The Patron Saint of Virgins

January 21 marks the feast of St. Agnes--which makes January 20 a date of even more significance, at least in terms of English folklore. If you were an unmarried girl living during the regency, according to superstition, by following the proper steps on the night of St. Agnes’s Eve you could expect to see your future husband in a dream.

This 17th century painting of St. Agnes by Massimo Stanzione shows her with a lamb, her iconographic symbol ("agnus" being the Latin word for "lamb," and sounding like the Greek word for "pure one").

The original Agnes of Rome was a girl of patrician family, born in the third century. When she was just twelve or thirteen, the son of the prefect Sempronius fell in love with her, offering her "rich gifts and possessions" if she would marry him. She was a committed Christian, however, and so, as the Archbishop of Genoa wrote in The Golden Legend nearly a thousand years later, Agnes told the young man, "Go from me thou fardel of sin, nourishing of evils and morsel of death, and depart, and know thou that I am prevented and am loved of another lover, which...is much more noble of lineage than thou art, and of estate... To him I have given my faith, to him I have commanded my heart...and when I take him then am I a virgin, this is the love of my God."

The young man was so disappointed that he took to his bed. When Sempronius attempted to get to the bottom of Agnes’s refusal to marry his son, he discovered she was a Christian. Sempronius had her condemned, but since it was against Roman law to execute a virgin, Agnes was given a choice: "One of two things thou shalt choose, either do sacrifice to our gods with the virgins of the goddess Vesta, or go to the [brothel] to be abandoned to all that thither come, to the great shame and blame of all thy lineage."

Agnes chose the brothel, and "was delivered naked," but a miracle saved her modesty: "anon as she was unclothed God gave to her such grace that the hairs of her head became so long that they covered all her body to her feet, so that her body was not seen." In addition, an angel clothed her in such brightness that none of the brothel’s customers could look at her. Then, as The Golden Legend puts it, "At last came the son of the provost with a great company for to accomplish his foul desires and lusts. And when he saw his fellows come out and issue all abashed, he mocked them and called them cowards. And then he, all araged, entered for to accomplish his evil will. And..anon the devil took him by the throat and strangled him that he fell down dead."

Fortunately, Agnes prayed for the young man, and he was raised from the dead. For some reason this failed to mollify his father, who had a lieutenant named Aspasius cast Agnes into "a great fire." Once again divine protection came to the girl’s aid, saving her from the flames.

Not one to give up easily, Aspasius had her run through with a sword.

"They told her how, upon St. Agnes Eve/Young virgins might have visions of delight" -- Illustration from Charles Wentworth's 1885 edition of Keats's "St. Agnes' Eve."

So Agnes became a martyr, and the patron saint of virgins everywhere. In the best slumber-party tradition, unmarried girls came to believe that on St. Agnes's Eve they could conjure up a vision of the man they would marry.

Though there were numerous versions of the proper ritual to be followed, Keats gives one popular version in his poem St. Agnes’s Eve:

As, supperless to bed they must retire,
And couch supine their beauties, lily white;
Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require
Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire.

Chambers’ Book of Days gives this version of the ritual:

Or, passing into a different country from that of her ordinary residence, and taking her right-leg stocking, she might knit the left garter round it, repeating:

"I knit this knot, this knot I knit,
To know the thing I know not yet,
That I may see
The man that shall my husband be,
Not in his best or worst array,
But what he weareth every day;
That I tomorrow may him ken
From among all other men."

If you’re a single woman, you might consider giving it a try this St. Agnes’s Eve.

Alyssa Everett's debut regency romance, Ruined by Rumor, is currently available from Carina Press, and her second regency, Lord of Secrets, will be out March 25, 2013. She hopes you'll visit her website and follow her on Twitter and Facebook, where she promises not to spam you relentlessly.

Comparing My Kindles

Are you considering buying a new Kindle or interested in learning more about the new Kindle Fire HD 8.9 as a reader? If so, I am presenting a comparison of my two Kindles, old and new. My photos are not that great because of the lighting in this room but you will get the general idea.

My older Kindle is about 2 years old and it is the model with keyboard. The new one is the Kindle Fire HD 8.9.

As you can see in picture #1, you have color! Yay! Plus Kindle Fire 8.9 is much larger overall. On the old Kindle, the screen is 5 X 31/2. The Kindle Fire is 8 X 41/2. 

The text display can be altered to suit your needs as can the screen. I have left mine on white/black because I like it and to me, it looks more like a book. Vertically, the screen displays much more text on the Kindle Fire than on the old Kindle. Also the Kindle Fire can be flipped horizontally and you will be able to read the same text as 2 pages.

Okay, so what I LOVE most is the touch screen. No more clicking little buttons to change pages or punching home and menu. I never really liked reading on my Kindle because I thought it was such a pain to have to go to that stupid menu screen.  No more of that on the Kindle Fire. Just tap the screen for the menu stuff. You see the orange percentage bar at the bottom? All you have to do is tap it wherever you want to go and you are there!  I was like OMG! Also on the right hand corner is  "Home". Just tap there to go to your book cloud. The color covers look great and just tap on a cover to open the book.  Also if the book has a table of contents, all you do is tap on the chapter number to go there and to change the page, just swipe and keep reading.

Of course, the Kindle Fire HD is a tablet. You can check your email, Tweet and watch movies. I watched some of Thor the other night and it does have a great picture. No problems with the streaming. The processing speed is great. But I will primarily use it as a reader, I think. 

Price-wise, it is more expensive than the other models. There is a 7" Kindle Fire HD that is very nice. I have seen that model. There is about a $100 price difference and I think the screen size of the 8.9 is worth the price difference. It is like reading a trade-size book. I like the larger screen. I did get a bundle package which included a bubble-free screen protector and a case. 

