May 1 marks the half-way point of the Celtic Year, when darkness gives way to light. The winter has officially ended, the summer just begun. Derived from the Old Celtic Belo-tania “(bon)fire of Belos (i.e., the Bright),” the name is associated with Belenos, the Celtic God of solar healing. “In the Coligny Calendar, the month which is opposite of Samonios (‘end of Summer’) is Giamonios (‘end of Winter’), suggesting the name Giamonia for the feast among the Druids of southern Gaul” (Kondratiev 155). This will be the name of the festival in my novel.

The Beltane festival was a feast of fertility, new commitments and new ideas, a “season of action and energy” (Kondratiev). Thus we have a variety of rituals, many of which are still performed today.

Like the ancient Persians, the Celts associated fire with ritual purification and healing (King). After the darkness, hunger, and sickness of winter, the tribe still suffered from lingering weakness. The Beltane fire was lit anew in a sacred spot (the hill of Uisneach in Ireland, for example), and all hearth fires were extinguished and relit from the sacred fire.

Beltane marked the beginning of the pastoral season, when livestock, particularly cattle, were driven to higher elevation pastures. To purify their livestock, the Celts drove them between two fires of Bel, the gap close enough to almost singe the animals. As John King points out in The Celtic Druids’ Year, the herding of animals through two bonfires was not an easy task, and one that required the entire tribe to perform. Thus, the ritual was accompanied by feasting and celebration.

The most famous celebration, of course, is dancing around the Maypole. While the garland and ribbons woven by people in a dance are an English custom, the use of a phallic pole signified the resurgence of fertility and sexual energy. Stories of all night sexual revelries prior to the rising of the Sun on Beltane were recorded even in late Christian accounts. Matches were made between couples, marriages and partnering before the separation of families, the women following the herds into summer pastures, the men entering the planting and raiding season.

There are many modern celebrations of Beltane, the most famous being the Beltane Fire Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. If you are interested in performing your own festival (or barbecue?), check out Alexei Kondratiev’s The Apple Branch, a fantastic resource for specific, authentic Celtic rituals.

May your fire burn pure and bright!

Caesar, for example, claims that the Gauls and a sacrificial ritual using a “colossal made of wickerwork, the limbs of which they fill with living men; they are then set on fire, and the victims burnt to death” (VI.16.5). However, despite there being no evidence anywhere except Caesar’s Bello Gallico, of this sort sacrificial rite occurring, it has become a major image of Druidism.

Another example is the image of the white robed Druid cutting a sprig of mistletoe from an oak tree with a golden knife, a rite describe by Pliny the Elder, the only source for this ritual.

To even further muddy the waters of history, “New Age” movements of new-paganism have appropriated and warped the limited evidence available. As Beresford Ellis puts it, “any half baked philosophy can have the word ‘Druid’ or even ‘Celtic’ attached to it and be assured of an enthusiastic, if somewhat gullible, following” (13).

When I first encountered these problems of authenticity, I have to admit I despaired a bit. How was I ever going to discern fantasy and imagination from reality, however obfuscated it might be? And since I am writing historical fiction, does it matter? Can’t I just make it up too?

My decision was to go back to my scholarly impulse and research, research, research, comparing sources, following bibliographies, and generally understanding the contextual genealogy of the topic.

Eventually, several works began to rise to the surface, sources that presented an academic comparison of sources and critically analyzed authenticity. Peter Berresford Ellis’s The Druids was the first main work that presented a general overview of the various investigations, sources, and evidence, as well as generally accepted interpretations. By no means is it the end all of sources on the Druids, but it helped me establish a foundation “home base” from which I could continue to research.

Much of my characterization of Druids in my novel, at least at this point in the process, has been at an individual level, and focused on the connection of the Druid characters to natural, divination, healing, and politics. However, my story is quickly about to encounter the Imbolc, or “Ewe’s Milk,” festival, and I wanted to ensure as much historical accuracy as possible in my description of the Druidic rituals.

Perhaps the best source I have so far encountered was recommended to me by a member of the Kelticos.org online community. Focusing on reviving an “authentic” Celtic spirituality, The Apple Branch: A Path to Celtic Ritual, by Alexei Kondratiev, is a treasure of philosophy and ritual, all based on Irish, Welsh, and Gaelic writings, etymology, and oral tradition. And while the recording of these rituals comes centuries after my specific time period, I decided that they could be representative of past Druidic traditions practiced in Gaul. Certainly, there have been numerous comparisons of various Gods and Goddesses between Insular and Continental Celts: The Divine Smith, for example, is a common God, known as Volcanos in Gaulish, Goibhniu in Irish, and Gofannon in Welsh.

