Authors Electric

     Look at this little fella. Isn't he great?           I imagine most, if not all, of my readers will immediately recognise him — even without the caption — as a knight from the Lewis chessmen. The photograph above, though, was taken by me of one that sits on my shelf. It's a replica, quite a good one, I think, and it allows you to hold the little character in your hand and get a good close look at him.           He's very like a Norman (norse-man) knight, with his kite-shaped shield and his conical helmet with a nose-piece. His horse is a sturdy little beast — I think its size, proportionate to its rider, was probably accurately observed.  The rider has stirrups, and the horse has a caparison.           Here's the other piece I own: a Bishop.     ...

  The broch of Mousa: by kind permission of David Simpson. A bit of a departure, this month. Instead of a blog about writing, a broch blog. Brochs fascinate me, partly because no one knows who built them, or why or what they were for. And where no one knows, that's where the writer gets in. Mousa is a small island off the coast of mainland Shetland with a Norse name. The 'a' at the end, as in many British place-names, means 'island.' 'Mous' means 'mossy.' The 'Mousa boat' ferries you across to the mossy island. It's a nature reserve now, and well worth visiting for the birds and seals alone. But what I wanted to see -- what I'd wanted to see for years -- was already ancient when the Vikings called the island mossy. The Broch of Mousa. It did not disappoint. The first glimpse of the broch is a striking: a monumental tower, against sky and sea, its walls gently curving like those of a modern cooling tower. Towers in the North by Armit A...