WEBVTT 00:08.910 --> 00:11.370 Gary: Welcome back to the Medieval Archives podcast, the 00:11.370 --> 00:14.670 podcast for medieval news, history and entertainment. I'm 00:14.670 --> 00:18.150 your host, Gary, a.k.a. the Archivist. In today's lesson, 00:18.150 --> 00:20.520 we're talking about origin, myths and early medieval tales 00:20.520 --> 00:24.440 of Britain, with Dr. Amy Jeffs and Amy's first book, Story Land. 00:24.450 --> 00:27.420 She examines the origins of Britain from Noah's flood to the 00:27.420 --> 00:30.180 Norman invasion. And there are some great stories to tell, 00:30.180 --> 00:33.360 including the incredible story of Albina, who ruled Britain was 00:33.360 --> 00:38.310 seduced by demons and gave birth to a race of giants. Her second 00:38.310 --> 00:41.370 book, titled Wild Takes You on a Journey from Desolation to Hope, 00:41.580 --> 00:44.310 through seven chapters of insightful reflection. She 00:44.310 --> 00:47.460 retells stories from medieval texts with vivid description and 00:47.460 --> 00:50.640 unique perspectives. Now, one of the standout elements of both 00:50.640 --> 00:53.970 books are the illustrations which Amy created in the episode. 00:53.970 --> 00:56.340 You'll find out how she created them and how the creation 00:56.340 --> 00:59.190 process helped her through the lockdown quarantine period we 00:59.190 --> 01:02.250 all dealt with. If you have any questions or comments or want to 01:02.250 --> 01:05.430 suggest a topic for the show, send those over to podcast at 01:05.430 --> 01:08.400 Medieval Archives XCOM. You can also leave us a message on the 01:08.400 --> 01:09.180 voicemail line. 01:09.480 --> 01:16.980 7207221066. You can find all the links to Story Land in Wild and 01:16.980 --> 01:19.620 Amy's social media and the show notes at medieval archives dot 01:19.620 --> 01:24.180 com slash 89. So let's get to the talk with Amy Jeffs and the 01:24.180 --> 01:25.380 origins of Britain. 01:35.040 --> 01:37.770 They were joined by a medievalist and art historian, 01:37.920 --> 01:41.970 Dr. Amy Jeffs, who's the author of two books on Medieval Britain. 01:42.120 --> 01:43.170 Thanks for being on the show, Amy. 01:44.040 --> 01:45.710 Amy: Thank you so much for having me, Gary. 01:46.020 --> 01:48.600 Gary: So your first book was Story Land, and that's the 01:48.600 --> 01:51.270 Origin Myths of Britain. But before we get into that book, 01:51.270 --> 01:55.140 what is your start in medieval history and how did you become a 01:55.140 --> 01:55.980 medieval historian? 01:56.400 --> 01:58.830 Amy: I always thought I'd go to art college. That was my kind of 01:58.830 --> 02:05.300 dream growing up. But then somehow sort of a paints made 16 02:05.310 --> 02:09.750 year old version of myself ended up going along to the open Days 02:09.750 --> 02:12.780 of Oxford in Cambridge at my school with taking us on trips 02:12.780 --> 02:18.780 to and I ended up sheltering from that. I think it was really 02:18.840 --> 02:21.360 it was really hot. And I went into Blackwell's bookshop in 02:21.360 --> 02:27.420 Oxford and out of curiosity picked up a book on old English, 02:27.570 --> 02:30.720 and I sat down and started reading it and was just 02:30.720 --> 02:34.080 entranced. And then the Cambridge Open day happened 02:34.080 --> 02:38.700 quite soon after that and a Ph.D. student read me. I went 02:38.700 --> 02:41.190 into the Department of Anglo-Saxon Norse and Celtic, 02:41.490 --> 02:44.670 which is a subject, a very niche undergraduate course. They offer 02:44.670 --> 02:48.990 that. So here in the UK, we we specialize very early on. We 02:48.990 --> 02:53.370 don't kind of continue with a broad range of subjects and we 02:53.370 --> 02:57.090 start university, we go straight in and, and there's a 02:57.090 --> 02:59.880 particularly specialist course in Cambridge called Anglo-Saxon 02:59.880 --> 03:03.420 Norse and Celtic, which is a little bit like classics for 03:03.420 --> 03:07.650 Northwestern Europe. And I went into that department and sat 03:07.650 --> 03:10.620 down with a Ph.D. student who read me a passage of Old Norse. 03:10.920 --> 03:14.520 And again, I was just my imagination was just completely 03:15.060 --> 03:18.990 ignited by this moment. And she was really cool. And I was like, 03:18.990 --> 03:23.610 Oh, this is amazing. So anyway, I applied and got in and just 03:23.610 --> 03:27.870 spent the most joyful two years studying old English language 03:27.870 --> 03:30.030 and literature, Old Norse language and literature, 03:30.390 --> 03:34.180 medieval Latin and a touch of medieval Welsh. Also. That was 03:34.210 --> 03:36.840 they offered a wonderful course called Code Ecology and Paleo 03:36.840 --> 03:39.180 Graffiti, which looked at the history of manuscript 03:39.180 --> 03:42.960 construction and book history as well as the history of scripts. 03:43.350 --> 03:46.620 And because it was in the Middle Ages, there was a very strict 03:46.620 --> 03:49.080 hierarchy of scripts and what you could or couldn't use for 03:49.080 --> 03:53.580 writing scripture and so on. And as that progressed, I became 03:53.580 --> 03:56.280 more and more interested in manuscript illustration and 03:56.280 --> 04:00.420 medieval art, and I started sitting in on lectures I didn't 04:00.420 --> 04:04.440 actually have to go to in the art history department on early 04:04.440 --> 04:08.580 medieval art and gone into inlaid jewellery and carved 04:08.580 --> 04:13.590 Wales bone caskets and just loved it so much that I jumped 04:13.590 --> 04:18.810 ship in my third year into art history, carried across much of 04:18.840 --> 04:21.390 many things that I'd learned about language and literature 04:21.720 --> 04:25.350 and medieval languages. I'd borrowed papers in old French 04:25.350 --> 04:30.360 and middle English. It just it just kind of all came with me 04:30.360 --> 04:33.210 into art history. And then I carried that on through to my 04:33.210 --> 04:37.500 master's and my PhD, which moved up from the kind of early 04:37.500 --> 04:42.660 medieval period into the 14th century, focusing on English 04:42.780 --> 04:46.560 illuminated manuscripts. And in the at the same time, I did an 04:46.560 --> 04:49.860 internship at the British Library on a digitisation 04:49.860 --> 04:57.630 project for manuscripts dating 700 to 1100 or 1200, I think all 04:57.630 --> 05:00.750 from England and France, and also digitizing pilgrims 05:00.750 --> 05:03.570 souvenirs and medieval badges at the British Museum. So the 05:03.810 --> 05:06.720 British Museum project really took me up to the Reformation. 