The Sheriff of Nottingham - A Medieval Myth?

 

Image from "Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves."

The Sheriff of Nottingham – A Medieval Myth?

We remember the Sheriff of Nottingham, the ultimate medieval ‘baddie’, enemy of Robin Hood, played with vigorous style by Alan Rickman in “Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves.”

 

No records give this man’s name, only his title, yet there never was a sheriff of Nottingham. So did this un-named villain exist?

 

One clue is in the title “Sheriff”, meaning shire-reeve, the reeve (royal officer) of the shire.

 

A further clue to the genesis of this myth is the fact that there was a High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and the Royal Forests, appointed by the Crown by the Normans soon after the Norman Conquest of 1066.

 

The Forest Laws were a Norman import, imposed upon Anglo-Saxon Laws and customs, and very much despised by the conquered population. The Forest Laws were a means by which the King could extend his rule, eagerly used by monarchs to do just that. They could be imposed on more than woodland or forest, and the High Sheriff, the creature of the King, was hated as an enforcer of arbitrary, sometimes brutal laws. Forest Laws were intended to reserve the red and fallow deer  and the boar for the King and the aristocracy – and no one else. Dogs, apart from guard dogs, were forbidden in forest areas, and people were forbidden to carry hunting weapons. William Rufus, the son of William the Conqueror, increased the severity of the laws in the royal forests to include death and mutilation. Such sentences seem to have rarely imposed, but such laws caused resentment.  

 

King William II Rufus died in the royal New Forest, struck by an arrow. Political assassination or an angry local, furious at the laws?

 

Another reason why the foil of Robin Hood was a sheriff was because, in history, so many sheriffs or high sheriffs were bad lots. Philip Mark, sheriff from 1209 to 1224, Henry de Faucemberg (!318 to 1319) and John de Oxenford (1334 to 1339) were all corrupt, robbing and extorting with a will. ‘Gentlemen’ gangs of younger sons of the landed gentry, trained for battle and with no lands to inherit, took readily to robbery and more. Men such as the Folvilles and the Coterels actively recruited royal and other officials to help them murder and steal. In 1335 Nicholas Coterel was even made bailiff for the High Peak District of Derbyshire, the ultimate huntsman-turned-gamekeeper!

 

Given the danger for breakers of the king’s laws, poachers in the royal forest areas were often celebrated and praised. Few who benefited protested, especially if they might receive a share of fresh, tasty meat.

 

 

Woodland, forests and hunting feature in many of my medieval stories. I have Magnus, the hero in “The Snow Bride” involved in an assassination attempt in northern woodland during a hunt, and Conrad, the hero of “Sir Conrad and the Christmas Treasure” is a steward of the forest high lands. I speak of poaching, hunting and magic done to aid both in my novel, “The Master Cook and the Maiden”. All three of these novels are available on Amazon and free to read through Kindle Unlimited. Why not give them a try?

 

"The Snow Bride"

"Sir Conrad and the Christmas Treasure." 

"The Master Cook and the Maiden." 

Lindsay  

 

 

 

 

Witch-Craft in the Middle Ages. Excerpt of Magic Working from "The Snow Bride".

In the Middles Ages, belief in magic was strong. Many practised magic in the forms of good-luck charms, and in the wearing of certain plants to ward off bad luck. Witches were both feared and revered. I use this fear/respect in my novel, "The Snow Bride" to build tension and to show my heroine Elfrida as a warrior like my hero Magnus. In her case, she is a warrior of magic.

 

From "The Snow Bride"

She is Beauty, but is he the Beast?

THE SNOW BRIDE (THE KNIGHT AND THE WITCH 1) https://amzn.to/2MZZan0    

UK  https://amzn.to/2H1tYzY

EXCERPT https://bit.ly/2yV95Cb

REVIEW https://bit.ly/38ynFzh 

Excerpt  

“Are you a witch?”

Elfrida, sewing on the sleeves to her younger sister’s best dress as they sat together on the bench outside her hut, felt fear coil in her belly like hunger pangs. Keeping her eyes fixed on her needle, she answered steadily, between stitches, “I am my own master, ’tis all, without a husband. Have any in the village been troubling you?”

“Oh no, Elfrida, but I was thinking.”

Elfrida tugged another stitch tight, her needle flashing like a small sword in the bright evening light. “Does your Walter call me so?” she asked carefully.

She glanced up. Christina was blushing very prettily, her light-blue eyes brighter than cornflowers when set against her pale-blue veil, white skin, and primrose hair. Lost in admiration, and quite still for a moment, she heard Christina admit, “We do not talk much. Well, I do not. Walter calls me kitten and we kiss.”

