Here Be Dragons - 1, Sharon Penman [e novels to read online txt] 📗

historians make no mention of him whatsoever. I discovered him m remarkable Welsh Genealogies, a life's work by Peter C. Bartrum-^ Welsh Genealogies, I was able, too, to determine the name of Llewe y

703other, Adda Like Tegwared, Adda has been relegated to the outer ches Qf historical obscunty I knew Llewelyn had a sibling, as a letter f his refers to his nephews, but until I consulted Mr Bartrum's work, I had no luck in tracking down this elusive sibling As I sought to dramatize in Dragons, theWelsh system of inheritance all too often fostered fratricide Adda, therefore, is an anomaly, neither Llewelyn's rival nor his active ally So unusual was his absence from the political arena that I could only explain it in terms of a disability of some sortLittle is known of Llewelyn's early years It is believed he passed his childhood in Powys and England, by his fifteenth year, he was challenging his uncles for control of Gwynedd Historians have long been cognizant of his kinship to the Corbet family, he often stayed his hand, spared Corbet lands, and a letter of his addresses William Corbet as "uncle " In the nineteenth century, historians speculated that Llewelyn's mother might be a hitherto unknown Corbet daughter, but Marared ferch Meredydd's identity has since been established beyond any doubt Marared must therefore have made a second marriage after lorwerth's death in 1174 In researching the Corbet family, Iwas able to eliminate Robert Corbet without difficulty His brother William was the 'uncle" of Llewelyn's letter Walter Corbet was a monk By the process of elimination, Hugh Corbet had to be Marared's second husband, Llewelyn's stepfatherI made use of Welsh spellings and place names wherever possible, except when referring to the Norman towns and castles in South Wales While "Llywelyn" is the purest Welsh form of the name, I chose a slightly Anglicized version, knowing that most readers would be unfamiliar with Welsh The same reasoning governed my spelling of Davydd, although the modern Welsh alphabet contains no letter v, it was in use in the Middle Ages, and I thought a phonetic spelling might aid in pronunciation For consistency, I called Llewelyn's Seneschal and mend Ednyved by his family nameap Cynwngbut he is more cornmonly known asEdnyfed Fychan, readers of The Sunne in Splendour might be interested to know he is the ancestor of Henry TudorLastly, I made use of "Norman" as an inclusive term for all people or French descent, e g , Normans, Angevms, Poitevins, etcetera To nave referred to them as "French" would have created endless confuSl°n, and it seemed the lesser sin to opt for clarity In the same way, I referred to those of Anglo-Saxon descent as Saxons, not as English, the erm they would have used, thus enabling me to stress the divisions still50 Prevalent in King John's EnglandJohn was much maligned in the lurid tales told of him after hisJath, and a compelling, colorful legend gradually took rootJohn, Na-re s Enemy, John of the Devil's Brood Only in the twentieth century

704*Thave the myths been stripped away, permitting historians to ju(je John's reign without passion or prejudice, to judge John himself-as king, as a mana judgment I sought to convey in Dragons. History' judgment upon Llewelyn echoes that of his contemporaries, to whom he was Llewelyn FawrLlewelyn the Great.As a point of interest, the title of this book has its roots in the corn mon practice of medieval cartographers; when a mapmaker had drawn upon all of his geographical knowledge, he would neatly letter across the void beyond: Here be dragons. I found the symbolism hard to resist given how very little theEnglish of the thirteenth century knew of Wales and the Welsh. Then, too, the national emblem of Wales is a winged red dragon, much like those heraldic dragons once emblazoned upon the banners of her princes.S.K.P. OCTOBER 1984

About the AuthorHere Be Dragons is the first in the trilogy that continues with Falls theShadow and concludes with The Reckoning. Sharon Kay Penman is also the author of The Sunne in Splendour. She is currently at work on her next book.

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