Listen to a 30 minute interview and reading with Rona Laycock, on The Writers’ Room, Corinium Radio, about my new novel, The Knowing – A Fantasy. Meet Sideways Brannelly, a trader between worlds, and hear about the research that went into the novel, my other books, my teaching, and up-and-coming events…
http://www.coriniumradio.co.uk/
Chantelle Smith and Kevan Manwaring – The Bonnie Road. Photograph by Simon Fairbourn, 2014
As part of my Creative Writing PhD at the University of Leicester – a novel-based project dramatizing the diasporic translocation of folk traditions from the Scottish Lowlands to the Southern Appalachians – I have explored various forms of practice-based research. Chief among these is of course the writing of the novel itself. A recent QAA Benchmark Statement on Creative Writing[1] validates the notion of writing-as-research, when it states: ‘Original creative work is the essence of research in this practice-led subject’ (4.6). Of course, research may also explore the critical discourses around the subject, the reader experience, creative process, publishing, performance and multi-media platforms. In the first of a series of three seminars hosted by the Open University’s research group, ‘Contemporary Cultures of Writing’ at Senate House, London (which I attended on Tuesday, 3rd November) research students and staff explore issues around ‘Creative Writing Research’[2] What constitutes research and how it can be validated within the rigours of a PhD continue to be explored and expanded by those working within academe. The pressure of having a thesis rubber-stamped and passing one’s viva means institutional validation of ‘proper’ research is all too critical, and maybe constraining the often instinctive, protean and multifarious methodologies of writers. Often we ‘do it anyway’, writing blind, in the white heat of the moment, following hunches, gut feelings, flashes of inspiration, synaptic tight-rope walks, and tangential cat-a-loops … then back-extrapolate the ‘whys’ and the ‘wherefores’ afterwards, trying to sound intelligent and conscious in our creative processes.
Nevertheless, some activity is informed and intentional. As part of my novel project, I decided that a spoken word performance dramatizing some of the Border Ballads would be an interesting way to bring alive my research, widen its accessibility, and get diverse audience responses. And it would also be great fun. And so with my partner Chantelle Smith, a folk-singer, we devised a show based upon our trips to the Scottish Borders – in the summer of 2014 we walked Hadrian’s Wall from coast to coast, then pushed beyond the current Border, visiting ballad sites. Drawing upon this shared experience we devised ‘The Bonnie Road: tales and ballads of the Borders’, a storytelling and acoustic music show bringing alive the ballads of Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer – whose thematic symmetry I find fascinating. Initially last forty minutes we premiered it at the SEED Festival, Hawkwood College, in July 2015; and have performed it at three other events since, expanding it to a full hour with extra songs and an additional folk tale. The response has been favourable. One audience member commented afterwards: ‘Loved the interplay of word, music, choreography, and the unexpected humorous asides – and also the landscape of folkloric detail.’[3] I have also performed a solo version of the show in the States, on a recent field trip. The show’s strength, however, is in the dynamic created between my partner and I on stage, and the alternation between modes of narrative: primarily storytelling (myself) and ballad (Chantelle). Harp, shruti box, bodhran and bells are also used to create ambience and weave the spell. The shift in register between my (spoken) voice and my partner’s (sung) voice modulates the aural experience and demands of the listener. We shift in and out of character, not fully acting, not fully ourselves, but inhabiting a third space, and breaking the fourth on occasion with the odd humorous aside, responding to the actuality of the performance space – noises off, a mobile phone, a passing siren, etc. The show inhabits a liminal space – in terms of its location/s (the Scottish Borders; Elfhame); its gender politics; the creative tension between the magical and the mundane; the cross-fertilisation of art-forms; the chancy terrain of national identity (Anglo-Scottish fault-lines); and in its rich symbolism. In many ways liminality is the key note of both ballads – both physical (hillside; tree; stream; crossroads; well) and temporal (twilight; midnight; Halloween) motifs crop up, often