05:06.750 --> 05:12.570 So over the course of my studies, I, I was had the great joy of 05:12.570 --> 05:16.920 covering literature, history, language, arts, as well as going 05:16.920 --> 05:21.090 from the kind of fifth century, from late antiquity all the way 05:21.090 --> 05:24.960 up to the Reformation. And that was that was just the most 05:26.010 --> 05:30.690 wonderful adventure and has informed everything I've done 05:30.690 --> 05:32.670 since. Even the washing up. 05:33.030 --> 05:36.060 Gary: Was always nice as a teenager going into university. 05:36.390 --> 05:40.500 Having someone that can inspire you or mentor you into the into 05:40.500 --> 05:43.170 the field that you want to go to service. And I said, you found 05:43.170 --> 05:43.950 that early on. 05:44.100 --> 05:47.820 Amy: Yes, it's you. It's just a string of marvellous teachers 05:47.820 --> 05:48.600 when you look back. 05:48.720 --> 05:51.780 Gary: And so your book storyline, I think is the origin of 05:51.780 --> 05:54.360 medieval Britain or I guess the origin of Britain in general. 05:54.850 --> 05:58.620 Yes. Why did you pick the origin of Britain through myths to 05:58.620 --> 05:59.400 write a book about? 06:00.030 --> 06:03.780 Amy: My Ph.D. was on a 14th century English manuscript 06:04.080 --> 06:06.930 written in Anglo-Norman French, the French that was being spoken 06:06.930 --> 06:12.750 in England after the Norman Conquest in 1066. And it it was 06:12.750 --> 06:16.290 all about where Britain had come from, its deep, deep, mythic 06:16.290 --> 06:19.980 history, but written in a really engaging way. It was it was in a 06:19.980 --> 06:24.480 verse form, so much more engaging than dense prose, and 06:24.480 --> 06:28.440 it had illustrations on still has still exists. It has 06:28.440 --> 06:32.550 illustrations on every double page spread which and they were 06:32.550 --> 06:36.420 really kind of my supervisor at the time said looked like it'd 06:36.420 --> 06:39.690 been illustrated in ketchup and mustard because it was a very 06:39.690 --> 06:43.740 scurrilous kind of scurrilous, swift dynamic, slightly messy 06:43.740 --> 06:48.860 illustrations. But they are that kind of movement to them and a 06:48.880 --> 06:51.840 great deal of pace because there's so many of them. And so 06:51.840 --> 06:55.320 I became interested in how the origins of Britain, these this 06:55.320 --> 06:59.040 origin myth that was based on a 12th century text by Geoffrey of 06:59.040 --> 07:02.610 Monmouth, of a big Latin prose text about where Britain had 07:02.610 --> 07:06.390 come from, Britain for Norman readers. I was interested in how 07:06.390 --> 07:09.930 that had been translated, abbreviated, illustrated in 07:09.930 --> 07:16.050 order as I argued to educate a young the young chivalric 07:16.050 --> 07:18.360 classes so people that were going to be going off and 07:18.360 --> 07:22.500 fighting or marrying people who were going to be going off and 07:22.500 --> 07:27.570 fighting. How these these stories kind of fired them up 07:27.570 --> 07:32.250 about being English or being Christian and how text and image 07:32.250 --> 07:35.250 did that. And so as I was writing up my thesis, I moved 07:35.250 --> 07:38.610 out of Cambridge. I went to a town in Somerset where there 07:38.610 --> 07:42.540 were a lot of artists, and I became interested in printmaking, 07:42.540 --> 07:47.280 and I started producing a series of illustrations of this text by 07:47.280 --> 07:49.620 Geoffrey of Monmouth of the Brute legend, as it's called, 07:49.740 --> 07:52.440 and it's called The Great Legend, because it begins with this 07:52.440 --> 07:56.070 character, Brutus, who's a refugee descended from refugee 07:56.070 --> 08:00.800 Trajan's, who founded Rome. And he he's exiled, accidentally 08:00.810 --> 08:04.650 killing his father, and he ends up receiving a prophecy from the 08:04.650 --> 08:05.490 goddess Diana, 08:06.930 --> 08:12.270 journeying where he tells him he's going to found a new Troy 08:12.270 --> 08:16.290 and a race of kings in an island in the western Ocean way on the 08:16.290 --> 08:18.450 edge of the world. So it's called the breach. After Brutus, 08:18.450 --> 08:22.190 he then names this island, Britain after himself. And and 08:22.350 --> 08:24.450 so I started illustrating it. And in the process of 08:24.450 --> 08:28.380 illustrating it, I became convinced of or received some 08:28.380 --> 08:31.380 helpful advice, telling me that these really were exciting 08:31.380 --> 08:34.800 stories in and of themselves. That Brutus is prophecy from the 08:34.800 --> 08:37.560 goddess Diana, his encounter with the giants that are 08:37.560 --> 08:40.470 indigenous and the island of Britain, formerly known as 08:40.470 --> 08:45.480 Albion here. The events that happen afterwards concerning the 08:45.480 --> 08:48.960 subsequent legendary kings like King Lear and his daughter 08:48.960 --> 08:54.180 Cordelia, like Arthur and his his