Historic beasts and where to find them by Ally Sherrick

Since my first published children’s book, Black Powder, I have always included an heroic – and sometimes downright mischievous – animal sidekick in my stories. In Black Powder, about two children caught up in the Gunpowder Plot, my hero Tom has a white pet mouse called Jago. Since then I’ve included a dog, a raven, a monkey and a wolf in other stories. And I’ve created two new animal heroes in my current historical work in progress, though I’m not quite ready to reveal their identities yet!

An early favourite: Dippy the dinosaur in his original home at the Natural History Museum, London

My own earliest memorable brush with an historic beast was a visit to the Natural History Museum in London and a meeting with Dippy the Diplodocus, who in the past few years has been making a grand tour of the UK and thrilling visitors young and old wherever he – or she? – lands. Dippy, as I later discovered, is a composite of many rather than one individual dinosaur’s bones, and also a cast taken from the ‘original’ Dippy housed in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, USA. But whatever its origins, it still has the power to excite young imaginations, as it did for me.

Other actual remains of creatures from the past which have intrigued and wowed me in equal measure over the years include the mummified cats on display in the Egyptian galleries at the British Museum, a plaster-cast taken from the remains of a dog caught in the ash flow of the devastating eruption of Vesuvius at Pompeii complete with its collar, and the skeletons of eleven horses buried with their presumed royal owner in a Viking-age ship burial at Ladby in Denmark in the early tenth century.

The Ladby Viking Ship which contained the remains of eleven dead horses

In addition to the remains of real live – or perhaps we should say ‘real dead’ – creatures that have come down to us from the past, the evidence of people’s passion for, and fear of animals throughout time is all around us, and across all cultures too.
For example, I love this mosaic of beasts fighting in the gladiatorial arena from a Roman villa in Cyprus. In fact, I used such scenes as part of my research into my Roman-set story Vita and the Gladiator in which my heroes, Vita and Brea are pitted against their own fierce animal combatants.

Photo: Catherine Randall

Medieval gargoyles on the outside of church towers and walls are also a favourite. I always look up before going inside to see if I can spot these strange, often nightmarish creatures created by medieval stonemasons, including this one of a devil or imp on St Peter’s Church in the Cotswolds town of Winchcombe. The word ‘gargoyle’ comes from the Old French word gargouille, meaning ‘throat’ and describes their practical function as waterspouts diverting rainwater from the roof. But historians believed they may also have served as charms to keep evil spirits away, or as a method of warning parishioners against committing sins.

Gargoyle of imp or devil on St. Peter's Church, Winchcombe, Gloucestershire

And of course real and fantastical animals are often included in tapestries, on coats of arms and in sculptures and paintings too. For example I was lucky enough a little while ago to see the exquisite Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

This series of wall-hangings was woven in around 1500, probably in the South Netherlands, and is believed to have been a wedding gift destined to be hung in the happy couple’s bedchamber. The tapestries tell the story of the taming of the mythical unicorn – whose horn was believed to have magical properties to detect poison and purify water. But they also depict many recognisable real-life birds and animals including pheasants, ducks, rabbits and lions.

And on another holiday, this time to the city of Bangkok in Thailand, I visited the beautiful Buddhist temple of Wat Arun, home to many amazing sculptures including this one of the deity Indra on his three-headed elephant.

Meanwhile, the image of a monkey in a painting of Katherine of Aragon, the first wife of the Tudor King Henry VIII, helped inspire the creation of Pepin the monkey in my own story The Queen’s Fool. I knew that monkeys in those times were kept as pets by the nobility in grand houses in England and Europe. But they would have seemed strange to ordinary folk, especially my hero, Cat Sparrow, who has grown up in the enclosed world of a nunnery. When she first encounters him, she mistakes Pepin – or Pippo as she prefers to call him – for some kind of giant spider. Understandable if you’ve never seen a monkey before!

Animals also make a frequent appearance on items of jewellery, clothing and even armour throughout history. While studying medieval history at university I learned about the Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk. I was fascinated to discover that many of the treasures buried with King Raedwald whose monument it’s believed to be, depicted creatures both real and imaginary. I’ve talked in another TimeTunnellers post about the Anglo-Saxons’ passion for dragons, the most striking examples of which are on the warrior’s helmet included in the burial. But there were also stunning depictions of wolves and eagles – two of the so-called ‘beasts of battle’ – on other items including the king’s purse and shield mounts.

The Sutton Hoo helmet with a pair of decorative dragons - spot a set of wings over the eyebrows

And from a completely different culture - South America this time - this beautiful gold frog pendant. It was made somewhere between the 8th and 16th centuries and may have been a totem, a sacred object representative of a spirit being with supernatural powers.

