Guest Blog: Tiffany Trent
This guest blog marks a first for me: I'm hosting part of an online author tour! To celebrate the recent publication of her third novel, Between Golden Jaws, Tiffany Trent (tltrent) has been giving interviews and posting guest spots on various blogs this week. Her post here delves into the mythological basis for her "Hallowmere" series, a ten book cycle for young adults published by Mirrorstone (and edited by the fabulous slwhitman). In addition to being a fantasy novelist, Tiffany writes nonfiction articles (she holds a Master's degree in Environmental Studies, as well as one in English and one in Creative writing) and is an English instructor at Virginia Tech. I'm very excited to welcome her to the blog (and spill a little insider information about "Hallowmere")!
Edit: Tiffany refers to next Friday's essay, and it occurred to me I should let you all know where that will be. Check out shvetufae on April 4th.
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Myth in Hallowmere
Anyone who’s read the Hallowmere books must know by now that I’m a myth junkie. There’s a reason, after all, that my fellow grad school classmates dubbed me the Mythology Queen, after all.
Hallowmere is based on myths of Celtic strain--Hallowmere itself is a derivation of Cerridwen’s Cauldron of Rebirth in which it was believed the souls of the dead were reborn, possibly reincarnated or resurrected, in other forms. I used this as the vehicle for Fey transformation because I am convinced that if Fey *were* real, they would not remain in a static form. Nothing in Nature is static, and it follows that the spirits of Nature wouldn’t be, either. (But that’s a topic for next Friday!)
With Cerridwen’s Cauldron at the center and much Fey lore radiating out from it, Hallowmere becomes the perfect framework for infusing goddess-lore into a place one wouldn’t traditionally look for goddess mythology--the Civil war. A poet friend of mine who’s been reading the book said, “Leave it to you to weave the Goddess into the Civil War!” Which just means, I guess, that my friends have come to recognize my propensity for smashing together things that don’t seem to fit on the surface, but join perfectly underneath.
I had read a letter of apology dictated from a dying girl to her father who had run away from home and fought in the Civil War disguised as a boy. It moved me so deeply to think of a woman feeling that strongly for her country that she would take up arms against all mores of the time. It reminded me very much of the women warriors of the old Celtic battle colleges, Scathach and Maeve and so on. I wanted to give some girls from the Civil War era a chance to be more than their society allowed. It didn’t seem possible to have them all engage in physical battle (and I didn’t really see the point of that). But a magical battle, where the stakes were nothing less than the continuance of the world as they know it--that seemed eminently do-able. But the problem also was (and is)--do the girls *want* the world that Falston was part of? How might they reshape it and themselves to create the world they need? I think Miss Brown is the forerunner of many women who saw this and wanted a different life.
If, therefore, we are talking about the feminine power, who better to lead my girls than the Divine Feminine? I went back to the old goddesses-Brigid, the Morrigan, Cerridwen-looking for answers. I found them in spades, but saying much more than that, I think, would be spoilery. :) What was fun about it all was figuring out how the old goddesses would appear to the 19th-century mind. I feel quite certain that if such things appeared to us, our modern minds wouldn’t be able to grasp them in the same way as the ancient Celts or Greeks. Hence books like The Lightning Thief and other plays on myth through urban fantasy. The motifs that interested me most were finding the triple goddess, learning to master various states of being, and transcending one’s circumstances. (I suppose there’s more than a little Taoism and Zen in there, too, now that I think of it). I just had to find a way to make those work with the setting in the novels. So, keep your eyes open, because I think as you continue to read and see how all these threads are coming together, students of mythology and lore will be pleasantly surprised. I hope so, anyway.
Edit: Tiffany refers to next Friday's essay, and it occurred to me I should let you all know where that will be. Check out shvetufae on April 4th.
--
Myth in Hallowmere
Anyone who’s read the Hallowmere books must know by now that I’m a myth junkie. There’s a reason, after all, that my fellow grad school classmates dubbed me the Mythology Queen, after all.
Hallowmere is based on myths of Celtic strain--Hallowmere itself is a derivation of Cerridwen’s Cauldron of Rebirth in which it was believed the souls of the dead were reborn, possibly reincarnated or resurrected, in other forms. I used this as the vehicle for Fey transformation because I am convinced that if Fey *were* real, they would not remain in a static form. Nothing in Nature is static, and it follows that the spirits of Nature wouldn’t be, either. (But that’s a topic for next Friday!)
With Cerridwen’s Cauldron at the center and much Fey lore radiating out from it, Hallowmere becomes the perfect framework for infusing goddess-lore into a place one wouldn’t traditionally look for goddess mythology--the Civil war. A poet friend of mine who’s been reading the book said, “Leave it to you to weave the Goddess into the Civil War!” Which just means, I guess, that my friends have come to recognize my propensity for smashing together things that don’t seem to fit on the surface, but join perfectly underneath.
I had read a letter of apology dictated from a dying girl to her father who had run away from home and fought in the Civil War disguised as a boy. It moved me so deeply to think of a woman feeling that strongly for her country that she would take up arms against all mores of the time. It reminded me very much of the women warriors of the old Celtic battle colleges, Scathach and Maeve and so on. I wanted to give some girls from the Civil War era a chance to be more than their society allowed. It didn’t seem possible to have them all engage in physical battle (and I didn’t really see the point of that). But a magical battle, where the stakes were nothing less than the continuance of the world as they know it--that seemed eminently do-able. But the problem also was (and is)--do the girls *want* the world that Falston was part of? How might they reshape it and themselves to create the world they need? I think Miss Brown is the forerunner of many women who saw this and wanted a different life.
If, therefore, we are talking about the feminine power, who better to lead my girls than the Divine Feminine? I went back to the old goddesses-Brigid, the Morrigan, Cerridwen-looking for answers. I found them in spades, but saying much more than that, I think, would be spoilery. :) What was fun about it all was figuring out how the old goddesses would appear to the 19th-century mind. I feel quite certain that if such things appeared to us, our modern minds wouldn’t be able to grasp them in the same way as the ancient Celts or Greeks. Hence books like The Lightning Thief and other plays on myth through urban fantasy. The motifs that interested me most were finding the triple goddess, learning to master various states of being, and transcending one’s circumstances. (I suppose there’s more than a little Taoism and Zen in there, too, now that I think of it). I just had to find a way to make those work with the setting in the novels. So, keep your eyes open, because I think as you continue to read and see how all these threads are coming together, students of mythology and lore will be pleasantly surprised. I hope so, anyway.