Christina and her betrothed could be found kissing all over the village, so that was no surprise.

“Yet still.” Christina pressed a well-bitten fingernail to her rose-petal lips. “Our dam was a witch.”

“She was a wisewoman, Christina.”

“Our father was a wizard.”

“A healer and dowser,” Elfrida patiently corrected.

“And you are all of that, of those things, I mean.”

Elfrida fastened the final stitch and knelt beside her sister, crouching back on her heels in the snow. Christina was not usually so fretful.

“Walter loves you very much,” she said after a space, “and you have a good dowry.”

A good dowry it was, of cloth she had spun and ale she had brewed, cheeses she had made, and silver pennies she had earned by her healing and dowsing. Since her earliest childhood, Christina had longed to be married, with a hearth and children of her own, and Elfrida had striven to keep her safe and happy. She was the eldest, so it was her duty, and she had promised their parents, on their deathbeds, that she would do so.

“But will the priest marry us?” Christina was biting another fingernail.

“Today is the very eve of your wedding, little one.” Elfrida tugged gently on her sister’s dress. “This is your wedding gown.”

“He has preached against redheads.”

“You are no redhead, and Father John’s sermon was on modesty for women,” Elfrida replied. Her sister was not a redhead, but she was, and redheads were rumored to be witches. “He said that for a girl to be unveiled was to be as brazen as a redhead. He took my healing ointment, too.” She tugged gently a second time on Christina’s dress. “Walter will be here to see you after sunset. Would you have him see you in your gown?”

Her sister ignored her question and pouted. “He will be late. He is coming here only after a meeting with his old men, and you know how they go on!”

“Did he say what the council was about?”

Christina shrugged. “He may have done, but I was not listening then.” She colored prettily. “Will you comb my hair again?”

Elfrida silently rose, kicking the snow from her faded, red gown—one that had belonged to their mother—and eased the wooden combs from Christina’s pale, shimmering hair. As she gently teased and tugged and Christina’s breathing slowed, Elfrida thought of the council.

 

Excerpt of Elfrida working her witch-craft.

 

“She is the third!” Walter had cried out, beating his fists against the walls of their empty hut. “The third in her wedding garb, and the most beautiful: one black-haired, one brown, and my Christina!”

He had refused to say more, even when Elfrida had threatened to curse him, but his outburst told her what he and the elders had been hiding from the village women. The brute who had carried off Christina had kidnapped other pretty young girls, also dressed in their wedding gowns. He stole brides.

I will dress myself as a bride and return here with my own wedding feast, with food and drink in abundance. Let him think me a bridal sacrifice, his red-haired bride, left for him by the village. And, by Christ and all his saints, this time I will be ready for him!

It is a blessing I am a healer and have so many potions ready prepared. If I put sleeping draughts in the wine, food, and sweets, surely I can tempt the beast to take some? I can smear tinctures of poppy on my skin and clothes, so any taste will induce sleep.

Sleep, not death, for she had to know where he had taken Christina.

I will coax the truth from the groggy monster, and then the village men can have him.

Part of her knew she was being wild, unreasonable, that she should talk to Walter, tell the villagers, but she did not care. Talk would waste more precious hours, and they might even try to stop her. For her sister she would do anything, risk anything. But she must hurry, she must do something, and she had little time.

It was full dark before Elfrida was finished, midnight on the day after the start of Advent, two days after Christina should have been married. She shivered in the glinting snow, her breath suspended between the frosted, white ground and the black, star-clad sky.

She glanced over the long boulder she had used as an offering table for her wine and food, not allowing herself to think too closely about what she had done. She had lit a small fire and banked it so that it would burn until morning, to stop her freezing and to keep wolves at bay, and now by its tumbling flames she saw her own small, tethered shadow writhing on the forest floor.

She would not dwell on what could go wrong, and she fought down her night terrors over Christina, lest they become real through her thoughts. She lifted up her head and stared above the webbing of treetops to the bright stars beyond, reciting a praise chant to herself. She was a warrior of magic, ready to ensnare and defeat the beast.

“I have loosened my hair as a virgin. I am dressed in a green gown, unworn before today. My shoes are made of the softest fur, my veil and sleeves are edged with gold, and my waist is belted in silver. There is mutton for my feast, and dates and ginger, wine and mead and honey. I am a willing sacrifice. I am the forest bride, waiting for my lord—”

Her voice broke. Advent was meant to be a time of fasting, and she had no lord. None of the menfolk of Yarr would dare to take Elfrida the wisewoman and witch to be his wife. She knew the rumors—men always gossiped more than women—and all were depressing in their petty spitefulness. They called her a scold because she answered back.

