Coming Books / Sources of Inspiration
Most of my books deal with Celtic, Norse, Greco-Roman, and Biblical themes. The book I’m working on at the moment centres on the clash between pagan Ireland and the coming of Christianity. But my most complete works have more to do with the genocide of the Native Americans. Still, the next book I intend to publish, is set in the time of Brian Boru. Yet the theme is again of the imposition of Christianity upon pagan peoples. That’s why I like to visit areas such as Bath in England. This is due to Peter Gabriel’s famous Solsbury Hill song, written after he had a revelation, or epiphany, based on a seeming hallucination, just thirty miles from where Stonehenge lies, near Amesbury. North of Amesbury is Avebury, a quaint little village which features large stone circles and a small ancient burial chamber.
The first real attempt I made at a non-autobiographical novel was called The Tale of the Golden Apple. The central idea is the concept of an apple with the special power to grant everlasting life or extreme wisdom to whoever eats it. This is a cross between the apples held by the goddess, Idun, in Norse mythology, which keep the Aesir gods forever young, and the Celtic myths of The Salmon of Knowledge and The Silver Bough, as well as the obvious connection to the Biblical story of Adam and Eve. The theme is in large part inspired by Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.
I wanted to create a miniature epic that would encompass all of Christopher Booker’s seven basic plots, as well as his two minor additional ones. That is, I wanted The Golden Apple to have elements of Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches/Coming of Age, Quest, Voyage and Return, Tragedy, Comedy, and Rebirth, as well as Man Against the System and an element of Who Dunnit?
The first model I took was from Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. I mirrored the early presentation of the relationship between the old man and the boy in my character of the druid, Cathbad, and his apprentice, Finn. I took the names from Celtic mythology. It was only later that I included Finn’s childhood companion, Muireann. Between them, they discuss the nature of the apple and its possible whereabouts.
After the initial introduction to these three characters, I told of their journey to King Conchobar’s banquet, taking the model of the old Celtic tale of Setanta and the Hound of Culain. I inserted an interruption to the banquet in the figure of Fóill, a monster based on Beowulf’s Grendel. Like, Grendal, Fóill presents a threat which must be dealt with and Conchobar raises an army to deal with him.
The story next moves to a lair in the arctic lands, a fictional landscape north of Ulster. Fóill has an identical twin brother, Fannal, as well as a younger sibling, Túachell. I based this three-way relationship on Cinderella and her two older sisters. The relationship between these siblings is outlined in Bruno Bettleheim’s The Uses of Enchantment, a Freudian interpretation of fairytales. The three brothers are governed by their mother, a fierce sorceress who keeps them in check and withholds the apple, which she has grown, from them. For, though they each desire it, she has plans of her own for the apple.
I modelled some of the scenario on The Taín and put Fóill in the position of Cú Chuliann, Ireland’s greatest mythological hero. Although Cú Chuliann is a hero and Fóill is a villain, the circumstances were nonetheless perfect, as Conchobar’s army threaten the monster in the same way Queen Meabh’s army threaten the men of Ulster and Cú Chuliann.
Conchobar’s army move out along the plains, just like Meabh’s, and experience much the same difficulties. After these initial hardships they come to The Forest of Forgetfulness. The forest is modelled on the forests in Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. They come through the forest much depleted and confront the monsters, who Finn defeats having being tempted, like Christ/Adam, into eating the apple. But though the monsters are defeated, one is left alive and once he has recovered from his devastation he pursues the victors, disturbs their celebrations, captures the princess, Orla, Conchobar’s daughter, and carries her away to his lair.
There are as well two subplots dealing with Viking warriors and further elements of Norse, Biblical, and Greco-Roman mythology and history, but the story is held together by the central plot. There are brief elements of Dante’s Divine Comedy later on, but essentially the tale follows the archetypal structure of a dragon-slayer myth, such as Sigurd and the Dragon or The Legend of Saint George and the Dragon, the first with regard to freeing the princess and the second with regard to putting a halt to the monster’s genocide of his people. That an ogre takes the place of a dragon is immaterial. Campbell talks about just such an ogre towards the end of The Hero with a Thousand Faces and what Booker calls the “Overcoming the Monster” plot is the earliest one in creation.