Calendar of the Ancient Mediterranean

Posted on September 17, 2015 by J.M. Ney-Grimm

The people of the ancient Mediterranean world did not follow a common calendar.

For example, in Athens the year began just after mid-summer. But in Boeotia – a mere 50 miles (80 kilometers) away – the year began in mid-winter. Nor were their names for the months (or moons) the same.

Fortunately, as I wrote Fate’s Door, I found I did not need month names. The people of the ancient world were not nearly as tied to a written calendar or a strict accounting for the passage of time as we moderns are.

The season was a much more relevant concept. The land dwellers needed to know when to plant seed and when to harvest crops. The seafarers needed to know how the weather would behave. My sea numeni – living beneath the waves – were interested in the temperature of the water and the behavior of the currents.

Written calendars of the time tended to get out of sync with the seasons and then require an arbitrary jump to make them match. Paying attention to the natural world, rather than the man-made calendar, was much more useful to the folk who really needed to know what was upcoming.

Thus my characters in Fate’s Door tend to refer to the spring, the summer, the autumn, and the winter. Or the morning, the noontide, the afternoon, and the evening.

I didn’t need month names. Nor did I need precise measures for minutes or hours.

But I did need month and week intervals. A journey might take three months. An event might be planned for next week.

The months were easy. The ancients definitely used the moon to plot the passage of time. Thus they might say that travelling overland from Thérma to the coast of Balder’s Sea (the Baltic Sea) would take three moons.

But the weeks were harder, because the ancients of the Hellenic world didn’t divide their moons into 4 weeks. In my story, I had started out as referring to weeks as sevendays. Halfway through the manuscript, it occurred to me to check my assumption.

In my North-lands stories, the lowlanders have 7-day weeks, but the mountain dwelling Hammarleedings have 8-day weeks. Perhaps the ancients of our world used some number of days other than 7.

Oh, wow, did they ever! It was good I checked. The Athenians, at least, divided the moon (or month) into thirds!

This is how it worked. A moon was either 29 or 30 days long. The short ones were known as “hollow,” while the long ones were known as “full.”

The first day of the month was called noumenia or “new moon.” The next 9 days were called “2nd rising,” “3rd rising,” all the way up to “10th rising.” These first ten days were grouped as the “moon waxing.”

The next 10 days were grouped as the “moon full.” In this group, the numbers of the days ran from 11 to 19, but they were usually called “first over ten” (for the 11th) and “second over ten” (the 12th) and so on, up to “ninth over ten” for the 19th. The 20th day was called “earlier 10th,” not “the 20th” or “tenth over ten.”

The last 10 days were grouped as the “moon waning.” And the numbering of these days is the most confusing to my modern sensibilities. It goes backwards!

The first day of this group was called the “later 10th.” Next came “9th waning” and “8th waning” all the way down to “2nd waning.” The very last day of the month was called hene kai nea, meaning “the old and the new.”

In months with only 29 days, “moon waning” counted down from “later tenth” to “3rd waning” and then went directly to “the old and the new.” A “hollow” moon simply did not have a “2nd waning.”

With this emphasis on tens – “10th rising,” “earlier 10th,” and “later tenth” – it seemed pretty clear to me that the unit of 10 days was the important one. And as I envisioned the communities featured in Fate’s Door as following the lead of dominant Athens, I chose that 10-day unit for my “week.” What general term did the Athenians use when they spoke of their “moon waxing” or their “moon full” or their “moon waning”?

Alas, I could find no mention of such a term. Perhaps a scholar of the classics might be able to enlighten me, but none of my circle of acquaintance – that I know of – has studied ancient Greek.

I thought about choosing tenday, just as I might use sevenday for a 7-day week. But I wanted something a little more evocative of my ancient Hellenic setting. I decided to borrow from the traditional Greek numerical prefixes.

Di- or duo- for 2. Tri for 3. Tetra for 4. And on up. Deka- is 10. So I coined the deka-day.

Then I went through my manuscript replacing every use of sevenday with deka-day! 😀

For more about the world of Fate’s Door, see:
Lapadoússa, an isle of Pelagie
Merchant Ships of the Ancient Mediterranean
Garb of the Sea People
Measurement in Ancient Greece
Horse Sandals and the 4th Century BC
Knossos, Model for Altairos’ Home

Ground Looms

Posted on September 10, 2015 by J.M. Ney-Grimm

When I started writing Fate’s Door – a book in which the three fates who weave the destiny of the world play important roles – I expected that I would need to learn a lot about weaving. What I didn’t expect was that weaving would enter the story before my heroine got anywhere near the cottage of the fates.

