Nancy Jardine Author: Birds and Before Beltane!

Friday 15 April 2022

Birds and Before Beltane!

Welcome to Day 15...

of my daily April posts which have something to do with the writing of Before Beltane, the Prequel to my Celtic Fervour Series.

Today's post is about birds which are mentioned in Before Beltane.

Researching birds which are described in Before Beltane meant checking which species would have been indigenous to the woodlands of northern England and Southern Scotland.

The next level of research was determining which of those birds are migratory, because most of the scenes in the book take place in the early months of the year. Birds which revisit in June or July were clearly not suitable.

The last stage of research was what did the birds look like? What was their habitat? And what of their suitability for the scene I was describing?

All of those processes meant a good bit of elimination. What I ended up choosing were, I hope, suitable ones, but since bird studies are not something I know a lot about in detail, it took a good few hours of research and then some decision making.

When writing a story set in the year 71, I find it’s a fine line on whether to name creatures, or concepts, with names we commonly use today. When talking of grouse on the high moors, I can’t help wondering what my characters would have called them. The closest I can get is to give them Scottish Gaelic names since finding out what they might have been called in Old Welsh is sadly beyond my capabilities. Sometimes, I’ve resorted to just describing the characteristics of the birds rather than naming them at all.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2014-04-21_Lagopus_lagopus_scotica,_Hawsen_Burn_1.jpg

In Lorcan’s story, I mention that he gives his Carvetii friend Cynwrig a pair of colourful birds ‘bagged’ on the high moors. I wanted to use that very expression but it would probably have been anachronistic to use ‘bagged’ since it smacks of the grouse shooting of more recent centuries. I trawled my Scots Gaelic dictionary and came up with coileach-fraoich which I hope does mean heather birds, or grouse. The description I give could perhaps also be stretched to mean a capercaillie.

In Nara’s story small birds are literally her saviours, since they keep her fed at a time of great adversity.

Here's a short excerpt from Nara’s story.

After a read of it, what kind of bird do you think I am describing?

Flurries of the littlest brown birds rose into the upper branches on hearing her wail, but it was one of the slightly bigger ones that she kept in her sight as it tapped away at gnarled old oak trunk. The startlingly coloured feathers striped black and white, with a red underside, meant only a small feast would be had from that type of tree-pecking bird, though it would suffice till the new dawn. Sidestepping very slowly, she concealed herself behind a gnarly-trunked holly tree.

The whirling of her first sling stone only served to warn the bird enough for it to fly off to a nearby rowan, not its preferred place as far as Nara had observed when hunting. Affixing a second stone as silently as she could to her sling, she sent a silent plea to Cernunnos to afford her one small kill. Without unnecessary movement, she sidled around the trunk and let it fly. This time it made its mark and the bird plummeted to the ground from the rowan that was still leaf-free.

Bowing her head over the dead bird when she reached it, she gave thanks to the forest god. “My thanks to you Cernunnos, lord of all the creatures within your domain. I appreciate your bounty. Know that I only kill to survive another day.”

Here's a far too easy visual clue...