August 3rd,2010
STRANGE GODS, STRANGE MEN -- KINDLE EDITION "Strange Gods, Strange Men" has been released for the Kindle, which means its available for the whole suite of Kindle Reading Apps: iPad, Android, Windows PC, Mac, or Blackberry. Only sometimes, when the rain was falling or the gray mist hung thick among the trees, did he remember... ...
blue seas and a blue sky of a kind never seen in these cold northlands.
And green, green marshes, and the thick smells of the delta marshes and
black Nile mud, and Alexandria glowing white under a sun that baked to
the bones. Alexandria. The name itself sang of legends -- Joseph and
Moses and Pharoah; statues that sang at dawn; and pyramids said to be
as big as mountains and maybe full of gold. And there he had learned how legends looked when they were half-tumbled into ruins. Join
award-winning author Margaret Frazer in the sweltering deserts of
medieval Egypt, where the swirling dust of history wraps man and god
alike in a legacy of endless blood. |
Buy Now The
story's own afterword explains something of the historic Godric I used
for the detective. Having first come across him in a dictionary of
saints I have since visited the site of his hermitage in northern
England (and a lovely place it is, too). Born about
the time of the Norman Conquest, he adventured from one end to the
other of the
world as Europe knew it, then turned to the adventure of exploring
the
soul, and lived to be more than a hundred years old. Surely there are many more stories to be made
about him. If only there were more hours in the day.... - Margaret |
August 5th, 2010
A MEDIEVAL YEAR IN ENGLAND:
AUGUST August
is the beginning of the Harvest Months, when all the year’s work can go
to good or ill. Harvest season begins at Lammastide on August 1st, with
the weather usually continuing hot. The Dog Days that began in July
last until August 11th, and the infamous Egyptian Days run from Lammas
to the 16th, a time bad for letting blood, even by doctors. (Hence the
king’s jest to two warring lords at the beginning of Shakespeare’s Richard II: “Our doctors say this is no month to bleed.”) Early
in the month, between haying’s end and the beginning of corn harvest,
comes Rush Day when people everywhere go to the marshes and riversides
to cut rushes for use through the coming year and carry some in
procession with music, banners, and flowers to strew in the parish
church’s floor, with perhaps dancing afterward before the rest of the
rushes are stored or used on other floors and for basketry and roofing.
Now, too, is bracken-cutting time, partly to give the stock more
grazing land but mostly because bracken serves as under-packing for
storing the coming harvest and as deep litter in animal sheds and for
selling as packing for breakables for travel. But those harvests
are secondary to what begins after them: the Corn Harvest with its
barley, rye, wheat, buckwheat for breads, vetches and corn and straw
for fodder. A rich harvest now means a well-fed year ahead. A poor
harvest means lean times and possibly starvation before summer comes
again. This is the vital time of year, and although a wet August may be
saved by a dry September, now is when the heavy work begins, and by now
every corn owner has appointed a Harvest Lord to govern his harvest for
him. This is no courtesy title. The Harvest Lord’s work is to oversee
all the workers: That they start and stop on time, are arranged in the
most efficient teams, have food and drink regularly and in sufficiency,
and are equipped with what they need when they need it. On the Harvest
Lord the efficiency of the harvest depends and the work begins as early
as the fields are dry of dew in the mornings. After that the only pause
is a brief rest for ale or “harvest mead,” until noon with its hour of
rest for lunch and sleep. Drink is brought to the workers in the fields
in leather bottles or wooden hoggins. Their food is bread, cheese,
oatcake, barley beer, and onions. After midday their work goes on, with
only one more brief pause before they end well toward evening. The days
turn into the weeks that the harvest takes as the workers cut their way
through the fields with sickles and scythes, tying and setting the
grain to dry before it is carried to storage. Interestingly, it
seems that when only the short hand sickles were in use, men and women
were paid the same daily wage for cutting the grain. Only after scythes
were invented did men begin to be paid more than women, apparently
because while the scythe is far more efficient for the work than the
hand sickle, its greater size and weight made it a tool generally
better used by men who were accordingly paid more for their expertise
and greater productivity. At harvest’s end, each place and people
have their own special ceremony for cutting of the last handful of
grain. It can be a casting of sickles at the grain, or braiding of corn
dollies, or hunting of hares – whatever has become traditional in the
area. It’s said a fog in August foretells severe weather and plenty of snow to come, but this is the year's second warmest month. Among lesser matters, this is the time for the selling and buying of lavender. For hunters the time of grace from hunting continues from June. On
the 15th is the celebration of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, and
about this time (since the late1300s), a special court is held at
Tutbury for minstrels to gather, to be rewarded, licensed, punished if
necessary, and to choose the next year’s King of the Minstrels, with
feasting and processions. On the 24th the famous St.
Bartholomew’s Fair starts in London. Held since 1133, its specialty is
cloth but much else is there as well. It is the first of the great
autumn fairs for by now estimates of profits (or losses) to come from
the harvest can be made and plans begun for what must (or may) be
purchased and got ready for all the autumn-into-winter work still to
come. Summer 1450 - Margaret |
August 10th, 2010
THE WITCH'S TALE - KINDLE EDITION 
The original Frevisse short story, "The Witch's Tale", is now the third story to be released for
the Kindle,
which means it's available for the whole suite of Kindle
Reading Apps: iPad, Android, Windows PC, Mac, or Blackberry. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live... Witchcraft
has come to the peaceful village near St. Frideswide, and its foul
touch is striking down those closest to the church. Can Dame Frevisse
thwart the servants of the devil before the hellfire of hysteria sears
the souls of the faithful?Or is there more to this magic than meets the eye? The truth can only be found in the Witch's Tale. |
If Mike Ashley had not approached my then co-author and myself and asked for a short story which would appear in the Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits -- the short story which would become "The Witch's Tale" -- I doubt that any of my short stories would have been written. Back
cover blurbs aside, "The Witch's Tale" was born in part because I was
intrigued to learn that under medieval English law, witchcraft -- the
use of herbs and charms -- was not a crime in itself. Only when the
charms invoked powers other than Christian ones did the church
intervene, issuing reprimands and penance; and only when witchcraft was
used to commit a civil crime -- causing damage or death -- did it
become punishable under the civil law (not church law). The hysteria
against witches as "servants of the devil" was a phenomenon of the
Renaissance rather than the Middle Ages. - Margaret |
August 24th, 2010
THE SIMPLE LOGIC OF IT - KINDLE EDITION "The Simple Logic" is my fourth short story to be released for the Kindle. As with the previous stories, that means it's also now available for the whole suite of Kindle
Reading Apps: iPad, Android, Windows PC, Mac, or Blackberry. The
bright sun of the Wars of the Roses is painting the eastern sky with a
false dawn and in London the politicians are whetting their blades to
claim the blood of Richard, Duke of York. Can the young noble -- a true
prince of the realm -- clear his name before the dark shadows of civil
war settle over fair England's lands?
Margaret Frazer, the
author of the Edgar-nominated and award-winning Sister Frevisse and
Player Joliffe novels, weaves the hidden details of history into a taut
thriller. A game of kings is being played, and the throne of England
may be the prize! |
Buy Now Although he doesn't make the blurb, Bishop Pecock (who you may recognize from The
Bastard's Tale among other places) features prominently in this story. - Margaret Frazer |