But so it was.

Nerine is a young sea nymph. She makes friends with a boy who lives on land: Altairos. And Altairos naturally introduces her to his nurse, Calla. Calla begins teaching Nerine to weave. And there I was, needing to know more about the textile arts. 😀

The culture of the Mediterranean in the Hellenistic era used vertical looms, and I’ll be writing a blog post about them soon. But Calla prefers the more ancient style of loom: the ground loom.

There is archaeological evidence that Neolithic peoples as far back as 6000 BC used ground looms, but the ancient Egyptians used them as well, from 5000 BC until sometime after 1550 BC, when the vertical loom was developed.

Calla could have requested either type of loom for herself. She is greatly honored and loved by the royal family of Zakynthos, and they would have provided whatever she wanted. But the vertical loom requires greater strength from the weaver, as well as a lot of standing, and Calla is old. She wants to weave while sitting.

Calla’s loom is a much finer version of the ground loom than the original instrument used in 6000 BC.

The very first ground looms were simply four sticks plunged into the soil, one pair placed roughly 3 feet apart in front of the weaver and another pair – also 3 feet apart – placed 6 to 10 feet away from the weaver.

Narrow beams at each end were secured to the sticks, and the warp threads were tied to the beams. Two sticks (lease rods) were used to lift the long warp threads on these early looms, allowing the short weft threads to be passed across the warp.

Later on, the heddle was invented, providing a more convenient way to separate the warp strands.

As looms became more sophisticated, so did heddle design. But the heddles for a ground loom were essentially two rods with loops of string attaching every other warp thread to one and the alternate every other warp thread to the other.

The weaver would lift one heddle into the heddle jacks – two Y-shaped sticks, one on either side of the warp threads – and pass the shuttle through. After beating the weft thread firmly against the previous weft thread, she would lift the first heddle down, lift the other heddle into the jacks, and pass the shuttle across again.

Nomadic people still use these simple ground looms, because they are so portable. You just pull the sticks out of the ground and pack the whole kit and caboodle up.

But Calla weaves in the comfort of her own home, and her loom is created by finely smoothed wooden cylinders set into a raised platform faced by tiles. Brackets along the sides of the platform allow her to move the heddle jacks as the fabric progresses. As the working edge of the fabric moves away from her, she can either sit at the side of the loom to continue weaving, or place a cushion below the fabric and sit directly on it.

The fabric in the video below is a very coarse one, woven loosely of coarse thread. But it is possible to weave very fine cloth on such a loom. The ancient Egyptians used flax threads so fine and smooth, and wove it so skillfully, that the resulting linen was fit for royalty. Indeed, it was in great demand for export to Arabia and India due to its high quality.

For more about the world of Fate’s Door, see:
Merchant Ships of the Ancient Mediterranean
Garb of the Sea People
Measurement in Ancient Greece
Horse Sandals and the 4th Century BC
Knossos, Model for Altairos’ Home

For more about ground looms and weaving on them, see:
Nomadic Looms
Flax and Linen in Pharaonic Egypt
Ancient Egyptian Linen
Types of Looms

Lapadoússa, an Isle of Pelagie

Posted on September 3, 2015 by J.M. Ney-Grimm

The first scenes of Fate’s Door take place in the cottage of the fates, in Scandia (Scandinavia). So I didn’t worry too much about the exact location of my sea nymph heroine’s home while I wrote those scenes.

Oh, I knew that she grew up in a reef palace offshore from a Mediterranean island. But precisely which island and where didn’t need to be determined. Not yet.

That changed the instant I finished Part 1 and wanted to begin Part 2.

“Where the heck is Nerine’s island?” I asked myself.

I knew it was not in the eastern reaches, the Levantine basin. Nor the western portion near the Pillars of Herakles (Strait of Gibraltar). Nor right off the coast of Greece itself.

No, it was centrally located and not too near the coast of either Europe or Africa.

I started searching maps and googling locations. And the island cluster I was looking for turned up pretty quickly.

