A Renaissance Festival Celebration

Every year my husband and I take our kids to the Renaissance Festival (and if we can get away from them, we'll go again just the two of us!)

It is this time during the year that I can immerse myself, literally, in the time period I love, and mingle with others who are just as obsessed with history, royals, mead, turkey legs, jousting, etc... While I don't dress up (yet), I do dress up my little pretties. 

This year, we wanted to get our entire family involved, and we did pretty well! Since one of our daughters has a September birthday, we invited the whole family to join us in celebrating her birth at the Renaissance Festival. We had 7 of our family members take us up on it! It was a blast, and I can say it was probably one of the most fun times I've had at the festival because I was able to share my love of history and festival activities with more people.

For my post today, I thought I'd share with you some of the pics I took. Have you been to a Renn Fest lately?

Me and the DH being silly (yes he is the Queen and I am the King)

My and my girls after the three of them were presented to Henry VIII's court.

The oldest princess on a pony

My husband and oldest princess in the front, and his brother and my youngest princess in the back--riding and elephant (My husband is VERY tall--his brother is about 6 ft., we made fun of how my B-I-L looked so small next to him.)

My sister, her sig and my 2nd princess on an elephant.

The DH in the stocks :)

Baby Birthday Princess was WIPED out. She slept for about an hour as the rest of us continued our festival fun.

Couldn't get this pic to turn... but that is a giant sundae :)

The 2nd Princess in the stocks for being a gossip :)

*~*~*~*

Eliza Knight is a multi-published author of historical romance and erotic romance. Visit her at www.elizaknight.com

Available now! A Lady's Charade -- An I-Books (I-Tunes/Apple) Top 100 Popular Romance Novel!

From across a field of battle, English knight, Alexander, Lord Hardwyck, spots the object of his desire--and his conquest, Scottish traitor Lady Chloe.

Her lies could be her undoing…

Abandoned across the border and disguised for her safety, Chloe realizes the man who besieged her home in Scotland has now become her savior in England. Her life in danger, she vows to keep her identity secret, lest she suffer his wrath, for he wants her dead. 

Or love could claim them both and unravel two countries in the process…

Alexander suspects Chloe is not who she says she is and has declared war on the angelic vixen who's laid claim to his heart. A fierce battle of the minds it will be, for once the truth is revealed they will both have to choose between love and duty.

Available as an ebook (in all formats) or in print.

Something about Welsh

As you have no doubt noticed over the past months, I have a particular preference for any and all things Welsh. So, as a treat, I am going to give a short lesson on the Welsh language. I thought you might enjoy learning a few phrases to slip into your conversations when you visit this country so that you can impress your hosts.

One of my favorite idioms is dros ben llestri: literally, 'over heads of dishes'. When someone goes dros ben llestri, they've gone over the top. Pronounced pretty close to the way it looks: drohs ben llestri - double L is aspirated: put your tongue at the roof of your mouth just behind your teeth and force the L sound out in a hiss.

Another saying is cadw cwn a chyfarth ei hun: keeps dogs and barks himself. This describes someone who won't allow anyone to help him, has to be in control of situations. Sound familiar? This phrase is pronounced cah-doo coon ah chyvahrth eye heen - ch is as in loch - aspirated.

When it seems that all good things (or bad) seem to end up in someone else's life, you could say i'r pant rhediff y dwr: to the gully runs the water. Sounds like 'ear pant rhediff uh doer'. Rh is aspirated. In English, some of us say an H in front of the W in words like when, why, where. This is never a heavy sound, more like an exhaled sigh. It's the same in Welsh. A soft H in front of the R.

These days, a lot of people around the world are ar y clwt, literally, on the rag - destitute. Remember that W and Y are both consonants and vowels in Welsh. In this case, the pronunciation is close to what it looks like: ahr uh cloot.

Greeting people in Wales with Shw mae? is always acceptable. It's like asking What's up? or How goes it? Shw is a corruption of sut (sit) which means how. Mae is a form of the verb bod = 'to be'. Shw mae (shoo my) means 'how is'.

