Orcadian Tales

[ewein2412]

 

There may be somebody out there who will be amused by this. Everyone else will go… What is she TALKING about?

The first time I went to Orkney a shepherd named Iain tried to seduce me. I was a girl alone, he was travelling with his mother; I was tempted, but naïve and a little scared. They tried to get me to come on a trip with them to the outer islands. I fled, as fast as I have ever fled from anything, to my beloved Pennines for the next season. It was nearly 20 years before I went back.

I went back because the Orkney Islands Council asked me to come. They arranged and paid for my journey, they provided food and a comfortable place for me to sleep. (I swear I saw no ghosts of ANYBODY.) But it was very windy. My children followed a day later, when my interview was over and we would be able to explore. When my four-year-old disembarked the adults had to make a barricade around him to keep him from blowing over. He had to creep to shelter bent double, hair blown flat against his skull, laughing hilariously the whole way.

I didn't get the job. I wasn't entirely disappointed, as it would have meant staying there, without the children, for two seasons, and not the light ones.

But we had such a marvellous visit, that time, that the following summer my husband and children went back without me, taking grandparents along for the ride. I was at WorldCon in Glasgow. (I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP, YOU KNOW.) Thus, when  sdnor  ellen_kushneror someone asked if my children were around, I was able to reply truthfully (and not without some small amount of hilarity): "No, my entire family is in Orkney." 

This post brought to you courtesy of the fact that I've been reading some of the HIGHLY UNPUBLISHABLE stuff I wrote in high school.  By "unpublishable" I don't mean "Viking wouldn't buy it"--I mean that it should be burnt, and that I would spontaneously combust of shame if anyone ever read any of it. Not that they would understand it if they did. I myself had some trouble with it, having forgotten, for example, that the boy magician was in fact a sort of transgender Orlando creature, and that his twentieth century arch-enemy does turn out to be Mordred. Or that he and Telemakos have the same birthday. Can I possibly have done that on PURPOSE?  It really is a miracle that I subsequently ever wrote anything remotely readable.

Comments

tried to seduce...

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

That's what you get (got) for being a traveling nubile, after all.

Our trip to Orkney (1994? I'd have to look it up) was so wonderful that
I'd hate to go back, for fear of being disappointed, although we have friends who went this summer and loved it as well.
Have you ever seen "Oliver's Travels," partly filmed there?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112109/

[mhari.livejournal.com]

Hee hee hee.

And hee again. E Wein has no favorite tropes, no sir! XD But I sympathize. This is why I don't allow my mother to actually read any notebooks of mine when we're housecleaning.

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

I still have a novel I started in 6th grade....it's really scary.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

*giggles*

I have a great-uncle, or some other distant relative, who lives in Orkney part of the year; he keeps promising to take me someday. He likes telling me about the child he rescued from blowing away. I think it must happen all the time. XD

I'm just thrilled that you had an Orlando-type character. Also Mordred. Bwahaha.

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

I found a story I wrote at age seven or so when I was moving out last summer. It was actually rather interesting; a retelling of the fairy tale Toads and Diamonds in which the stepsister who has snakes and frogs coming out of her mouth whenever she speaks lives happily ever after as the owner of a weird pet store. Wish more the stuff I've written since then was as creative! *wry gryn*

[marguerlucy.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday!!!

My gift to you is ...various internet Medraut sightings that you may already have found hahahahaha:


An illustration someone in china did based on your book! Their blog is here... I hopefully linked you to the translated version of the page, which gives the moment the painting inspired!

Medraut and Lleu dolls.....wtf?!?


And then I didn't know that the knight in this Waterhouse painting was Lleu, but Morgause IS very "Lamia"-like, isn't she?


anyway that's it. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! thank you for your gift to me - I've begun it last night!