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Cartismandua by Philippa Wiat

annis
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Post by annis » Mon May 21st, 2012, 6:19 am

The hair colour thing came about because Erechwydd mentioned a book by Elizabeth Wolfe which describes Boudicca's hair as raven-black, like Wiat's Cartismandua :) Annoyingly, a lot of chroniclers don't bother to mention details about thistorical figures that interest us now, like hair and eye colour. The detail about Boudicca's hair colour is an unusual bonus.

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Post by annis » Mon May 21st, 2012, 7:05 pm

Posted by Erechwydd
I gave up expecting close attention to historical detail when I was introduced to Iron Age Britons like Dwan Karnash and Throgg
Sounds like something from one of Robert E Howard's novels :) Some of those old pulp fiction writers did all sorts of interesting things with history and freely added fantasy to the mix . I recently read Talbot Mundy's Tros of Samothrace series set around Julius Caesar's invasion of Britain, which are lots of fun, but whoa, Vikings in the 1st century, really? I don't think so!
Last edited by annis on Mon May 21st, 2012, 7:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by Margaret » Mon May 21st, 2012, 10:04 pm

The hair colour thing came about because Erechwydd mentioned a book by Elizabeth Wolfe which describes Boudicca's hair as raven-black, like Wiat's Cartismandua Annoyingly, a lot of chroniclers don't bother to mention details about thistorical figures that interest us now, like hair and eye colour. The detail about Boudicca's hair colour is an unusual bonus.
Aha - should have known you wouldn't have made a slip like that, Annis!

I'd give plenty for details not just about hair and eye color, but a host of other little things that the chroniclers no doubt thought too trivial and unimportant to bother with. Then again, there are times when the chronicles get a tad graphic for most people's taste, as with Boudicca's army's depredations when they attacked Londinium.
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Post by annis » Mon May 21st, 2012, 10:58 pm

Posted by Margaret
Then again, there are times when the chronicles get a tad graphic for most people's taste, as with Boudicca's army's depredations when they attacked Londinium
.

Urk, yes, very heavy stuff. Mind you the detailed nature of the description does give the account a ring of authenticity. It's interesting to see how historical novelists deal with that - many hint at horrible goings-on, but keep it non-specific. I think some people have rather rosy, romantic ideas about the Celts and would really prefer not know the gory details.

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Post by erechwydd » Tue May 22nd, 2012, 7:03 pm

[quote=""annis""]I recently read Talbot Mundy's Tros of Samothrace series set around Julius Caesar's invasion of Britain, which are lots of fun, but whoa, Vikings in the 1st century, really? I don't think so![/quote]

Sounds entertaining, I might give that one a try. :D Hmm, I wonder if he inspired The Viking Queen... :rolleyes:

I found your comment about non-specific descriptions of violence with regard to Boudica's rebellion most interesting, Annis, as I haven't read any novels featuring it yet (Wolfe's ends just as things are hotting up). I've certainly encountered writing, though, in which the Celts can do no wrong and are all round good eggs, and while I can appreciate that people might not like reading about things like the atrocities Boudica perpetrated, it does give a bit of a lopsided view. That said, at the other end of the scale, some writers seem to throw in a hefty dollop of near-gratuitous goriness apparently as a way of giving the impression of a more 'primitive' culture, which I don't think is that great either.
Last edited by erechwydd on Tue May 22nd, 2012, 7:23 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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Post by annis » Wed May 23rd, 2012, 3:25 am

As Margaret points out, ancient chroniclers freely mixed fact and fiction, so we don't know if Dio's account was biased in Roman favour by exaggerating the barbarity of Boudicca's rebels (the Romans did very nearly suffer an embarrassing defeat, after all). The Romans do seem to have had a strong, almost superstitious aversion to Druidism, and the heads-as-trophies custom really freaked them out - plus, they never forgave the Gauls for almost conquering them back in the 4th century B.C.

Some of the better novels I've read, like George Shipway's Imperial Governor and Gillian Bradshaw's Island of Ghosts show both sides of the story- atrocities carried out by both "barbarians" and Romans, shocking to each because of differences within their cultural frameworks regarding what was acceptable in warfare.

BTW, does anyone know just how many of these magical birds accompanied Rhiannon? Some accounts say three (in keeping maybe with the emphasis in Welsh mythology on three as a significant number), some say there was a cloud of them!
Last edited by annis on Wed May 23rd, 2012, 7:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Post by erechwydd » Wed May 23rd, 2012, 8:30 pm

Very true, it wouldn't be unexpected for the Romans to exaggerate, perhaps especially because the perpetrator was a woman. The Romans obviously did have a thing about the toughness of 'Celtic' women (witness the description of the Gaulish wife by Ammianus Marcellinus), and I suppose they would have felt doubly justified in subduing tribes in which women could act in such a barbaric manner, so it would make sense to describe Boudica in that light. I guess we'll never know how much of it is really fact, although the evidence of burning obviously lends credence to some of the descriptions.

Ah, the 4th century BC...vae victis! :D How different it could've been if the Gauls had done a bit more than demand a load of cash. Has anyone ever written an alternative history based on that, I wonder?

I saw Imperial Governor reasonably cheap in a bookshop recently and didn't buy it...the more fool me, as it's gone now. I definitely prefer the sort of balance you described as showing both sides of the story, since if one goes too far in either direction, whether romantic or excessively violent, I think one risks creating a cultural caricature which does the original people a disservice.