“I need no man,” she said aloud, but the hurt remained. Was she not young enough, fertile enough, pretty enough?

Keep to your task, Elfrida reminded herself. You are the forest bride, a willing virgin sacrifice.

She had tied herself between two tall lime trees, sometimes struggling against her loose bonds as if she could not break free. She could, of course, but any approaching monster would not know that, and she wanted to bait the creature to come close—close enough to drink her drugged flask of wine and eat her drugged “wedding” cakes. Let him come near so she could prick him with her knife and tell him, in exquisite detail, how she could bewitch him. He would fear her, oh yes, he would...

She heard a blackbird caroling alarms and knew that something was coming, closing steadily, with the stealth of a hunter. She strained on her false bonds, peering into the semidarkness, aware that the fire would keep wild creatures away. Her back chilled as she sensed an approach from downwind, behind her, and as she listened to a tumble of snow from a nearby birch tree, she heard a second fall of snow from a pine closer by. Whoever, whatever, was creeping up was somehow shaking the trees, using the snowfalls as cover to disguise its own movement.

A cunning brute, then, but she was bold. In one hand she clutched her small dagger, ready. In her other, she had the tiny packet of inflammables that she now hurled into the fire.

“Come, husband!” she challenged, as the fire erupted into white-hot dragon tongues of leaping flame, illuminating half the clearing like a noonday sun. “Come now!”

She thrust her breasts and then her hips forward, aping the actions that wives had sometimes described to her when they visited her to ask for a love philter. She shook her long, red hair and kissed the sooty, icy air. “Come to me!”

She saw it at the very edge of her sight—black, huge, a shadow against the flames, off to her side, and now a real form, swooping around from the tree line to her left to face her directly. She stared across the crackling fire at the shape and bit down on the shriek rising up her throat.

The beast stepped through the fire, and she saw its claw reaching for her. She heard a click, off to her right, but still kept watching the claw, even as the fire was suddenly gutted and dead, all light extinguished.

Darkness, absolute and terrifying, smothered her, and she was lost.

Lindsay Townsend 

Hunting. A Medieval Passion.

                Hunting. A Medieval Passion.

 

 

 

Hunting in Anglo-Saxon England was a pastime for the rich. Spears, nets, horses, men and dogs were often needed.  Of the bigger hunted game, wild boar were extremely dangerous, most of all when cornered and brought to bay, but they were seen as worthy adversaries. The god Woden was a god of hunting and the god Frey rode a boar called Gullinbursti.

 

As a sport, hunting was mostly for the well off. However the forests were largely free for landowners and their people to gather wood, honey and fruit and to pasture animals. Rights to woodland, heath, moorland and wetlands were shared by all by ancient custom.

 

1066 and the conquest of England by the Normans saw a massive change in the law. King William appropriated huge tracts of land as hunting preserve—the New Forest being the most famous.  In such areas the law was forest law, a new import into England, and bitterly resented, being regarded as oppressive. All game was protected and reserved for the king and his nobles.  There were deer parks, enclosed stretches encircled by stakes and earthen banks, costly both to set up and to maintain. Breeding and training dogs for the chase were also expensive. Edward III spent about £80 a year (around £49,000 in modern money) keeping a pack of hounds of various types. Costumes for the hunt were often specially made and favourite hounds might have silver collars.

 

Hunting was frequently portrayed in art and in literature. The month of December was often shown in illuminations, symbolized by a deer or boar hunt.  In the poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”  there are several hunting scenes, each vividly described.

 

With all this tasty food and opulent display, the nobles were keen to gain royal grants so they could also hunt on their lands. Although both lords and ladies hunted, tracking and killing large prey was seen as a form of single combat, man against beast, and a means to train young warriors for war. Because of this martial association priests were not supposed to hunt or hawk, although these strictures were often ignored.

 

Those less than noble despised the changes. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle complained that the Norman King William I  “set aside a vast deer preserve and imposed laws concerning it….Whoever slew a hart or hind should be made blind.”  On his death in 1087, the Chronicle broke into verse:

“For he loved the stags as dearly

As though he had been their father.”

The death of his son and successor, William Rufus,  within the New Forest, was seen by later chroniclers as divine punishment for driving so many off the land to accommodate the beasts of the chase.   