All Welsh vowels are Italianate - open and strong which is why Welsh is such a lovely language to sing. If you'd like to know more about Welsh folk music, the National Museum of Wales has a fantastic archive. You can also see examples of Welsh music at Cronfa. The American, Phyllis Kinney, has dedicated her life to Welsh folk music. She and her husband, Meredydd Evans, are renown for their academic work in Welsh traditional music.

People always ask me if I found Welsh hard to learn. Since I've now spoken it on a daily basis, I have to answer No, but in my first days and weeks, I couldn't get my tongue around words like rhwngwladol at all. One of the best ways to learn any language is to sing in it. In my forthcoming novel, The Gatekeeper, Gwennan teaches Jehan-Emíl to sing a simple song to help him learn her language. Learning Welsh for me was one of the most life-altering things I've ever done - for one thing, I would never have written Traitor's Daughter.

Trac is a good place to begin an exploration of Welsh traditional music and dance. This organization is also on Facebook so you can get to know the people who are promoting: The future of the tradition and the tradition of the future.

Thank you for reading. If you have any questions, please let me know.

The Seminoles in Florida and Beyond

In 1513, Spain claimed the land now known as Florida.  At that time, more than 200,000 natives lived on the peninsula.  By the time of the American Revolution in 1776, disease and warfare had reduced the native population to less than 40,000.  More thousands had been made into slaves by English settlers starting in 1704.

By 1813, the United States had plans to clear lands for new settlement.  The natives were in the way.  The Creek War in Alabama forced the Creeks to give up millions of acres.  Many Creek Indians fled to Spanish Florida where they joined with native tribes living there. The combined tribes became known as the Seminoles.  This name means “wild people” or “runaways.”  Many slaves who ran away from Southern plantations also found a home with the native people in Spanish Florida.  

Their hope for safety did not last long.  By 1817, the U. S. military entered Florida to protect new American settlers on Indian land.  They also searched for the runaway slaves. These battles fought under General Andrew Jackson became known as the Seminole Wars.  For the next forty-one years, conflicts between American troops and the natives of Florida continued.  


This time of war was marked by several unsuccessful treaties.  The 1823 Ft. Moultrie Treaty required the Seminole to cede all their lands except for a small central reservation. The treaty of Payne's Landing nine years later set the timetable for removing the entire tribe west of the Mississippi River. Heavy resistance to this treaty under the leadership of Tribal leader Osceola lead to the second Seminole War in 1835. This war lasted eight years with 1500 American troop deaths including the massacre of 100 men in one battle. The number of Seminole deaths in unrecorded. 

The Seminole Nation removed to the West became part of the Five Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory. When they agreed to outside settlement in the territory in 1908, the Nation numbered 2,138, many with mixed blood of the escaped slaves who found refuge with them in earlier years. A separate number of "Seminole Freedmen" was counted at 986.  A refuge band of Seminoles of mostly former slave blood settled in Mexico across the Rio Grande from Eagle Pass, Texas. 

During that time, Florida became a United States territory. In 1843, it became the 27th state.  More than 5000 of the Seminole people had been forced west of the Mississippi after being hunted down with bloodhounds They were herded like cattle onto ships to New Orleans and up the Mississippi River.  About 200 to 300 of them were able to flee into the swampy wilderness of the Everglades.  There they managed to survive alligators, mosquitos, snakes, suffocating heat and malaria to stay hidden until the 1890s.  Today more than 2000 Seminoles live on six reservations in Florida.


My Question for September contest: What future president earned fame during the Seminole Wars?

BIO: Barbara Scott is the author of several romances includingCast a Pale Shadow, Haunts of the Heart, and Listen with Your Heart. Her most recent West of Heaven earned the following quote from Romancing the Book: "Barbara Scott blends the perfect amount of suspense, romance, history, and humor into a wonderfully engaging novel. I definitely recommend this novel with 4 stars (Lovely Rose!) and two thumbs up! "  Barbara's next release Talk of the Town is a contemporary romantic comedy due out October 1, 2011.