echoed in each ballad. In ‘Thomas the Rhymer’ it is the male protagonist who is our ‘Everyman’ – it is he who undergoes initiation, gaining the gift of prophecy (‘the Tongue that Cannot Lie’) and the appellation of ‘True Thomas’. In ‘Tam Lin’ it is Janet of Carterhaugh who facilitates listener identification – it is her Third Person Limited Omniscient perspective that we follow – as she undergoes her own rite-of-passage into woman-hood and self-actualisation. Both Thomas and Janet experience a change of status, brought about by what RJ Stewart has termed the ‘Underworld Initiation’. The Queen of Elfland is the catalyst behind both – more directly in ‘Thomas the Rhymer’ and in a ‘behind-the-scenes’ Morgana Le Fay-way in ‘Tam Lin’. She is ostensibly the same queen but seems very different in each ballad: in ‘Thomas the Rhymer’ she appears as the Muse figure, a Gravesian ‘white goddess’ on her white horse, with her bells and spells. In ‘Tam Lin’ she is a Kali-figure, goddess of vengeance, cursing Tam Lin for his ‘faithlessness’ – terrifying and implacable. As the male performer in the show, I naturally channel Thomas and Tam Lin; my partner similarly channels the light-and-dark queens and the feisty Janet. The experience is visceral and deepens our understanding – and compassion – for all aspects. They seem part of a spectrum. I have devised, based upon this practice-led insight, a workshop and accompanying diagram I call ‘The Wheel of Transformation’, which I field-tested at both a pagan camp in Britain and in America. In both cases I was impressed and surprised by the results. Participants role-played scenes from the ballads – and, without much prompting, took on characters of different genders, ages and backgrounds to their own. It seemed liberating to all involve – that we could move around the ‘wheel’ and inhabit any of the roles, fith-fathing like Tam Lin in Janet’s arms. All participants managed to find something to relate in the ballads – there are universal patterns being played out in them; akin to the Orphic (Orpheus and Eurydice ) or Eleusinian (Demeter and Persephone) Mysteries, in terms of their ritual and archetypal. It would seem the ‘Fair Maiden’ (the anima; or untainted soul seeking the grit of experience) is perennially being lured to the Underworld by some dark, charismatic Lord – where the chymical wedding occurs, and the nigredo of the soul’s dark night leads to the gold of transformational rebirth. For self-knowledge to be achieved, the Underworld journey must be taken and the Shadow embraced.
And so the journey begins. The wheel of transformation keeps turning and these pliant ballads are re-invented in new forms with each performer, each performance. The fith-fath does not threaten their integrity, only strengthens it. Their mutability is part of their resilience, their enduring appeal. This practice-based research has deepened my understanding of them – and consequently some of the core themes underlying my novel, underpinning its mythic resonance. It gives the creative/critical endeavour of my research a breadth and groundedness, making it feel less abstract, more embodied and owned. I walk my talk, and the material becomes a living reality.
Kevan Manwaring 7 November 2015
https://taleandsong.wordpress.com/
http://www.chantellesmith.co.uk/
[1] http://www.qaa.ac.uk/publications/information-and-guidance/publication/?PubID=2986#.Vj4rmbfhDnB
[2] http://www.open.ac.uk/arts/research/contemporary-cultures-of-writing/events/creative-writing-research-investigation
[3] Anthony Nanson, SEED Festival, 2015
The Road Not Taken performed by Spaniel in the Works, Theatre at Mr Twitchetts, Stroud, 11 July 2014
Friday night saw the premiere of a play about the Dymock Poets (‘The Road Not Taken’) I co-wrote with Terry James from Bath. It was designed as a feature-length screenplay, and so it was interesting to see how it was going to work on stage, in a script-in-hand performance by members of Spaniel in the Works. It was performed as part of their monthly scratch theatre nights at Mr Twitchetts, the Subscription Rooms, Stroud. Although it was (sadly) poorly attended their players were true professionals and soldiered on – delivering a moving ensemble effort. Due to low numbers, the cast had to double or even triple up in roles – but they did this with aplomb. John Bassett was a great Robert Frost, Swithin Fry a superbly dry Edward Thomas, and the rest of the cast brought to life Eleanor Farjeon, Helen Thomas, Bott the gamekeeper, Rupert Brookes, and others. It was rivetting to see my words come to life before my eyes.
I hope this production gets seen again – because it deserves it.