If you are considering buying a Kindle, I would say to go with one of the Kindle Fire models. I think you will be a lot happier with the product. I have not seen the Kindle Paperwhite, which is a reader only. I had considered it because it is a touch model and I prefer a white screen, but a friend convinced me to get the Kindle Fire and I don't have any regrets.

Patricia Preston
www.patricia-preston.blogspot.com

Family Trees

Bonjour!

We recently acquired an Ancestry.com account. I’d given it try once, many years ago, when it was new, but didn’t have the time to put into it.  And, because it was new, it didn’t have some of the great features it now has.

Learning to use the account has been interesting.  It tries the memories of the older folk, who know their history but not necessarily proper names. You learn your surname wasn’t always spelled THAT way.  And you learn some new information.  For example, we learned last night that a great-grandmother had been previously married.  You can access birth, marriage, and death certificates, military documents, census pages, and more. 

A lot of hard work goes into family genealogy.  I know, because I’ve watched my mother do ours.  On Ancestry.com, you can connect with others who have information you need.  A lot of these users are private, and you have to contact them and request they share data, because in the genealogy world, information is jealously guarded.  Why?  If you put that much work into it, I’m betting you would be hesitant to share with anyone who wasn’t as serious as you.  It's like a stranger asking to see your first draft. Or your mother.

This is a great tool for writers.  If there’s nothing interesting in your family history, check out someone else’s!  See what famous names have unknown siblings or children that might have an interesting story to tell.  If nothing else, period-era names are a gold mine—probably not enough to justify a monthly fee, but the free 14-day trial will get you all you want.

Ancestry also allows you to build your tree as you think it should be.  So even if other users share information, the building is all up to you.  If you’d rather leave that crazy cousin off the tree, you can. But be warned, someone, someday will be looking for him.  It’s like anything else on the Internet.  Not everything is always, 100% correct.  We’re all familiar with the woman on the State Farm commercial who believes everything on the Internet is true. Don’t be her, even on Ancestry.com.

Portraits

In honor of the unveiling of the Duchess of Cambridge’s official royal portrait (see it here), I want to discuss portraits. I won’t offer an opinion on her portrait except to say, I’ve seen better, and if I’d paid for it, I’d get my money back. But I digress.

Portraits. They’re a window into the personalities of the past, a fleeting and perhaps not too honest glimpse at the people who continue to captivate us today.  In the painted or sculpted eyes, we look for traces of the person we’ve read about while projecting our own ideas and opinions of that person on to the image. Whatever you may think of Pharaoh Akhenaton, if you think of him at all, you can’t help but be awed when standing beneath one of his massive statues. To look on the sculpture of Thutmose III, perhaps the greatest Pharaoh Egypt ever knew, is to see nothing of the person and everything of the image of Pharaoh. This is true of most portraiture up until the Renaissance. Though there were quick flashes of individuals during the late Roman period, for the most part, history has left us with stylized images of figures both great and small.

I’ve heard it said by historians that Henry VIII and the Tudors enjoy the lasting fame they do because they were the first monarchs to be painted in a realistic way. Personally, I think Henry having had six wives and killing two of them might have something to do with his notoriety. However, I’m a romance writer not a historian, so I could be wrong. We are fascinated by Henry VIII and his descendants because we feel we know them, or that we can see something of their true personalities in the beautiful paintings of Holbein and others. The Tudors come to life in a way prior monarchs had not, and the tradition continued until the advent of photography.

With photography, the painted portrait has waned. Everyone who is no one can now have a great shot of themselves, or perhaps a not so great shot of them drunk and posted on the internet for all to see forever. Future generations will have a vast photo-record of our great people and may perhaps lose the wonder of standing in front of a painting and feeling the mystery of the person staring back. I love photographs as much as the next person, but in documenting every nanosecond of our lives, we might have lost something and deprived future generations of the sense of mystery or wonder of standing in front of a portrait.

There's Magic in a Kiss

Close your eyes and imagine the perfect kiss. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Got the picture set in your mind? Good. Believe it or not a kiss requires 34 facial muscles and 112 postural muscles. The facial muscles are a given but postural? I’m serious. 112 muscles that relate to your posture are also involved. Of all these 11 muscles the most important is the orbicularis oris muscle, which is used to pucker your very sensitive lips. It’s your kissing muscle. We’re not talking about French kissing where your tongue, also a muscle, is the primary player. I’ll save that for another blog.

Kissing has many health benefits. Affection in general has stress-reducing effects. Kissing in particular reduces stress which increases relationship satisfaction and lowers cholesterol. And it doesn’t stop there. Kissing can also encourage the release epinephrine and norepinephrine (adrenaline and noradrenaline) into the blood which will cause an adrenaline rush and increased cardiovascular activity. That’s why when you kiss that certain someone your heart races off. See, it’s magic.

There are also a lot of different types of kisses: 

• Romantic Kisses are an important expression of love and erotic emotions. This kiss is not only about lips touching lips. This kiss requires some intimacy.
• Affectionate Kisses express feelings closeness without the erotic element and symbolize loyalty, gratitude, compassion, sympathy, intense joy, and profound sorrow. 
• Ritual Kisses are formal, symbolic or indicate devotion, and respect. We see this type of kiss in the wedding ceremony when the bride and groom kiss. We also see this type of kiss when national leaders meet. 
• Kiss of Peace demonstrates deep spiritual devotion. It was used in the early Catholic Church and also in secular festivities. In the Middle Ages the kiss of peace sealed the agreement with enemies. Even knights kissed each other before they went into combat-a way of forgiving each other all their wrongs.   
• Kiss of Respect was reverent and has an ancient origin. This kiss represents a mark of fealty, humility and reverence. The kiss on the forehead considered a ‘kiss of homage’ showed utmost respect. 
• Kiss of Friendship is used in America and Europe as a greeting between friends. Once only between women, today it is not uncommon to see a man kiss in greeting.