              

               In these circumstances it is perhaps not surprising that many folk turned to poaching in the woodland to eke out their diet and to defy the authorities. The fact these poachers were successful  is shown in the statue of 1390, which stated that any artificers, labourers or peasants with lands worth less than £10 a year (around £7000 in modern money) could not hunt deer, rabbit or hares. Still poaching went on—Robin Hood hunts in the greenwood as a gesture of defiance and to supply himself and his men with venison from captured deer. Perhaps it tasted particularly sweet?

 

Hunting could also be a cover for assassination – as is suspected in the death of William Rufus by way of a hunting “accident”. I used the same threat in my novel “TheSnow Bride”, where the hero Magnus has to go hunting with his enemy, Denzil.

 

Excerpt.

 

Out in the forest, Magnus glanced so often at the sun’s position that Gregory Denzil chaffed him. “Eager for the night, Magnus? That luscious redhead is a trophy, before God, and we all envy you!”

His men added more, which embarrassed even Mark and set Magnus’s guts grinding in slow fury. Keeping his countenance was easy. His scars meant most men had trouble guessing his mood. Except for Elfrida, of course, but she was unique.

“I remember you with that blonde from Antioch,” Denzil added, “but this new one is better.”

“Elfrida is not for sale,” Magnus repeated. He hated to sully her name by speaking it in such company, but Denzil and his men had to learn. He gripped his spear, a flash of memory returning him to Outremer as he saw in his mind’s eye a Templar screaming in agony as a spear passed through him. “Where is this rich game?” he demanded, snatching at any diversion and wishing only for the night. Elfrida in his arms again and him seducing her, kissing her in her most secret place...

He heard a faint click and creak behind him and knew at once it was a bow and arrow being readied and aimed. There was no game in the wastes and thickets of hazel ahead, so he must be the target.

Before he completed his conscious thought, he had reacted, dragging his left foot out of its stirrup and head-butting down into the snow, not considering the speed of his cantering horse or where he might land. Snow-crusted brambles snagged and broke his fall, and as he urged his flailing limbs to roll away, he felt the vane of the arrow score the top of his shoulder, where the middle of his back would have been.

“Maaagnusss! Areee yeee weeeeelllll?”

Gregory Denzil’s question crawled from his mouth as the world about Magnus slowed into thick honey. As his jaw crunched against a branch and threatened to loosen more teeth, he felt a trickle of blood run into his eye.

He compelled his sluggish body to sit up, a devil caught in a thicket. He knew he would make that picture, and he grinned, raising an arm to his men and yelling, “Hola! What a ride!”

Denzil and his mob nudged their horses closer. Mark had already leapt from his own with his hunting spear aimed at Denzil's throat. Magnus stood up, cursing with all the oaths of Outremer he could remember, and looked around him. His own men were honestly puzzled, while Denzil's wore expressions of studied innocence.

“Not a good time for archery practice,” he said. All good fun, all men together.

Denzil smiled thinly. “A fool, too eager for sport.”

“Indeed.” As an assassination attempt, Magnus rated it as poor to moderate, but Gregory Denzil had always been lazy. And in the clustered mass of hunters, he saw no skinny stranger with distinctive rings.

“Time to go on?” he asked, knowing if he suggested it, Denzil would say the opposite, which he did.

“We go back.”

 

 Lindsay Townsend 

Settings and how writers can create and use them. Lindsay Townsend

Function of setting.

1.  A well-drawn setting stops any story from taking place in a void. It gives a place, a view, a time.

2. Setting throws more light on characters by showing how a particular character reacts to a particular setting.

3. Setting can inform and illuminate a story’s character. An African may react differently or see different things in a setting, landscape or situation than an alien from out of space. Keep in mind your characters’ age, sex and culture when they react in a setting or are brought up in that setting.

4. Setting can suggest or heighten mood and atmosphere. It can add a contrast to your character’s inner or outer conflict or mood. It can symbolise a state of mind—so, for example, a man wrung out with guilt plodding through a stormy, bleak landscape. It can add poignancy to a moment by either addition or contrast. (Your hero/heroine feels like death and a butterfly has just landed on their hand and then fluttered off. A mother who has just lost a child watches other toddlers and mothers playing happily in a park.)

5. Setting can drive the action, adding conflict. A character can be stuck on a hillside with an avalanche underway or a lightning storm brewing or a big snow coming. Your hero/heroine may be being chased and the landscape itself is a problem— there is no clear track, it’s dark, dank and slippery underfoot, the terrain is relentlessly flat or severely  steep, while moonlight helps to show your people up like Christmas trees. The setting can add to their difficulties and at times become almost a character in its own right.