It was intended (in part) as a warm-up event for The Golden Room centenary symposium and celebration of modern Gloucestershire writers, planned for Saturday 26th July, in the same venue. That plans to be a very special gathering – with a superb programme – and we hope we get a decent turn out for it. The theme of the event is ‘creative fellowship’ and we hope it will be in that spirit that you all join us … in the Golden Room.
Kevan Manwaring is a writer, storyteller, and performance poet. He has also taught on all three Open University creative writing modules. Other projects include The Cotswold Word Centre.
To start off, please tell us a little about where you are based.
I live in Stroud, Gloucestershire, on the edge of the Cotswolds – I moved here end of 2010. It is a small town with a great community feel – and a vibrant creative scene. There are a lot of poets, storytellers, writers, musicians, freethinkers, etc. The Green scene is big, and it’s surrounded by gorgeous countryside, where I love to walk.
Having taught A174, A215, and A363, what do you find most rewarding about teaching with the OU?
When I see a student have a breakthrough – when something sinks in, the penny drops (in terms of the theory), or comes together (in terms of their practice). When I hear of a student’s success, eg publication or winning a competition (I’ve had students get book deals with major publishers and win national competitions). With some students returning for A363 I’ve seen them develop over two academic years – so it’s satisfying to see this fuller arc and the development of their writing.
Many of the Ink Pantry staff and its readers are budding writers. What would you say is the most common mistake new creative writers make?
Overwriting, in terms of density of style, purple prose, exposition, etc.
Under-writing, in terms of not writing every day and not writing the thousands and thousands of words you need to hone your practice.
In poetry: focusing on the meaning of the words, rather than the sounds.
In prose: poor structure, viewpoint slippage, and lack of telling detail. Most good writing comes down to sufficient visualisation. So many stories I read/assess seem out of focus – and it’s frustrating, as you know something interesting is happening there, but you’re cut off from it. As someone who trained in art originally this has fed into my writing. I have a very visual imagination – experiencing cinematic dreams most nights – and I write what I see in my mind’s eye. You need to make it vivid for the reader.
You were commissioned in 2010 by The History Press to work on a collection of folk tales. Why do you think it is important to preserve folk tales?
Well, at the risk of being pedantic this project was more about reviving folk tales – rather than preserving them in an academic, set-in-amber, way (if it is possible to capture an authentic definitive telling, as each teller does it differently). The History Press commissioned professional storytellers like myself to gather together the best tale of our chosen county and, critically, retell them in our own words, with a sense of orality – ie for performance; not that these are verbatim transcripts, but they capture the flavour of a live telling and the style of a particular teller/author. Many were cobbled together from fragments of local history, folklore, archaeology, fieldwork, and imagination – so they were very distinctive creations, rather than historically accurate versions. Being a writer rather than an anthropologist, this creative freedom engaged me more. I had the opportunity to write 80 short stories – and that’s how I approached them.
A couple of the Ink Pantry team members have been asked to perform their own poetry at special events. We’d love some pointers on how to capture an audience when performing poetry.
From early on as a performance poet I quickly realised that if you made an effort to learn your poem off by heart then you’re going to gain the respect and attention of the audience more than just reading it. Plus you can maintain eye contact, use both hands, and not have any barrier between you and your audience. Other tips: cut the preamble, don’t apologise, project. Connect to the core emotion of your poem and transmit that to the audience. Enjoy yourself.
One of your recent projects led to a show called Tales of Lust, Infidelity and Bad Living. This sounds like something we should hear more about.
This was a show based upon my life. No, seriously, it was one of a series of performances based upon The New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs, edited by Steve Roud and Julia Bishop. Bath Literature Festival wanted to create a series of storytelling performances of the ballads and that was the one that happened to still be available. I performed it in the Guildhall in Bath – there were a lot of French language students in the audience, who seemed to like it.
There are a lot of sexual politics in those traditional ballads – something I’m exploring in my new show, The Snake and the Rose (based upon my two folk tales collections) in collaboration with my partner Chantelle Smith who is a folksinger.
You are behind the Cotswold Word Centre initiative. Please tell us about the Centre and the philosophy behind it.
