ABOUT THE BOOKS:

I describe these novels as works of medieval historic heroic romance. I suppose that each of these four descriptors needs some explanation.

"Historic fiction" is something of an oxymoron, isn't it? The stories are written by a modern author in the late 20th and early 21 centuries, but are set in the medieval era. To be specific, they are set in mid 7th century northern Europe. The first of the stories takes place entirely in Friesland, or Frisia at it is also often called. The second takes the reader from a monestary near the border of what is now France and Switzerland, across France and along the coast of the North Sea to Denmark, and eventually back down again to Friesland.

The central characters in The Finnsburg Encounter--the first of my two medieval tales--are Finn, his father Folcwalda, and his son Finnlaf, along with his Danish wife Hildeburh. These four, along with Hildeburh's father and brother and a few other Danish warriors, are literary figures drawn from the Old English epic elegaic poem Beowulf. They were likely real characters who were fictionalized by the Beowulf poet for a poem within the poem. But all we know of these possibly-historic characters comes from that one Old Engish poem and one other small fragmentary tale. My goal in writing The Finnsburg Encounter, inspired by the great medieval heroic elegaic poem, was to reimagine the story leading up to the famous fight at Finnsburg recounted in Beowulf. Essentially all of my tale, from the marriage of Finn and Hildeburh up to that fight, is from my imagination. So are many of the characters including my favorite three: Willimond, Ulestan, and Kristinge. But it also based on a considerable amount of reseaerch in medieval history and archaeology, as well as in Old English Language and Literature. Although there are many anachronisms in speech, mannerisms, and what are certainly more modern attutides, there is a strong historical and archaoelogical basis for jewelry, architecture, agricultural practices, ship design, weapons, and other customs.

Also, both The Finnsburg Encounter and The Rood and the Torc contain some of my translation/adaptations of surviving Old English poems, as well as some new poems of my own--written in my best attempt to capture the rhtyhms and moods of the time.

Of course, not knowing who the "historical" figures of Finn and Hildebury were, we don't know exactly when their story took place (assuming it did, at all). So I had to pick a particular time in which to set it. In fact, I had an exact year in mind... though the exact year isn't really important.

By contrast, The Rood and the Torc, a sort of sequel to The Finnsburg Encounter, is not a retelling of any lost or fragmentary piece of medieval literature--English or otherwise. The imagined tale is entirely my own making. And, ironically, it is also more specifically rooted in particular historical events (rather than literary ones). (Once again, there was a very specic year for the start of the story. If you have studied the birth of France and the Merovingian Dynasty, you will be able to pin it down.) Though the two primary characters, Kristinge and Willimond, are entirely of my own imagination--come to me in the previous novel--many of the other characters they meet on their travels are real historical characters.

"Heroic Romance": My understanding of the term "heroic" is more Tolkienien than classical or Germanic.

Medieval Germanic Europe could be a dangerous and bloody time. The Finnsburg Encounter is about a Frisian chieftain-king named Finn, the son of an even more famous warrior-king named Folcwalda. Chieftains and kings did not in general rise to power by being gentle, literary figures. They became clan leaders and claimed the "torc" by being war-lords and battle-leaders. So as you might expect, there are a couple battles in The Finnsburg Encounter. But this is not a war story. And though heroism is shown in the form of bravery and self-sacrifice by many of the main characters in the story, there are many ways to be heroic other than in battle. Heroism is more powerfully shown in many small day-to-day decisions of a monk or a poet as well as a warrior--decisions to do what is right, even when it is costly, rather than doing what is easy or profitable.

In The Rood and the Torc the heroism may be more pronounced... but there is only one very short battle.

By contrast, I use the term "romance" in a more Germanic than modern American sense. Though both books involve a romantic love story--indeed, more than one--and I hope they are compelling and enjoyable, the loves stories are not the central focus of either book. The cliché cover on a typical grocery story romance novel would be misleading on either of these books.

All of which may be largely irrelevant to the most important point, which is simply that I wanted to write a compelling story, that would engage readers with strong prose, an intriguing tale, and compelling characters. It just happens to be one that was set 1300 years ago on a continent different from the one I live on.