Ancient cultures threw kisses to the sun and to the moon, as well as to the images of the gods. Persians were the first to kiss the hand. Here are some different kinds of kisses from various cultures. 

• In Ancient Rome and some modern Pagan beliefs, worshipers, when passing the statue or image of a god or goddess, will kiss their hand and wave it towards the deity. 
• The holy kiss or kiss of peace is a traditional part of most Christian liturgies, though often replaced with an embrace or handshake today in Western cultures. 
• In the gospels of Matthew and Mark, not Luke or John, Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss. This is the basis of the term "the kiss of Judas". 
• Catholics will kiss rosary beads as a part of prayer, or kiss their hand after making the sign of the cross. It is also common to kiss the wounds on a crucifix, or any other image of Christ's Passion. 
• Pope John Paul II would kiss the ground on arrival in a new country. 
• Visitors to the Pope traditionally kiss his foot. 
• Catholics traditionally kiss the ring of a cardinal or bishop.
• Catholics traditionally kiss the hand of a priest. 
• Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Christians often kiss the icons around the church on entering; they will also kiss the cross and/or the priest's hand in certain other customs in the Church, such as confession or receiving a blessing. 
• Hindus sometimes kiss the floor of a temple.
• Local lore in Ireland suggests that kissing the Blarney Stone will bring the gift of the gab.
• Jews will kiss the Western wall of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, and other religious articles during prayer such as the Torah, usually by touching their hand, prayer shawl, or prayer book to the Torah and then kissing it. Jewish law prohibits kissing members of the opposite sex, except for spouses and certain close relatives. 
• Muslims may kiss the Black Stone during Hajj-their pilgrimage to Mecca. 

This is all very nice but dare you tell me what type of kiss you really like best?

Of Wimseys and Wellesleys: Courtesy Titles, Part 1

Both of the protagonists of my little series on titles and forms of address are younger sons--Lord Peter is the second son of a duke, Wellington the third son of an earl. And younger sons make useful protagonists for fiction. Eldest sons of peers, destined to assume their father's titles, have careers in estate management and the House of Lords marked out for them by accident of birth. While an aristocrat's younger son is backed by his family's influence and support, he has a wider range of professions open to him, a certain freedom the head of his family lacks.

So they're great to write about. But the rules for what to call them (and their sisters) can be a little tricky.  You must learn the ways of the courtesy title.

A courtesy title is given to certain close relatives of a peer. They remain legally commoners, lacking such perks as a seat in the House of Lords, but they're addressed as lord or lady...you guessed it...as a courtesy. We'll hold off on the special courtesy titles given to eldest living sons of peers for the time being, revisiting them when we meet Lord Peter's nephew and Wellington acquires a peerage and a son. Today we'll concentrate on daughters and younger sons.

All daughters and younger sons of dukes or marquesses (the two highest ranks of the peerage) are addressed as Lord or Lady Firstname. Therefore, as the second son of the Duke of Denver, Peter Wimsey is Lord Peter or Lord Peter Wimsey. He is NEVER Lord Wimsey. The "Lord" goes by the first name. Also, any man who is NOT the younger son of a duke or marquess is NEVER Lord Firstname. That's probably the most common error I see in fiction, calling John Biscuit, the Earl of Pastry, Lord John instead of Lord Pastry. That's wrong. WRONG. Don't do it. Daughters follow the same pattern, so Lord Peter's sister is Lady Mary Wimsey. (NOT Lady Wimsey.)

So, in a way, you're always on a first name basis with daughters and younger sons of dukes. You show that someone is intimate with your character by dropping the Lord or Lady. There's a nice bit in Dorothy Sayers' wonderful Gaudy Night where Harriet Vane, Lord Peter's eventual wife, calls him Lord Peter in front of others as they're solving a mystery together even though she's called him, and thought of him, as just Peter for ages. Ever polite, he matches her by calling her Miss Vane throughout the scene.

Earls' children are tricky. The daughters bear the courtesy title of Lady, just like dukes' and marquesses' daughters, but the younger sons do not bear the title of Lord. So Wellington, as a younger son of the Earl of Mornington, was NOT addressed as Lord Arthur before he started accumulating titles of his own. His sister, however, WAS Lady Anne. I don't know how this quirk got into the system, but that's the rule. In everyday speech younger sons of earls are just plain Misters, but they too have a courtesy title of sorts--"the Honorable." So, should you find yourself flung back in time and needing to talk to Wellington as a very young man, before he became an officer, call him Mr. Wesley (NOT Wellesley--the family changed their name around the time he started his rise in the world, and I'll discuss how easy it was to change your name in a future post), or Mr. Arthur Wesley if you need to distinguish him from his brothers. The Honorable only comes into play if you need to address a letter or otherwise make formal written reference to him. Then he's The Honorable Arthur Wesley (often abbreviated to Hon.).

Got that? Good. If your characters are the children of the two lower ranks of the peerage (viscounts and barons), sons and daughters are both Honorables. Simple. It's just earls who are confusing.

Stay tuned next month for what to call these younger sons and daughters and their spouses after marriage. Then we'll start to trace Wellington's rise with a post about knighthoods, and maybe I'll fit in that digression about name changes. Beyond that, we still have plenty of ground to cover.

