Adding some Atmosphere

I've had some lovely compliments recently about the world-building in my novels, so I thought I'd share some aspects of 'Anglo-Saxon' life here with you today.

In my novel Cometh the Hour, I imagined the Sutton Hoo burial and mentioned the lyre that was included in the grave goods. But in all my novels, I've written scenes set in the mead hall during a feast, where invariably there is a scop telling tales, riddles, and playing music.

My photo of the reconstructed lyre at Sutton Hoo

Here's a link (the image of the inside of the mead hall is not strictly accurate) to a piece from Grendelcynn on Youtube, played on a similar instrument. It will give a flavour of the kinds of sound one might have heard at the time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_GVjcVBiP4

Of course, lyres weren't the only musical instruments. There were also wooden and even bone whistles, or flutes. The Malham Pipe was originally thought to have been Bronze Age, but is now thought to be post-Roman, and it might have sounded something like this:

https://soundcloud.com/pittriversound-1/malham-pipe-jig-eric-todd-1951

I'm very lucky in that the Thegns of Mercia specialise in reconstructing the earlier 'Anglo-Saxon period'. They are constantly inspiring me, and if you've read Cometh the Hour and/or the follow-up, The Sins of the Father, and want an idea of the wrap-over coats that my characters wear, well, here's an image, with kind permission from Æd Thompson and with credit to Jon Wylie of the Thegns:

Please do visit their site or catch them on Twitter and Facebook for more wonderful photos and reconstructions.

Of course, we all know that people at this time loved their 'bling'. Those who've read 'Sins' might recall that a Kentish bride was wearing a rather lovely, and rather large, brooch. My inspiration for this piece was the Kingston Brooch which, I think you'll agree, is also rather lovely:

Image via Wiki Commons: Link

This has been dated to the seventh century and was found near Kingston in Kent, so I'd say it's a pretty perfect fit for my seventh-century royal Kentish bride to wear on her wedding day!

Sadly, there are no surviving examples of Anglo-Saxon wooden buildings, but to get a sense of what they looked like, you could do worse than visiting West Stow Anglo-Saxon Settlement, where they have examples of various styles of buildings:

Via Wiki Commons - Link

There are a few surviving stone churches, however, and whilst it's fair to say that in the early conversion period the churches were also built of wood, there is a remarkable stone built church which has been dated to around the time that my main character in The Sins of the Father, Ethelred, became king of Mercia. This one is in Northumbria, land of his enemies, but let's not hold that against this beautiful building, which I was lucky enough to visit in the spring when the blossom was out:

My photo of Escomb Church, Bishop Aukland, Co Durham

So these are some of the sights, but what about the sounds? The characters in my books would all have spoken local dialect versions of Old English, which sounds like a language far removed from our own, but there are lots of recognisable words, if you look closely.

I wrote a post a little while ago, looking at the words of the Lord's Prayer, and how we can decipher some of the Old English words. 

The Lord's Prayer in Old English - written 
for me by calligrapher, reenactor, and friend,
Dawn Burgoyne

However, perhaps to get a flavour of the seventh-century mead hall we'd be better off listening to a lovely reading of the epic poem Beowulf - which might have originated in Mercia! - by Heiðniborg:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CpKlEiahtI

A page from a copy of Beowulf

Outside the mead hall you'd hear various sounds, none louder than thunder. Animals, the clanging from the forge, and conversation (in Old English, of course). Whilst putting together this little blog post I came across this fun website. It's a bit too 'modern' for our purposes, but I reckon if you set the sounds to this pattern, you'll get an idea:

Click HERE to visit the site

Of course, one thing I can't do is bring you the smells of Anglo-Saxon life. In my books, I try to focus on the more pleasant aromas - cooked food, flower blossom, herbs - but I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that some other smells might have been distinctly unpleasant, so perhaps we should be grateful that blog posts can't yet bring Smell-0-Vision to the world!

My two-book series, Tales of the Iclingas, is complete and available now:

Cometh the Hour:

The Sins of the Father:

And you can find my other novels, stories, and my nonfiction books HERE