Use all senses to evoke setting and spirit of place, that is sight, sounds, smells and taste. Remember always to describe a setting through the viewpoint of one of your characters and to describe it in the way that your person would view it. For example, a wildlife photographer will notice the different creatures and plants in a setting and know their names. A small child may not understand the potential dangers in a landscape. A man who has already dragged himself through scrub and thorns may be vividly aware of his thirst and pain and little else. Keeping in mind your character’s interaction with the setting  will make the scene more alive to your reader and your character either more sympathetic or hateful. (If you have a noble watching a thin, ragged child tiredly washing clothes in a stream or tub and the noble is obsessed with how clean his lace is going to be when the child is finished.) 

Don’t have too many changes of setting or scene in a short novella or you run the risk of confusing your reader. Think about setting in stages. It might be useful to jot a few images down first and then feed these through the story as your viewpoint character feels and hears and reacts within the setting in which you’ve placed them. 

Points to think about when drawing up a setting.

1. What can your character see on the skyline? What’s in the distance? What are the distant sounds? Is there any wind? Do sounds or smells float on the wind? 

2. What time of day is it? If at night is there a moon or stars? What kind of weather is it? What season of the year? Are there any seasonal animals or flowers or any seasonal activities evident? 

3. What can character detect from middle-distance? Are there sounds? Sights? Both should be more distinct, firmer, perhaps more of a threat if the setting is adding to conflict.

4. Close-up sights, particularly colour and movement. Blaring sounds - or soft but thrilling sounds. Taste. Scent. Cold. Rain. Wind. Scorching sun. Frost.  Remember, as I’ve mentioned before, it’s people and living things that make a setting, not buildings. Go easy on the socio-political comment even in a political short story. Comment by symbolism and suggestion - show how characters are deprived or empowered. How they speak and react and dress will all show and add to setting. They too are part of a landscape.

When describing a setting, it’s not usually a good idea to blurt it all out in a big spill on the first page. (In ‘The Return of the Native,’ Thomas Hardy does it with Egdon Heath, where that landscape is a symbol and character in its own right, so a writer can do so, but it’s unusual in genre fiction.)  Thread it through the story, odd touches and gleams here and there, like a carving in a wood panel. Use adjectives and verbs that heighten the scene and mood and unless it’s a deliberate device, be consistent. So if you’re describing a tranquil setting, keep it tranquil till you want to grab the reader with a shock. 

Have your character doing something within that setting, something pertinent and interesting. Readers are charmed by ‘insider’ knowledge and by skill, so if your character can weave or smithy or line-dance or flower arrange or stargaze or gut fish or carve or shovel or knead and plait bread - any task that’s a bit different to filling a kettle and settling down for a cuppa or crossing a room for that ubiquitous sherry or whisky - will grab their attention and keep them engaged. Once ‘hooked’ you can guide them through the setting via your viewpoint character, pointing out whatever is relevant by way of plot or contrast or mood.

In this excerpt from my "The Snow Bride" I have my main female character, Elfrida, trying to use her witch-craft to recover her missing sister Christina. In this setting the harsh winter echoes Elfrida's bleak and desperate mood.

She is Beauty, but is he the Beast?

THE SNOW BRIDE (THE KNIGHT AND THE WITCH 1) https://amzn.to/2MZZan0

UK  https://amzn.to/2H1tYzY 

EXCERPT https://bit.ly/2yV95Cb 

REVIEW https://bit.ly/38ynFzh

Excerpt.

“She is the third!” Walter had cried out, beating his fists against the walls of their empty hut. “The third in her wedding garb, and the most beautiful: one black-haired, one brown, and my Christina!”

He had refused to say more, even when Elfrida had threatened to curse him, but his outburst told her what he and the elders had been hiding from the village women. The brute who had carried off Christina had kidnapped other pretty young girls, also dressed in their wedding gowns. He stole brides.

I will dress myself as a bride and return here with my own wedding feast, with food and drink in abundance. Let him think me a bridal sacrifice, his red-haired bride, left for him by the village. And, by Christ and all his saints, this time I will be ready for him!

It is a blessing I am a healer and have so many potions ready prepared. If I put sleeping draughts in the wine, food, and sweets, surely I can tempt the beast to take some? I can smear tinctures of poppy on my skin and clothes, so any taste will induce sleep.

Sleep, not death, for she had to know where he had taken Christina.