New Year's Eve Regency Style

I would imagine that the elite of Regency society would celebrate the new year at their country estates, entertaining family and friends. As well as the usual card games, presumably there would be parlour games, too.

These are some of the antics that might have raised chaperones’ eyebrows.

 

Snapdragon involved placing raisins in a bowl of heated sherry and then setting on fire. The idea was to pluck the raisins out and eat them without getting burned. I can’t help wondering why!

Bouts-Rimees or Wit required participants to come up with impromptu rhymes. There was a list of rhyming words supplied and each player had to make up a verse to go with the words.

Charades has stood the test of time and requires no explanation.

I remember playing Blind Man’s Bluff as a kid myself, so that one’s endured, too. One member of the party is blind-folded and a member of the opposite sex sits on a chair. The blindfolded person used his or her hands to touch and feel the other person, trying to guess their identity. This is where I imagine the chaperones reaching for the smelling salts!

Le Baiser à la Capucine was a French kissing game. I assume that refers to the country of its origin and not the type of kiss delivered!

In party situations that old favourite Chess was sometimes livened up by playing for articles of clothing rather than money!

Anyone know of other games?

Happy New Year to you all.

Wendy

Christmas Snap-dragon

Of all the strange Christmas traditions observed in English-speaking countries over the years—kissing under the mistletoe, hanging stockings by the fire, standing in line to sit on Santa’s lap—the strangest of all may have been the playing of a parlor game called snap-dragon. It literally involved playing with fire.

The game consisted of warming some form of alcohol—brandy was traditional—in a large, shallow bowl and floating treats in it, typically raisins but sometimes items like almonds, plums or candied fruit.

This 1858 depiction of “Snapdragon” by the artist Charles Keene (1823-1891) appeared in the Illustrated London News.

The alcohol was then set alight, creating an eerie blue flame. Participants would dart a hand into the fire to pluck out a prize, and the alcohol-covered treat would continue to burn until the victorious player popped it into his or her mouth to extinguish it. The fun was in the daring required, and the excitement of watching one’s fellow participants risk injury, blue flames clinging to their lips and hands.

The origins of the game are old enough that Shakespeare makes reference to it, using an older variation of its name, flap-dragon. In Love’s Labour’s Lost the rustic character Costard says, “Thou are easier swallowed than a flapdragon,” and in Henry IV Part 2, Falstaff refers to a character with “a weak mind and an able body” as someone who “drinks off candles’ ends for flap-dragons.”

Though the practice apparently began as an individual drinking game, we know it had evolved into a group activity by the eighteenth century because Dr. Johnson defines flapdragon in his 1755 Dictionary as “A play in which they catch raisins out of burning brandy, and, extinguishing them by closing the mouth, eat them.” We also know the game was alive and well during the regency, since Grose’s 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue defines it as “Christmas gambol: raisins and almonds being put into a bowl of brandy, and the candles extinguished, the spirit is set on fire, and the company scramble for the raisins.”

It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. In this 1887 illustration from “Holly Leaves” (the Christmas edition of The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News), one child appears to have burned his fingers.

Despite—or perhaps because of—the danger involved, the game remained popular throughout the nineteenth century. In The Pickwick Papers (1836), Charles Dickens writes, “When they were all tired of blind-man's buff, there was a great game at snap-dragon, and when fingers enough were burned with that, and all the raisins were gone, they sat down by the huge fire of blazing logs to a substantial supper...” Twenty-five years later, Anthony Trollope included an extended passage in Orley Farm in which his characters play snap-dragon: “Snap-dragon by candlight? Who ever heard of such a thing?” says Madeline Stavely. “It would wash all the dragon out of it, and leave nothing but the snap. It is a necessity of the game that it should be played in the dark, —or rather by its own lurid light.” Lewis Carroll even included a “snap-dragon-fly” in Through the Looking Glass: “Its body is made of plum pudding, its wings of holly-leaves, and its head is a raisin burning in brandy."

Eventually, however, electricity arrived to shed its own lurid light, and people became a bit more leery of playing near open flames, or perhaps parents just became more cautious about small children plunging their hands into fiery alcohol. Snap-dragon fell out of favor, and now the game is little more than a literary footnote. Still, the next time you’re looking for a way to liven up the holidays, you might want to play...No, on second thought, Jenga is a lot less likely to cause serious injury.

Merry Christmas, and happy New Year!

Alyssa Everett's debut regency romance, Ruined by Rumor, is currently available from Carina Press, and her second regency, Lord of Secrets, will be out March 25, 2013. She hopes you'll visit her website and follow her on Twitter and Facebook, where she promises not to spam you relentlessly.

History as we wish it could be.

I love history, but I also love modern medicine, microwaves and the ability to buy what I eat instead of growing it. Luckily, modern life allows history buffs like me to enjoy a taste of history through movies. Since I'm obsessed with period pieces (I am a historical romance novelist, after all) I'll watch any movie with a costume and an accent. As a result, I've seen some great movies, some terrible movies and some that are just great fun.

Below is a sampling of the good, the bad and the fun to watch. This list only represents a small portion of the movies I love. So feel free to post your own favorites. I'm always on the lookout for another flick to add to my list or, at this time of year, to add to my Christmas wish list.

There is something decadent about watching Dangerous Liaisons. The costumes are rich, the story is intriguing and the characters are down right evil. It's wicked fun and a lot less calories than chocolate.






Who can resist the scene in Dangerous Beauty when Veronica's mother instructs Veronica on the art of pleasing a man? The story is a little trite at times but the chemistry between Veronica and Marco is sizzling and Venice provides the perfect backdrop for their complicated love.

