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Today, I am chatting with Nancy Jardine about The Beltane Choice, the first novel in her Celtic Fervour series.
Set in northern Britannia in AD 71, the novel takes readers into a land of competing tribes at a time when the advancing Roman Empire poses a threat powerful enough to force old enemies to reconsider their loyalties. Against this turbulent backdrop, Selgovae warrior Nara and Brigante Lorcan find themselves caught between tribal duty and a growing attraction neither expected.
Nancy joins me today to talk about bringing Iron Age Britannia to life, the history and landscape behind the novel, and how Nara and Lorcan's story unexpectedly became the beginning of a much larger family saga.
But first, let's check out The Beltane Choice
The Beltane Choice takes readers to northern Britannia in AD 71, as Rome's expansion threatens the native tribes. What made this particular moment in the Roman occupation the ideal starting point for the Celtic Fervour series?
Rather than starting with the Roman invasion of north-east Scotland around AD 84 (my first preference), I realised the border territories of present-day Scotland and England, in AD 71, was the perfect place to begin. The reasoning was that current northern England was thought to have been inhabited by a large federation of tribes collectively named the Brigantes. Brigantia had had civil war raging in AD 69, with some tribes supporting the Romanised Client-Queen Cartimandua, and others supporting her estranged husband King Venutius. AD 69 was also the era of a civil war across the Roman Empire. It was after the new Emperor Vespasian was firmly in place that the Governor of Britannia, and the Legion Commanders, continued to expand the Roman Empire boundaries by pushing northwards. The northern expansion meant totally subduing Brigantia before moving even further north into present-day Scotland.
When we meet Nara, she has been cast out from her priestess home and must find a completely different future for herself. What interested you about beginning her story at such a vulnerable yet potentially liberating point in her life?
I needed a reason for the Brigantes and the Selgovae (a tribe in Southern Scotland) to come together to confront the Roman army as one fighting force. Research seemed to indicate that generally warring tribes sometimes made a pact to work together through uniting their tribes via marriage of high ranking members – essentially creating a blood-bond of the next generation. I wanted Nara to be highly vulnerable to things beyond her control, as in an arranged marriage, yet still be the feisty warrior she was trained to be. I needed her to be still a devotee of the druid system, even though she’d been denied her future as a priestess.
Nara is Selgovae while Lorcan is Brigante, making them enemies before they have even had the opportunity to know one another. How did you approach developing a relationship between two people whose loyalties and identities place them firmly on opposing sides?
Overcoming their initially resistant ‘tribal’ dislike and distrust of each other is gradual, though I also wanted there to be an instant attraction that was powerfully overwhelming – and thoroughly confusing, especially for Nara. The spiritual druid-foretelling is part of the same overcoming process in that they are both unquestioning about their druid beliefs, yet alongside that are their determined tribal loyalties which are also ingrained. They both find catering to their own needs and desires difficult to work around, for personal and emotional gain.
Lorcan initially captures Nara because he believes she can be used as a bargaining tool in the attempt to unite the northern tribes. How important was it that their relationship should develop against a background in which neither can simply ignore duty, family or tribal allegiance?
I purposely made both Lorcan and Nara a generation down from their own tribal leaders: Tully, his father and Callan, her father. This was to prevent them from making the decisions by themselves, which for Lorcan would have been too easy! Loyalty to the tribe has been instilled in them since they were very young. They’re not abandoning that easily, and as such cannot ignore developments just to suit themselves. I decided it would be too convenient for Tully and Callan to just agree readily to the marriage bargain so I put a few nasty spanners into the works! This makes it even more difficult for Lorcan and Nara to circumvent their tribal adherences. Eventually bringing them happily together, was a delightful and rewarding exercise!
Beltane and Nara's determination to make her own choice are central to the novel. What drew you to the traditions surrounding Beltane, and how did your research shape the way you incorporated the festival into Nara's story?
The Beltane Festival (May 1st) is a time of rebirth. I liked that idea, that something entirely different was going to transpire for both Nara and Lorcan. The ritual cleansing of winter woes and disease was fundamental in many pagan lifestyles. Beltane is meant to be about healthy new beginnings, and successful fertility in both humans, animals, and plants. Nara has been told she will bring important new life into her world, but to do that she has to work many things through. She must ensure that her son – prophesied as a future leader – isn’t sired by just any ordinary man. Her son needs to have a very special father.
The approaching Roman legions create an enemy powerful enough to force traditionally hostile tribes to consider working together. What did you discover about the difficulties Rome's expansion created for the different peoples of northern Britannia?
Documentary evidence, though very scant, indicates that some Iron Age tribes were sufficiently content to accept domination by what was the most powerful force on earth at that time. They accepted that Rome brought them new laws, new monetary currency, and a new way of living. The loss of their previous cultural identity didn’t seem as important as what they regarded as benefits of becoming Romanised.