So it seems appropriate to make the logical assumption that there would be an ongoing cultural tradition that would have survived from 1^st century B.C. Gaul all the way to 8^th century A.D. Ireland. Sure, it would have evolved and mutated depending on local customs, politics, and the infusion of Christianity, but this is where Kondratiev becomes so useful. Rather than focusing on specific rituals, he looks at the basic philosophy informing said rituals, chiefly the connection Celtic spirituality had to the seasonal cycles and the earth. This allows one the freedom to tailor rituals to fit the needs of a “new age” group, or a fictional description, while still maintaining the authenticity of the philosophy and spirituality.

In addition, The Apple Branch is personally appealing to me in its depiction of a philosophy that attempts to create a symbiotic relationship between humans and the earth. I recently visited my old farm in Washington State, and spent a good deal of time tramping through the wilderness with Celtic inspirations running through my mind. I’ll discuss this in more detail in a later post, but suffice it to say that The Apple Branch has become one of my main sources for Druidic ritual.

I have been reading some interesting reviews of Barry Cunliffe’s new book, Druids: A Very Short Introduction. Cunliffe’s book The Ancient Celts was one of the first I picked up at the start of my research, and is generally considered a staple of Celtic studies, so I am very interested in his perspective on the Druids.

If you are interested in cutting through the muck of Druidic studies, I suggest starting with the two sources listed above. And if you have any suggestions, by all means post them as a comment!

Happy Beltane!

Berrisford Ellis, Peter. The Druids. Grand Rapids: William B Eerdman’s Publishing Co, 1994.

First, though, I should establish a bit of context. The region in which these herbs would be harvested is from northeastern France (Nancy) through central France (Orleans to Clermont-Ferrand). The time frame: 1^st c. BC. So this is Celtic Gaul on the eve of Roman invasion and occupation by Julius Caesar.

Most of the herbs would be obtained through wildcrafting techniques, dried, but also used fresh. However, Roman and Greek trading colonies in Narbonensis, or the Province (modern Provence) had been well-established, and trade throughout “Hairy Gaul” is evidenced by archaeological finds of Roman amphorae (large wine vessels) from the late 2^nd c. BC through the early 1^st c. AD.

During the 1^st century BC, as many as 40 million amphorae were transported into Gaul. (athenapub)

Logically, we can assume (along with archaeological evidence of a variety of trade goods) that herbalists would have had access to herbs used by Mediterranean cultures.

That’s the basis of my list here. I’ve taken creative license in the names of the herbs, trying to be as accurate as possible, using Latin when appropriate, but also common names based down over the years. While this may not have been exactly how a Gaulish druid would refer to an herb, it is hopefully close enough to establish a sense of authenticity.

Just a note: many herbs can have negative side-effects when combined with pharmaceuticals. Never use an herb without first researching these side-effects. I’ve included links to sites that detail possible conflicts, but this is probably the best one.

List of He rbs: I’ve listed just the herbs I’m using in my novel, with basic descriptions. I may come back to this topic later to detail other herbs I’ve discovered personally.

Calamus Root /  Sweet Flag – stimulant and bitter. A single passage in a book called The Hallucinogens has led to the urban legend that it is also a hallucinogen, but an anecdotal report from a husband and wife hardly constitutes proof. It comes from the root of the marsh reed acorus calamus found across Europe (as well as Asia, Australia, and North America). The Greeks named it Kalamos after the son of the river-god Maeander, who loved the yout h Karpos. When Karpos drowned while swimming, Kalamos drowned himself in grief and was transformed into a reed. The sound of the reed rustling in the wind was said to be a sigh of grief for love lost.

• Uses: In ancient Egypt, it was used as an aphrodisiac. Native Americans used it as a stimulant as well as a cure for sore throats or runny noses. In India, it is use to bring clarity to the mind, especially as a hang-over cure. It’s bitter properties reduce stomach acidity and increase digestion. Typically the dried root is chewed. I’ve tried this. It’s pretty gross, sort of like a strong ginger. I can’t imagine swallowing it. The Ojibwe would scald the root in a tea.
• Fictional Application: my druid uses this both as medicine for alcohol-withdrawal (my narrator is going through bit of a crisis) and a stimulant to aid divination. He calls it “Aventia’s root,” after a Celtic spring nympth who drowns herself in grief when her friend dies. Yes, I just changed the Greek story, but I also point this out in the story. The appropriation of cultural myths was common practice, and I liked the argument it created about whose origin story was most authentic.