But perhaps my favourite representations of animals and birds in the past are in the illuminated manuscripts produced by monks in the scriptoria, or writing rooms, of medieval monasteries. The illustrations included in the copies of holy texts they made – including the beautiful early 15th century Sherborne Missal now in the British Library – were often both a celebration of the natural world and a very human testament to their vivid imaginations and colourful sense of humour. A form of escape perhaps from the bleak conditions they were working in sat at their desks in those cold and draughty monastery buildings.

I love the little snail perched on the gloved hand of the hare in this illumination

Best of all, are the illuminated texts known as bestiaries. A bestiary was a compendium of beasts, with illustrations of animals and an accompanying description of their natural history and which usually included a moral message for the reader – mainly monks and clerics – drawn from the beast’s assigned religious meaning. They were first produced by ancient Greek scholars, but versions of them became increasingly popular during the Middle Ages, especially in England and France.

Pages from the Aberdeen Bestiary - created in England circa 1200

Bestiaries included both beasts that existed – for example pelicans, lions, bears and wild boars – and ones – spoiler alert! – such as griffins, unicorns, dragons and basilisks that didn’t. But no distinction about whether they were real or imagined was made in the entry.

A Pelican feeding her young with her own blood. The bird is real but the behaviour is not

There’s some debate among academics today about whether medieval people really believed the more fantastical ones actually existed or else accepted that they had been created for teaching purposes. But either way, many of these amazing beasts have found their way into fantasy stories and films of more modern times including works like Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and J.K. Rowlings’ Harry Potter series and its spin-offs to name but a few.

Writing Challenge

Pick your own favourite real-life animal and taking inspiration from imaginary creatures in the past, with a wave of your pen transform it into a fantastical creature to include in your own 21st century bestiary. What sort of additional physical features will you give it to make it suitably weird and wonderful? Where does it live? What does it eat and drink? What sort of noise does it make when it’s happy, or angry? What special powers might it have? Write a few paragraphs describing it. And don’t forget to include a drawing of it too!

 

Ally Sherrick is the award-winning author of stories full of history, mystery and adventure.

BLACK POWDER, her debut novel about a boy caught up in the Gunpowder Plot, won the Historical Association’s Young Quills Award. Other titles include THE BURIED CROWN, a wartime tale with a whiff of Anglo-Saxon myth and magic and THE QUEEN’S FOOL, a story of treachery and treason set at the court of King Henry VIII. Ally’s latest book with Chicken House Books, is VITA AND THE GLADIATOR, the story of a young girl’s fight for justice in the high-stakes world of London’s gladiatorial arena.

For more information about Ally and her books visit www.allysherrick.com You can also follow her on Twitter @ally_sherrick

World Book Day special - How is a book cover made? by Ally Sherrick

The old saying, ‘You can’t judge a book by its cover’ might be true for people. But in the case of an actual book cover, though it won’t tell you how well-written it is, it offers up some big clues about what sort of story you’ll encounter inside.

Besides the all-important title, these clues are delivered through a combination of artwork used, colours applied and the description, or cover-blurb on the back.

When I visit schools, children always want to know more about this mysterious-seeming process and whether the author has any say in the finished version.

I’m very lucky in that regard, because my publisher, Chicken House Books does like to involve its authors in the business of coming up with a cover.

Like many other writers, I usually create ‘mood boards’ of images which help inspire the development of my story. I post these on Pinterest and share them with my publisher so that, in addition to the writing, they have something visual to help spark ideas for a cover design.

A clip from my mood board for Black Powder

In the meantime, they’ve been busy thinking of what sort of artistic style would work best, studying portfolios of work by possible artists. For my first book, Black Powder, about two children caught up in the Gunpowder Plot, they selected Alexis Snell, an artist who specialises in making prints from linocuts. You can watch a short video of how she made the lino-cut for the cover here.

Once the cover illustration is finished, the publisher sends it to a design studio to experiment with different colour-ways and design the spine.

 

Two different colour-ways for Black Powder created by Steve Wells, the designer.
We chose the one on the right which we thought was the strongest.

Next, the publicity team gets to work with writing the all-important description – or ‘blurb’ – which tells you, the potential reader what the story is about. The aim here, using as few words as possible, is to persuade you that it’s the book for you.

 

The cover blurb – which needs to be as short
and exciting-sounding as possible ...

Once the design and blurb are finalised, the book is ready for printing. The cover artwork is sent to the printers with instructions for the weight and type of paper to use, along with requests for any special finishes such as embossing or coloured foil.

 

Black Powder was lucky enough to be
given the gold foil treatment!

And then it’s over to the printer to weave their magic ...

 

The Time Tunnellers are five authors who write historical novels for
children and young adults -
Susan Brownrigg, Barbara Henderson, Catherine Randall,
Ally Sherrick and Jeannie Waudby.

Every Thursday we share a new blog article on a different topic
and a youtube video with a writing challenge for young people and teachers.