counsellor Merlin will see 08:54.300 --> 08:57.900 the king before him is the Pendragon and his brother 08:57.900 --> 09:01.350 Aurelius. All of these stories were really fascinating because 09:01.350 --> 09:04.710 of how they mapped on to modern day Britain and just because 09:04.710 --> 09:08.880 they're great stories. So that's what the illustrations came from, 09:09.540 --> 09:12.510 which was really the nucleus for the book. And actually I should 09:12.510 --> 09:17.070 also say just for anyone just to introduce the book itself, how 09:17.070 --> 09:20.340 those illustrations worked then was that they would they each 09:20.670 --> 09:25.530 illustrate a fictional retelling of the medieval origin myth. So 09:25.530 --> 09:29.340 I've then I've cherry picked myths about where Britain came 09:29.340 --> 09:32.970 from, from a variety of sources, including Chronicles, but also 09:32.970 --> 09:38.580 saints lives and romances. And I've retold them as fiction in 09:38.580 --> 09:41.190 chronological order, starting from before Noah's Flood and 09:41.190 --> 09:44.100 running all the way up to the conquest, the Norman Conquest of 09:44.100 --> 09:48.150 England, which has implications for the whole of Britain, and 09:48.690 --> 09:53.940 each fictional retelling story is followed by a non-fiction 09:53.940 --> 09:57.060 commentary explaining how these myths were understood at the 09:57.060 --> 10:00.810 time. So this is in the kind of in the high Middle Ages, as we 10:00.810 --> 10:06.690 call it, and how that came to shape real political decision 10:06.690 --> 10:10.260 making, real life wars, especially things like the 10:10.260 --> 10:14.190 conflicts between England and Scotland, and how that therefore 10:14.190 --> 10:16.920 came to shape the Britain that we know today. So it is an 10:16.920 --> 10:22.380 argument against myths and the legend being Wimsey, it's saying 10:22.380 --> 10:26.340 that these stories, whether or not they're perceived as history, 10:26.640 --> 10:30.000 are very, very powerful and have political ramifications. 10:30.270 --> 10:33.430 Gary: The medieval Britons, they looked at the myths from like 10:33.480 --> 10:36.120 King Arthur and even farther back, and that's how they 10:36.180 --> 10:39.270 governed and that's how they kind of lived their life or 10:39.270 --> 10:40.020 tried to rule. 10:40.280 --> 10:43.200 Amy: So it's really interesting. And to what extent these these 10:43.200 --> 10:46.080 old stories are perceived as history, because I think the 10:46.080 --> 10:49.230 broad brush strokes, yes, they they believed that somebody 10:49.230 --> 10:52.800 called Arthur had range. They believed that kings like they 10:52.800 --> 10:56.160 usurped King Vortigern, who comes before Arthur had reigned. 10:56.520 --> 10:59.220 Some of the retellings go into far more detail than 11:01.290 --> 11:06.420 maybe you can give retained any historical veracity. So 11:07.260 --> 11:10.110 contemporary chroniclers would kind of argue amongst themselves 11:10.110 --> 11:14.340 over what was or wasn't truth. But either way, those histories 11:14.340 --> 11:21.000 were seen as a set of moral exemplar to guide contemporary 11:21.000 --> 11:25.740 kings and barons and how to rule, but also they were just 11:25.740 --> 11:30.090 inspiring. So you know the story of Arthur as it develops over 11:30.090 --> 11:34.230 time. This this idea of the round table of the of the 11:34.230 --> 11:38.040 knights who when they sit at that table, realize they love 11:38.040 --> 11:40.740 each other so much, they will die for each other. That bond, 11:40.740 --> 11:44.730 that bond between Arthur's barons was such a powerful idea 11:45.270 --> 11:48.870 that it shaped politics. You say Edward the first. He has a round 11:48.870 --> 11:54.360 table made for his his Tonys and kind of pageantry. And that's a 11:54.360 --> 11:57.540 kind of battle of playing an end of that that does the same, 11:57.540 --> 12:00.540 imitating Arthur and his celebrations with his knights. 12:00.870 --> 12:03.480 And that's kind of playing at the Arthurian ideal. But then it 12:03.480 --> 12:08.760 becomes even more solid when he finds the Order of the Garter in 12:08.760 --> 12:13.110 the 1340s. And this is directly modelled on the Knights of the 12:13.110 --> 12:16.290 Round Table in an order of barons and really the reigns 12:16.290 --> 12:21.180 Before Edward the third had been characterised by baronial 12:21.180 --> 12:25.380 disunity and especially the reign of his father. And so he 12:25.380 --> 12:29.100 basically takes from literature this idea of the order of 12:29.100 --> 12:31.770 knights and makes it happen with huge success. 12:31.830 --> 12:34.110 Gary: Even back in the in the medieval times they knew of 12:34.110 --> 12:36.720 their history, even if it was considered myth, they still 12:36.720 --> 12:37.290 embraced it. 12:37.560 --> 12:40.980 Amy: And it's also seeing history as something that is 12:41.130 --> 12:45.450 embracing nostalgia as well. I think. I mean, we know of many, 12:45.450 --> 12:48.690 I'm sure listeners can think of many contemporary politicians 12:49.080 --> 12:53.760 who hearken back to the good old days in shaping the campaigns. 12:53.760 --> 12:58.170 And so Edward the third, he is drawing on a massive collective 12:58.170 --> 13:01.740 nostalgia for the days of Arthur and applying that to himself. 13:01.740 --> 13:06.240 And so when he declares war on France and is seeking to expand 13:06.870 --> 13:12.420 in English domains that's not seen as a new thing. Arthur had 13:12.420 --> 13:15.870 conquered France. He go all the way to Rome. He had 30 crowns 13:15.870 --> 13:20.400 under his feet. And so that is then presenting his contemporary 13:20.400 --> 13:25.560 political ambition and his objectives as just a completion 13:25.560 --> 13:27.240 of an old campaign that was cut short. 