Will's Way

A Story of Shakespeare's Youth

Spoiler Alert:

this post contains details which reveal plot elements of Will's Way

Cremonese School, Portrait of Young Boy, late 16th century

 

A leitmotif of my stories is the evolution - and power - of the written word: from writing's beginnings as a Mystery accessible to an elite, to its controversial transformation into a tool for the many, through religious upheavals and technological advances (the invention of paper and the watermark and the revolution of the printing press) and the increasing literacy of the general population, touched on in Will's Way.

William Shakespeare? The Grafton Portrait, 1588

Shakespeare's participation in these last developments seemed the perfect basis for a new novel. Yet I had no intention of embarking on a story about the adult playwright. Apart from the fact that so much has already been written, I was curious about his childhood, his beginnings, the influences which formed him. I hoped too that such an introduction to the Bard might stimulate curiosity in young readers. The advent of the theatre in Shakespeare's day can be compared with movements in music and art which have inspired the youth of our era. But although Shakespeare is 'for all time', his language can be challenging. To meet him as child and youth, living in his turbulent but exciting age might help render him more accessible. 

William Shakespeare? The Sanders Portrait 1603

Evin of the Trees

The theory of a matriarchal society

 
SPOILER ALERT: 
this post contains details which reveal 
some plot elements in Evin of the Trees

I first came across Graves's The White Goddess in the late 70s. It is an obscure, complex work, at times confusing and alienating - those who quote in Ancient Greek without providing a translation come across as erudite yes, but also arrogant. Here is an admirable summary of his thesis from Wikipedia's entry on Ogham (pron. oyam), the alphabet of the druids:

Graves took his inspiration from the theories of the ogham scholar R.A.S Macalister...and elaborated on them much further. Graves proposed that the ogham alphabet encoded a set of beliefs originating in the Middle-east in Stone Age times, concerning the ceremonies surrounding the worship of the Moon-goddess in her various forms. Graves' argument is extremely complex, but in essence he argues that the Hebrews, Greeks and Celts were all influenced by a people originating in the Aegean, called 'the people of the sea' by the Egyptians, who spread out around Europe in the 2nd millennium BCE, taking their religious beliefs with them. At some early stage these teachings were encoded in alphabet form by poets in order to pass on their worship of the goddess (as the muse and inspiration of all poets) in a secret fashion, understandable only to initiates. Eventually, via the druids of Gaul, this knowledge was passed on to the poets of early Ireland and Wales. Graves therefore looked at the tree alphabet tradition surrounding ogham and explored the tree folklore of each of the letter names, proposing that the order of the letters formed an ancient "seasonal calendar of tree magic". Although his theories have been disregarded by modern scholars...they have been taken up with enthusiasm by the neopagan movement.