Remember, remember - by Ally Sherrick

The two main inspirations or story sparks for my first novel for young people, Black Powder, were a real life event – the infamous Gunpowder Plot of 1605 – and a place – Cowdray House on the edge of the historic market town of Midhurst in West Sussex.

The Gunpowder Plot – the reason why we light bonfires and set off fireworks every fifth of November – was the failed attempt by a band of desperate young Catholic men to assassinate the Protestant King James I and VI of Scotland, and many of the most important lords and bishops in the land as they met in Parliament.

Bonfire night revellers - copyright Elizabeth Doak

Cowdray, destroyed by fire in the late 18th century, is now a ruin. But when, on a visit several years ago, I discovered a certain Guy Fawkes had once been employed as a gentleman servant to the owner, the wealthy and influential, Anthony Maria-Browne, Lord Montague it proved too much for my writer’s imagination to resist!

Cowdray House ruins, West Sussex - author's own photo

It didn’t take long – asking the classic story question ‘What if’ – to come up with the outline for the story of a brave young Catholic boy, Tom Garnett who unwittingly gets caught up with the events culminating in the Plot.

Writing a story set in the past is a bit like doing a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces. As a general rule, the further back you travel in time, the less likely you are to have a complete – or as complete as you can hope for – picture of the events, the places and the people who lived then. Records, if they were made, might have been lost. And if they survive, they often only tell one side, or a fraction of the story. For a real-life jigsaw puzzler, such ‘missing pieces’ would be terribly frustrating, but for an historical novelist, they are story gold.

This is true for all my stories, but particularly for Black Powder.

Thanks to surviving documents of the day – including the intelligence gathered by the king’s spymaster and chief minister, Robert Cecil, the confessions of the plotters and official reports of their trials – we have quite a few jigsaw pieces to help us build a reasonably accurate account of the people and actions involved in the Gunpowder Plot. But it’s always important, when using such sources, to think about who is setting down the ‘facts’ and whether they can be trusted to tell it as it was or have maybe altered it in some way to suit their own ends.

Some of the pieces I discovered in the puzzle box when I started researching the true-life story of the Gunpowder Plot included:

· the identities, backgrounds and motives of the plotters and their leader, Robert Catesby (not Guy Fawkes, as so many people believe)

· their arrangements for hiring the cellar beneath the House of Lords, and stacking the 36 barrels of gunpowder inside it

· the plotters’ plans – if they had been successful in killing the king – to raise a rebellion in the country, to put the king’s young nine year-old daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, on the throne as a ‘puppet queen’, and to have all the anti-Catholic laws which provoked them to take their extreme action, reversed.

The Gunpowder Plotters

But these things are, in the main, drawn from official records of the time. They do not – and could not – give details of everything the plotters did or thought. For example, their conversations with each other, the things that made them laugh, or that made them sad or angry – aside of course from how badly treated they felt, because of the religious persecution they and their fellow Catholics had had to endure for so many years. And they don’t account for everyone they might have met and kept company with in the days leading up to the fateful events of the fifth of November 1605. This is where I could have fun with my imagination and start creating my own pieces of the jigsaw to fill in the gaps and tell a tale, linked to the story of the actual plot, but which was all my own. Some of the pieces I created include:

• my hero, 12 year-old Tom Garnett, who accidentally betrays his father after he rescues a Catholic priest from the harbour and then has to try and right that wrong and save him from the hangman’s noose with the help of a mysterious stranger called the Falcon
  
  
• Cressida Montague, daughter of Lord Montague and the rich and privileged cousin Tom never knew he had. They dislike each other intensely at first but eventually become good friends and allies
  
  
• two fictional spies who Tom, his mouse, Jago and Cressida must outwit if they are to succeed in their mission to rescue Tom’s father before it’s too late.

Of course, when you’re writing any form of historical fiction, whether for children, or adults, it’s important to maintain a balance between presenting everything that’s known versus telling a good story. But as long as you respect the facts of any real-life events or circumstances which form the backdrop to your story wherever you can, and have done the research which suggests what might be plausible to help flesh out the bits you don’t know, then how you complete the rest of the puzzle is up to you.

Can you use a real-life historical person or event to spark a new story idea? Or perhaps a favourite place? Think of something that intrigues you and makes you want to ask the magic story question ‘What if?’ Keep on asking the question every time you come up with an answer and see where it might lead. Then do some research of your own to fill in the missing pieces.

Happy plot puzzling!

Ally Sherrick is the author of books full of history, mystery and adventure including Black Powder, winner of the Historical Association’s Young Quills Award 2017. She is published by Chicken House Books and her books are widely available in bookshops and online. You can find out more about her and her books at www.allysherrick.com and follow her on Twitter: @ally_sherrick