13:27.390 --> 13:29.250 Gary: When you're going through all the medieval myths of the 13:29.250 --> 13:32.760 origin, all the origin stories, did you find one that you 13:32.760 --> 13:36.210 particularly enjoyed like a favorite one, or did they all 13:36.300 --> 13:37.950 spark the same inspiration for you? 13:38.670 --> 13:41.490 Amy: Yeah, I guess it depends what kind of hat you have on. I 13:41.490 --> 13:44.970 really enjoyed the origin myths. What you right back at the 13:44.970 --> 13:48.790 beginning of how the Britons where they came from. So that 13:48.820 --> 13:54.750 having come from Brutus and Troy, the Scots, they had a story that 13:54.750 --> 13:59.820 was a sort of reworking of much older Irish myths that the Scots 13:59.820 --> 14:03.240 had had their roots in Ireland anyway, and so they kind of 14:03.240 --> 14:06.960 reworked the story of how they had come from Egypt 14:08.430 --> 14:12.630 with a an Egyptian princess called Soter, who was the 14:12.630 --> 14:16.380 daughter of Rameses, the second who is famous for having 14:16.920 --> 14:20.370 altercations with Moses. The stories of Brutus and Skater 14:20.370 --> 14:23.430 came into play in a big way when during the wars of Scottish 14:23.430 --> 14:26.160 independence and the reign of Edward, the first when he was 14:26.160 --> 14:31.560 trying to claim Overlordship of Scotland, and if if listeners 14:31.560 --> 14:33.720 want to find out the sort of nuts and bolts of that, then 14:33.730 --> 14:37.050 I'll direct into the early chapters of story land so that 14:37.050 --> 14:40.650 as a historian, I'm really fond of those stories that are really, 14:40.650 --> 14:44.190 really interesting and really impactful politically. One of my 14:44.190 --> 14:49.050 favorite stories is about the How Albion got its name. So 14:49.050 --> 14:54.030 Albion is the name that Britain has before Brutus arrives, and 14:54.960 --> 14:58.740 there's a 13th century or a 13th century sources that give a kind 14:58.740 --> 15:02.040 of prequel to the Brutus legend and say he arrives this island 15:02.040 --> 15:05.340 called Albion. He renamed it Brutus. How did Albion come to 15:05.730 --> 15:10.860 bear his name? And it gives the story of a great king in Syria 15:11.130 --> 15:14.640 to Assyrian King, who had a huge empire. And he also had 30 15:14.640 --> 15:19.230 daughters. And the eldest of the daughters is called Albina, and 15:19.230 --> 15:22.410 they're all married to his barons and hoping it becomes 15:22.860 --> 15:27.210 jealous of the barons power over them and of her father's power. 15:27.210 --> 15:30.540 And she convinces her sisters to agree to kill their husbands so 15:30.540 --> 15:35.250 that they can seize the throne ultimately and rule Syria as 15:35.250 --> 15:40.020 them as Queens. But the youngest of the sisters betrays the rest 15:40.020 --> 15:43.920 of them and tells her husband and they're dragged before their 15:43.920 --> 15:47.490 father, who punishes them by casting them adrift in a 15:47.490 --> 15:52.350 rudderless boat and they end up getting swept up in a storm and 15:52.350 --> 15:57.540 wrecking on the coast of an unknown uninhabited island. And 15:57.540 --> 16:01.800 Albania jumps out of the boat, grabs a handful of sand and and 16:01.830 --> 16:05.230 says, I'm claiming this. And later she gives it the name that 16:05.340 --> 16:08.820 she she names herself queen with the agreement of her sisters of 16:08.820 --> 16:11.820 this uninhabited island. And they they learn to live off the 16:11.820 --> 16:16.230 land, which it takes. It's a poem, The medieval poem which 16:16.440 --> 16:18.930 describes this, really emphasizes that their kind of 16:18.930 --> 16:25.170 bushcraft as they are learning to set traps and catch deer and 16:25.170 --> 16:28.470 fish and all of that. Ultimately, they get really good at it and 16:28.650 --> 16:30.720 they are able to feed themselves very well and they've got the 16:30.720 --> 16:35.100 run of the island and they're really fat and happy, but they 16:35.520 --> 16:41.490 realize that they are lacking anyone to have sex with. And so 16:41.760 --> 16:45.600 that and their collective desire kind of is felt. It sort of 16:45.600 --> 16:49.970 sends vibrations down into the earth and and the devil detects 16:49.980 --> 16:54.660 it. And he and his demons are like, rise up and have a night 16:54.660 --> 16:58.620 of passion with Albania and her sisters, which gives rise to the 16:58.620 --> 17:02.730 birth of the race of giants, which is present in Albi. And 17:02.730 --> 17:06.810 when Brutus arrives, this story is a really problematic story to 17:06.810 --> 17:11.970 retell. Now it draws on a lot of stereotypes for representing 17:11.970 --> 17:15.180 non-Christian women, let's say medieval kind of tropes of 17:15.510 --> 17:18.030 medieval Christian tropes of doing this, which say a lot more 17:18.030 --> 17:22.170 about medieval Christians than they do about anyone on that 17:22.170 --> 17:27.000 sphere. But but I also just instinctively, despite her 17:27.000 --> 17:31.140 murderous tendencies, kind of identified with Albina and her 17:31.140 --> 17:35.040 ambition, not that I would go quite as far as she did, but I 17:35.040 --> 17:38.680 think that it's just such a great story. And I also, as a as 17:38.680 --> 17:41.340 a child, would read a lot of survival books. So I just liked 17:41.340 --> 17:42.900 the idea of these 30 women 17:44.700 --> 17:49.800 making rope and setting nuns and fashioning spears and generally 17:49.800 --> 17:50.610 kind of imposing it. 17:50.970 --> 17:54.000 Gary: Yeah, it's a good story and stories in history have to 17:54.000 --> 17:57.080 be taken in view of the historical context and not 17:57.120 --> 18:00.840 modern day perspectives. So that's always it's always tough 18:00.840 --> 18:05.160 to kind of balance those to you establish the origin of Britain. 