Inspiration

I’d like to share a little of what inspires me so I’m going to see if I can upload some photos. When I’m doing my research, I like to save useful photos in a file – pictures of things like places, clothing, weaponry and that sort of thing, as well as maps. I love maps and as a child would spend hours creating my own.

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Here we have a typical Roman saddle, of the sort Gwen and Arthur would use. The four horns work to sandwich the rider and hold him firmly on and also serve to hang things from – your shield, saddlebags, helmet etc. I saw one of these in the Roman Army Museum at Hadrian’s Wall and would love to try riding like this one day. There were no stirrups, although I have Gwen introducing them.

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And this is a typical Dark Age house such as you might find anywhere across Britain at the end of the fifth century and start of the sixth, when my book is set. Probably only one room inside, or with a partition wall to divide off a sleeping area. And no chimneys back then – the smoke filtered out through the thatch. Interior below.


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This is an artistic recreation of what the walls and main gates of South Cadbury Castle (my Din Cadan) could have looked like in the Arthurian period. There was a substantial earth rampart faced with stonework that’s tied in with wood (see the cross-section) to make it sturdier. And on top of that they’ve built a wall-walk and wooden wall with crenellations. Although Din Cadan had a very long run of walls and would have been hard to defend, it did stand on top of a steep hill with three other banks and ditches below this top one. I’ve been up there many times and it would have taken a determined enemy to climb the hill and attack such a well-fortified position.

It was attacked in the early Roman period, but is thought not to have been one of the forts Vespasian sacked in the few years post-conquest. It’s believed the evidence of it being ransacked relates to some time after the Boudiccan rebellion, possibly as much as twenty years after.

I remember being taken there as a child and being fascinated that they’d found the remains of skeletons during their excavations – no doubt from this ransacking. It’s the sort of thing any child asks on a dig – did you find any skeletons? And I was no exception.

I think I might continue to blog like this and post some of my most inspirational pictures that relate to all things Arthurian. I hope you’ll find them interesting.

Fil