It is a platform for language, literacy, and literature based at Hawkwood College, near Stroud. We launched on World Book Day this year and our patron is novelist Jamila Gavin. The idea is to provide a focus for the plethora of spoken and written word-based activity in the area: poetry readings, book launches, storytelling cafes, writing workshops, literary rambles, showcases, competitions, small presses, and so on. It is early days yet – but there’s some exciting stuff in the pipeline. Folk can find out more by following the link below.
You have said your new book, Desiring Dragons: Creativity, Imagination & The Writer’s Quest, is the culmination of 13 years’ teaching creative writing. What kind of things will readers learn from the book?
They will have to read it. But it’s more about process rather than particular techniques. I didn’t want to write another how-to book, of which there are many (some better than others). It explores the creative process; and strategies for what I call ‘long-distance’ writing. Many writing courses focus on teaching skills that will lead (hopefully) to publication – but what happens after that? How can you keep going through the long haul of writing a novel (or several – as someone who wrote a five-volume series, The Windsmith Elegy, over ten years)? Through the ups and downs of a writing life – the setbacks and successes? This is for the writer who wants to be a ‘marathon runner’ rather than a ‘sprinter’.
Finally, you are organising a symposium on the Dymock Poets this year. Our readers would be interested in hearing more about this event.
The Dymock Poets, as they became known, were a group of friends who gathered in a small village in Gloucestershire just before the First World War: Lascelles Abercrombie, Wilfrid Gibson, John Drinkwater, Edward Thomas, Robert Frost, and Rupert Brooke. For a while they enjoyed long walks, cider and poetry, publishing 4 editions of New Numbers (an anthology which included the first publication of The Soldier: ‘If I should die think only this of me…’). Frost and Thomas mutually empowered each other to go on to become the great poets we see them as today. When war was declared the Dymocks’ idyll was irrevocably shattered. Frost and his family returned to America. Thomas and Brooke went off to war and did not return. I wanted to celebrate the centenary of their creative fellowship, on the eve of the First World War when they gathered in Dymock (June-July 1914).
I have co-organised (along with poet Jay Ramsay) a daylong symposium in Stroud on Saturday 26th July. We have some great talks throughout the day and in the evening, a showcase of modern Gloucestershire writers responding to the themes of the Dymocks. It is this creative response to conflict that interests me more than the whole glorification of war thing. You can book through the Stroud Subscription Rooms website. I find the Dymock Poets story touching and inspiring – to the point of co-writing a feature-length screenplay about them. At the moment, it looks like a drama-documentary will be made. Anyone interested in the Dymock Poets should check out the Friends of the Dymock Poets site: http://www.dymockpoets.org.uk/index.html
Many thanks to Kevan for taking the time to speak to Ink Pantry. Links to Kevan’s books and some of the projects he is involved in can be found below.
http://www.compass-books.net/books/desiring-dragons
http://www.literatureworks.org.uk/Book-Features/Special-Features/Creative-Fellowship
Cotswold Word Centre: a platform for language, literacy, and literature
Kevan launches Desiring Dragons at the Story Supper, 30 May, 2014, Stroud
Friday saw an excellent evening at the Stroud Story Supper, here in Stroud. The Black Book Cafe was filled with a lovely attentive and supportive crowd. We had fine contributions from the floor – many on the dragon-theme of the evening, as this was the launch of my latest book, Desiring Dragons: creativity, imagination and the writer’s quest – published that very day. Chantelle started the proceedings with the ballad of the ‘Laidly Worm’, and then I introduced my book before plunging into the ‘Dragon of Llanrhaedr’. There followed excellent contributions from Kate Hibbert from the Cardiff Circle (who told a meaty version of Ashputtle and the Stoor Wurm), Fiona Eadie, fresh from her National Trust storywalks in Wiltshire, splendid poetry from Robin Collins and Jo Woolley, and others. Jehanne and Rob Mehta finished off the first half with a rousing song about King Arthur (Pendragon!) which got us all singing along.