18:05.580 --> 18:09.090 And then your next book, Wild Tales Tales of Medieval Britain. 18:09.750 --> 18:13.200 Yes. Are those also myths? Are those real tales that you found 18:13.500 --> 18:14.370 from medieval Britain? 18:14.640 --> 18:19.770 Amy: Did most of the stories in story land well through to 15th 18:19.770 --> 18:24.120 century? They're really from the slap bang and the kind of 18:25.110 --> 18:29.310 jousting tourneys, kind of middle Ages. Wild tales from 18:29.310 --> 18:33.540 early Medieval Britain goes back into a kind of I mean, dark ages. 18:33.540 --> 18:37.140 It says anathema to say that now among academics. But there is 18:37.140 --> 18:41.400 something really enticing about the idea of kind of this misty, 18:41.400 --> 18:46.680 mysterious world where Christianity is kind of just 18:46.680 --> 18:51.180 making inroads and bringing with it the written word to Germanic 18:51.180 --> 18:55.680 societies. I want you to reflect on an old idea of the wilderness 18:55.890 --> 19:00.210 through primarily focusing on a group of poems known as the old 19:00.210 --> 19:02.910 English adages, but just to going to take a step back. The 19:02.910 --> 19:08.040 book has seven chapters entitled Earth, Ocean, Forest, Beast and 19:08.040 --> 19:13.980 Catastrophe Paradise, and each chapter, as in story Land, has a 19:14.040 --> 19:20.790 story and a commentary in Wild. The stories are not retellings. 19:21.030 --> 19:24.120 They are short stories that I've made up, but they are inspired 19:24.120 --> 19:29.850 by fragments of poetry and art, other forms of literature that 19:29.850 --> 19:32.820 use the wilderness in really interesting ways, or use an idea 19:32.820 --> 19:36.180 of the wilderness in really interesting ways. So for 19:36.180 --> 19:40.470 instance, the first chapter mostly inspired by an old 19:40.470 --> 19:45.000 English elegiac poem that we now call the wife's lament, is found 19:45.000 --> 19:49.110 in a late 10th century manuscript known as the Exeter 19:49.110 --> 19:53.700 Book, which is a one of only a very few surviving big 19:53.700 --> 19:56.880 compendium of old English poetry. And it was given to the Bishop 19:56.880 --> 20:01.560 of Exeter, and he then left its text to Cathedral in 1072 when 20:01.560 --> 20:04.260 he died. And it's been there ever since, which I think is 20:04.260 --> 20:11.310 just wonderful. And it's got animal lore, it's got 95 old 20:11.310 --> 20:14.340 English riddles, some of them really rude, it's got saints 20:14.340 --> 20:17.550 lives, but it's also got a collection of poems known now as 20:17.550 --> 20:20.670 the Elegies, which are distributed among the riddles, 20:20.670 --> 20:24.000 but don't seem to quite be riddles. So in the case of the 20:24.000 --> 20:28.290 wife's lament, the narrator seems to be a woman trapped 20:28.290 --> 20:32.910 under an oak tree in what she calls an earth hole. And she is 20:32.910 --> 20:36.380 watching the kind of the slow summer sun creeping by in this 20:36.530 --> 20:40.350 northern landscape where the days are endlessly long and 20:40.350 --> 20:45.180 summer. And she is bemoaning the fact that her Lord has left her 20:45.180 --> 20:50.490 there and hasn't come back. And it's really oppressive. The 20:50.490 --> 20:54.270 atmosphere and the themes are very much of isolation and 20:54.270 --> 20:57.990 longing and yearning. And in contrast to that, there's 20:57.990 --> 21:00.570 another poem which I use in the chapter on Ocean called The 21:00.570 --> 21:06.360 Seafarer, where the narrator is out on a frozen ocean all alone. 21:06.370 --> 21:09.630 So this is happening in the wilderness, his feet shackled by 21:09.630 --> 21:12.660 frost. They're dreaming of former joys and trying to find 21:12.660 --> 21:17.460 solace in the idea of eternal life as the only tree and 21:17.460 --> 21:23.640 lasting joy. And they seem to me to use extreme portrayals of the 21:23.640 --> 21:27.270 wilderness to express quite subtle psychological situation 21:27.540 --> 21:30.720 and to just to talk about emotion, really, which is really, 21:30.720 --> 21:34.950 when we think about the Middle Ages, I think we can often see 21:34.950 --> 21:38.550 it as quite an emotionally stunted age. 21:39.450 --> 21:39.690 Gary: Yeah. 21:39.870 --> 21:43.050 Amy: Oh, kind of. Doughty Knight's kind of thrusting their 21:43.050 --> 21:47.700 chins forward and and going off on quests and being very terse, 21:48.120 --> 21:52.110 but these, these poems are really emotionally complex. And 21:52.110 --> 21:56.190 I bring in some Welsh and an English poem as well, which does 21:56.190 --> 22:00.900 a similar thing, but slightly differently in relation to a 22:00.900 --> 22:05.090 minor outcast in the woods for his because he's so ill that 22:05.100 --> 22:07.830 he's being cast out of this community. So yeah, the first 22:07.830 --> 22:11.820 chapter takes the character of the from the wife's lament, and 22:12.300 --> 22:15.330 I've sort of spun a ghost story out of it. And in the commentary 22:15.330 --> 22:18.240 I then reflect on the idea of how the Earth was understood as 22:18.240 --> 22:23.340 a place of burial, of that the Earth itself was kind of seen as 22:23.340 --> 22:26.760 like a gigantic version of the human body. I became interested 22:26.760 --> 22:30.960 in an article by a scholar called Sarah Semple, who argues 22:30.960 --> 22:35.130 that the narrator of the wife's lament might be, Actually, I 22:35.130 --> 22:37.470 want to say it without giving you any spoilers, but she 22:37.470 --> 22:41.520 explains it. She explores the idea of prehistoric