Meadowsweet / Queen of the Meadow / Bridewort / Lady of the Meadow / Spiraea ulmaria – a sweet, almond-smelling weed, this herb has archaeological traces back to the Bronze Age. A variety of herbalism sites and books have called it a sacred herb of the druids, although I haven’t been able to verify this with credible sources yet. It blooms with close clusters of small, cream-colored flowers. It was revered in old England and was even mentioned by Chaucer as one of fifty herbs that was used in a drink called Save.

• Uses: Nature’s Aspirin – contains the same salicylates as aspirin. It is a tasty, gentle tea that relieves stomach acidity and calms the digestive tract. The tea also makes an excellent eyewash to take the sting and itch from irritated eyes.
• Fictional Application: I have an argument between two druids about the proper herb to use for a remedy, with one claiming that the sacred “Lady of the Meadow” must be used.

Marshmallow / Althea officinalis / Herb of Plenty – Indigenous to the fields, marshes, salt meadows and riverbanks of Europe, it has thick stems, rough leaves, and it blooms with big pink-to-red flowers. Its name Althea is derived from the Greek altho, which means “to cure.” It is also called the Mortification Root for its use in preventing flesh decay. Root, leaves, flowers are the beneficial parts. Comes with a rhyme:

Dry places are moistened

Hard conditions are softened

Inflammation goes away

Tissues resist decay

• Uses: Anti-inflammatory – The wholesome but plain-tasting brew speeds relief for any inflammation, such as laryngitis, bronchitis, and muscle aches and pains. As a poultice, it helps the hardened areas of old wounds and benign growths to help prevent mortification or decay of tissues. It softens and moistens hardened areas and helps restore healthy tissue. Leaves were eaten as a vegetable in Rome and considered a delicacy.
• Fictional Application: I haven’t used it yet in my story, but it most likely will appear as a poultice for a growth or gange green. I regularly use this as part of an anti-inflammatory tonic that my wife and I drink.

Milk Thistle / Silymarin / Silybum marianum – Part of the daisy family, this herb can grow up to ten feet tall, and is found among the hedges and forests of western and central Europe. Its deep green glossy leaves with milk-white veins that were thought to have originated from milk falling from the Virgin Mary (kind of creepy, right?).

• Uses: detoxifies the liver, which boosts your immunities and helps you recover from diseases. As a liver stimulant, it can also help with depression and headaches that result from overworked livers and toxins in the blood. This is especially effective in treating alcohol and drug withdrawal, as well as a protection against damage from poisons, particularly the effects of chemotherapy and radiation. The whole herb can be used as a tea, but I have only used the seeds, boiled for about an hour. The brew is slightly bitter, slightly sweet, and usually I mix it with rosemary. The effects are quite stunning. I had a bad headache, drank a cup of milk thistle and rosemary, and the headache disappeared within ten minutes.
• Fictional Application: when my narrator finally goes off the booze, he needs a tonic help to get back to normal.

Motherwort / Leonurus cardiac – A European native of the mint family, it has a strong, thick stem that shoots straight up and broad serrated leaves. Called Lion’s Tale (Latin leonurus) and Lion’s Ear, it strengthens the spirit (through the nervous system. The early Greeks used to give use it for prenatal anxiety, giving it the name “mother’s herb.”

• Uses: Brewed as a nervine or nerve tonic, depressing the nervous system, enhancing perspiration, and calming nerve and muscular spasms. It fights PMS, quiets the nervous system, and eases the aches of neuralgia and other nervous conditions, including spinal disorders. As a cardio tonic (name), it temporarily lowers blood pressure, decreases clotting, and can slow heart palpatations.
• Fictional Application: So here’s another thing about my druid character: he suffers from scoliosis. The healer he was apprenticed to taught him several methods to treat the pain and stiffness of the condition, and one of these is a daily tonic of Lion’s Tale.

Oatstraw / Avena Sativa – The slender stalks with drooping husks are a major grain source. The whole plant, dried and chopped, makes a total health tea.