Adam Horovitz performs his poem, ‘The Long Earth’ at the Desiring Dragons launch
Fiona Eadie – storyteller at the launch
Jim completes his epic saga – with a friend
After the break, I told ‘The Gurt Wurm of Shervage Wood’. We had a surprise special guest – Adam Horovitz – who stirringly recited his poem ‘The Long Earth’, which features in the new book. We had the final instalment of Jim’s epic tale of the ‘Thousand Year old Woman’ (his spin on an Icelandic saga, complete with puppet), a fantastic telling of the ‘Maid and the Maggot’ by Kirsty Hartsiotis, and a lovely song from Rob and Jehanne to end with. All in all, a successful evening. We well and truly wetted the worm’s head with our awen-filled words!
Fiona’s feedback afterwards sums it up beautifully:
Just wanted to thank you for an excellent Story Supper last night. You held it beautifully and it was very interesting to hear the background to Desiring Dragons.
I thought all the contributions were really engaging – especially your lusty dragon tale and Chantelle’s ballad of the Laidly Worm
Kevan and Chantelle – post launch, by Kate Hibbert
The next morning Chantelle and I set off for the Sunrise Celebration near Chepstow where we tested out our new show, ‘The Snake and the Rose’, in the fabulous fairy glade. Splitting it over two days was a good idea for this first run-through. It seemed to go down well, going by our feedback… ‘A fantastic duo …’ ; ‘Made my festival’. Bodes well for our up and coming performances at the Rondo Theatre, Bath; the White Horse Camp in Wiltshire; the Green Gathering; and the Castle of the Muses in Scotland. Here’s to a successful tour!
Launching ‘The Snake and the Rose’ at the Sunrise Celebration 2014
Chantelle in the Fairy Glade!
Kevan the storyteller in the Fairy Glade
Find out more about the show here: https://taleandsong.wordpress.com/
Stroud Story Supper – 28 April
Samuel Breton Troubadour entertains the audience at the Stroud Story Supper
Last Friday saw a packed Black Book Cafe for quite probably our best Story Supper yet. Local storyteller Fiona Eadie was on hosting duties and she did an excellent job. I had invited regional story clubs to come and have a ‘guest night’ – and as a result we had not only a couple from the Mendip Circle, but also three from the Malvern Storytellers, and one from the Cardiff Story Circle! So, a bardic cornucopia! And if that wasn’t enough (on top of our local coterie of excellent wordsmiths) we also had a Breton troubadour, Samuel Allo, passing through – he rocked up with his psaltry, antlers (!) and whistle just in time, having thumbed it from West Wales! He’d been hitchhiking around Britain and Ireland since early January – singing, or telling (or both) for his supper. When his turn came, he told a story from his grandfather about the Corrigans – the indigenous fairy folk of his homeland, who are just as mischievous as the British variety. Luckily he told us how to outwit them (with riddles). To make him feel at home Fiona performed a mermaid tale from Jersey. We had fine contributions from the Mendips, Malverns and Cardiff – and Wroughton (a song from Chantelle). The standard was high and the atmosphere was most congenial. Although I didn’t get to do a turn – as they ran out of time – I sat back and enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing the Supper really flourish. The next one is 25 April and we have special guests, the Newent Circle, coming along, so should be a great evening.
‘it was lovely coming to the storytelling supper last week. it’s a lovely venue and a lovely event.’ Kate
‘Good turnout, good stories and good atmosphere.’ Colin
Stroud Story Supper is a Cotswold Word Centre initiative
And still, whenever men and women gather
for talk and laughter on a summer night,
shall not that lamp rekindle; and the room
glow once again alive with light and laughter;
and, like a singing star in time’s abyss,
burn golden-hearted through oblivion?
Wilfrid Gibson, The Golden Room
In the summer of 1914 a group of friends gathered in the village of Dymock, Gloucestershire to write and share poetry, drink cider, go on long inspiring walks, and support one other in their creative journeys. This brief flowering of fellowship was captured in Wilfrid Gibson’s poem, ‘The Golden Room’, long after the tragedy of the so-called Great War had scattered them, exactly a deadly toll.