burial 22:41.520 --> 22:46.080 mounds and how they how when the Germanic migrants who would 22:46.080 --> 22:49.830 become the English landed in Britain, they found a landscape, 22:50.190 --> 22:53.290 as they would have on the continent, covered in in 22:53.450 --> 22:57.870 prehistoric monuments and burial mounds. And they added to those 22:57.870 --> 23:01.920 themselves in that within that prior to that conversion. And 23:02.130 --> 23:05.310 but in the in the later period when they have converted, these 23:05.310 --> 23:08.280 places become steeped in superstition because of their 23:08.280 --> 23:11.880 association with pagan burials. They were often the sites of 23:11.880 --> 23:15.900 pagan shrines that were then on the boundaries of territories, 23:15.900 --> 23:20.550 of civilized territories. And so they start becoming increasingly 23:20.550 --> 23:23.910 in the later Anglo-Saxon period somewhere that they bury 23:24.060 --> 23:28.920 criminals. And this might be to do with a belief that these 23:28.920 --> 23:33.960 monuments were inhabited by demons, elves and goblins and 23:33.960 --> 23:38.190 that sort of thing, and that the souls of the executed dead might 23:38.190 --> 23:41.640 be trapped there. Yeah, that's an example of how sort of 23:41.640 --> 23:49.080 starting with the elegy and the book then moves broadens out 23:49.080 --> 23:52.230 into an exploration of that, that kind of element in general. 23:52.680 --> 23:55.320 But it also brings in the Franks casket to the British Museum, 23:55.320 --> 23:58.740 the first chapter, which is what beautiful Wales Bones is a lot 23:58.740 --> 24:02.670 beautiful. It's kind of clunky, but it's what it is is amazing. 24:02.670 --> 24:07.110 Is it made of Wales bones? Probably eighth century 24:07.110 --> 24:14.670 Northumbrian caskets, about the size of a shoebox for a small 24:14.670 --> 24:18.150 person for a child. Yeah and 24:20.070 --> 24:26.000 it's got each of the panels is has been carved with scenes from 24:26.040 --> 24:29.820 stories and those stories are derived from classical sources 24:29.820 --> 24:32.670 from the Bible. It's got Romulus and Remus, for instance, 24:32.670 --> 24:37.740 circling the sea. Well, it's got the three Kings visiting the 24:37.740 --> 24:41.310 Virgin and Child. It's got a theme from a Germanic known 24:41.310 --> 24:45.840 Germanic story about Weyland, the goldsmith dragging a woman 24:45.840 --> 24:49.770 caught by all the hills so that he can impregnate her and wreak 24:49.770 --> 24:55.590 vengeance on her father. It's got an unidentified scene of 24:55.590 --> 24:59.850 somebody standing, a woman standing over a burial mound or 24:59.940 --> 25:04.860 a funeral pyre. It's not quite clear with a cup. And it says 25:05.580 --> 25:10.860 that Hoss wept for air tie and the sorrow mound and ruins 25:10.860 --> 25:14.250 around the outside, which as it's an uncontested, otherwise 25:14.250 --> 25:17.130 uncontested story, we don't know what that means. So I've brought 25:17.130 --> 25:20.130 that into the short story as well. So it's just that's how 25:20.130 --> 25:22.900 the book kind of rolls out. And I'm hoping the trajectory of the 25:22.920 --> 25:25.980 each chapter, beginning with the Earth, ocean forest, fun beast, 25:25.980 --> 25:29.910 catastrophe, paradise as there is broadly upward trajectory 25:29.970 --> 25:33.930 from kind of the earth to the to the heavens and likewise has a 25:33.930 --> 25:38.580 kind of ultimately very hopeful message, but in the process 25:38.940 --> 25:43.530 reflects on early medieval ideas around mortality and the 25:43.530 --> 25:47.130 apocalypse and such lovely themes as that. 25:47.250 --> 25:50.670 Gary: Things we need to think about. Both of the books are 25:50.670 --> 25:53.640 pretty heavily illustrated, and you brought this up earlier from 25:53.640 --> 25:57.360 the illustrations you saw. Did you? You created all the 25:57.360 --> 25:59.010 illustrations for both of the books. 25:59.100 --> 26:02.280 Amy: I did. And that's how it's really begun each time. Story 26:02.280 --> 26:04.920 Land as I've already described how the line cuts came out of my 26:04.920 --> 26:08.850 page D project and Wild. The first illustrations add to that, 26:09.480 --> 26:12.380 and actually the illustration is now the cover and the 26:12.390 --> 26:16.290 illustration for the Earth chapter I did before the book 26:16.290 --> 26:19.560 was a twinkle and the first weeks of lockdown here in 26:19.560 --> 26:24.720 Britain during the pandemic. And that was a the radio and the 26:24.720 --> 26:28.230 news and things were were reminding me of the old English 26:28.230 --> 26:31.140 elegies because they were talking about exile and 26:31.140 --> 26:35.850 isolation and loss and they were talking about transience of all 26:36.120 --> 26:39.960 human experiences. It all became quite poetic in some ways, as 26:39.960 --> 26:43.950 well as being very horrifying. And yet here in the UK we had 26:44.250 --> 26:49.410 the most beautiful spring and it was like there were no planes in 26:49.410 --> 26:54.360 the sky and the roads were silent and it was this glorious 26:54.660 --> 26:58.680 weather and birds were singing and there was a real disjunct 26:58.680 --> 27:03.000 between what you could see out the window and what you knew was 27:03.000 --> 27:07.290 happening in the world and what humanity was experiencing. It's 27:07.290 --> 27:10.680 like the opposite of the old English elegies, not so much the 27:10.680 --> 27:14.730 Welsh Elegies that that video and even which are similar, but 27:14.730 --> 27:18.990 they employ contrast very effectively. But the wife's 27:18.990 --> 27:22.140 lament is and in The Seafarer, in reasons I've described, they 27:22.140 --> 27:25.230 mirror the emotions of the