• Uses: Blood tonic – strengthens immunity and builds energy. Stabilizes thyroid function, regulates blood sugar, reduces cholesterol, soothes the nervous system. It’s a sweet, wholesome tea with lots of antioxidant power. Use it as a routine tea to fight exhaustion and fatigue, for recovery from illness, to resist stress, combat anxiety, depression, insomnia. I make this a standard base for one of my daily iced teas. It gives the tea an even, smooth taste. Multiple Sclerosis – Used to help fight the debilitating conditions of MS. Also excellent for arthritis, rheumatism and bursitis.
• Fictional Application: another herb used by the druid as a tonic to treat his scoliosis. While there is evidence of oats throughout ancient Europe, as a cultivated grain it didn’t catch on until after Christ. Does this mean it wasn’t cultivated? Not necessarily, but most likely it was harvest as wild oats.

Rosemary / Rosmarinus officinalis – This Mediterranean native is a woody herb with fragrant pine needle-like leaves. Its name comes from Latin “dew” (ros) and “sea” (marinus), or “dew of the sea” due to its ability to survive off sea breeze humidity. It is known as an herb of memory and love (mind and heart) and has been used in cooking, as an ornamental plant, and in many rituals. As a tea, it can be used both externally and internally. The Greeks made garlands of the herb to where as a memory enhancer, while the Spanish revere it as the bush that sheltered the Virgin Mary as she fled to Egypt.

• Uses: This herb stimulates blood flow, which brings extra oxygen and nutrients to your brain. Thus, memory, concentration, and circulation are improved. This helps fight anxiety, depression, and tension headaches, restores immunity and health when recovering from long-term illnesses, and improves your body’s ability to absorb nutrients. It can also be used topically to stimulate the scalp and encourage new hair growth, and as an antiseptic to clean wounds and resist infection. I take this regularly as part of my Scarborough Fair tea (parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme), which I drink iced while I work. The taste is quite refreshing, and I’ve definitely noticed an increase in clarity and concentration.
• Fictional Application: Since this herb would grow in the Mediterranean region of southern France (Provence), my characters would obtain it through trade, probably with Greek merchants out of Massilia (Marseille).

Sage/ Salvia officinalis – Salvia is a genus with up to 900 species of shrubs, perennial herbs, and annuals, many of which are ornamental with beautiful flowers (we have several in our garden). The medicinal herb is the standard “garden sage” with soft silver-green, fragrant leaves. It has been in use for thousands of years. Salvia comes from Latin salvere, meaning “to save” or “to cure.” Like Rosemary, it is associated with the mind, particularly as a memory enhancer and nervine.

• Uses: As a tea, it can be a tonic (or part of a combination, as I use it) that strengthens the central nervous system, quieting the nerves, relieving spasms, inducing sleep, and combating depression, anxiety, and exhaustion. It is also a power astringent, able to act as a natural antiperspirant and deodorizer. It’s drying effect is used for nasal colds and infections, to dry up breast milk, and even to treat diarrhea. It also stimulates the appetite, eases gas pains, and helps digestion. And like Rosemary, studies claim that Sage increases circulation, which can help relieve headaches and improve memory. Topically, it can be used in poultices as an antiseptic to protect wounds against infection and stimulate cell growth. These are just a few of medical properties. Here is my only warning: the taste is strong, especially when using the dried leaves. Too much and you can overwhelm the balance of a mixed tea. Fresh sage, however, can be more subtle, and is my preferred usage.
• Fictional Application: along with Thyme, the druids in my novel use this dried herb as an incense, boiling or burning it to clean out a sick room or during rituals.

Thyme / Thymus vulgares – This Mediterranean native goes far back into ancient history. In Greek, thyme means “to fumigate,” and the Greeks burned the herb as a disinfectant. Also from the Greeks, thumus means “courage”—the attribute that is historically linked with thyme. The ancient Egyptians used it for embalming, while the Romans were responsible for spreading the herb throughout Europe, using it to purify their rooms and provide flavor to cheese and liqueurs.