I will coax the truth from the groggy monster, and then the village men can have him.

Part of her knew she was being wild, unreasonable, that she should talk to Walter, tell the villagers, but she did not care. Talk would waste more precious hours, and they might even try to stop her. For her sister she would do anything, risk anything. But she must hurry, she must do something, and she had little time.

It was full dark before Elfrida was finished, midnight on the day after the start of Advent, two days after Christina should have been married. She shivered in the glinting snow, her breath suspended between the frosted, white ground and the black, star-clad sky.

She glanced over the long boulder she had used as an offering table for her wine and food, not allowing herself to think too closely about what she had done. She had lit a small fire and banked it so that it would burn until morning, to stop her freezing and to keep wolves at bay, and now by its tumbling flames she saw her own small, tethered shadow writhing on the forest floor.

She would not dwell on what could go wrong, and she fought down her night terrors over Christina, lest they become real through her thoughts. She lifted up her head and stared above the webbing of treetops to the bright stars beyond, reciting a praise chant to herself. She was a warrior of magic, ready to ensnare and defeat the beast.

“I have loosened my hair as a virgin. I am dressed in a green gown, unworn before today. My shoes are made of the softest fur, my veil and sleeves are edged with gold, and my waist is belted in silver. There is mutton for my feast, and dates and ginger, wine and mead and honey. I am a willing sacrifice. I am the forest bride, waiting for my lord—” 

Her voice broke. Advent was meant to be a time of fasting, and she had no lord. None of the menfolk of Yarr would dare to take Elfrida the wisewoman and witch to be his wife. She knew the rumors—men always gossiped more than women—and all were depressing in their petty spitefulness. They called her a scold because she answered back.

“I need no man,” she said aloud, but the hurt remained. Was she not young enough, fertile enough, pretty enough?

Keep to your task, Elfrida reminded herself. You are the forest bride, a willing virgin sacrifice.

She had tied herself between two tall lime trees, sometimes struggling against her loose bonds as if she could not break free. She could, of course, but any approaching monster would not know that, and she wanted to bait the creature to come close—close enough to drink her drugged flask of wine and eat her drugged “wedding” cakes. Let him come near so she could prick him with her knife and tell him, in exquisite detail, how she could bewitch him. He would fear her, oh yes, he would...

She heard a blackbird caroling alarms and knew that something was coming, closing steadily, with the stealth of a hunter. She strained on her false bonds, peering into the semidarkness, aware that the fire would keep wild creatures away. Her back chilled as she sensed an approach from downwind, behind her, and as she listened to a tumble of snow from a nearby birch tree, she heard a second fall of snow from a pine closer by. Whoever, whatever, was creeping up was somehow shaking the trees, using the snowfalls as cover to disguise its own movement.

A cunning brute, then, but she was bold. In one hand she clutched her small dagger, ready. In her other, she had the tiny packet of inflammables that she now hurled into the fire.

“Come, husband!” she challenged, as the fire erupted into white-hot dragon tongues of leaping flame, illuminating half the clearing like a noonday sun. “Come now!” 

She thrust her breasts and then her hips forward, aping the actions that wives had sometimes described to her when they visited her to ask for a love philter. She shook her long, red hair and kissed the sooty, icy air. “Come to me!”

She saw it at the very edge of her sight—black, huge, a shadow against the flames, off to her side, and now a real form, swooping around from the tree line to her left to face her directly. She stared across the crackling fire at the shape and bit down on the shriek rising up her throat.

The beast stepped through the fire, and she saw its claw reaching for her. She heard a click, off to her right, but still kept watching the claw, even as the fire was suddenly gutted and dead, all light extinguished.

Darkness, absolute and terrifying, smothered her, and she was lost.

Lindsay Townsend 

Love & Magic in the Middle Ages

Love and magic in the Middle Ages

Imagine you're a young medieval lady and a young man creeps up, whacks you three times over the head with a hazel stick inscribed with the magical incantation pax+pix+abyra+syth+samasic and tries to kiss you. It sounds a touch desperate these days, but in the Middle Ages this was seriously suggested as a way for a man to get a woman to fall in love with him.

Medieval lovers tried subtler ways, too - spells, charms, amulets and potions - to win the affections of those they desired, all in defiance of the church, which objected to magical interference with a man's or woman's free will.

