Tag Archives: Marie de France

Mark Lord’s Writing, Self-publishing

eBook Blurbs Experimentation

Leave a comment

Yesterday I decided that the blurbs for my short stories might be, how shall we say, rather poor! And decidedly boring!

Well last night I decided to update a couple of them. See what you think of the changes:

Bird Talk: A Tale of Medieval Magic

Old Blurb:

Bird Talk is a short story about a young priest, Roger, living in a small medieval English town, who is trying to uncover what he believes are foul magical deeds. But instead he manages to implicate the women he loves in accusations of witchcraft. With only the town drunk to help him, Roger must work out a way of saving the woman he loves.

New Blurb:

What do you do when you have accused the woman you love of necromancy?

Roger Draper suspects that a necromancer is at work in a small medieval English town. But rather than uncovering foul magical deeds he manages to implicate the women he desires in accusations of witchcraft. With only the town drunk to help him, Roger must untangle the mess he has created.

Be prepared for a heady concoction of gritty medieval life, humour and magic.

Bird Talk: A Tale of Medieval Magic is an Historical Fantasy short story.

Bisclavret (The Werewolf)

Old Blurb:

“I am the last survivor of the noble family of Trigoff…This is my confession.”A tale of knights, castles, maidens and werewolves set in Medieval France. This short story is a retelling of Marie de France’s classic Medieval Romance.

New Blurb:

 “I am the last survivor of the noble family of Trigoff…This is my confession.” A tale of knights, castles, maidens and werewolves set in Medieval France at the height of the Hundred Years War.

What happens when the man you thought would protect you is more than a man? When another suitor comes calling would stand by your werewolf husband or be tempted to seek protection against the dangers of the wild forest elsewhere?

This historical fantasy short story is a retelling of Marie de France’s classic Medieval Romance Bisclavret.

What do you think are these better? Do you think they will help the short stories sell better?

With Bisclavret I wasn’t sure whether to keep the quotation in there or not?

Enhanced by Zemanta
Medieval Literature

Marie de France’s Lais Online

Leave a comment

Along with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which I mentioned yesterday, I have now also added the Breton lais of Marie de France to the website.

Here’s a quick run-down of the full contents that are online – you can also get it all of Marie de France’s lais as an eBook for easier reading.

And if you’re interested I have written a short story based on The Lay of the Were-Wolf, called Bisclavret (The Werewolf).

French Mediaeval Romances by Marie de France

INTRODUCTION

I. PROLOGUE BY WAY OF DEDICATION

II. THE LAY OF GUGEMAR

III. THE LAY OF THE DOLOROUS KNIGHT

IV. THE LAY OF ELIDUC

V. THE LAY OF THE NIGHTINGALE

VI. THE LAY OF SIR LAUNFAL

VII. THE LAY OF THE TWO LOVERS

VIII. THE LAY OF THE WERE-WOLF

IX. THE LAY OF THE ASH TREE

X. THE LAY OF THE HONEYSUCKLE

XI. THE LAY OF EQUITAN

XII. THE LAY OF MILON

XIII. THE LAY OF YONEC

XIV. THE LAY OF THE THORN

XV. THE LAY OF GRAELENT

XVI. A STORY OF BEYOND THE SEA

XVII. THE CHATELAINE OF VERGI

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta
Mark Lord’s Writing, Medieval History

Chateaux Trogoff and Tonquedec: Sources for Bisclavret (The Werewolf)

1 Comment

This is another post about my short story Bisclavret (The Werewolf). The story is set in Brittany in the 1360s, a time when John, Duke of Brittany had gained his duchy with the help of English armies. The story is set in a remote and dilapidated castle in the midst of Brittany’s forests. As well as Marie de France‘s original Bisclavret, my other inspiration was a Breton legendary ballad called the Ward of Guesclin, a famous French general. Here’s the opening verse:

TROGOFF’S strong tower in English hands
Has been this many a year,
Rising above its subject-lands
And held in hate and fear.
That rosy gleam upon the sward
Is not the sun’s last kiss;
It is the blood of an English lord
Who ruled the land amiss.

The poem tells a tale of a Breton woman forced by the new English lord of the castle to accept his kiss as a toll for passage. In my story the castle has become Trigoff, and I based the actual appearance of the castle on Chateau Tonquedec. See the pretty image below – really a wonderful setting for a werewolf story, right in the middle of a forest.

Here’s how I mapped out the castle and it’s estate for the purposes of planning the story:

Castle and Estate of Trigoff
Castle and Estate of Trigoff

Please excuse the terrible drawing and handwriting!

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta
Mark Lord’s Writing

Bisclavert, Bisclavret, Garwaf, Werewolves: what’s in a name!

4 Comments
The french werewolf "voirloup"
Image via Wikipedia

I was planning on writing a post about the etymology of the name Bisclavert, which was the name of my recently published short story about a medieval werewolf, based on the story of the same name by Marie de France.

I was surprised to find that the spelling I had used was actually a variant, and a less common variant at that! So what I have done is actually to go and change the name of my story to Bisclavret (The Werewolf) just to make things a bit clearer! I thinks its pretty obvious the story is about werewolves so hopefully that won’t spoil anything for anyone!

Back to the main purpose of explaining the etymology of the word, I found that this is actually pretty unclear. Marie de France in her lai tells the reader that:

‘Bisclavret’ is the Breton name,
the Normans call it ‘garwaf’.

The usual old-French word for werewolf seems to be garou, and forms part of the more modern phrase used in France now of loup-garou. But, according to Widsith’s help blog post, it seems very unclear as to where you get the werewolf meaning from the Breton bisclavert. The closet word in Breton is “bleiz” for wolf, but even that is not very close.

Perhaps Marie used a bit of artistic licence herself and made the word up anyway?

Enhanced by Zemanta