• Uses: As a tea, thyme is most effective as an antiseptic, fighting infections for colds, flues, and viruses. It is antiviral, antifungal, antimicrobial, and antibiotic. There aren’t many germs that can withstand it. It was often used to clean a sickroom air, usually as an incense or in a boiling pot of water. When applied topically, thyme increases the blood flow to the area and purges the infection. I can attest to its antiseptic qualities; when my family came down with the flu this winter, we dowsed ourselves with thyme tea and shortened the life of our throat, nasal, and bronchial infections to only a day or two. Like sage, when this herb is used dried it can overwhelm the taste of any brew, adding a choking bitterness. Only a half a teaspoon is necessary for one cup of water, maybe even less. I grow this herb fresh all over my garden (makes a great ground cover), and tend to boil it fresh, which produces a very clean, refreshing taste. Two tablespoons of fresh per cup does the trick, and doesn’t have the same harsh bitterness of the dried.
• Fictional Application: The Gauls would obtain this through trade, probably with sage and rosemary, and would use it to fumigate, as a poultice, and as an antiseptic wash and tonic.

Valerian / Valeriana officinalis – Native of temperate marshy areas by woods and rivers in Europe, it has dark green, segmented leaves, and one long stem that rises from the root and can reach five feet in height. The yellowish root has an interesting arrangement of strands that look like tangled nerves—the specific problem that valerian treats. Its name comes from Greek valere, which means “to be in health,” and was used in ancient Greece and Rome. The root is the beneficial part.

• Uses: This is nature’s tranquilizer. It is a sedative to the higher nerve centers, relieves pain, tension, and the effects of excessive strain to bring sleep in stressful situations, with no morning-after effects. It’s best in small amounts. In ancient Greece, valerian was used to create waters of tranquility, an aromatic bath to ease pain, tension, muscle spasms, and relax the whole body.
• Fictional Application: the druid uses this tea to help the narrator combat insomnia.

Wood Betony / Stachys officinalis – Growing wild in shady woods, wood betony has tall, hairy stems, rough, fringed leaves, and pink to purple flowers with white spots that bloom in whorls from short spikes. Betony allegedly comes from the ancient Celtic words bew (head) and ton (good), meaning “good for the head.” It was known as a herb that could shield a man from bad visions and dreams, and banish despair.

• Uses: It is the foremost cure for all ailments of the head and brain. It’s a circulatory tonic that is especially attuned to brain function, where it calms the nerves and clears the channels to soothe and revitalize overactive minds. Wood betony tea relieves congestion, and eases a “heavy head”—an aching feeling in the bones in back of your head and face that can often hang on after a cold or sinus condition. Its tannins are astringent to stop bleeding, repair cuts and wounds, and fight infection. The warm tea in a soft cloth can be comforting compress for skin infection, cuts, and sores. It’s not the most tasty of herbs, adding green bean sort of taste to your brew, but combined with the other circulatory herbs, it words fantastically to remove headaches. My wife had a blazing headache after work one day, and I gave her a brew of Rosemary, Wood Betony, and Milk Thistle; her headache was gone in less than ten minutes.
• Fictional Application: the druid character harvests this plant wild, and uses it to help the narrator withdraw from alcohol.

Yarrow /Achillea millfolium – Grows anywhere: fields, pastures, meadows, and dry barrows by the roadside. It has small feathery leaves, rough stems, and thin white silky hairs that cover the entire plant. The term millefolium translates as “thousand leafed,” and was called Milfoil or Thousand Leaf. It’ legend dates back to the Trojan War, when Achilles used it on the wounds of his soldiers to stop bleeding and speed healing. It has been carried by the military as a wound healer, and was called Herbe Militaris by the Romans.

• Uses: As an astringent and antiseptic, it cleans and heals cuts, burns, ulcers and inflamed skin. It has silica to repair damaged tissues. Wounds can be washed with cooled yarrow tea water, or bandages soaked in yarrow tea to cover the wound. It was commonly used in a poultice. The tea was also used an anti-inflammatory tonic, helping to reduce joint pain, shrink swollen veins, and regulate menstruation.
• Fictional Application: most of the warriors carry this, and it is applied early on in the novel to a wounded companion.

One of the earliest characters I imagined for my story was a solitary druid, a shrine keeper in the Vosges Mountains, who was the apprentice of a Master Healer. But what was a “master healer” in 53 B.C.?

My research path eventually led me to herbalism. As the father of western medicine, Hippocrates famously wrote: “Let food be thy medicine, thy medicine shall be thy food.”

Herbs and medicine were one in the same, and written history attests to this.

