In Flipside which will be my next book to be published on Kindle, I hope in two months time, there are a number references to myths and legends and I am just wondering how any people are familiar with, say the Arthurian stories beyond the sword in the stone, the Knights of the Round Table and Arthur and Guinevere. I mention the story of the Fisher King, and Parcival but should I explain what the myth was? The characters mention Bran and his cauldron and I do explain that because I’m not sure it is very well-known generally. … There is also an analogy drawn between what has happened to a certain character, David Sullivan, and the story of Baldur from Norse mythology and I’m just wondering to what extent I should retell the story. When the story of Baldur is first mentioned it gives the reader a really strong clue as to what might have happened in that character’s past.
Maybe I should rewrite the specific stories and add them as an appendix…. what do you think?
Meanwhile here’s an exclusive excerpt from Flipside:
We slept and in the middle of the night, when we were awake, he said “I’m not the Fisher King, you know.”
I knew the story but didn’t know what he meant.
“My story isn’t the story of the Fisher King,” he said. “I am not emasculated and powerless. I am not going to sit fishing while terror stalks the land.”
I’d had a crisis of faith but I was going to be strong now. Lying seemingly abandoned out on the moor had been a vile and hideous experience but I had endured it without making a sound until David had returned. I could be as strong again.
“I’ve done enough weeping,” he went on. “I’ve been weak when I should have been strong.”
When I had turned away from him earlier it was his potential violence and ferocity. He had been thinking he was weak and impotent.
I continued the Arthurian analogy. “Perhaps you are not the Fisher King, but maybe I have been Parcival. I have seen things I didn’t understand and maybe I should have asked, maybe it would have helped you.” I nearly said ‘healed’ instead of ‘helped’..
He stretched his arm and switched out the light and in the darkness began, for the first time, to tell me a little about what had happened to him. It was clear he’d had a total mental breakdown after Magnus’s death. In hospital, he told me, he’d read a lot of Celtic myths, myths about heroes and super-heroes. I was horrified at how mentally damaged he’d been… I knew his physical scars so well now, but had never realised how much deeper his mental wounds were.
“You know the story of the blessed Bran, he had a magic cauldron? When I was very bad I had this crazy idea about Bran… that I had been killed with Magnus, we had both died. Then Bran picked me up and dipped me in his magic cauldron and restored me to life… but I was mute, I couldn’t speak… I think I was completely mad then , Jaz, love, but how else could I make sense of what had happened? Magnus was dead but I was unharmed… Why else could I not speak?”
I shivered although the room was warm.
“I don’t know much about Celtic mythology,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “But I am familiar with the Norse legends, the story of Baldur…”
I felt his body tense, become rigid next to mine as he understood what I was hinting at… but I said no more, and he said no more either.
Lois Elsden 