in which i find out why i am tempted to say "brigantes" with a spanish accent.
This weekend has been a three-day one, and I spent nearly all of yesterday researching the Brigantes and the Picts. I found a website that claims there is a legend of the Celtic Spanish King, King Breoghan, who ruled a great deal of Spain, including Galicia. Sometime during his rule he sent a group of his people up into Great Britain, who then settled somewhere around north England and became the Brigantes. This is aweosome because my mother's family is a mixture of Galician and Asturian, and my father is either Irish (according to legend, King Breoghan's son settled Ireland), Welsh, or English, and probably a good deal of Dutch coming from another line (alas, I don't think we have much chance of being Scottish at all). So if this Celtic Galician legend is true, and my father is indeed Celtic and not purely Anglo-Saxon, then it's possible that I'm related to Esca my line is all inter-related, dating back over two-thousand years. This is merely speculatory, and since lines get mixed so much from generation to generation, it's impossible to really know. We are quite sure that my mother's side is Sephardic Jewish after much research into it, but it's possible at the time of the Inquistion the Jews, fearing suspiscion, interbred with the non-Jewish Galician peoples, bringing in at least a tinge of Celtic blood. All in all -- if I have a drop of Celtic blood in me, which most people probably do, I would be quite satisfied. Galicia and Asturias are both known as unofficial Celtic nations, and I don't believe the Asturian side is Sephardic at all. So there's a very good chance that I have a lot of Celtic blood and ancestry. A lot indeed.
Also, researched Pict/Brigante warrior tattoo methods, and found out that it's fairly unlikely that they tattooed/stained with woad, as woad is difficult to work with, especially in tattooing, and that supposedly there is a lot of evidence supporting the idea that they used copper or iron instead. However, the copper would have contained high levels of arsenic, which would have ended up poisioning them after a length of time. :(
Going to film the spy movie with the Smiths tonight down at the building. We're wrapping up my footage tonight, but Mom and I have been invited back to watch the filming whenever we'd like. The Monday after next we have auditions for Word on the Street. I feel confident about the drama part, but I'm going to continue to practice the vocal piece. It's stunning rendition of O Holy Night sung by Mary, overlaying an original piece that Joseph sings. I know it's going to take a lot of practice to do it justice. It's a challenge vocally, but even more so emotionally. I'm really looking forward to casting though. Everything makes more sense once you know what you and everyone else will be working towards.
I'm trying to figure out whether to get one of Stephen Lawhead's books from the library or a complete history of Wales or Scotland. Help. :P