Devon

Clovelly is a very old fishing village in Devon clinging to the side of a cliff. A place where the people clung to life equally perilously as they harvested fish in all kinds of weather.


This is the Red Lion hotel where we stayed and as you can see we were blessed with lovely weather. It was once several fishermen's cottages and was joined together to form an inn a great many years ago.

Early records of the village date back to Saxon times, but  it has been around in something like its present form since the 16th century.  If you haven't visited Clovelly, then hopefully these pictures give you a sense of this charming spot.

The population in the village in 1801, my interest being the Regency, was 714 people and a great many of these would have been children, since families were large and the number of cottages is quite small.

The hillside is very steep so you must have to go up very slowly and you will have to take lots of breaks, but first may I suggest a small libation at the bar in the Red Lion.  We also had a crab sandwich for lunch, which was delicious.


To get down to the hotel by car (as only hotel guests are permitted to do), we used what is called The Turnpike road, which in the old days was very steep and very rough and it is this way that the supplies were delivered to the village at the very bottom of the hill, only to be have to then carried up to the houses.

This is the cobbled alleyway that leads from Turnpike at the back of the Red Lion to the harbour side of the pier.


And here is the harbour as it appeared to us the day we arrived. You can see that the tide is out.

I have to say that we were enchanted with this village which looks across to Wales. 

My question for you is, do you have any idea how they would have brought goods from the bottom of the hill or the harbour up those steep roads to the town?



Until next time, Happy Rambles

Historical Romances: Likes and Pet Peeves

I had a great post for you from the suggestion of one of our readers who said the Liturgical Year would make more sense if people understood the Liturgical Day. Unfortunately, it’s on a flash drive at home and I’m not there. However, I thought we could have some fun today talking about likes and dislikes, as well as things that just create wall-bangers for some of us. I’ve mentioned a few of mine on the HHRW General Loop a few times. One of my main dislikes is obviously someone trying to cast 20^th century mores in an 11^th century world; writers who don’t understand the historical ramifications of Last Rites using them as a plot tool and creating the ultimate sinner; people who say, “You won’t use a word that works because someone told them it is too new…” Sorry, I don’t speak Old French and I doubt most would understand Old English or Latin. These are only a few, but I didn’t want to take them all and leave none for you.

I have likes too! I love an Historical Romance that takes me through the gamut of emotions and doesn’t read like a history lesson. I love historical situations that drive the plot, so that I’m not reading a book that could be written in any era and still turn out the same way. I don’t have a problem with the historicals of the late 70’s and 80’s that many call bodice busters… Except for one, and I won’t name the title but the book took the hero and heroine around the world by ship and put them in some of the most ridiculous scenarios that the nearly 500 page (or was it 600?) took me forever to read.

So have fun and share with us today, whether reader or writer, let us know what you like or dislike.

Mary McCall

Musée de Cluny

Awesome is too tame a word to describe the wonder of Musée National du Moyen Age (aka/Musee de Cluny). Located in the 5th District of Paris near the Sorbonne, it was originally built in the 14th century as a town house for Benedictine Abbots, on the site of Gallo Roman baths. In 1843 the building became a National Museum of Medieval and Renaissance treasures.

With our love of European history, Cluny was on our must see list of places to visit during last fall's trip to Paris. From our apartment in Les Halles, we took the Metro to the Cluny La Sorbonne station, with its artistically rendered mosaics and signatures of famous authors, poets, philosophers, artists, and statesmen adorning the ceiling. From there we walked a few blocks to a Starbucks where, seated amid masses of studying and debating college students, we breakfasted on coffee and croissants.

Another short walk in the cool October air took us to the Cluny museum. After checking our coats, we walked through the gift shop and stepped into the first of a multitude of galleries filled with medieval masterpieces.

For hours we strolled through room after room of art and artifacts - paintings, chalices, statues, and ornamentation of the medieval churches.