Love magic was practised and feared by all sections of medieval society, including royal courts. This is reflected in the stories of the time. In the romance of Tristram and Iseult, the couple fall in love because they accidentally drink a love potion intended for Iseult and her betrothed, King Mark. In the story The Two Lovers, composed in the late 12th century by Marie of France, a suitor must carry his beloved up a high mountain before he can marry her. Too proud to drink the magic potion that will give him strength, he completes his quest by the power of love - even though he dies of exhaustion afterwards!

A possibly Viking love spell that has passed into folklore in northern England is a custom where on certain nights unmarried girls chant: 'Hoping this night my true love to see,/I place my shoes in the form of a T'. T surely stands for Thor, the Norse god for storms and also for marriage, the idea being that the girl would then dream of her future husband.

Men and women in the Middle Ages also believed in a multitude of herbs and spices to bring them luck in love. Caraway was used in love potions, as were cloves, coriander and mallows. Garlic and ginger were believed to inspire lust and so good sex. Valerian mixed with wine was claimed to make even the most pure woman lustful. And in Italy, women would wash their eyes with the diluted juice of the deadly nightshade to increase the size of their eye pupils and appear more beautiful (which is why nightshade is known as belladonna.)

In medieval England guests to a wedding would bring small cakes and pile them into the middle of the table. The bride and groom would try to kiss over the cakes for good luck.

In northern Europe, it was the custom to supply a newly married couple with enough mead for a month, to ensure their happiness and fertility - hence our term 'honeymoon'. If a man had problems with virility in bed, it was often assumed he was bewitched and the couple was advised to remove any evil charms that might be placed under or near the bed, such as the testicles of a rooster. Once these were removed, the man should be free of the curse. To drive a woman wild with desire, it was believed that mixing ants' eggs into her bath would do the trick. Hmm.

You can see and read about more medieval magic and beliefs in my novels, TheSnow Bride and A Summer Bewitchment, where the heroine Elfrida is a witch and hero Magnus a warrior. You can see more Viking magic in my novel The Viking and the Pictish Princess and read romances inspired by medieval ideas of midsummer magic in the anthology One Midsummer's Knight.

The Snow Bride 

A Summer Bewitchment

The Viking and the Pictish Princess 

One Midsummer's Knight 

Lindsay Townsend

Flowers and Romance and how I use them in my writing.

Flowers and Romance – Excerpts. Plus how I use them in my writing.

THE SNOW BRIDE (THE KNIGHT AND THE WITCH 1) https://amzn.to/2MZZan0    

UK  https://amzn.to/2H1tYzY                    

I often use flowers and seasons, and the folklore and symbols attached to these, as ways to point out contrasts in my stories. So in “The Snow Bride” I have the harshness of winter set against my heroine and hero’s dreams of summer – a clue to their developing feelings and relationship. The Green Man, too, is an old figure in folk lore and a powerful symbol of rebirth and renewal - a sign of Magnus' own changing circumstances.

Excerpt

                                                               

They plodded another mile, then Magnus admitted they should stop. Even on the old west road, which they had stumbled onto at midnight, going was onerous. The horses were weary, heads down, stumbling, their hooves covered in snow. When the snow turned to a biting sleet, everyone had endured enough.

          Before him Elfrida was silent, uncomplaining, though God knew she must be chilled and weary. It was she who noticed the forester's hut, set back from the road behind a holly tree. She tapped his arm to alert him and he called orders to the others, his voice cracking in the cold.

          The forester, whoever he had been, had abandoned the hut, but it was just big enough for them all. Magnus knocked out a panel of wattle to enlarge the door and they brought the horses in.

          While he made a fire just inside the doorway Elfrida slipped off into the darkness. When she returned the men had bedded down and were chewing whatever rations they had with them. Magnus patted a lump in the floor beside him, close to the fire, and she lay down without a sound.

          Magnus rose and put what remained of the door back across the threshold as a barrier and wind-break. Checking it was secure, he knocked the snow off his cloak and stretched out again beside Elfrida. As soon as he closed his eyes he slept, and dreamed.

          It was summer and he was in a pleasure garden. Protected by a stout stone wall, it was bordered by fruit trees and ripening vines and filled with small sparkling fountains, the like of which he had not seen since his return from Outremer. One fountain played over a turf seat studded with marigolds and daises. Magnus ran his fingers through the damp flowers and he heard a woman sigh with contentment, a welcome sound.

          Elfrida always knew when she was dreaming and this time was no different. It was midsummer and she strolled in an orchard filled with fragrant apple blossom. She carried a twig of mistletoe, its waxy berries still in impossibly fresh bloom. Above her head finches darted and sang and bees buzzed in lazy contentment, dusky with pollen. There was a hay stack beneath an oak tree and a green man smiling at her though the heavy white-green pomanders of a guelder rose. 