How sexy is Rupert Everett in An Ideal Husband? This film combines all the pithy dialogue one expects from Oscar Wilde with excellent actors and lush costumes.




As much as I enjoy King Arthur, I'll be the first to admit it isn't a great film. However, I can't resist Clive Owen and Ioan Gruffadd in Roman costume.
Also, the soundtrack is amazing.




Vanity Fair is gorgeous and it's fun watching Rebbecca scheme her way up the social ladder. Also, James Purfoy is really sexy in his uniform. However, the period detail isn't perfect and neither is Reese Witherspoon's accent. I've read William Makepeace Thackery's novel and the movie is a good adaptation of the lengthy tome.

300. Beefcake. Need I say more?

A Recipe for Romance

Well, a recipe for a romantic dinner. I love to cook and so does my heroine, Rebeka. This is a favorite recipe of our bookish scholarly heroine, tossed back in time to the 17th century. Rebeka was ecstatic when she found the ingredients for this recipe on Doward's wagon (the traveling tradesman). Imagine her surprise when Lord Arik brought home a fine salmon along with a strong appetite. She couldn't wait to tempt him with her offereing(s). Luckily for both of them this recipe takes less than ten minutes. This is the 21st century version.

PS...Rebeka served the salmon to Arik in the Great Hall. Tantalized  he licked the sticky glaze from his fingers never taking his eyes off of her. But that's a totally different story!

PPS...My son makes this recipe whenever he wants to impress. With a side of whipped potatoes and a vinaigrette salad, all you need is a decadent chocolate cake to finish off the meal.

PPPS...Knight of Runes, Arik and Rebeka's story, is now available in paperback but only through Harlequin.

Rebeka's Brown Glazed Salmon

Ingredients:

1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 Tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 Tablespoons fresh chopped dill (or 2 teaspoons dried dill)
4 (6 ounces each) salmon fillets
Salt and pepper

Instructions:

1. Preheat the broiler.
2. Spray the rack of the broiler pan with nonstick cooking spray.
3. Mix the brown sugar, mustard and dill in a small bowl.
4. Salt and pepper both sides of the salmon and place on the broiler pan.
5. Spoon on and spread the glaze on top of the salmon. (You won't use all of it. I keeps forever covered in the fridge.)
6. Position the broiler rack about 7 inches from the heat and broil just until the salmon is opaque, about 7 to 9 minutes. Keep a watch as the glaze can burn.

Note:
1. Don't turn the fillet.
2. The glaze works equally well on chicken and pork.

Let me know how you like it.

Of Wimseys and Wellesleys, a new(ish) series

For the next few months, I'm going to be recycling a series of posts from my blog on how to manage titles and forms of address within the British aristocracy. First off, an introduction:


It is a truth universally acknowledged that the writer of a historical novel set in 18th or 19th-century Britain must be in want of a duke. Even if, like me, you declare yourself a populist, a good small-r republican who doesn't understand what's so fascinating about inherited aristocracy, they have a way of poking their graceful dukely heads up and insisting upon a role in your stories. Or if you can resist the siren song of the duke, you may find yourself writing a less exalted but still lordly creature like an earl or a viscount. And your peer of the realm will have, or acquire along the way, a family.

In every case there is a correct and incorrect way to refer to your peer and his family--his widowed mother, his wife, his daughters, the cousin who's next in line for the title until he fathers a son of his own, etc. And a great many writers get it wrong. They just stick "Lord" or "Lady" willy-nilly into their characters' names. If their hero is John Smith, Earl of Smithton, they'll call him Lord John on one page, Lord Smith the next, and maybe Lord Smithton somewhere in the next chaper. (Hint: only one of the options is correct.)

Admittedly, British titles and forms of address are a confusing and convoluted system, especially for us Americans who have no equivalent in our culture. But I believe it pays to get them right. The more little details you get correct, the richer and more believable your fictional world will be. Also, you'll earn the appreciation and praise of readers like me who've memorized the system and find the errors to be nails on a chalkboard.

There are sites, readily searchable via Google, that explain the rules.  But because stories are easier to remember than rules, at least for me, I've decided to do a blog series exploring proper forms of address using one fictional example and one historical one.

Representing fiction will be Lord Peter Wimsey, protagonist of Dorothy Sayers' Golden Age detective novels. He's the younger son of a duke, and over the course of the series, we meet a good chunk of his family--his widowed mother, his brother the current duke and his wife and children, their sister who starts the series single and marries another secondary character, and, last but far from least, Lord Peter's eventual wife. Between them all, they cover most of the possible forms of address within a duke's family, but they're fairly straightforward and tidy for all that.

For complexity we'll look to history, to the life and family of Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington. He didn't inherit his title (obviously, since he's the first duke). He was the third surviving son of an earl, and for his military accomplishments was made first a knight, then a viscount, an earl, a marquess, and at last a duke. Know what to call him, his wife, and their two sons at every point of his career and you'll be well on your way to mastering the entire system. And once you throw in the extended family--divorce scandals, a peer who didn't get around to marrying his wife till AFTER all five of their children were born, name changes for the sake of inheritance, and everything else that could complicate the lives and fortunes of a big and often dysfunctional turn-of-the-19th century aristocratic family--well, in my experience there's nothing like juicy 200-year-old gossip to help you remember who could and couldn't inherit a title and how you ought to speak of a duke's children as opposed to an earl's or a viscount's.

So, until I run out of material, I'll be running a series on the Wimseys and Wellesleys and using them for examples of how to get your own dukes and their families right. I welcome questions and corrections--I think I've mastered most of the rules, but I wouldn't be surprised if I'm still missing a nuance here and there.