The Isles of Pelagie are located in the broad Strait of Sicily that separates the western basin of the Mediterranean from the eastern. To the north is Sicily, to the south, Tunisia. The waters of the strait are shallower, with a deep current that moves from east to west, and a surface one that moves from west to east.

Honestly, the moment I spotted the Isles of Pelagie in one of the three atlases we have in the house, they felt right. I crossed my fingers that when I checked the details, one of them would be right.

The first thing that caught my attention was the name. It has a French sound to my ear, but it actually derives from the Greek word pélagos, meaning ‘open sea.’ That seemed a promising sign. A name deriving from Greek, rather than French or Italian, might mean the ancient peoples were aware of these islands.

My next step was to look specifically at each island. There were three, and I needed one that could support a sizable population, because Nerine’s friend Altairos is a land-dwelling island prince.

I envisioned his setting as a city-state grown wealthy from trade. The Isles of Pelagie certainly had a great location for trade. The ancient sailors always stuck close to shore. As a narrower section of the Mediterranean, the Strait of Sicily would be a natural place to cross the sea, and the Isles would serve as a natural stepping stone for that crossing.

The island of Lampione (Lamptír to the ancient Greeks) was clearly much too small. Altairos’ city-state might trade for a lot of its food, but some would need to be produced locally. Lampione is a rocky islet with tall bluffs and no good harbor, measuring a mere 656 feet by 591 feet (200 meters by 180 meters). The palace alone would sprawl over the entire ten acres, with no room for either a city or farmland or pasturage.

Strike Lampione.

Linosa looked more promising. It’s considerably larger and, from the photo, looks to have a sheltering cove to serve as a harbor. Even better, Strabo (an ancient Greek philosopher and geographer) referred to it as Aethusa.

During the Punic Wars, the ancient Romans used it as a military base. The ruins from 150 water cisterns from this period still remain. 264 BC to 146 BC is somewhat later than my time period, 352 BC to 329 BC. But if the Romans could set up and run a permanent settlement, that would indicate that my fictional city-state might thrive there as well.

On the other hand, if the Romans took the island in 264 BC, it meant Altairos’ city-state fell to them in what might otherwise be Altairos’ happy old age. My book ends before such a gloomy happening, but why set my characters up for even unchronicled tragedy? I decided to pass on Linosa.

Lampedusa, the third island I considered (Lapadoússa to the ancients), turned out to be perfect. It is the largest of the three, with plenty of room for a modest city, a sprawling palace similar to that at Knossoss, and lots of land left over for orchards, vinyards, farming, and the grazing of livestock.

Apparently the ancient Greeks found it an excellent source for a particularly desired oyster. Historically, it hosted settlements of ancient Phoenicians, Greeks, and so on through the centuries.

My fictional city-state might not be so fictional after all. The Greeks started many colonies throughout the Mediterranean world, and there are many Greek ruins (along with ruins from other civilizations and times in history) on Lampedusa. Just because this particular settlement is not named in the surviving chronicles of the ancients does not mean it did not exist. Indeed, the ruins indicate otherwise.

The island has high cliffs on its western end, so I placed my city-state and its palace along the gentler southeastern shore, with Nerine’s reef palace in the sea farther west beside the southern coast.

This was an exciting moment. I had found the island where Altairos lived and the waters in which Nerine’s reef place was carved!

For more about the world of Fate’s Door, see:
Garb of the Sea People
Measurement in Ancient Greece
Horse Sandals and the 4th Century BC
Knossos, Model for Altairos’ Home

Merchant Ships of the Ancient Mediterranean

Posted on August 27, 2015 by J.M. Ney-Grimm

When Nerine – the heroine of Fate’s Door – went aboard the Lily of Aegyptus with her friend Altairos, I needed to know more about the trading vessels of the ancient Mediterranean.

Studying ships that sailed more than 2000 years ago is a difficult proposition. They were made of wood and usually ended their days on the bottom of the sea, where their timbers rotted.

Luckily for me – and interested scholars – in 1965, a sponge diver named Andreas Cariolou discovered the well-preserved wreck of an ancient trading vessel near Kyrenia, Cyprus.

More than 50 underwater archeoligists, students, and technicians cooperated to photograph the site and then retrieve the artifacts from the sea floor. Every piece of the ship itself and its contents has been extensively studied, with the result that we now know much more about sea trade in the Hellenistic era than we did before.