• The Egyptian Ebers Papyrus written in 1500 B.C. records over 700 herbal combinations.
• The Hippocratic Canon describes over 400 different herbs and their uses.
• The Greek scholar Theophrastus (371 B.C. – 287 B.C.), considered the father  of botany, wrote the treatise Enquiry into Plants describing where plants grew, what they looked like, and their uses as both food and medicine.
• Pliny the Elder’s (A.D. 23-79) Naturalis Historia extensively describes the medical use of herbs.
• Penanius Dioscorides (A.D. 40-90) wrote the famous De material medica, an extensive record of the preparation, pharmacological properties, and testing of medicinal compounds in plants. His five books became central to pharmacology for the next 16 centuries.
• And of course Galen (A.D. 129-200), the Greek scholar famous for treating Roman gladiators as well as the personal physician of emperor Marcus Aurelius, wrote extensively about plants and their place in medicine.

That is not the only record, though. We also have plenty of archaeological records of pollen fossils which can fairly accurately tell us which plants were being cultivated by ancient cultures. Common herbs have been growing wild for thousands of years, and humans have been using them for just as long.

But how did they use them? Topical applications as poultices were standard, and consumption of the raw herb would be another obvious method. The most effective, however, was the herbal tea.

Theophrastus, mentioned above, gave specific instructions on the preparation of herbal teas in his Historia Plantarum.

In Colchester, English, a grave was found containing a variety of medical instruments, including a metal straining bowl very much resembling a tea pot.

Apparently, these straining bowls were common in northern Europe, and have been assumed to be used to strain beer and mead. But I don’t think it’s a logical leap that they may have been functioning tea pots.

Herbal teas as medicine are most effective because of the ability to regulate dosage. Consuming large amounts of raw plants can be hard on the stomach, but when steeped in water the medicinal properties can be easily absorbed.

Based on my research, I decided that my druid would own a bronze teapot like the one above, his most treasured possession. But what would he brew in it?

I began to compile a list of herbs and their properties from a variety of resources, which I will present in my next post. But perhaps the most useful document for me was a book my wife gave to me for Christmas, Victoria Zak’s 20,000 Secrets of Tea. She provides an A-Z guide of ailments and the corresponding herbal remedies, as well as a profile of each herb and its properties.

Of course, I couldn’t just include these teas in my story with actually trying them, could I?

And this is, perhaps, the most enjoyable part of research: the real application. What does a tea of parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme taste like? How does it make me feel?

I discovered the online store Mountain Rose Herbs and started what has become a large collection of loose leaf herbs. I already had a cool teapot purchased at one of those cheesy commercial booths at the Orange County fair, as well as a single cup infuser.

“Living the History,” as many of the community members of the Iron Age site kelticos.org do, changes the way you write about it. I now can describe the exact tastes, brewing methods, textures and scents, and effects of the various herbal teas my character uses.

And there is something magical to these brews, a connection back to the natural world that is so lacking in Western medicine. I go into my backyard on a sunny California winter day, harvest fresh rosemary, sage, parsley, and thyme, and brew a tea that leaves me feeling refreshed, energized, and mentally clear. Then I write about my characters doing it.

In my next post, I will describe in detail the herbs I’ve chosen for my story.

• The narrator must be at the center of the plot or risk “telling” rather than “showing”
• Anyone relating a story about himself we dismiss as annoying and self-important
• Readers prefer first person
• The narrator writes like a 21^st century grad student
• First person narrators would never describe the kind of detail necessary to “paint the world”
• The reader is stuck in one perspective, unable to experience the thoughts or emotions of other characters
• Editors and Publishers shy away from first-person in genre writing

This last reason was told to me by one of my grad school mentors, a very successful science fiction writer. I’ll admit, it had me very concerned as I planned my novel.

But then I thought about all the historical fiction novels that I enjoyed and realized that they all were told in the first person.

If we look at that list of reasons not to write in first person, we can see that they all point to one thing: authenticity of the narrative voice.

What does authenticity means? Must the narrator speak in their original language, or with the syntax common to the time period? It works sometimes, especially when it is close to English word order. But when the narrator starts to sound like Yoda, I imagine it can get old fast.

The narrators in Bernard Cornwell’s Warlord Trilogy (King Author) and Saxon series sound like a sort of generic educated working class. Xeones, the Spartan Helot who tells the story of Thermopylae in Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield, sounds like a foul-mouthed officer in the Marine Corps. Both novels use colloquial expressions that might be heard on high school football fields or Army boot camps.

So it isn’t necessarily the language that makes the narrator authentic, but the voice itself. It is the word choice, the style of sentences, the assides and intrusions, the details the narrator chooses to describe, and how he describes them.