2014 is the centenary of the start of the First World War – when there will be a plethora of events exploring this devastating conflict. It is also the centenary of when the Dymock Poets gathered together in the eponymous Gloucestershire village – moving there with their families, to write and share poems, publish, go on ‘walks-talking’ rambles of the area, and enjoy the bonhomie of a brief, but important creative fellowship. From out of this coterie of six poets, comprising Lascelles Abercrombie, Wilfrid Gibson, John Drinkwater, Edward Thomas, Robert Frost, and Rupert Brooke, came some of the most loved poems of the English language (e.g. Adlestrop; The Soldier; The Road Not Taken, etc). Thomas and Brooke were to die tragically young in the First World War, while Robert Frost was eventually to become the grand old man of American poetry, living into his 80s and winning the Pulitzer Prize four times. He always talked about the special friendship he had with Thomas (‘The most important creative friendship I ever had’). The Golden Room celebrates the legacy of the Dymock Poets and creative fellowship of all kinds.
See you in The Golden Room
Later this summer I will be co-hosting a celebration of the Dymock Poets (26 July Subscription Rooms) with my friend Jay Ramsay. There will be talks, performances, film, art and discussion about their legacy – and, critically, an acknowledgment of writers living and working in Gloucestershires in the present day, who continue the Tradition.
Whenever a creative gathering takes place – when artistic kindred spirits break bread and share ideas, enthusiasm and inspiration – I believe a ‘Golden Room’ is created. Developing this notion, I have created a radio show of the same name – inviting writers into the studio to share their words and dreams. It was planned as a series of six monthly programmes – each one with a theme. The first one (‘Inspiration’) was due to be broadcast on Tuesday 25th February at 4pm – it was pre-recorded and edited – then last week I was notified the station (Stroud FM) was shutting down unexpectedly. It had gone bankrupt! As they had only green-lighted my show a couple of weeks before this seems like catastrophically bad planning. However annoying and frustrating this set-back (the challenges of running a community radio station on a shoe-string…) I decided to keep going with my Golden Room project as a podcast (for now) – so here it is!
See you in The Golden Room…
Listen to The Golden Room Podcast # 1 here
THE GOLDEN ROOM O1: INSPIRATION
TRACK LISTINGS
DJ: Kevan Manwaring
Let me know what you think,
and look out for future Golden Room podcasts…
You never know, a radio station might pick it up!
Article from: http://www.northantstelegraph.co.uk/news/features/bringing-tales-of-folklore-back-to-life-1-5852902
St Mary’s Church, Orlingbury is mentioned in one of Kevan’s folklore tales from around Northamptonshir.e
Have you heard the story about the last witches killed in England? Or the one about the man who bravely fought down a wolf to protect his Northamptonshire village and was buried at Orlingbury Church?
To those who have been born and bred in Northamptonshire, there is a chance the answer to these questions might be ‘yes’, as these – and many other – tales have been woven into the folk history of this county.
Describing stories to willing audiences may be a pastime commonly connected with centuries gone by, before the age of computers and TV, but it seems to be having a resurgence, with increasing numbers of storytelling events cropping up in Northamptonshire.
Northampton-born Kevan Manwaring is a professional writer, teacher and storyteller, who also teaches creative writing for the Open University and Skyros Writers’ Lab.
His most recent book, Northamptonshire Folk Tales, has seen him draw together, repeat and sometimes embellish the stories which have been told as folklore in Northamptonshire. Some will be familiar and some less so. Some have seen gaps filled in with imagination and others rely on records of eye witness accounts still in existence.
Kevan, who now lives in Gloucestershire, said: “I was born and grew up in Northampton, in the Delapre area, and I would go for a walk there once or twice a day with my dad and the dogs. He used to tell me about the grey lady of Delapre and that is the first story in the book.
“I used to go on lots of walks and that is when I would daydream and have lots of little adventures. I used to like reading comics and that got the juices flowing. This is something that started from an early age so I have been gathering stories all my life.
“I moved to Bath 20 years ago, but grew up researching this book. As a storyteller rather than a historian, my remit is to tell stories that are worth telling. There are plenty of fragments of folklore, but not all of them make for narrative.
“It is a combination of folklore, local history, archaeology and personal anecdotes. There had to be something there that people find intriguing.
“In all folk tales, the common factor is that they are attached to a strong location; does the story evoke the spirit of the place?
“Because it is attached to a particular place, there is usually a grain of truth which started it all off in the first place.”
Although stories used to be spread through oral tradition alone, social media like Facebook has replaced some of the ways in which people share narratives with one another, Kevan explained.