The Kyrenia ship was 48 feet long (14.7 meters) and 14.5 feet wide (4.4 meters), quite a bit shorter and somewhat narrower than a warship. (The ancient triremes were 121 feet long and 18 feet wide – 37 meters by 5.5 meters.)

The Kyrenia ship was propelled by one square sail, and only four mariners managed her: a captain and three crew. There were four oars aboard for maneuvering within harbors and other tight quarters, but she depended on the wind to travel from port to port. She possessed two steering oars at her stern, but usually only one of them was needed to guide her.

Decking at the stern provided a level surface on which to stand in addition to a smaller deck at the prow. But most of the ship was reserved for the cargo she carried. When she sank – probably scuttled after pirates captured her, took her crew to sell as slaves, and stole the captain’s store of coin – she was carrying 404 amphorae, containing wine, olive oil, almonds, and fruits.

Carbon dating tells us that the Kyrenia ship was built around 389 BC and probably operated by three generations of a merchant family. The almonds she was carrying when she sank were picked around 288 BC. Which means she was exactly the sort of trading vessel in use during the time of Fate’s Door, which takes place between 344 BC and 329 BC.

I modeled my Lily of Aegyptus after the Kyrenia ship.

There’s a fun sequel to the discovery of this ancient vessel. Experimental archaeologists have taken to reconstructing artifacts using the methods of the original creators to better understand how these old cultures functioned. The Kyrenia ship has generated three such reconstructions, one focused on the original construction methods (the Kyrenia II) and another focused on the ancient sailing methods (the Kyrenia Liberty).

The video below tells the story of the discovery of the Kyrenia ship and the construction of the Kyrenia II.

For more about the world of Fate’s Door, see:
Measurement in Ancient Greece
Horse Sandals and the 4th Century BC
Knossos, Model for Altairos’ Home

For more about the Kyrenia ship, see:
The Kyrenia Ship on Wikipedia
The Kyrenia Ship on HellenicaWorld
The Kyrenia II
Cyprus and the Sea
The Kyrenia Ship Project

Cover Reveal: Fate’s Door

Posted on August 20, 2015 by J.M. Ney-Grimm

Fate landing cov 350 Secrets, like troubles, come in threes. When you possess one of either, two more arrive to keep it company. Nerine, a sea nymph of the ancient world, knows too much about both.

Each morning, in the chill before the sun’s rising, Nerine and the three Fates stand under the mighty branches of the World Tree, gazing into the depths of the root-girdled Well of Destiny, watching the dooms that must come to pass that day.

Nerine then chooses the threads that mirror the water’s visions for the Fates to weave their portents into history.

But when the dawn’s visions show Nerine’s lover, shipwrecked and drowning, all her renounced yearning for him rises anew. Surely – as handmaiden to the Fates themselves – she might tilt the odds to give her beloved a chance.

But how?

If she chooses illicitly for the Fates’ loom – green ribbands? a handkerchief? – will either save him?

Alas, her vision-laden intuition tells her no.

Ribband garlands merely drag her lover deep in entangling seaweed, while her handkerchief entombs him in the wreck’s sail. Each forbidden choice brings him closer to death.

Is betrayal of herself the only way to prevail?

Somehow – this day, this morning, this time – Nerine must subvert destiny or lose the companion of her heart forever.

Coming soon!

For the beginning of the story, see:
Fate’s Door: The Well of Destiny

Garb of the Sea People

Posted on August 13, 2015 by J.M. Ney-Grimm

The protagonist of Fate’s Door – Nerine – is a sea nymph. She would call herself a numen of the sea, a sea spirit.

She can breathe air, but her natural breath extracts oxygen from water, and her home is under the sea.

Fully half of Fate’s Door takes place in the Mediterranean. (Nerine would call it the Middle Sea, of course.) A lot of Nerine’s early adventures occur on land, on the island near her reef palace home. But the root to her problems lies with her family, in the sea, and many scenes transpire underwater.

Which meant I needed to devise what Nerine and her people wore in their watery realm.

It seemed obvious to me that sea people must wear close fitting garb that doesn’t get in the way as they swim about their business. Likely they would fashion clothing very much like our modern swimsuits. But I didn’t think they would call them swimsuits or bathing costumes or anything like that. Those terms belong to people who enter the water but occasionally. Only land dwellers would wear a garment that is a ‘costume’ or ‘for swimming.’