Next time, we'll start with both our protagonists as children and learn the difference between younger sons of dukes and earls.

--Susanna

Compromising the Marquess

As a Brit now living in warmer climes, I get very nostalgic come autumn time. For me it conjures up images of roaring log fires, the curtains closed against the nasty weather, a decent glass of wine close at hand and, naturally, a good book. If I’m not reading someone else’s, I’m either busy writing one or dreaming up a plot for the next one. Plot ideas come in the strangest guises and at the most unexpected times.

Take Compromising the Marquess for instance. It’s the first in a four book series published by Carina Press charting the fortunes of the Forster dynasty. The idea for it came to me when I was watching Prince William’s wedding. That got me thinking about his mother and how the paparazzi had hounded her to her death. That, in turn, got me thinking about the history of newspapers in England.

The Times started out as the Daily Universal Register in 1785. An underwriter at Lloyds incurred huge losses due to a hurricane in Jamaica and sought to recoup them through a typesetting process, producing advertising sheets to promote the venture. This, in time, led to the infamous scandal sheets that abounded in the Regency period, so loved by the ordinary people, and that could make or break reputations.
My heroine Leah supports herself and her sister by writing snippets of society gossip for one such publication. When she and Beth remove to the south coast for the benefit of Beth’s health, Leah’s opportunities are severely curtailed, until she meets the powerful and compelling Hal Forster, Marquess of Denby. She erroneously reports that he’s about to marry a local lady, thereby putting him in a compromising position. Worse, she suspects him of working against British interests. Disguised as a lad, she attends a bare knuckle fight held behind the local tavern, which is where she first meets Hal. He sees through her disguise immediately and this is how he talks to her:-

Hal felt a devilish desire to teach her a lesson.
“Come inside, lads, and have some ale. It’s cold as the grave out here.” “No, it’s all right,” she said. Hal shot the woman—Miss Elliott, was it?—an inquisitive glance. She looked away, apparently realizing that she’d spoken in her own voice. “We need to be getting back.”
This time her words were a gravelly slur, partly because she’d pulled a muffler over her mouth, covering half her features with it, but leaving the row of freckles that bedecked her retroussé nose delightfully exposed. Hal hadn’t known that he held freckles in such high regard. “Nonsense.” Hal clapped her on the back. She flinched but gamely stood her ground. “I wouldn’t hear of it.”
“Oh, very well then.”
The dog inserted itself between Hal and the woman as the three of them walked towards the tavern. It alternately growled and wagged, proving itself to be a most inept guardian. Hal bent to scratch its ears.
“What do you call the mutt?”
“Pickle,” said the lad. “He’s a stray.”
“Nice dog.”
“He’s good at catching rats,” the girl said with the hint of a mischievous smile.
Ah, so she knew who he was. “I’ll bear that in mind if I ever find my home infested.”
They entered the tavern. It was packed but Hal managed to secure a small table in the corner and ordered tankards of ale for the three of them. They were plonked on the table by a barmaid whose bosom literally spilled out of her bodice as she leaned over Hal’s shoulder. She roared with laughter, adjusted her clothing and directed a cheeky wink at him. Ale slopped over the table, trickling onto the girl’s lap. Hal had to resist the urge to wipe it away. Miss Elliott’s eyes almost popped out of her head as she looked round the place. It must have been obvious that there were many gentlemen present, congenially rubbing shoulders with the lower classes, all rank forgotten as they bonded over a sporting event. His brother Robert was leaning against the bar, deep in conversation with a crew member from Hal’s boat. The few wenches in the place were rushed, quite literally, off their feet as men paid for their favours. Miss Elliott’s gaze was fixed on Sally, a regular at the Boar’s Head, who was all but giving herself to a bosun at the next table. Hal nodded at the bosun—his own bosun, as it happened. He took the hint, stood up and led Sally outside.
“Want a piece of Sally, do you, lad?”
 “Er, no, of course not.” The girl shook her head. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Come on now, we’re all men of the world here and I saw you looking.” Hal was hard-pressed to keep his amusement in check. “I can arrange it, if you like, once she’s free. Shouldn’t be long.”
“Er, no thanks.” “What’s your name, boy?” “Leon. What’s yours?”
Hmm, clever. Flick had mentioned her name was Leah. “Henry,” he said truthfully. “Haven’t seen you around these parts before. Where do you work?”
“We’re…er, looking for work. This is my brother, Jonny.”
“What sort of work are you after?”
“Anything that pays.”
“Well, I might be able to help you there. Are you willing to go to sea?”
“No,” said Jonny.
“Yes,” said the girl.
Hal leaned back and flashed an amiable smile. “Well, which is it?”
“We have a few possibilities on land,” Miss Elliott said, appearing to recall that she had the welfare of an ailing sister to consider. “Besides, now that I think about it, I get seasick.”
“That’s unfortunate.” Hal lifted his tankard and hid a smile behind it. He was enjoying himself enormously, pitting his wits against the girl. She was quick on the uptake but no match for him. “You haven’t touched your ale, Leon. Something wrong with it?”
She picked up the tankard, took too long a draught and choked on it. Hal reached across and slapped her across her narrow shoulders.
“Ouch!”
“Sorry, did I hurt you?” Hal smiled at the chit. “A strong lad like you. Didn’t think you’d hurt so easily.”
“It’s nothing.” She hid her face behind her tankard, much as Hal had done earlier, presumably in the vain hope of disguising a fiery blush.
“We’d better be getting along, mi…I mean, Leon,” Jonny said, draining his tankard and standing up.
“Oh?” Hal raised one brow. “Do you have to be somewhere?”
“Well, er…there might be some work for us tomorrow and so we have to be up early to stand a chance of being taken on.”
Hal stood also, focusing his attention on Miss Elliott, who remained seated. He could vaguely detect the swell of her breasts, even though he suspected that she’d bound them before covering them with several layers of clothing.
“Well, if you change your mind about the work at sea, you can always find me here.” “
What sort of work would it be?” she asked, ignoring Jonny when he tugged at her sleeve. Presumably he’d noticed more than one person glancing at her with speculative interest as soon as she stood up and displayed her appealing posterior. Hal should have anticipated that but he’d been having too much fun teasing her and, for once, had relaxed his guard.
“Oh, just general deckhand duties. You wouldn’t mind that so much, would you, Leon? Bunking down with a lot of other lads can be quite jolly.”
Miss Elliott swallowed, her blush deepening. “Well, I—”
“Not shy, are you? We’re all made the same way.” The extent of Hal’s desire to discover exactly how Miss Elliott was put together surprised him. That tempting derriere, those deliciously slender thighs, caused no end of inappropriate thoughts to tumble through his head. He didn’t need the distraction of inquisitive virgins to deflect him from his purpose.