narrator. With the weather, it's 27:25.230 --> 27:29.620 a real it's just through and through pathetic policy. And and 27:29.910 --> 27:37.260 so I sat outside one day and carved a block of maple with an 27:37.260 --> 27:39.960 illustration of the of the figure from the wife's lament, 27:39.960 --> 27:44.730 standing under an oak tree in this kind of dark cave and felt 27:44.730 --> 27:48.870 as though it was, I don't know. It was just a kind of what to do 27:48.870 --> 27:53.430 with all of these weekends. And maybe reflecting on on what I 27:53.430 --> 27:56.310 was hearing in the news, and that became a wood engraving. So 27:56.310 --> 27:59.970 this is a technique is different from woodcut, which is often 27:59.970 --> 28:03.220 quite is on a larger scale and done on a piece of wood, cut on 28:03.220 --> 28:06.720 the plank, wood engravings done on the end, grain of a piece of 28:06.930 --> 28:10.770 timber like boxwood or maple wood, very close grained, and 28:10.770 --> 28:14.820 they're often very small. So the illustrations in wild a 7.5 by 28:14.820 --> 28:17.580 ten centimetres and they're reproduced to scale. So it'll 28:17.590 --> 28:21.990 feel like a letterpress book you inside your drawing, your image 28:21.990 --> 28:25.440 of stain the block with black ink, first of all. And then I 28:25.440 --> 28:28.620 draw on it in pencil so that if you tilt the block in the light, 28:28.620 --> 28:32.310 you can see your drawing very clearly. And and then I use a 28:32.310 --> 28:37.020 sharp tool called appearance to incised little lines, which will 28:37.020 --> 28:40.890 show up white in the final print. And this was a good medium to 28:40.890 --> 28:44.430 use in lockdown because I couldn't get to the studio, so I 28:44.430 --> 28:48.330 didn't have a press at home. And so with these small engravings, 28:48.630 --> 28:52.650 I could just use a boon burnish or the burnish so I could place 28:52.650 --> 28:55.920 ink up the block, put paper on top, and then use a piece of 28:55.920 --> 29:01.560 antler or the back of a wooden spoon to rub the paper on, to 29:01.560 --> 29:05.180 press it really hard onto the block by rubbing under and 29:05.190 --> 29:10.380 transfer the ink that way. And then I spent a couple of days 29:10.380 --> 29:14.010 just auditioning this print of the woman under the oak tree. 29:14.280 --> 29:17.790 And then I did a series inspired by the Elegies. And then when 29:17.790 --> 29:19.920 the publishers came to me after story lines and said, Have you 29:19.930 --> 29:21.870 got an idea for another book? I thought, Well, I've got the 29:21.870 --> 29:24.420 collection of illustrations just ready to have words put around 29:24.420 --> 29:26.790 them. And so that was how World came to be. 29:26.790 --> 29:30.330 Gary: In modern day. We have audio books, but we can't show 29:30.330 --> 29:34.170 illustrate scenes in audio books. So you decided or somebody 29:34.170 --> 29:37.080 decided, I'm assuming you decided that the illustrations 29:37.080 --> 29:40.410 were going to be replaced by music, folk songs. Did you make 29:40.410 --> 29:42.390 those songs and how did you decide to do that? 29:42.600 --> 29:45.300 Amy: I think audiobook is such an exciting medium because it's 29:45.300 --> 29:49.680 relatively new in terms of the how widespread and popular it is 29:49.680 --> 29:52.470 now. I mean, I know we've got audio books going back way, way 29:52.470 --> 29:55.440 back with them, but everyone's listening to audiobooks these 29:55.440 --> 30:00.330 days and I, I think they can be so much more than just a reading 30:00.330 --> 30:05.520 aloud of a book. And when it comes to medieval, using the 30:05.520 --> 30:08.430 Middle Ages as a key for storytelling, you can't get away 30:08.430 --> 30:11.220 from the fact that stories were everywhere, in every medium in 30:11.220 --> 30:14.580 medieval culture that are painted onto the walls of both 30:14.580 --> 30:20.340 chambers and woven into tapestries and in song or spoken 30:20.340 --> 30:25.200 over instruments, and they're on caskets and all kinds of things. 30:25.440 --> 30:29.160 I'd also I've been producing songs anyway, because I'm not 30:29.340 --> 30:31.770 I'm not a highly trained musician or anything like that. 30:31.770 --> 30:35.250 I used to sit down at the piano when I was struggling to find 30:35.250 --> 30:37.710 the emotional crux of a story, because when you're retelling 30:37.710 --> 30:40.860 medieval stories, you've got to find, I think, the thing in it 30:40.860 --> 30:46.140 that matters to you emotionally so that you can try and engage a 30:46.290 --> 30:49.170 modern readership and enjoy the process yourself. So I would sit 30:49.170 --> 30:51.660 down and try and find a chord sequence that kind of sounded 30:51.660 --> 30:55.080 like the story or what I cared about in the story and maybe put 30:55.080 --> 30:58.910 some words to it. And I did the same with Wild, and I thought, 30:58.920 --> 31:02.640 and it's such an immersive world anyway, the Elegies are so 31:02.640 --> 31:06.990 immersive. It just seemed right to try that out. And it was. 31:07.590 --> 31:13.080 It's great because it's not it's not authentic at all in the 31:13.080 --> 31:18.810 sense of it's not on the liar or using any medieval instruments 31:19.440 --> 31:20.340 apart from the Voice. 