Sea people swim most of the time, and their garments would just be clothes. Yet they’d need specific terms for each garment. I decided to go with the ‘pectoral’ of the ancient Egyptians for the top. And the term ‘belt’ for the apparel covering the loins. A girdle might be more accurate, but in my mind a girdle calls up either medieval times or the 1950’s. I wanted something more basic. So, belt.

Of course, the ancient Egyptian pectorals are also not quite what my sea people wear. For one thing, not all of the ancient Egyptian pectorals would cover enough of the chest. The pectoral of Senusret II (left) is not at all what I had in mind, although it is very beautiful.

We moderns tend to think of the Egyptian pectoral as elaborate jewelry, but its primary purpose was to make a statement about the pharaoh or noble wearing it. For example, the pectoral of Amenemhat III states: “Lord (of) Heaven, God-Good, Lord of the Two Lands, ‘Ny-Maat-Ra’, Lord (of all) Lands.”

The votive pectoral of Ptolemy V (right) is more what I had in mind, but it was never worn by the living pharaoh. Rather it was placed on his corpse, and its shape mimicked the shape of a beb-collar, that hung from the prow of a sacred boat, protecting both boat and the image of the god carried within.

Additionally, the Eyptian pectorals were held in place by gravity. One worn in the sea would move around too much, unless fastened around the torso as well as the neck.

By adjusting historical precedent to conform with the demands of practicality, I arrived at my ideal for a sea numen’s pectoral: a decorative panel, made of varying materials, secured behind the neck and around the ribs or waist.

The warriors would need garments of sturdier stuffs, perhaps links of bronze to form a mesh, or chitin harvested from the shells of giant crabs and reinforced by a coating of bronze.

I discovered a Dutch gorget (below left) from the 1600’s that matched quite well with the picture in my mind. Perhaps the sea warrior would need more room about the neck, but his arms would have plenty of freedom for swimming strokes as well as thrusting with a spear or trident.

Brass gorget and steel cuirass, 600 pixels

I envisioned Nerine’s father, the king, wearing something that covered a bit more of his person, something like this Indian cuirass from the 17th or 18th century (above right), but with more room for the arms.

And just to be clear that a sea person’s ‘belt’ coveres rather more than one might initially expect, I decided I’d better find a photo – somewhere – giving an indication of what I meant.

I imagine something similar could be devised of crab chitin or bronze chainmail for the warriors. Although the sea people know the technology of nålbindning, single-needle knitting, which goes back to the earliest of times.

Indeed, most of the servants in the reef palace would wear pectorals and belts knitted from sea jute, thin strands of chitin or urchin spines, or even their own hair (which is not itchy the way a land-dweller’s hair is). The lighter materials delivered more comfort than the heavier ones required by the warriors.

Nerine’s Nurse wears a snuggly fitting top and hose of white nålbindning knitting. And Nerine’s first clothes – worn at a formal banquet with her parents, the king and queen, as well as some of their courtiers and ministers – is an aqua nålbindning top and belt. For the children of the sea people do swim bare, donning clothes when they reach the age of thirteen or so.

The royal children receive more ornate garments, usually adorned with jewels, and fashioned of a light bronze or gold mesh. Nerine’s favorite pectoral and belt were gold with green beryls that flashed gold in strong sunlight. They complimented her green-gold hair and hazel-green eyes nicely.

The belts of the ladies, like those of the men, covered more than the term ‘belt’ might lead you to believe. Not all of them would resemble bikini bottoms, however. Nerine’s first ‘belt’ was merely a very long sash of aqua nålbindning that wrapped around her waist and passed between her legs, being secured in elaborate knots on the waistband.

Nearly every painting I’ve seen depicting water nymphs shows them naked, but I suspect that the real intent of the painter was the celebration of the beauty of the nude form. The nymphs are certainly lovely.

But all the statuary showing land dwellers in the nude doesn’t mean that they went about their lives unclothed. Supposing sea numeni were real (as my novel, Fate’s Door pretends), I doubt they would live always in the nude either.

