual execution as a liability the increasingly paranoid Elizabeth could not endure.

Different days, different ways –both were top women in a relentless man’s world and it is interesting to see that the winner was the woman who kept men at arm’s length. A good role model for young females of the 21st century faced with those neds attempting to embrace the Burns philosophy but without any of the poetic talents.

ROB ROY 

Red McGregor, the Scottish Robin Hood is, like Wallace with Mel Gibson, now irrevocably linked with Liam Neeson. The film with Neeson as the hero is the popular story of Rob Roy – a cattle dealer betrayed, wrongly accused and forced into being an outlaw, to be hunted by the villainous Montrose.

The truth is that Red McGregor helped invent blackmail – the term was originally ‘black meal’, the ‘meal’ part of it being a Scots term for rent. It was what cattle dealers paid Rob Roy and his men as protection against cattle raiders. Since Rob Roy was the one doing the cattle raiding, he could guarantee the safety of a paid-up herd. A self-professed patriot, he contrived to arrive late for the 1715 rebellion and wriggled himself off the subsequent treason list.

Different days, different ways – the Highlands of the late 17th, early 18th centuries was a hard place to make a living and Rob Roy was the original dodgy trader, a wheeler-dealer who, in the 21st century, would be flogging knock-off designer trainers and pirate CDs down Glasgow’s Barras. Not a good role model – but a more accurate reflection of credit-crunch life in the 21st century.

SIR WALTER SCOTT

A contemporary of Burns, he was Scotland’s lion of letters and Europe’s most popular novelist during most of his lifetime, overcoming childhood polio to become the author of such classics as Waverley, Ivanhoe, Quentin Durward, Redgauntlet and others. And yet…

Mark Twain hated him, claiming it was because the Southern States had so embraced Scott’s romantic ideals of battle that they plunged themselves into the American Civil War. In fact, Twain went on to ridicule such chivalry in A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, where the main character frequently declares ‘Great Scott!” In the Adventures of Hucklberry Finn, a riverboat called the Walter Scott sinks like a stone and drowns three crooks.

Closer to home, we have Scott to thank for the present-day kilted image of Scotland; he organised the visit of King George IV to Edinburgh, which resulted in the monarch being put in a Dayglo tartan kilt worn over pink tights and everyone else suddenly acquiring spurious ‘Clan Tartans’. Different days, different ways - he was the father of the historical novel and a man who fought vigorously, in 1826, against English plans to prevent the production of Scottish banknotes of less than five pounds value.

Thanks to him, we kept the £1 note and have a tartan industry that keeps the tourists flocking in. Dragon’s Den entrepreneurs would hold him up a role model in any era.

 
DAVID LIVINGSTONE

Scottish Congregationalist pioneer medical missionary, African explorer and scourge of the slave trade. Surely the rags to riches story of a wee scruff from Victorian Blantyre who became a missionary martyr, scientific investigator, African explorer and anti-slavery crusader MUST be an inspiration for any age?

We will overlook, surely, his abandoning his family to follow his obsessional exploring of the Dark Continent, and how his desperate wife died of malaria trying to follow him. There will be a good explanation as to why the famous anti-slavery campaigner accepted help and hospitality from slavers from 1867 onwards in order to stay in Africa.

We will overlook the fact that he failed in every mission he undertook save the one which captured the imaginations of clucking Victorian Imperialists at home and helped lead to the subsequent British colonisation of black Africa.

And let us not forget his contribution to bringing the benighted native souls into the embrace of Christianity, an astonishing tally of … ONE convert in all his time in Africa. Who was later refused communion because he tried to get back his previously disowned second wife.

Different days, different ways – his travelling in Africa was comparable to a modern-day trip to the Moon and, like those astronauts, he captured the spirit of the age.

JOHN BUCHAN

First Baron Tweedsmuir, soldier, spy, governor-general of Canada, historian, product of Hutchy Grammar in Glasgow, GCMG, GCVO, CH, PC – oh yes, and dabbler in writing, The 39 Steps being the most famous in a canon which includes Prester John, Greenmantle and Huntingtower. Have I forgotten something? Oh yes - anti-Semitic, racist and jingoistic, allegedly.
Different days, different ways – in the elevated generation of the 30s and 40s, anti-Semitic, racist and jingoistic views were perfectly acceptable, nay applauded.
 
There you have it – the legend swallows all, as Michael Fry is no doubt aware. Different days, different ways …

Read Robert's 2008 entries