Research Rabbit Trails

I'm deep into wrapping up the next story in the Hardy Heroines series, and suddenly realized I needed to do a bit of research.

This series has really tested my historical knowledge, and this particular story involves the Battle of Orewin Bridge (Wales) and the state of affairs in both England and Scotland.

In 1283/4, England and Scotland were pretty much in accord. Edward Longshanks was too involved with supressing the Welsh to pay much attention to the Scots. Scotland had signed the Treaty of Perth seventeen years earlier, so they weren't butting heads with Norway any longer, and Alexander III had married his daughter Margaret to King Eric of Norway.

Things were fairly quiet at Morvern--until Birk met Carys.

That's our current book, The Highlander's Welsh Bride.

And today's research was on cursing like a Viking. I kid you not. There is more than one blog/website for that. Apparently Vikings had some pretty awful curses, ones that allowed the cursed one free shot at killing the person who spoke the curse. We're not going there.

At some point in this book, our hero Birk does something that makes his ma really angry with him. She's Hanna from The Highlander's Norse Bride, and falls into her Norse roots for a really good shot at her son.

Any idea what a 'raven-starver' is?

It's pretty cool to follow the reasoning behind this curse. Ravens were an integral part of Norse legend. They were large birds, uncannily intelligent, and carrion-feeders. Imagine being only moments away from battle and seeing the ravens gathering around the battlefield. They know what is about to happen. They seemed to have the knowledge of who would die and live--perhaps they spoke with the Valkyries and therefore had the power of gods?

The men and women who bravely went to battle stood a good chance of dying--and feeding the crows. Someone who was cowardly and chose not to fight would not end the day as carrion and feed the crows. Such a person was a raven-starver.