For more about Nerine’s world, see:
Knossos, Model for Altairos’ Home
Horse Sandals and the 4th Century BC
Measurement in Ancient Greece
Merchant Ships of the Ancient Mediterranean
Lapadoússa, an Isle of Pelagie
Ground Looms
Calendar of the Ancient Mediterranean
Warships of the Ancient Mediterranean

Measurement in Ancient Greece

Posted on August 6, 2015 by J.M. Ney-Grimm

When Nerine, the heroine of Fate’s Door, set off on a journey across Európi in 334 BC, I needed to know the units of measurement that her guides – the Poniró Peltastés of Hermes – would speak of.

Sure I could have them talking of miles and leagues. After all, any civilization in which people travel will have the equivalents of those distances. Why not just use terms that many readers will be familiar with?

I could have. Indeed, I would have to, if the ancient terms proved too difficult or obscure. But I dove into research first.

Along the way, I became sidetracked by smaller units of measurement used by the ancient Greeks and, indeed, the entire Hellenistic world.

The translations of the ancient Greek terms charmed me. There is something so practical and sensible in units such as a ‘finger’ or a ‘palm.’

Before I tell you about my decision regarding miles and leagues, I’m going to take you with me to look at the smaller units. Not all of them. There are too many for that. But a few of those that interested me most. 😀

The smallest is indeed the ‘finger’ or daktylos. In modern terms, that’s .76 inches or 19.3 millimeters. I suppose it was used as I might use an inch.

The palaiste or doron is four ‘fingers’ or a ‘palm.’ Which makes me think of the ‘hands’ used to indicate the size of a horse. In ordinary modern units, that’s 3.04 inches or 77.1 millimeters.

Then there’s the dichas or hemipodion, which is the ‘half foot’ – 6.07 inches or 154.1 millimeters – no doubt a handy unit. But the unit that absolutely beguiles me is the spithame, the ‘span of all fingers.’ I’d love to speak of a loaf of bread as long as a spithame! I might one day, even though it will get me strange looks.

The spithame is 9.1 inches or 231.2 millimeters.

The pous or ‘foot’ is 12.13 inches, quite close to the foot that I am used to. Or, with less immediate correspondence in metric: 308.2 millimeters.

The pygme or ‘forearm’ is amazingly close to the pous. Did the ancients really need both units? 13.65 inches or 346.8 millimeters for the pygme.

The last of the smaller units of length is the pechys or, as the ancient Romans would say, the cubit. Which approximates the length from the fingertips to the elbow. That is, 18.2 inches or 462.3 millimeters.

Of course, as fascinating as I found these ancient units, the shorter ones were not what I needed for my story.

The so-called ‘longer’ units start at the pous or ‘foot’ and go on up through various numbers of paces. But what I wanted were the units with which one might measure a journey. Something equivalent to miles or kilometers.

There were two sorts of ‘leagues’ that seemed promising. The parasanges was adopted from Persia and measured 3.447 miles (or 5.5 kilometers). Or I could choose the ‘league’ adopted from the Egyptians, the schoinos which was 4.596 miles (or 7.4 kilometers) long.

After all that research, I decided that both the parasanges and the schoinos were too difficult and obscure to use. I settled for the familiar league, and started writing Nerine’s journey north from the Aegean Sea to the Baltic Sea.

And guess what happened?

I mentioned the unit of a league once! Maybe twice. Because Nerine’s attention was not on how far she traveled. She was interested in the people she met, the strange cultures she encountered, and the startling things she was learning about herself.

I did require a unit of measurement when she gazed across the river Moirios (the Great Morava), near its mouth, and marveled that it must be a full stadion across. And again, when she worried about how they would cross the river Danouvios (the Danube), because it was more than four stadia wide.

But I’d already determined that the stadion was the unit I needed when a much-younger Nerine first looked at a map of Lapadoússa (the modern Lampedusa), the isle where her land-dwelling friend Altairos lived. (Nerine is a sea nymph and lives in a reef palace under the water.)

The young Altairos proudly told Nerine that Lapadoússa was 17 stadia wide and 70 stadia long. For us moderns, that’s: 2 miles wide (3.2 km) and 8 miles (12.9 km) long.

A stadion is 202.2 yards or 184.9 meters. 😀

For more about the world of Fate’s Door, see:
Horse Sandals and the 4th Century BC
Knossos, Model for Altairos’ Home

Fate’s Door: Manuscript Complete!

