Michael E. Wills's Blog, page 3
August 3, 2015
Exciting development for “Children of the Chieftain: Betrayed”
News!
The Historical Novel Society is a literary society devoted to promoting the enjoyment of historical fiction. It is based in the USA and the UK, but there are members all round the world. The Editor of the HNS Review has chosen ‘Children of the Chieftain: Betrayed’ as his ‘choice’ in the latest edition and hence it has been placed on the long-list for the 2016 literary competition. You can read the full review here.
The book will be used in some primary schools in the UK as an introducti...
July 1, 2015
Backwards and Forwards
As a wordsmith I have always been fascinated by quirky things about words. It was fun to compete with my school friends to find words which were spelled the same forwards and backwards. For example, civic, level, refer, solos. The real challenge was to find whole sentences which read the same forwards and backwards. In fact, I can only remember one:
The sentence ascribed to Napoleon when he was exiled:
“Able was I ere I saw Elba”
(Did he really speak English!?)
It was thus with some consider...
June 9, 2015
The Island of Dunkirk Spirit
Here’s an article I wrote for Isle of Wight County Press, published on 22nd May, about how the Island’s little ships and their brave crews played their part in snatching some sort of victory from the jaws of defeat. (click on image for the full article)
May 17, 2015
The 75th anniversary of the Dunkirk Evacuation: The Greatest Escape
In May 1940 the all-powerful German army succeeded in driving a wedge between the French and British armies fighting to block their path. The British army of some 400,000 men had no answer to the efficient German war machine and retreated towards the coast of France. They grouped at Dunkirk, the sea in front of them and the Germans behind. It was clear that if this army was defeated, nothing could stop an eventual invasion of England.
Admiral Ramsey was tasked with the supervision of an evacu...
May 12, 2015
Children of the Chieftain: Betrayed
When the town of Birka is raided by the most fearsome of Vikings, the Jomsviking, many of the people are captured. The children of the chieftain are forced to take action and lead their friends in a desperate attempt to rescue the captives. But not all of their allies are as loyal as they should be. The brave orphans are betrayed and find themselves in grave danger of captivity and risk being sold into slavery.
An exciting Viking story for children 9+, the first book in my Children of the Ch...
April 12, 2015
Vikings: the great helmet hoax
How practical would it be sail on a cramped ship, to charge around forests with low hanging branches and to avoid detection by a wary enemy, with two large horns sticking out of the top of your helmet? Well, the fact is, it never was a problem for the Vikings because their helmets did not have horns.
The popular image of the Vikings with horned helmets was the creation of the nineteenth century Swedish artist Gustav Malmström. The idea was later seized upon by Carl Emil Doepler. He was the co...
March 20, 2015
Great solar eclipses
On 31st August 1030 there was a total eclipse of the sun over Norway between 13.40 and 14.53. The eclipse happened during the Battle of Sticklestad. In the battle, King Olaf was killed, he later became the patron saint of Norway. His step brother, Harald Sigurdsson later known as Harald Hardrada, survived and eventually in 1066, invaded Britain a month before the Norman Conquest. His escape from the battle is described in “Three Kings – One Throne”.
“They were very lucky to get away from the...
March 11, 2015
A Real Viking Ship
Although most of the images of Viking ships are of modern replicas, some real Viking ships have survived, although they have had to be lovingly preserved and repaired to put them on display. For me, the most iconic of restored ships is the Oseberg ship which is on display in the Oslo Viking Museum.
The ship was built around 800 AD. It is 21 metres long and 5 metres wide. It is thought that the mast was 9 metres tall and with a sail of 90 square metres it could have sailed at up to ten knots. T...
March 3, 2015
Historical Novels: the fact and the fiction
Today I had the pleasure of giving an illustrated lecture to the Shaftesbury Historical Society. The subject of my talk was “Historical Novels: the fact and the fiction”.
Shaftesbury, in the county of Dorset, is oldest and at 219 metres above sea level, one of the highest towns in England. Alfred the Great founded a defended settlement there in 880 AD. Another claim to fame is that King Canute, the great Danish king, died there in 1035.
The town is beautifully situated with fine views of the Bl...
February 4, 2015
The Magna Cartas
For the first time for eight hundred years, the four surviving original copies of the Magna Carta, the Great Charter, have come together.
The Magna Carta dates from 15th June 1215, when an unpopular monarch, King John, was forced by rebel barons, to agree to a long list of fundamental rights. After the charter had been accepted by the King, copies were made and distributed throughout the land. Today, these four copies have been reunited at the British Library to celebrate the 800th anniversary...
