David Bell's Blog - Posts Tagged "mystery"
A new give-away
Should be live shortly- Illustrated book, text only edition, unique original art and other stuff. Watch this space!!
What I said to the NZ book Council part 1
"You describe The Dog Hunters as ‘the epic retelling of the legend of Gelert the Wolfhound’. Tell us about this legendary dog and why he captured your imagination..."
When I was 6, I read the legend of Gelert the faithful wolfhound on his gravestone in Beddgelert, North Wales, and bawled my eyes out. Gelert’s master, the King, had slewn his old dog thinking he’d killed and eaten his baby, Prince Llewelyn, only to discover that Gelert had killed a ravenous wolf, saving the toddler, who belatedly crawled out safe and sound from under the bloody bedcloths. The legend has it that, having slaughtered his oldest and most loyal friend, the King never smiled again, and the story certainly ruined the rest of my holiday. Years later, I’d been tinkering with a story about a Chinese Emperor who had dogs of different sizes and shapes bred ‘to order’, but I was looking for a more meaningful and personal hook to the story. That’s when it struck me that if the Emperor had heard of the Legend of Gelert, surely he’d want to get his hands on the world’s greatest dog’. It meant rewriting Gelert’s grisly end (yay! I saved Gelert!), but from then on, the story wrote itself and now Gelert has a human protagonist, Prince Llewelyn, now 14 years old, to play with.
When I was 6, I read the legend of Gelert the faithful wolfhound on his gravestone in Beddgelert, North Wales, and bawled my eyes out. Gelert’s master, the King, had slewn his old dog thinking he’d killed and eaten his baby, Prince Llewelyn, only to discover that Gelert had killed a ravenous wolf, saving the toddler, who belatedly crawled out safe and sound from under the bloody bedcloths. The legend has it that, having slaughtered his oldest and most loyal friend, the King never smiled again, and the story certainly ruined the rest of my holiday. Years later, I’d been tinkering with a story about a Chinese Emperor who had dogs of different sizes and shapes bred ‘to order’, but I was looking for a more meaningful and personal hook to the story. That’s when it struck me that if the Emperor had heard of the Legend of Gelert, surely he’d want to get his hands on the world’s greatest dog’. It meant rewriting Gelert’s grisly end (yay! I saved Gelert!), but from then on, the story wrote itself and now Gelert has a human protagonist, Prince Llewelyn, now 14 years old, to play with.