Compromising the Marquess – A sparkling Regency in which a marquess finds his destiny in an impecunious siren with a beautiful voice and a scorching pen.

Available from Carina Press Amazon.com http://amzn.to/TZgDHT Barnes & Noble http://bit.ly/QllKUf

Find out more about me and my books at my website: www.wendysoliman.com I’m on Facebook as Wendy Soliman – Author or follow me on twitter @wendyswriter

Wendy

An English Harvest Home

Americans in the United States learn the history of Thanksgiving as school children--how the Pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth in 1621, sharing their harvest with their Native American neighbors, the Wampanoag. Though many in the U.S. think of Thanksgiving as a quintessentially American holiday, harvest celebrations are an ancient and widespread tradition, closely tied to our agrarian past.

In England, the feast of Harvest Home was usually held at the time of the Harvest moon, the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox (the word “harvest” comes from the Old English word for autumn, “hærfest”). Though Harvest Home traditions varied from village to village, all were meant to celebrate the conclusion of the farming year and the completion of a successful harvest. Typically, the local landowner hosted the celebration, with the head reaper appointed to preside over the festivities as Lord of the Harvest.

A typical feature of Harvest Home celebrations was the arrival of the “hock cart,” the wagon that carried in the final load of the harvest.

"An English Harvest Home" by Samuel Hieronymus Grimm shows a hock cart traveling through a village, having just visited a tavern along the way.

In 1648, the poet Robert Herrick described the cart as “Dressed up with all the country art,” adding, “The harvest swains and wenches bound/For joy to see the hock cart crowned.” The cart would make its way to the celebration with numerous stops at local ale-houses. Often, the cart carried the “corn dolly,” a harvest effigy fashioned from the last sheaf of wheat cut from the fields.

There were folk songs and later hymns associated with Harvest Home, and the festivities included games and dancing. The day culminated in an impressive feast attended by gentry and laborers alike. (As the local landowner, the hero of my regency Ruined by Rumor hosts the Harvest Home celebration for his workers.) The pre-industrial Harvest Home was a high-spirited occasion, one that mingled the expression of gratitude with jovial good cheer. And, even going back hundreds of years, I'll bet there were quite a few merry-makers who ate so much they couldn't wait to unbutton their breeches.

Alyssa Everett's debut regency romance, Ruined by Rumor, is currently available from Carina Press, and her second regency will be out in March of 2013. She hopes you'll visit her website and follow her on Twitter and Facebook, where she promises not to spam you relentlessly.

Hot Cocoa: A Winter Night's Treat

Hot cocoa or hot chocolate as we say in the South dates back the ancient Mayans and Aztecs. It was nothing like the hot cocoa we have today. Milk was not used and it was served cold with a blend of wine and chili peppers. EWWW!

Chocolate was brought to Europe in the 1500's and in the 1600's chocolate houses, much like coffee houses, were found throughout England. The most fashionable chocolate house was White's, which opened in 1693. Later, like many chocolate houses, White's became a gentlemen's club and still exists today.

Besides being enjoyed as a drink by the aristocracy (cocoa was very expensive), it was used to treat various stomach disorders, liver disease and fevers. In France, chocolate was used to "fight fits of anger and bad moods". I think it is still used for that by women everywhere!

Cocoa progressed through the decades and some of the historic names associated with hot cocoa are present today. In 1842, John Cadbury is selling 16 types of drinking cocoa. 1879 milk chocolate is invented in Switzerland using powdered milk invented by Nestle. In 1926, Hershey introduces Hershey syrup, 1935 Carnation comes up with instant hot cocoa and in the 1950's Swiss Miss produces packets of hot cocoa for airline passengers.

Hot cocoa has become a well-loved comfort food. What is better on a cold winter night than a cup of hot cocoa? And, this is definitely the week to enjoy it as the deep freeze continues. Here are my recommendations:

Instant chocolate mix:

I give Land of Lakes five stars! It is the best instant hot cocoa mix that I have used. Great rich chocolate taste. It is an expensive brand, compared to Nestle or Swiss Miss. But the flavor, which doesn't taste instant at all, is worth it.

A simple delicious recipe for making hot cocoa yourself and cheaply, too:

1/3 cup dry milk
1 tsp cocoa
1 tsp sugar
Add 1 cup of hot water. Stir and enjoy!
you can also mix with cold water and heat in microwave)
This hot cocoa will have a creamy milk taste, more chocolaty and less sweet than the store-bought mixes.

