My guest this week, and the last one for the year, is Therese Wooldridge, otherwise known as T.J. and she has a new novel out this week! Welcome to her world!
Scotland is a very dangerous place when it
comes to its various fey inhabitants--particularly those who live in the water.
If you look up evil types of faerie from Scotland, more than half are
associated with water. Besides kelpies, which I'd done plenty of research on
for my novel, The Kelpie, there are
several other water horses from the various regions of Scotland: Doonies are shape-shifting water fey who
look like ponies, the each uisge is a
water horse specific to the highland seas and lochs, the noggle or nuggle is the
Shetland version of a water horse, and shoopiltees
are small water horses also from the Shetland islands. A quick search on Google
will reward the seeker with plenty more harrowing water-based faerie who
thoroughly enjoy hunting, killing, and eating humans. Possibly with some
healthy torture thrown in.
But why are there so many frightening water
monsters?
Well, for one, it's not unlikely that an
awful lot of people have died or do die regularly due to the natural water
hazards in Scotland. Or at sea, since it is surrounded by the ocean.
For purely
research reasons, my husband and I vacationed in Scotland last summer. It
happened to be the end of June, the proper time of year I was setting The Kelpie, and a large portion of our
trip was spent exploring the region I would set the novel. Neither of us had
been to Scotland before, so there was an awful lot to explore, even in the few
small areas we covered.
Here are some of our adventures:
- Stranded in Islay due to heavy rains and flooding.
- Puddle of Indiscernible Depth was a square on our homemade
Roadblock Bingo card (also in Islay)
- Trails at Traquair House
under water due to flooding of the Tweed river, a normal occurrence.
- Waterfowl that thrashed in trees and SOUNDED
LIKE DINOSAURS!
- Secretly submerged trails by Loch Mire near St. Abbs. (The plants made
it look like solid grass).
- Ocean trails to so dangerous that natives very firmly suggest
tourists avoid them...down to having trail maps that mislead travelers
away from the dangerous part.*
- Sheer cliffs into the ocean on the "forbidden" trails
that the stubborn tourists found thanks to smartphones + Googling the
adventures of other stubborn tourists.**
Needles to say, it took a reasonable amount
of effort to avoid injurious and lethal water hazards in modern day Scotland.
But evil water horses?
First, let me say that I volunteered with
horse rescue for almost ten years and ended up adopting my own horse. In fact,
a percentage of all my royalties from The
Kelpie sales will be going to the Bay
State Equine Rescue. I can tell you without having gone to Scotland that
horses are freaking scary!
It wasn't a huge jump, in that moment, to
think, "Holy crap--and what if this was a predator animal that wanted to eat me!"
Furthermore, horses are especially
surefooted animals. They can navigate some of the most impossible trails and if
their natural habitat is one full of water hazards, they learn to navigate
those well, too. Historically, horses have been an important part of Scottish
culture, from farming to travel to fighting. Even now, as we were driving
around, there were still quite a few horse stables, trail rides, and paddocks.
In times when horses were even more prevalent, it would be a statistical
improbability that horses didn't escape and lead those trying to catch them to
their death simply because they knew the land better.
I had an awful lot of fun exploring
Scotland and its myths for The Kelpie,
and I hope you enjoyed this little journey into those adventures...as well as
the result of that research in the novel's pages.
* One may argue that this is pure
conjecture on the author's part; that one may also feel free to wander
aimlessly in fields of sheep crap for hours on end trying to follow the trail
map.
** I spent over an hour trying to find the
picture-by-picture blog my husband had found on his Blackberry to no avail. :(
He is the Husband-of-Awesome for many reasons, including his ability to find
anything online.
The
Kelpie is available through all online and brick
& mortar bookstores, big box or your favorite independent store.
About the Book
ISBN: 978-1-937053-78-9
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-937053-79-6
Appropriate for ages 11 and up
Price: $7.95
About the Author:
T. J. Wooldridge is a professional writing
geek who adores research into myth, folklore, legend, and the English language.
Before delving full-time into wordsmithing, she has been a tutor, a teacher, an
educational course designer, a video game proofreader, a financial customer
service representative, a wine salesperson, a food reviewer, an editing
consultant, a retail sales manager, and a nanny. While infrequent, there are
times she does occasionally not research, write, or help others write. During
those rare moments, she enjoys the following activities: spending time with her
Husband-of-Awesome, a silly tabby cat, and two Giant Baby Bunnies in their
Massachusetts home hidden in a pocket of woods in the middle of suburbia,
reading, riding her horse in the nearby country stables and trails (not very
well), reading Tarot (very well), drawing (also not very well), making jewelry
(pretty well), making lists, and adding parenthetical commentary during random
conversations. She also enjoys dressing up as fey creatures, zombies, or other
such nonsense at science fiction, fantasy, and horror conventions.
No comments:
Post a Comment