TITLE: Witches of Fawsetwood
GENRE: historical fantasy
The narrator, Alain Brownwell and his best friend Elspet live in Fawsetwood Manor as apprentice witches in Cumberland UK 1173. This incident is from their childhood at a time when Elspet’s mother is gradually loosing her grip on the real world and descending into fear and madness. She is determined her daughter will not follow her footsteps as Priestess, lover of any man nor mother to the next generation. The children have planted the garden and made a scarecrow which they are empowering with an innocent magic spell. Elisabeth jumps to the conclusion that they mean to use sex magic, of which the girl is ignorant and Alain too decent to consider. Margot who enters at the end is Bailiff of the manor and Great Priestess of the Circles of Heppeshaw.
We danced, chasing each other back and forth around the magic scarecrow when Elisabeth charged out of the Cottage screaming.
“Stop it! Stop it I say!’ Yer stupid children! Do yer ken what yer do?”
We froze. None yelled like this at Fawsetwood nor called us names.
“Be there some law o’ magic we dinnae ken?” Els whispered. I shrugged as Elisabeth stomped across our fresh planted rows and grabbed me by the arm. She shook me, then turned on her daughter.
“Yer think this hurts, then wait ‘til yer find the pains o’ love yer willful girl!” Her grip tightened as she marched us to the Cottage, John Scarecrow left behind on the ground. Elisabeth raved on. We barely understood her words.
“Yer must no’ work a spell! Yer’ve no right!” Elisabeth shrieked. “Do yer think I be ignorant o’ yer meanin’ boy?” She was tapped. Of course I had the right. I had my vision. In the Moon Circles I was my own priest. Young and not yet dedicated to Blodeuwedd, I would be soon.
When Elisabeth thrust us through the door, Elspet tripped. Her mother snatched her up and slapped her face. I felt cut as if the red welts rose on my cheek.
“Clumsy girl. Stay on yoower feet an’ dinnae show him what yer shouldn’t! Sit on that stool until I say different.” She shoved Elspet down by the trestle table. Margot came out from the pantry, her mouth open in disbelief.
A couple of Americanisms - stomped and 'she was tapped' not even sure what that means (I'm British) but sounds unlikely for 12th century England
ReplyDeleteI'm American, so stomped didn't give me a second's pause (I didn't know that was an Americanism- interesting!) But I too scratched my head at "tapped."
ReplyDeleteNormally i don't mind a word or two that I don't know, but with the unusual dialect already making the reader work, I'd skip tapped.
And the two names so similar also made me have to think- I liked it better when the daughte was Els.
Other than that, it flowed well and I understood.
I did care about these kids and felt pity for the mom.
I wondered about the line in the intro- lover of any man (I got that)but "nor mother of the next generation" you seem to be describing the mom's role, she is the lover of any man and through that the mother of the futue, rght? So the "nor" doesn't fit.
There are so many "yer's" that it gets annoying. Is there a different way to say this?
ReplyDeleteStomped deffo stood out. I'm American, but spent quite a bit of time in the UK, so i'm used to picking out differences. I also did not get the meaning of "tapped" but i'm assuming it means "pissed off"?
When Margot comes from the pantry, should her face already show disbelief, or would she react after already having seen them?
The dialogue, while quite different from the norm, flows well and seems quite realistic.
I'm wondering what age this is for - adult, mg? This is interesting and I would keep reading.
ReplyDeleteImho, the scene didn't make it clear what the mother was thinking (the stuff you explained about sex-magic in the beginning) only that she was very angry for no apparent reason. So it's probably not important to the story why she got that angry. It illuminates very well that she is going crazy.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't really my genre of choice, so take my comments for what they're worth. I found the dialect extremely distracting. It was just too much, in my humble opinion. In general I'm not a fan of reading dialect like this, regardless of the time period in the story. While I think dialect can be dropped in effectively, I would prefer that there be less of it. Maybe just a few well-chosen words. I felt like I had to work extremely hard to interpret what was being said and, for me personally, that would keep me from reading this book.
ReplyDeleteAs I said, this is completely a personal opinion. I have no doubt that there are plenty of people out there who enjoy historical fiction that employs dialect appropriate to the period depicted. For me, though, I don't need the author to demonstrate an adherence to "authentic" dialect to convince me that we're really in Cumberland UK 1173. The details of the story and a more subtle placement of era-appropriate words and phrases can easily accomplish the same thing.
Other than that, I thought this was well-written and flowed nicely.
I like this, but agree with others that readers might not understand the word 'tapped.' I'm a Pozzie, (A Naturalized Aussie from England), but I've never heard of the word tapped.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, I really liked it.
Mom is really upset.
ReplyDeleteSince I'm not conversant with old time English, this was a struggle to read all the dialect you've written. I'm not sure you need to be so precise in the actual sounds. You might consider minor changes to help modern English readers along but still get the flavor of the time's speech.
The dialog turned me off....it might be easily understood by readers of the genre....but I had a rough, tough time following it! I finally gave up....Sorry! :)
ReplyDeleteAh, I peeked at the crit above, which led to the crit above that... just a quick peek, I swear.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I loved it. I liked the vernacularism of the dialog. I liked the confrontation and it fit the assignment with gold stars. It reminded me of Neil Garman's American Folklore pieces.
I'm a sci fi/fantasy person. Plus, I'm infatuated with the 1100s...so maybe I'm prejudiced a bit.
I felt it was tense, direct, interesting, and the violence of the 'mad' Elizabeth was exciting.
I've read and I agree that very few can get away with phonetic dialogue or brogue. I think all you need is a hint of the brogue and our imaginations can do the rest. We get it. When you have to read something twice or more, it throws you out of the story.
ReplyDeleteThat said, the cinematic-ness of the scene works. You really get a sense that there is more than meets the eye, and the emotion really converys that there is emotion-laden backstory here. Also the stoic response of the narrator illuminates her character. I would keep reading.
Sorry for the late critique: very busy week at the day job...