A narrator who seems unlikely to write flowering descriptive prose, but does so with aplomb, probably feels “self-absorbed.” The voice ceases to sound like an actual person, and instead becomes a faceless figure sitting at a computer.

Above all, the narrator is a character, and so it is essential to ask why he is writing the story. What is his motivation? How far removed is he from the events he’s describing? How does he feel about what happened? What will he reveal about himself, and will he be honest? If he is writing the story, then he obviously assumes someone will read it. What does he want them to think after reading his story? All of these factors and more should influence every detail and every choice the narrator makes.

This is why I believe the best first person narrators are the ones who have clearly established how they are writing the story, where and when they are writing from, and possibly even why (although this reveal could be delayed). Establishing these parameters in the beginning will help the reader accept the authority and voice of the narrator.

For example, in Cornwell’s Warlord Trilogy, the narrator is writing the text as an old man in a monastery, relating his experience with King Author in an attempt to tell the “real story” to a young and impressionable Saxon noblewoman. His age gives him retrospective insight, perhaps allowing him to be more self-reflective and objective.

In Gates of Fire, Pressfield uses this same story-within-a-story narrative technique with Xeones, who has been sent back from death in order to tell the story of the 300 to the Persians. Again, the parameters are set to allow the narrator a certain level of objectiveness and self-reflection, as well as a bit of a magical touch to explain his eloquence in descriptive detail.

On the other hand, many mainstream novelists don’t bother with explaining the origins or reason for the first person narrative. Nelson DeMille, for example, has maintained a lucrative career with his narrator John Corey, a sarcastic ex-cop who constantly finds himself in the middle of national security crises. The voice of this narrative carries the story, but I’ll admit that after a while I became annoyed with the contrived nature of this point of view.

Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series features the first person narrator Claire Beauchamp, a WWII nurse who is shot into 18^th century Scotland. Around the third book in the series, I began to question the narrative origins, and about that time the narrative began to switch between first-person and third-person as we followed other characters in different time periods.

My conclusion?

Know why the narrative exists in the first place.

Establish parameters.

Think about voice in every comment, descriptive detail, and reflective insight the narrator provides. Is this what the narrator would really say?

And then give the reader the joy of experiencing a long-dead world through the living senses of a very “real” person.

As a child, mythical stories like “Chylde Roland and the Goblin King” or “Jack the Giant Killer” sparked my imagination, and I spent hours leaping through the forests of our farm swinging a wooden sword. I lived and breathed Middle Earth, not because of the wizards and dragons and orcs that spawned thousands of pages of subsequent fantasy literature, but because of the realness of it all. I knew it was fantasy, and yet I also truly believed that this world that Tolkien created could exist.

Perhaps this is because, in a way, Tolkien’s world did exist. It is well known that the inception of Middle Earth began with the pipe-smoking professor’s interest in ancient languages and mythology. And I believe it is this connection to the Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic stories and cultures of the distant past that makes Tolkien’s fantasy world feel so real.

There is a romantic appeal to the ancient past, to a world uncluttered by corporate tendrils, mass media, pollution, concrete and power lines, where Nature is still sacred and unsullied. And figures like Robin Hood, King Author, Merlin, and Cuchulainn bring the archetypes of our collective unconscious roaring to the surface. We imagine a world of champions and heroes, where the Gods talked directly to men, and we yearn to be a part of it.

At about eight years old, I became fascinated with the Native Americans. I read folktales, history books, literature, anything that could bring this romantic past to life, and when that wasn’t enough I started to recreate my own Iroquois nation in the woods and fields on our property. I made leather moccasins, warrior feathers, tomahawks and pipes, fishing spears, even my own wigwam. When I eventually decided that running around with a sock between my legs was no longer “cool,” I turned to writing.

So that is what I do: I try to recreate the ancient path through words on a page.

My current obsession is with the Celtic World, specifically Gaul in the 1^st century B.C. I am deeply involved in the process of writing my first historical fiction novel, and my goal is to tell a great story and recreate in splendid detail a world that exists in our language, our myths and stories, and our collective unconscious.

It is a difficult task, because what we know is limited to a few surviving texts, interpretations of archeological remains, and conjecture based on later Irish Celtic rituals and writings. I intend to remain as accurate as possible, and will chronicle my journey through the mists of time as I wrestle with sources, struggle with interpretations, and agonize over creative choices.