Regardless of how you prepare it, I hope you enjoy a hot cup tonight!

Patricia Preston
www.patriciaannpreston.com

Name that God: Anath

History is littered with civilizations. Some of which we know a great deal about, while others are shrouded in great mystery.  We know a lot about the Greek and Roman civilizations but often very little about the peoples they conquered. As I started a new story set during the Roman era, I was looking for an obscure god that had meaning to women, but who’s worship may have also seemed brutal and senseless both then and now.

Enter Anath, also known as Anat, a major Semitic goddess. She has a Biblical tie-in to the infamous Ba’al as either a sister, a lover, (or both—ewww). Some accounts mention her as a virgin, the meaning here more along the lines of an independent and strong-willed woman (not sexually inactive). She is credited with putting a violent end to the seven-headed serpent Yamm and has a ferocious reputation, cutting off heads and wading through rivers of blood. She avenges Ba’al’s death with the fearsome anger of a woman scorned. She is a Middle Eastern goddess, and quite possibly the forerunner of Athena, a warlike goddess in her own right.

Not much is known in detail regarding the rituals or worship of Anath and those of the same pantheon.  Cultic practices included animal sacrifices at high places. Sacred groves with trees or carved wooden images are noted. Divination, snake worship and ritual prostitution were practiced. Male prostitutes were called qadesh, female quedsha. Sexual rites were supposed to ensure fertility of people, animals and lands, as typical for the time.  She is often represented as a naked woman astride a lion, a lily in one hand and a serpent in the other. 

That leaves a great deal of leeway for the imagination. The ancient world isn’t known for its “warm fuzziness” and the difficult life of those pressed into service to such deities can only be described as brutal. A life of ritual prostitution and blood sacrifice leaves the modern mind bewildered. It will be challenging to go that far back in time and slip into the ancient mentality that endorsed—or rebelled against—such practices. “What if” questions continuously pop into my mind, leading me toward characters, motivations, and plot points that I'm attempting to string into an intriguing narrative for readers.

So I must ask, which ancient god or goddess captured your imagination? As children, we all learned the Greek and Roman stories, and some will know more Biblical details than some.  Share--who fasinated you and why?

Druids

Last month’s offering was about the ancient Avebury stones in Southern England. The stone circles and megaliths that pre-date written history leave much to the imagination. It’s no wonder they are the setting for mystical and magical stories. The Druids, a mystical order of people, have spurred legends and stories of magic, human sacrifice, and ancient rites. It seems like a match made in heaven!

The earliest references to Druids are in the writings of Julius Caesar. He cited Greek and Roman texts from 200 BCE. These now lost early writings depicted the Druids as wise Celtic elders. The responsibility of these elders was to memorize the history and knowledge of their tribe and pass the information on to the next generation to ensure the future of their society.

The Druids, with their revered knowledge, played an important role in society and were a respected warrior class. They were a single authority responsible to act as judge, a lifelong position passed down in secret, to the next generation. This elite training, held in caves and forests, along with their herbalist expertise and the later development of the Ogham alphabet, associated with the Celtic lunar tree calendar, may have led to the summation that Druids were strongly linked to nature. Their vast knowledge gave them unequaled power over their people.

They met annually at a sacred place in a region owned by the Carnute tribe in the heart of Gaul. Gaul was a large area in Western Europe that is now France, Luxembourg, Belgium, as well as parts of Switzerland, Northern Italy, the Netherlands and Germany.

Without any written history, it is difficult to know the ritual, political and clerical practices. However, if we look at documented Celtic history we could make some assumptions about the druids.

The ancient Druids were priests, teachers, physicians (herbalists), legislators, astronomers, chemists, musicians, poets, theologians, philosophers, diviner, and judges of their time. Their insight was highly respected and their religious, judicial, and scholastic authority was absolute. Viewed as the conduit between the people and the gods, they handed down their knowledge orally from generation to generation.

Druid beliefs focused on the supreme power of the universe and the belief that the soul was indestructible/ immortal and after death passed on to another. Because of the diverse geography and number of tribes and cultures that made up the Celts, there were a variety of gods. This is one of the strongest factors in supporting the theory that Druids did not teach religion but rather taught their philosophy which gave order to the many different structures, instilled morals, virtues and ethics. So strong was the teaching that aristocrats, even kings, sought out Druids to teach their children. Because druidic instructions were memorized verses, none of the verses have survived.

Claims that Druids participated in human sacrifice are uncertain. Caesar claimed they sacrificed criminals by burning them in a wicker effigy, the wicker man. But other authorities claim Caesar’s information is all propaganda to demonize the Druid and justify his move to eradicate them.

Because the common people held them in such high regard, the Romans feared them. It was this reverence that prevented the success of Caesar’s invasion of Briton in 55 BCE. As a result, Caesar ordered their extinction. While almost successful a few Druids survived by hiding or converting to Christianity.

As with any invading and winning army, the Christian church absorbed the Celtic religion. Many of the pagan gods and goddess had new life as Christian saints with many sites that held spiritual significance becoming locations of cathedrals. By the 7^th century CE, Druidism was all but destroyed or had gone into hiding.

In medieval tales from Ireland, the Druids were portrayed as sorcerers with super natural powers. In the 18^th and 19^th centuries, fraternal groups and neo-pagan organizations revitalized the ideas held by the Druids and there was a resurgence in Druidic beliefs. Today, modern Druidism is one of the pagan religions which include Wicca, Asatru, Shamanism.

If you are wondering about the picture at the top of this month’s blog, I couldn’t find a Druid but I found Gerard Butler from the movie 300 *sigh*  If you find a picture of a Druid, please send it along.