He said: “Oral tradition was broken up by two world wars but with modern technology it carried on in many different forms, even Facebook has multiple narratives.”
He continued: “I have noticed a real resurgence in storytelling. It has been over the last 20 or 30 years. There has been a revival in this county as story circles have started up. There are hundreds of them around the country. It is a great thing to do; it is very liberating and it builds your confidence up in speaking in public. I encourage people to give it a try.
“Storytelling is a massive reaction to our overly-digitised lives. We spend so much time at a computer or with some kind of device, it is lovely to experience something low tech.
“It is a good thing to have in terms of our mental wellbeing. Stories give you a holiday from your life for a while and it is quite entertaining.”
Kevan’s research has seen him visiting locations mentioned in the book and delving into existing records, for example eye-witness accounts of certain dramatic events.
He explained: “Whenever I have gone to a place I have tried to talk to local people and asked them if they know a local story. They used to say things like ‘that is where the castle used to be’; these things do linger in the consciousness of the area.
“Sometimes in local stories it is not always possible to get continuity, but I find that new stories develop. If people don’t know the history they fill in the gaps.
“With the Great Fire of Northampton, there were eye-witness accounts that I could draw on from the Local History section of the Central Library, but you can’t always get eye-witness accounts or you have to take them with a pinch of salt.
“It was the same with the Last Witches story, there were eye witness accounts of that too.
“The last witches were burned and it was a nasty way to go. Reading the accounts about those poor women, it is really terrible, you get the impression they were forced to sign these confessions, coming up with stuff to feed this appetite for details.
“I got the impression the two women we talk about were pretty feisty.
“Hopefully the story captures the spirit of these women and the rabid nature of the time.”
Extract from Northamptonshire Folk Tales: The Last Witches:
The last two women executed as witches in England are believed to have been Mary Shaw and Elinor Phillips, from Oundle. The pair are said to have been burned alive on the corner of The Racecourse in Northampton.
Kevan described: “It was Saturday, March 17, 1705. Two women in chains were carted to meet their fate at Gallows’ Corner. There was a wildness in the air, whipping the still bare branches into life, reflecting the mood of the crowd which converged the fateful corner, a humming mass, greedy for spectacle, driven by fear and bloodlust…
“Mary Shaw and Elinor Phillips were taken in a cart to their final destination. The crowds were desperate to catch a glimpse of them, at the same time as crossing themselves in fear.
“The doomed pair should have made a pitiful sight – shaven heads, threadbare and filthy smocks, sunken cheeked and hollow-eyed from who knows what unspeakable cruelty, and yet they stood defiantly, holding each other, fending off the scraps and insults thrown at them with dignity.
“Some said they appeared so calm because they had boasted that their master would not suffer them to be executed…”
The work is available in bookshops priced £9.99.
Or direct from The History Press here
Kevan hosts the Stroud Story Supper, last Friday of the month, 7-9pm, Black Book Cafe, Silver Rooms, Nelson St, Stroud. Free. All welcome. Have a go (10 mins or less, without text) or sit back and be entertained.
‘Even today (despite the critics) you may find men not ignorant of tragic legend and history, who have heard of heroes and indeed seen them, who yet have been caught by the fascination of the worm.’ JRR Tolkien6
Twentieth Century Professor of English and novelist J.R.R. Tolkien, who perhaps more than any other single author has brought alive worlds of Fantasy in his vast Middle Earth sequence of stories, as a child ‘desired dragons with a profound desire’:
‘Of course, I in my timid body did not wish to have them in my neighbourhood. But the world that contained even the imagination of Fafnir was richer and more beautiful, at whatever the cost of peril.’7
If we read this as a yearning for Fantasy, (that is, the experience of such, as opposed to the genre – although we will dignify both with the capital in the hope that one will encourage the other) then I do not think he is alone in this, as the huge popularity of Fantasy in books, films and computer games prove. There seems to be an endless appetite for it: The Lord of the Rings, Dr Who, Star Trek, Star Wars, Harry Potter, TheTwilight Saga, Avengers Assemble, and no doubt more ‘franchises’ await to hit the big or little screen. Despite a distinctive post-9/11 trend for ‘real life stories’, gritty realism, and tales of hard luck and ‘winning through adversity’ (spawning shelves of ‘misery lit’; or ‘trauma memoir’) the world, it seems, is hungry for Story, especially of the fantastical kind.