As for the Birds of Rhiannon, I don't know if they're mentioned in any text other than The Mabinogion? But in there, when they're specifically mentioned by name ('Culhwch and Olwen') they're not numbered, and when a certain number of birds is given (three, in 'The Second Branch'), they're not actually said to be Rhiannon's birds. Not very helpful, I know!

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Post by Carla » Wed May 23rd, 2012, 9:27 pm

I've seen it argued that Tacitus was using the 'noble savage' Britons Boudica and Caratacus as a way of condemning the decadence and corruption in recent Roman politics. Tacitus was writing just after Domitian (younger son of Vespasian) had been assassinated. Domitian was an autocrat and unpopular with the Roman aristocracy, who regarded him as a tyrant, and the argument goes that Tacitus was saying something like, 'Look, even barbarians from Britain can be brave and honorable, Romans should be ashamed to tolerate anything less in their own affairs'. I'm not sufficiently well up in late-first-century Roman politics to assess whether the theory stands up.

I'd forgotten about the Gaulish wife until you mentioned it, and it's just reminded me that I read somewhere that Scottish women in the eighteenth century (around the time of the Jacobite rebellions) were regarded in England as being unusually, and scarily, tough and independent-minded. Am wondering if there's a general theme of portraying women from distant cultures as tough as a means of demonstrating 'otherness', a bit like the Amazon myth.

One Boudica novel I read a while ago had the massacres/ atrocities carried out by Boudica's subordinates without her knowledge, and as soon as Boudica found out she was duly horrified and outraged and made them stop, though by then of course most of the horrible deeds had been done. I suppose that's possible, although I thought it was a bit of a cop-out.

I have Imperial Governor but haven't got round to reading it yet. It's from the point of view of Suetonius. I gather there is a memorable, ahem, scene involving him and Cartimandua and a chariot at some point, which presumably indicates that Cartimandua must be at least a secondary character. Cartimandua is a character who's always interested me; if I were ever tempted back to the Roman invasion period it would be her story I'd want to explore. It must have taken some doing to stay queen for as long as she did in very turbulent times.
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Post by annis » Thu May 24th, 2012, 4:28 am

@Erechwydd: Thanks for the info on Rhiannon's birds. I've never come across The Viking Queen, but it sounds like an eclectic hoot of a movie! How did King Priam get in there, I wonder?

@Carla: Yes, Adam Williams tells the story of how George Shipway was asked by his publishers to "sex up" Imperial Governor, at which point he stomped off grumpily, but did come up with the memorable scene which has Suetonius and Cartimandua living dangerously by having it away on the cross-tree of a racing chariot :)

Cartimandua doesn't play a large part in IG, though she is Suetonius' "lost love" and he often has melancholic thoughts after he is sent back to Rome about what might have been. IG is unusual in that events are only ever seen through Suetonius' eyes and he is a pretty cold and arrogant personality. We still see the irony of Roman horror about the massacre of Roman colonists while blithely accepting "shock and awe" attacks on British villages where everything including men, women, children, the elderly and animals are killed to make a point to other tribes. Suetonius is profoudly affected by the death of a London merchant he took to, but can't see any problem with having an elderly British tribesman tortured for information about the rebels, and then having the old man's unofficial "son-in-law" (a Roman auxiliary) flogged becuase he tries to beg mercy for him. Although it seems like a straighttforward military adventure, it's a novel of great subtlety.

David Wishart's Horse Coin is also very good ( don't know why someone doesn't reissue it), and has a particularly gripping account of the siege and sack of the Temple of Claudius in Colchester from the POV of the Roman settlers bailed up inside it.

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Post by erechwydd » Thu May 24th, 2012, 12:05 pm

That's an interesting theory, Carla. Tacitus certainly does make a meal of Roman decadence, though from what I recall, in the Agricola at least he seems to be as keen on pointing up the way in which the Britons have been foolishly seduced by Roman decadence as the contrast between the 'noble savage' and corrupt Romans.

I'd certainly agree with your theory about tough women denoting 'otherness'; indeed any kind of female characterisation which doesn't fit in with Roman ideals could be used this way - look at Cleopatra, for example.

There do seem to be a number of apologists for Boudica. Whilst I don't think it's necessarily fair to portray her as an out-and-out villain, what you described, Carla, does sound like a bit of a cop-out. That said, I recognise that it can be tricky getting the right balance if you have someone like this as a major, sympathetic protagonist and have only limited or conflicting reports to work with - as I think you've pointed out with the villain/hero aspect of Eadwine of Deira in the Welsh and English texts respectively. For that reason I'd be intrigued to read a novel that treated Cartimandua in a relatively objective way, especially as I've been guilty of demonising her to an extent myself. (My first novel, using the term loosely, was set among the post-occupation Brigantes.)
Carla said:
I gather there is a memorable, ahem, scene involving him and Cartimandua and a chariot at some point
Yes, I managed to open the book on exactly that scene when I was checking out what it was like. :eek: I think it may have given me a skewed impression. :p Now I have some more info about it, I may hunt about the bookshop a bit just to make sure I haven't missed it - will keep an eye out for Horse Coin as well, Annis. :)

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