A large room with black walls and dim lights holds the Lady and Unicorn tapestries, a series of six Flemish tapestries woven from silk and wool in the late 15th century. Each tapestry depicts one of the senses - taste, hearing, sight, touch, and smell. The sixth depicts love or desire. We stood in silence, in wonder, and in awe.

Another room held an intriguing relic, a unicorn's horn, so stated on the small sign below it. Other galleries held knights' armor, chainmail, and weapons.

In an adjoining building but still within the museum, we came to the ruins of the Gallo-Roman baths and other statues dating from the 3rd century.

Although the guidebooks say to allow one hour to tour Cluny, we were there for well over three hours and could have stayed the entire day. If you have a love of medieval history, I urge you to find a way to visit Musée de Cluny. It will remain in your heart forever.

Debra K. Maher
Stringing Beads

Idaho Hotel-Silver City

Backside of the hotel and other buildings

When Lauri Robinson approached me about writing a “sisters” book together I jumped on the idea. As we chatted back and forth establishing their background and how the story would end we needed a town that the family would be traveling to at the start of the book. Preferably a mining town between where your two sisters would end up.

Tink on the Idaho Hotel porch

After some digging I came up with Silver City, Idaho. It was up and running in the time frame we needed. A discovery of gold on War Eagle Mountain in 1865 started the influx of miners and merchants. The failure of the Bank of California, which funded most of the mines, caused the mines to stop work in 1875. But some carried on until and there was a short revival in 1890. Mining didn't come to a complete shut down but irrigation and agriculture increased in the lower valley around the Snake River and the mountain towns dwindled.

Only a few people remain in Silver City today and mostly during the summer because the road to the mountain town is closed by snow from October to May.

When Lauri and I decided on using this town in our book, Tink(my dog) and I took a road trip to see how the stage coaches approached the town and what it looked like in the small valley near the top of the mountain.

old stamp mill

There are still some original buildings. The one that impressed me the most was The Idaho Hotel. It has a welcoming wide front porch that spans fifty-eight feet, it's three stories tall, and has beautiful woodwork inside. The current owners are restoring it to its original condition.

When it was built it was considered one of the best hotels in the Idaho Territory. It boasted a large dining room, kitchen, fifty guest rooms and a beautiful mahogany bar. It had a bath house and the backside is up against Jordan Creek. That back area was a Chinese laundry. Running water was piped into the hotel in 1869 and in 1878 the owner built an electric plant on Jordan Creek to illuminate the hotel and other businesses.

In 1871 a bar and additional rooms were added onto the east end. On July 4th in 1873 the townsfolk shot off a cannon in celebration and chattered a third of the window glass in the hotel. This gave the owners the nudge to remodel. The enlarged and improved by adding a woodshed, a large kitchen and two rooms over the barroom. In 1874 they add the costliest and handsomest mirror to ever travel to Silver City in the bar.

The hotel was also the depot for all the stage and express lines.

For a Sister's Love blurb:

Lorelei and Maggie Holmes make a desperate vow to reunite after an Indian raid on their wagon train leaves them orphans. Eight-year-old Lorelei is taken in by an impoverished family headed to a Colorado mining town and ten-year-old Maggie finds herself on the way to Portland, Oregon to live with a woman widowed during the Indian attack.

Ten years later, Lorelei’s adoptive father gambles away her birth mother’s locket and her only connection to her lost sister. Believing she needs the locket and to find Maggie, she sets out after the gambler and ends up in the company of a citified lawyer searching for the same man.

While cleaning a hotel room, Maggie discovers her mother’s locket in the possession of a gambler. Fear for her sister increases Maggie's determination. Never one to give up, she dogs the gambler until he agrees to help her find her sister.

Two sisters, two adventures, will they find one another or will the men helping them be their destinies?

This book is available at Kindle, Smashwords, and Nook for $.99

Paty

http://www.patyjager.net/

http://www.patyjager.blogspot.com/