Why is it so many seem to ‘desire dragons’, as Tolkien did? What purpose, if any, is there to Fantasy? Is it just make-believe for grown ups, or does it serve a more profound function? This brief excursion into Fantasyland endeavours to explore, if not answer, these questions, and perhaps the very act of asking questions – curiosity, or the quest for knowledge – is at the root of all this ultimately. The desire to know has led humankind from the cave to the moon. Wishing to know what lay over the next hill, and the next, beyond the borders of the familiar, over the sea, over the horizon – following the journey of the sun, our constant companion of consciousness, throughout the day, into the unconscious of night – this has driven humanity on, and fuelled most of its fantasies. The unknown provides a vacuum for the subconscious, for the Shadow, the Id, the other. We populate the night with our own.
And we probe the shadows with a thrill of fear and a desire to know.
Tolkien, in a witty reply to a letter in The Observer (16 January, 1938) signed by someone calling themselves ‘Habit’, requesting more background about ‘the name and inception of the intriguing hero of his book’, (The Hobbit, published 21 September1937) responded thus:
‘Sir, – I need no persuasion: I am as susceptible as a dragon to flattery, and would gladly show off my diamond waistcoat, and even discuss its sources, since the Habit (more inquisitive than the Hobbit) has not only professed to admire it, but has also asked where I got it from. But would not that be unfair to the research students? To save them trouble is to rob them of any excuse for existing.’8
Despite Tolkien’s claiming not to ‘remember anything about the name and inception of the hero’, he gave a typically conscientious and erudite reply. His letters show the fathomless quality of his learning (his scholar’s mind akin to the Mines of Moria) and provide a plethora of portals to explore – enough for a lifetime, and thus he has not robbed research students of their existence, but thrown a gauntlet down to ‘curious Hobbits’, who are intrigued by the mysterious origins of such wonders, in what smithies were they forged, and whether the alchemical secrets of the wordsmiths trade can be gleaned, used, and passed on.
I must disclose my own interest in this realm of the imagination – with my five-volume epic, The Windsmith Elegy9, I could be categorised as an author of Fantasy, although I prefer the term ‘Mythic Reality’ (for that is how it feels to me – more of which we will discuss later). As a writer of ‘Fantastical Fiction’ (as it once used to called) the genre, as a whole, holds an obvious appeal to me, but more so the mysterious impulse that drives us to write and read it, and beyond that, the act of creation itself.
The central thesis I would like to forward here is that the roots of Fantasy go deeper than sometimes the genre suggest – that there is more to it than mere ‘Sword and Sorcery’, and the endless rehashing of Tolkienesque tropes. What if Fantasy is not merely a form of escapism (although that in itself is not ‘wrong’), but a way of exploring imaginative possibilities?
In the purest expression of Fantasy, something more fundamental is at work. Could Imagination serve as a gateway to other realms, other possibilities – a kind of ‘Quantum TV’ – with different bandwidths showing glimpses of ‘that which does not exist, but could’, and sometimes does, in our imagination?
Many beginner writers who attempt to write Fantasy do not seem to understand the genre. They copy the shadows on the cave wall; without having a full gnosis of what drives their creation (as someone who has taught and assessed creative writing since 2003 I can wearily attest to this – although I am occasionally astounded by what my students produce). There is often a gulf between idea and execution, which is frustrating. It feels as though I am receiving a poor signal from a distant land.
The craft provides the Transatlantic cable, but I do not wish to lay it down here – many others have done that. Rather than simply provide a list of techniques, I believe it would be more useful (and better for the writer) to explore the ‘biology’ of Fantasy, and our motives for writing it.
And so I begin this essay with these questions in mind – and a sense of unknowing.
A quester, armed with his question, is a good place to start.
Copyright (c) Kevan Manwaring, 2013
[Extract from Desiring Dragons: Fantasy and the Writer’s Quest, published by Compass Books – contact them and order an advance copy now]
Dr Kevan Manwaring 