          "You have a gentle, courteous touch, Sir Magnus."

          Elfrida sighed again and stretched out on the turf seat. Where she lay down roses sprouted and burst into flower, their petals as soft and flawless as her skin. She smiled, and in the wonder of the moment Magnus could not tell if she was clothed or not. From a blower of white and pink rose petals, she held out her hands to him and smiled a second time, trusting and warm, her bright eyes filled with admiration. "Come."

          The green man sprang down from the branches of the guelder rose and became Magnus. He bowed to her, a warm breeze ruffling his black hair curls. "My Lady."

THE SNOW BRIDE (THE KNIGHT AND THE WITCH 1) https://amzn.to/2MZZan0    

UK  https://amzn.to/2H1tYzY

In the sequel to "The Snow Bride", I use medieval beliefs to explore how flowers could be used in magic and for more sinister purposes than courtship. 

A SUMMER BEWITCHMENT ( THE KNIGHT AND THE WITCH 2) https://amzn.to/2SxGj5L Amazon Co Uk  https://amzn.to/352aAfD
In"A Summer Bewitchment", Elfrida explains to Magnus about valerian.

Excerpt

Outside in the warm, still evening they walked arm in arm, both carrying panniers, and Elfrida shared what she knew of the stranger with Magnus. He in turn told her what he had learned of Rowena from the priest. It was, she thought, strangely companionable, but she wished they were speaking of less dark, mysterious matters.

“Valerian is a magic plant,” she explained, skirting carefully around a flowering elder bush. “It has many uses. One is as a lure. To seduce.”

“And the hare’s foot?” Magnus nodded to the elder bush as he stalked by, a grudging acknowledgement. “The rosemary I know from you is a guardian against evil spirits, so is that good?”

“Because he protects himself from demons and the like does not mean he is not evil himself.”

“Well spoken! The stranger’s mention of a Holy Mother?”

“The hare protects him from all danger. It is a creature of magic. The mother he reveres may be the Virgin, but he worships her in older ways.”

Magnus raised his black brows in silent inquiry.                              

“The wreath he leaves in thanks and sacrifice, of valerian and elder blossom, marigold, wild thyme and daisy, is made of flowers pleasing to the older gods. I have seen such posies left at ancient standing stones and statues, at rock carvings of the horned god.”

As flowers are often seen as decorative and signs of peace, healing, love and respect, I wished to show a scene where my heroine Elfrida also uses them as instruments of revenge. She and Magnus have been deliberately insulted at a noble's house by Elfrida being offered a gown to dress in that is little more than a rag. She uses flowers gathered from the common land to transform it.

Excerpt  

“These are beautiful.” Elfrida meanwhile was lifting up stems of corncockle, of oxeye daisies, of lilies and white roses. She gave him a look warm with gratitude. “Truly beautiful living jewels.”

He smiled, to prove he was not aggrieved with her, and watched in burning indulgence. Flowers flashed under and through her nimble fingers, a cascade of whites and purples, shot through with gold. Elfrida was charming them, using her magic to pin and fasten the blooms to the dull brown gown. In moments, as he leaned against the door, ignoring another careful knock, she threaded flowers into sleeves and made a belt of lilies worthy of Solomon. Her face glittering with concentration, she stripped the roses of their thorns and fashioned them into a crown.

“My lord.” A plea beyond the door.

“Hold!” Magnus ordered, his cheek against the wood.

When he twisted round again Elfrida was robed in her gown and plaiting her long hair. “Splendor

Wild Rose

 in…” The oath died on his lips. At times his wife’s beauty was almost unearthly, utterly peerless. How? He wanted to ask, but it was Elfrida herself and what she could do.

The brown dress was transformed, enchanted by the woman wearing it and her flowers. She was a living tapestry, her face that of an angel’s, her unveiled hair brighter than a dragon’s flame and crowned by white and pink roses. Sleeved with oxeye daisies and corncockle, belted by lilies and garlanded with golden marigolds, the sweet fragrance as she moved was rich as the summer itself.

There were even flowers for him, Magnus realized, as she secured a spray of oxeye daisies across his chest.

“Hey!” he half-protested, but she wagged a busy finger. “Today, you are my lord of flowers. These are your banner.”

A SUMMER BEWITCHMENT ( THE KNIGHT AND THE WITCH 2) https://amzn.to/2SxGj5L Amazon Co Uk  https://amzn.to/352aAfD

 Lindsay Townsend