Guest author Elin Gregory
Oct. 7th, 2014 08:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charlie_cochraneElin Gregory is a princess among gals. I first met her at UK Meet 2011 in sunny Milton Keynes, have been delighted to share panels with her at the same event (she of the hilarious butter remark) and now am thrilled skinny to have her on the UK Meet team. So, here's the gal herself!
Hi, my name is Elin Gregory and first of all I'd like to thank Charlie for allowing me to take over her blog for a short time. Thanks, swee'pea!!
Secondly I'd like to tell you a little about my latest release, a medievalish, historicalish novella called A Taste of Copper, published by Love Lane Books.
A Taste of Copper concerns the unrequited love of a squire for his knight and the temptation he faces when someone else puts in a bid for his affections. That this new suitor is a despicable archer really puts a bee in the knight's helmet!
I must admit to having a great affection for the longbow men of the Middle Ages. Archery was the national sport of the UK, in fact it was illegal to play any other kind of game on Sundays, the only day an ordinary working man could count on to do as he pleased. Every boy learned to shoot and by the time he was fifteen or so was expected to be able to handle a full sized war bow.
A longbow could shoot an arrow 300 yards, punch straight through mail or leather armour or penetrate plate armour at close range. A very good archer could pop an arrow neatly through the eyeslit of a helmet or into the lightly armoured armpit or groin. For the first time ordinary men had a weapon that gave them equality with the heavily armoured knights and men at arms. This made them powerful and they were both feared and despised by the nobles they could now kill from a distance. If the knights drew near the archers hid behind ranks of slanting sharpened stakes that horses couldn't get through and poked the knights out of the saddle with long poles tipped with sharp blades, then battered them with mallets wrapped in lead. This was not gentlemanly conduct! But it was very effective and gave those archers a swaggering confidence that was hard to ignore.
Their jargon was sexy too, and some of it is still in use today. A 150lb warbow took a lot of strength to draw, employing all the muscles of the upper body. You literally had to 'put your back into it'. Linen bowstrings could stretch in the wet so it was always handy to have 'another string to your bow' and if you did have a spare 'keep it under your hat'. Arrows were stabilised by three feather fletchings, two vertical and one sticking out at an angle – the 'cock' feather. If you put the arrow to the string with the cock feather vertical it will throw your aim off and you'll have made a 'cock up'.
Possibly the most famous thing about the medieval archers is their well-known two-fingered hand gesture, used here by Churchill, displaying defiance in the face of adversity. It is supposed to stem from the Hundred Years War when archers captured by the French would be mutilated by having the fingers they used to draw their bows chopped off.
“…And further he told them and explained how the French were boasting that they would cut off three fingers of the right hand of all the archers that should be taken prisoners to the end that neither man nor horse should ever again be killed with their arrows.
Written by Burgundian Jean de Wavin during the 100 Years War, this may well be an incidence of early propaganda. There's no evidence that this gesture was ever used in medieval times but has become 'folklore' since being mentioned in a BBC tv show about archery in the 1990s. In fact the V sign has been in use as an insult throughout the 20th century and may have been the British version of the sign of the horns used on the continent to imply the person gestured at is a cuckold.
However, my archer, Hywel, has plenty of rude gestures of his own without bothering with possibly apocryphal ones.
A Taste of Copper by Elin Gregory
Your master has the field for today, but his name, whatever it might be, is without honour.
Olivier the squire worships the Black Knight and takes a fierce joy in his prowess as he defends a bridge against all comers. Olivier only wishes that his master loved him as much in return instead of treating him as a servant and occasional plaything.
Then word comes that the King desires to cross the bridge. With an army approaching, a bright eyed archer enticing Olivier to desert and the first cracks beginning to show in the Black Knight's gruff demeanour, Olivier is left wondering if his honour is worth more than a chance for happiness.
Read the whole of the first chapter here.
Buy Links
Many thanks to Love Lane Books for organising a Rafflecopter giveaway with a very generous prize. Check it out!
Hi, my name is Elin Gregory and first of all I'd like to thank Charlie for allowing me to take over her blog for a short time. Thanks, swee'pea!!
Secondly I'd like to tell you a little about my latest release, a medievalish, historicalish novella called A Taste of Copper, published by Love Lane Books.
A Taste of Copper concerns the unrequited love of a squire for his knight and the temptation he faces when someone else puts in a bid for his affections. That this new suitor is a despicable archer really puts a bee in the knight's helmet!
I must admit to having a great affection for the longbow men of the Middle Ages. Archery was the national sport of the UK, in fact it was illegal to play any other kind of game on Sundays, the only day an ordinary working man could count on to do as he pleased. Every boy learned to shoot and by the time he was fifteen or so was expected to be able to handle a full sized war bow.
A longbow could shoot an arrow 300 yards, punch straight through mail or leather armour or penetrate plate armour at close range. A very good archer could pop an arrow neatly through the eyeslit of a helmet or into the lightly armoured armpit or groin. For the first time ordinary men had a weapon that gave them equality with the heavily armoured knights and men at arms. This made them powerful and they were both feared and despised by the nobles they could now kill from a distance. If the knights drew near the archers hid behind ranks of slanting sharpened stakes that horses couldn't get through and poked the knights out of the saddle with long poles tipped with sharp blades, then battered them with mallets wrapped in lead. This was not gentlemanly conduct! But it was very effective and gave those archers a swaggering confidence that was hard to ignore.
Their jargon was sexy too, and some of it is still in use today. A 150lb warbow took a lot of strength to draw, employing all the muscles of the upper body. You literally had to 'put your back into it'. Linen bowstrings could stretch in the wet so it was always handy to have 'another string to your bow' and if you did have a spare 'keep it under your hat'. Arrows were stabilised by three feather fletchings, two vertical and one sticking out at an angle – the 'cock' feather. If you put the arrow to the string with the cock feather vertical it will throw your aim off and you'll have made a 'cock up'.
Possibly the most famous thing about the medieval archers is their well-known two-fingered hand gesture, used here by Churchill, displaying defiance in the face of adversity. It is supposed to stem from the Hundred Years War when archers captured by the French would be mutilated by having the fingers they used to draw their bows chopped off.
Written by Burgundian Jean de Wavin during the 100 Years War, this may well be an incidence of early propaganda. There's no evidence that this gesture was ever used in medieval times but has become 'folklore' since being mentioned in a BBC tv show about archery in the 1990s. In fact the V sign has been in use as an insult throughout the 20th century and may have been the British version of the sign of the horns used on the continent to imply the person gestured at is a cuckold.
However, my archer, Hywel, has plenty of rude gestures of his own without bothering with possibly apocryphal ones.
A Taste of Copper by Elin GregoryYour master has the field for today, but his name, whatever it might be, is without honour.
Olivier the squire worships the Black Knight and takes a fierce joy in his prowess as he defends a bridge against all comers. Olivier only wishes that his master loved him as much in return instead of treating him as a servant and occasional plaything.
Then word comes that the King desires to cross the bridge. With an army approaching, a bright eyed archer enticing Olivier to desert and the first cracks beginning to show in the Black Knight's gruff demeanour, Olivier is left wondering if his honour is worth more than a chance for happiness.
Read the whole of the first chapter here.
Buy Links
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Date: 2014-10-07 08:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 05:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 11:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-07 11:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 05:32 am (UTC)The story was actually inspired by the Black Knight scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail so, while I'd be chuffed to bits if you read it, please don't expect literature :D
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Date: 2014-10-08 06:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2014-10-09 07:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-09 07:19 pm (UTC)Have you read Juliet Barker's book about Agincourt? Very good. (I had no idea they had female blacksmiths in those days!)