31:22.230 --> 31:27.990 But I hope it is authentic in the sense that though it's all 31:27.990 --> 31:31.380 in the service of the story. So the first the story for the song, 31:31.380 --> 31:34.740 for the Wife's Lament chapter, the Earth chapter, is a kind of 31:34.740 --> 31:41.490 scandi noir, metal, seething sort of song. But then the one 31:41.490 --> 31:45.360 for the Heaven chapter, the Paradise chapter, is poorer and 31:45.900 --> 31:51.870 a lot more kind of traditional in that sense, and perhaps more 31:51.870 --> 31:55.770 euphoric and hopefully beautiful. And so I hoped that it would 31:55.770 --> 31:58.410 like, as the illustrations do, just kind of give a give an 31:58.410 --> 32:03.120 extra emotional nudge to the reader to kind of feel what that 32:03.120 --> 32:06.930 chapter has to offer, as well as kind of immersing themselves in 32:06.930 --> 32:10.680 the non-fiction, the facts and the quotes from Bede and what 32:10.680 --> 32:11.970 sort of things that are in there to. 32:12.330 --> 32:14.190 Gary: Me gives the reader a reason to pick up both books. 32:14.190 --> 32:18.120 The physical book and the audio book to experience the same 32:18.120 --> 32:19.320 story, but in a different way. 32:19.620 --> 32:22.170 Amy: Yeah, and it's a shame, isn't it, if you know, because I 32:22.170 --> 32:25.290 mean, I've got young children, so I guess it's like, yeah, when 32:25.290 --> 32:27.420 you have young children, it's quite hard to sit down and read 32:27.870 --> 32:30.420 for starters. So it's really great to listen to audiobooks. 32:30.780 --> 32:37.110 If your work is practical, then it also is. It's an opportunity. 32:37.230 --> 32:40.200 If you want to listen to something to engage in 32:40.200 --> 32:43.860 literature that way. So I listen to a lot of audiobooks when I'm 32:44.040 --> 32:48.390 making pictures, but it also is a shame if the if the audiobook 32:48.390 --> 32:51.450 is is, as you say, like lacking something that the physical book 32:51.450 --> 32:56.940 has. So I hoped that by offering music it was a different product 32:57.060 --> 32:59.610 and that would be, yeah. And you could feel as though you were 32:59.610 --> 33:03.540 getting the audiobook and something that more right. 33:03.600 --> 33:06.120 Gary: Okay, so what is in the future? Do you have any other 33:06.120 --> 33:06.930 books planned? 33:07.350 --> 33:12.090 Amy: I do, I do. I'm not sure. I'm not sure if I meant to say I 33:12.150 --> 33:14.040 like. So it's so close to being announced. 33:14.160 --> 33:14.880 Gary: Stay tuned. 33:14.970 --> 33:17.670 Amy: Yeah, Please stay tuned because there's a book coming 33:17.670 --> 33:21.250 out this autumn. It's imminent. It's all going to be kind of 33:21.570 --> 33:26.910 hitting social media in the next couple of months and it's in the 33:26.910 --> 33:30.390 same vein as story, land and water sort of theories. Then 33:30.390 --> 33:33.090 it's in that series and it's a similar sort of aesthetic and a 33:33.090 --> 33:36.270 similar sort of structure of stories and commentaries. And 33:36.270 --> 33:40.470 it's and it's contingent on that on their worlds. And so for me, 33:40.470 --> 33:44.970 it's so exciting because it's really building up a secondary 33:44.970 --> 33:49.380 fantasy worldview, actually, because in both of these books 33:49.530 --> 33:52.710 and in this next one, you're kind of putting medieval goggles 33:52.710 --> 33:56.700 on. There's magical realism. One does can happen, Giants can walk 33:56.700 --> 34:01.050 the earth, miracles can occur, Wales can pose as islands and 34:01.050 --> 34:03.540 drag you to the abyss. But the great thing about this current 34:03.540 --> 34:08.460 project for me is seeing all of those connections yet again and 34:08.460 --> 34:12.030 and seeing them kind of get more complicated and bigger as as 34:12.030 --> 34:16.290 this world emerges. So I'm hoping that for readers of Story 34:16.290 --> 34:20.400 Land and Wild, this next one will keep on reinforcing what 34:20.400 --> 34:24.480 the other two have put in place and add to it as well. In this 34:24.480 --> 34:29.100 delicious world of the medieval imagination, there is such a 34:29.100 --> 34:29.400 thing. 34:30.240 --> 34:32.160 Gary: Excellent. All right. Well, thank you for being on the show, 34:32.160 --> 34:35.250 Amy. Where can people find you online and where can they get 34:35.250 --> 34:35.920 your books? 34:36.300 --> 34:39.840 Amy: You can find me on Instagram. As Amy just 34:39.840 --> 34:43.920 underscored, author on Twitter as Amy underscore Historia, 34:43.920 --> 34:48.540 which is the Latin for history, and it will be great to see you 34:48.540 --> 34:53.160 on there and I will keep posting about forthcoming projects. 34:53.760 --> 34:56.280 Thank you guys so much for having me. It's been lovely. 35:02.670 --> 35:04.890 Gary: I enjoyed the talk with Amy and we'd like to thank her 35:04.890 --> 35:07.380 again for taking time out of her busy schedule to come on the 35:07.380 --> 35:10.710 show. You can find the links to Amy's book Storyline A New 35:10.710 --> 35:13.800 Mythology of Britain and Wild Tales from early medieval 35:13.800 --> 35:17.070 Britain in the show Notes and Medieval Archives dot com slash 35:17.100 --> 35:21.030 89. There's also links to her Instagram and Twitter accounts. 35:21.420 --> 35:23.910 You should follow one or both of those to stay up to date about 35:23.910 --> 35:27.660 her upcoming book. It sounds like another great read. If 35:27.660 --> 35:30.570 you're enjoying podcast. Easiest way to support us is to tell 35:30.570 --> 35:32.880 your friends and shared on social media. If you're 35:32.880 --> 35:35.250 listening on your smartphone, you can send them a link right 35:35.250 --> 35:38.130 now. You can also send a link to social media. This is the 35:38.130 --> 35:40.230 perfect episode. Share. I mean, who doesn't want to know about 35:40.230 --> 35:43.410 Albina, who ruled Britain only to have sex with demons and 35:43.410 --> 35:46.440 create a race of giants? As a tidbit of info, everyone should 35:46.440 --> 35:49.200 know you're getting value from the show. Consider supporting 35:49.200 --> 35:51.930 this with the donation. 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