Posted on August 1, 2015 by J.M. Ney-Grimm

I know there are a few of you – who especially like stories based on mythology and involving the ancient Greek pantheon – eagerly awaiting my novel Fate’s Door.

I finished the manuscript Monday, July 27!

That was an exciting moment for me, because I’ve been dreaming of this particular story since 2013, when I wrote its beginning, and then actually writing the novel since the beginning of this year.

Hmm. I just checked when the manuscript file was created, and my computer says December 16, 2014. So, I must have started work slightly before January.

Whatever the details, I’ve poured my heart and soul into it, and reaching “The End” felt great.

Some of you have told me that you really like the ancient Mediterranean world as a setting, and fully half the book takes place there. The other half of Fate’s Door ranges across Europe and north into Scandinavia, where the story starts.

I did a lot of research for Fate’s Door. It’s fantasy, but fantasy blended with the Hellenistic world of the 4th century BC. Wherever my sea nymph heroine interacts with the people and civilizations of the time, I want my facts to be as accurate as I could make them. Thus research.

I enjoyed my research. Who knew that the ancient Greeks did not have horseshoes? Not me! (See the blog post before this one.) Or that ancient Greek weddings took three full days and were only valid if the father or guardian of the bride had first shaken hands on a betrothal with the groom or his father?

I couldn’t resist compiling some of the information I uncovered into appendices for the back of the book. None of the information is necessary to the reader reading Fate’s Door. But I figure that any of you who enjoy appendices (the way I do) might be pleased to dip into the material after you finish the story. The appendices are not extensive. They merely explain a bit more about some of the terms used by the natives of the time period, as well as setting my story events within the context of the larger history.

I’ve been working on the cover for the book and hope to show it to you soon.

The manuscript itself is with my first reader. Her interim report – at roughly two-thirds of the way through – was that she was enjoying the story a lot. I’m sure she’ll have some great feedback. I’ll make revisions based on what she has to say and then send the revised manuscript to my second reader, who will undoubtedly offer equally valuable insights. (These two early readers of mine are fantastic! I am so fortunate to have them.)

I suspect my hopes for a September release were unrealistic, but October looks good.

I’ll continue to update you as Fate’s Door (and my other four upcoming titles) move through the process that transforms a complete manuscript into a book ready for readers to enjoy. 😀

The links from above:
Beginning of Fate’s Door
Horse Sandals
A Love for Appendices
Unrealistic September Hopes

Horse Sandals and the 4th Century BC

Posted on July 5, 2015 by J.M. Ney-Grimm

I started writing Fate’s Door at the beginning of January, thinking that it would be a novella, maybe 25,000 words long.

Fate’s Door tells the story of a sea nymph from the Middle Sea (the Mediterranean) who has taken a post as handmaiden to the three fates in the farthest north of Scandia (Scandinavia).

I envisioned my story telling of the heartbreaking dilemma she faces while fulfilling the duties of her post.

It’s her job to set out the materials the fates need for each day’s weaving. But on the terrible day that begins my story, she must set out the threads that will kill someone she loves very much, when the fates weave the threads into their tapestry fabric.

Must she do it? Or is there some way to subvert fate?

It turned out there was more to my story than I’d envisioned. A lot more! I’m closing toward the finish now, in July, but my word count is 115,000 words. Many more than the 25,000 I first thought would be enough. I expect to write another 30,000 words and complete the manuscript in early August.

My heroine has just finished crossing Európi (Europe) on horseback. In order to write about her journey, I did a lot of research about horses and, especially, horse gear.

In the 4th century BC, riders didn’t have the benefit of saddles or stirrups, but they did have the cushioning of a thick, felted blanket that was wrapped around the horse and secured snugly under its barrel.

Horseshoes were not invented until 500 AD, more than 800 years after my tale. But charioteers, cavalrymen, and traders were well aware that their horses needed hoof protection on paved roads and rough rocky ground. The hoof of a horse is made of keratin, the same stuff that composes hair and toenails. It wears down quickly on rough ground, and a horse without protection will quickly go lame.

So what did the ancients do?

They devised the hipposandal. The earliest soles were made of plaited straw or broom and strapped onto the horse’s hooves. They could only be used once, and for a short time, before they wore out. The ancient Romans later termed them Soleae Sparteae, but my tale takes place when the ancient Greeks were the dominant culture in the Mediterranean, so I do not use the Roman term.