Other tribes were much more resistant about embracing the new lifestyle that Roman occupation would bring them. They clung to their own undiluted religion and cultural lifestyles, not seeing Rome as a positive usurper. I’m sure the two differing opinions meant very difficult border relations between some tribes.
The Battle of Whorl brings the wider Roman threat directly into Nara and Lorcan's personal story. When writing battle scenes involving Roman forces and Celtic warriors, how do you balance what is historically known with the demands of an exciting adventure?
Great question! Cornelius Tacitus (the main Roman written source for 1st Century Britannia) wrote that there were some direct confrontations in Brigantia, pitched battles, though the geographical pointers are lacking to prove exactly where battles may have occurred. When writing back in 2011, I looked at archaeological evidence in Brigantia which would indicate where a sizeable community was living (as in an Iron Age hillfort). I then looked at the geographical situation nearby to pick a site that was typical for warfare, mainly using swords, shields etc. A reference indicated that the Iron Age ‘Celtic’ tribes liked a slight rise where they could ‘tier’ their warriors but with a fairly flat piece of ground below where their chariots raged back and forth rallying the warriors to action. The Roman army, as it is written, preferred a flat landscape where their formations were easier to maintain, control and execute manoeuvres.
An Ordnance Survey map investigation made me choose me a place called Whorlton in north Yorkshire. It was topographically reasonable and near a water source for transporting the Roman troop utilities (River Swale). Ease of transportation was also an important factor for the Roman army to choose a battle site. Thus my battlegrounds of Whorl came into being.
You live in Aberdeenshire and have developed a particular interest in Ancient Roman Scotland. Does being surrounded by landscapes connected to Scotland's past influence the way you visualise the terrain your characters travel through and fight to protect?
Absolutely, it definitely does. However, so much has changed over the centuries and the landscape does not remain static. It’s easy to imagine that a lot of the current flat arable land of Aberdeenshire was heavily wooded but soil sampling indicates that tribal use from the later Bronze into the Iron age would have denuded lots of the trees, their only source for heat and cooking. However, Iron Age farmers worked strip fields, a sensible amount of land that could be managed and maintained by an extended family unit. Since the land grew exhausted after a number of years, they created new field areas and (it’s surmised) when they needed to shift a bit further away, they built a new roundhouse to suit.
When visualising local rivers, again, it has to be noted that river meanders also have changed over two thousand years. The hilltops in my part of Aberdeenshire might sound as though they’d not have changed very much at all, but the tumbled down fort defences that are seen today, some of them vitrified (as in having gone through a burning process where the stone is so hot it melts), are an unravelling mystery. Till fairly recently, these ancient fortifications were thought to pre-date the Roman invasions of the 1st and 3rd centuries AD. Recent excavations, on the other hand, now indicate the forts may possibly have been used around the end of the 4th into the 5th centuries AD. The date of their origin is much harder to determine but it’s possible that they came into being after the first Roman invasion of Aberdeenshire (Agricola CE 83/84) and before the second (Severus CE 210).
Envisaging the landscape of my characters some 2,000 years ago is a wonderful challenge whether north or south of the current Scottish / English border.
The Beltane Choice introduces the Garrigill Clan and begins a story that develops across the Celtic Fervour series. When you first created Nara, Lorcan and their world, how much did you already know about the generations and adventures that would follow?
Nothing at all! At first, as a new author, I was totally focused about writing my Nara and Lorcan Beltane story, and getting it published. When it was accepted for publishing in 2012 and the edits were all done and dusted, my editor asked me when would Book 2 of the series be ready? That was a shock! I hadn’t thought about a second book, but my lovely editor assured me that there were a number of strong secondary characters who could take forward the Garrigill warrior story. I realised she was right, so Brennus/ Bran got his own stories in Books 2 and 3 of the series. And younger generations then crept in to take the limelight.
The novel asks whether anything can truly be considered fair in either war or love. What do you hope readers take away from Nara and Lorcan's struggle to make personal choices while the world around them is being transformed by conflict?
I hope readers can appreciate that nothing is ever black and white. For any positive step forward there may be a number of negatives to overcome first, regardless of where you stand on the decision-making ladder. I think that’s what life is about now, and I think it’s always been the same for millennia. The happy ending of Lorcan and Nara is still fraught with their situation of being dominated by the Roman fighting machine. I hope readers appreciated that sometimes you have to grasp happiness where you can, roll with it, and adapt where necessary. I really hope my readers love Lorcan and Nara as much as I do. They don’t create the whole dynasty by themselves, since it’s more of an extended family saga, but it takes Nara and Lorcan to get together in The Beltane Choice to make the rest of the series happen!
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