The horse “sandal” was improved to become a thick leather sole, studded with bronze cleats. The bronze cleats would protect the leather from wearing down so quickly and could be replaced when the bronze wore thin. The cleats presumably also gave better traction.

This is the form of horse sandal protecting the hooves of my heroine’s horse.

One source I read compared them to the jungle boots worn by US soldiers in World war II in places such as New Guinea, the Philipines, and Burma. I could not find any illustrations or diagrams of these leather and bronze horse sandals, but I did locate a photograph of the sole of a bronze-studded jungle boot, which I used to make a drawing of same. The horse sandal would, of course be shaped to fit a horse hoof, not a human foot, but I think you get the idea.

The ancient Romans made more improvements, creating the official hipposandal or Soleae Ferreae made of forged iron, but still attached to the hoof with straps wrapped around the horse’s hoof and pastern. But evidence for this improvement does not appear until the 1st century AD, long after the events in Fate’s Door.

The actual horseshoe, nailed to the horse’s hooves, does not appear until the 5th century AD amongst the Gauls.

Although Fate’s Door is fantasy – with sea nymphs and fates as characters – my conceit is that it occurs in the 4th century BC of our world, but our world as it might have been if the ancient gods and goddesses of Greek and Norse mythology were real. So I want the historical aspects to be as close as I can make them to accurate. Which means a lot of research into things like harbor building techniques, the “Amber Road” used by traders to bring amber from the Baltic Sea to the Aegean, and hipposandals.

I find it all fascinating and hope to share more of my findings with you. 😀

For the opening to Fate’s Door, see:
Fate’s Door: The Well of Destiny

For more about Nerine’s world, see:
Knossos, Center of Minoan Culture
Measurement in Ancient Greece
Garb of the Sea People

5 Quirky Questions from Shantnu Tiwari

Posted on May 18, 2015 by J.M. Ney-Grimm

Shantnu Tiwari writes quirky humor featuring air conditioned burkas, super villains, and zombies – with an underlayer of satire, skewering the faults and foibles of modern homo sapiens within modern society.

Naturally, when he decided to offer author interviews on his blog, he would do nothing so prosaic as ask a writer what her favorite book was or what influenced her writing. No, he’d find a way insert zombies or super villains into his questions.

I was his first guinea pig to be interviewed, and I can safely report that my experience under his grilling was . . . different!

His first question?

1. You are given a machine that allows you to enter your favorite book as a character. Which book would you choose and why?

My answer?

The first thought that blares in my mind? “Caution! Caution! Caution!” There’s a siren and flashing lights accompanying the warning. Why? My favorite books are dangerous! Okay, the books aren’t dangerous, but their settings are.

If I were to choose The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold (a top favorite of mine), I’d be coping with a country much like medieval Spain, but with demons and gods trolling their ephemeral fingers through my mind and my life. No. Just . . . no!

What if I chose one of my own books?

Not much better. The age of steam in my North-lands is a little more civilized than the Spanish medieval period: flush toilets and regular bathing and respect for women. But insane incantors with powerful magic erupt unexpectedly in the midst of . . . anywhere at all, and wreak destruction on all in their path toward the wastelands and safety.

Gregor and Laisa dance on their wedding day I think I’d best choose A Civil Campaign, also by Bujold. It’s another favorite book, and the setting includes amenities such as galactic medicine and anti-grav tech.

Which character? Kareen Koudelka. She grows up in a stable and happy family. She is able to claim her own autonomy without the violence of war and terror that seems to dog the footsteps of so many Bujold heroes and heroines. She gets to see Roic – a handsome, young armsman – naked (or almost naked) and coated in “bug butter”! (Read the book!) She becomes a powerful and successful business woman. She gets to have Mark – the more self-aware Vorkosigan brother who manages to learn how to be a real partner to the love of his life. Yes! Kareen.

The other 4 questions posed by Shantnu are equally unique, and my answers . . . ? Well, let’s just say that you are unlikely to find me talking about superheroes and the President of Uzbekistan anywhere else!

Plus, at the close of the interview, there’s a sneak preview of the opening to my upcoming novel Fate’s Door!

Go check it out on Shantnu’s blog.

For more about Shantnu on my blog, check out his zany book covers:
Cover Makeovers