~~~~~~~~~
Carin,
a homeless
teenager,
struggles
to
survive when a
wizard
decides she’s
an
expendable weapon
in
his fight
to save his
world from
lethal alien
plagues and
the
destruction
of
all
native life-forms.
(Fantasy,
high
YA/crossover)
"The
goals of science
and magic
are identical:
the
unlocking of the
mysteries
of Nature."
—Michael
Patrick Hearn, Introduction to
The
Annotated
Wizard
of Oz.
W.W.
Norton, 2000
Ralph
Waldo Emerson said:
"Every
writer is a skater,
and
must go partly
where
he would, and
partly
where the skates
carry
him."
What is Waterspell? Where did the idea come from? How are magic and science linked? How were the books researched? What do they owe to Celtic mythology? How were pivotal plot elements created? How long did it take to write Waterspell? Who are the main characters? What was the writing process like? What is the appeal of fantasy/science fiction? What’s next? How did “Jabberwocky” become a magical incantation? How can Deborah J. Lightfoot, author of Waterspell, be contacted? (Author Bio) (Frequently Asked Questions)
A: It’s a feudal fantasy with a science-fictional, “save the planet(s) from ecological disaster” twist.
That's my one-line summary of an epic story. The longer setup goes like this:
A million people got cholera and 10,000 died of it when a foreign freighter, discharging ballast water, fouled the coastal waters of Peru in 1991 with an Asian strain of Vibrio cholerae—launching the first cholera epidemic in the western hemisphere in more than 100 years. (Segue:) It’s not an alien ship carrying disease that the inhabitants of Ladrehdin need to worry about. Their potentially lethal problem is an adolescent girl who washes up on the shores of their world, shanghaied from her natural home by a wizard who doesn’t grasp the enormity of the ecological damage that the magical kidnapping may inflict upon medieval Ladrehdin.
Q: An intriguing combination of elements! Did you get the idea from the incident in Peru?
A: No. I didn’t hear about the cholera epidemic there until after I’d written Waterspell. When I came upon the news, I realized it was a real-life example of exactly the premise I was putting forth in my novel. But the underlying ideas of traveling to other worlds or alternate realities have been with me, in one form or another, for years. I’ve been a voracious reader since childhood, and fell under the spell of the fantastic upon discovering C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, J.R.R. Tolkien’s wonderful work and, of course, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I grew up on a farm and always had an appreciation for nature; at one time in college, I studied to become a park ranger or wildlife biologist. But the desire to write won out. I ended up with a degree in journalism—not a fine arts degree, but a bachelor of science—and have since managed to work into my writing both my appreciation for science, nature and environmental concerns, and my fascination with things magical and supernatural.
Q: Isn’t that a bit of a leap, to combine science and magic?
A: Not really, when you consider that—to the unlearned common folk of the Middle Ages, for instance—science was magic. The two have always rubbed shoulders. Alchemy was a blend of philosophy, mysticism and chemistry. The Druids—the original “wizards”—were the intellectuals and learned professionals of ancient Celtic society. I suspect they got their reputation for working magic from their knowledge of astronomy—being able to predict eclipses, alignments of the planets and such—and their skill as physicians, curing the ill with herbal remedies. Such knowledge was potent—revered and feared. They took pains to preserve their mystique by keeping their lore secret. Knowledge was not written down, but was passed orally to new initiates. Druidic poets, for example, spoke “in a dark tongue” so that the uninitiated could not understand. It’s easy to see how and why the ignorant masses would begin to think that these learned professionals were actually working magic.
In fact, the English language still reflects this connection in the words grammar and glamour. I read in David Crystal’s fascinating Encyclopedia of the English Language an etymology of the two words that shows the close ties between science and magic. Grammar had come into the language by the early 14th century. To the illiterate, the word came to be identified with the mysterious world of the scholar, and therefore developed the sense of “learning” in general, and then of “the incomprehensible,” and even of “black magic.” Later, in 18th-century Scottish English, a form appears that is spelled with an l—glamour—which retains its magical sense. Mr. Crystal points out that the Scottish poet Robert Burns links the two words in referring to gypsies who “deal in glamour” and those who are “deep-read in hell’s black grammar” (1781). Glamour developed the sense of “enchantment” or “charm.” Katharine Briggs, in An Encyclopedia of Fairies, defines “glamour,” in terms of fairy-lore, as “an enchantment cast over the senses, so that things were perceived or not perceived as the enchanter wished.” By that definition, I can certainly claim that there’s a good deal of glamour in Waterspell—and good grammar, too!
Q: And quite a lot of research, it seems. Aren’t there echoes of Scottish and Irish English in the books, and many references to traditional folklore?
A: Yes, I made a deliberate effort to pay my respects to those great old Irish and Scottish storytellers who are a link to the Celtic mythology that underpins much of the genre. Readers who are familiar with Irish Fairy & Folk Tales (1892, edited by William Butler Yeats) may recognize some of the uses I’ve made of the vernacular and common sayings or figures of speech. For instance, at one point my melancholy sorcerer, Lord Verek, tells Carin: “It's a long lane that has no turning.” That’s an adage taken from “The Kildare Pooka,” by Patrick Kennedy—one of the selections Yeats included in his anthology. Sharp eyes may also notice that I’ve adapted to my purposes that old saying: “Rowan, amber and red thread / Puts witches to their speed.”
Q: Does Waterspell take its inspiration from Celtic mythology?
A: Broadly and indirectly, yes. When I started reading the early Irish legends and Celtic myths, I was looking mainly for “the telling detail”—authentic figures of speech, colorful descriptive terms, gritty background textures. But as I read, I noticed that aspects of the mythology had their counterparts in this fantasy I was writing. Or vice versa. For instance, water often has mystical qualities in the legends—Irish rivers like the Boyne were held sacred. It’s pretty obvious from the series title—Waterspell—that water has magical properties in my story, too. The traditions tell of quests, leading into the Otherworld and back. “Other worlds” figure prominently in Waterspell—the premise that what’s harmless in one world or reality may prove deadly if it arrives, whether innocently or by skullduggery, where it doesn’t belong. Also central to my work is the heroic quest, undertaken to gain information or wisdom, to bring healing, or to find or restore lost objects.
I am by no means an expert on Irish legends. Given the huge number of books that have been produced on the subject and the very few of them that I’ve read (see “Books”), I can barely claim a nodding acquaintance. My sole aim, in working into my writings details from the legends, is to make Waterspell “fit” into the world of Celtic mythology the way Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings fits with traditional Scandinavian mythology. Katharine Briggs said of Tolkien’s work: “The whole was not decorated but deepened by the use of traditional folklore which gave it that sense of being rooted in the earth which is the gift of folklore to literature.” That’s what I’m after: to create a fantasy world that’s rooted deeply in an ancient tradition.
While I’m giving credit where it’s due, I must mention The Encyclopaedia of Celtic Wisdom (Caitlín and John Matthews) and The Druids (Peter Berresford Ellis). From the latter I gained a much better understanding of why the modern-day view of Druids makes them out to be powerful magicians and soothsayers, “supplying magic potions from mystical cauldrons,” and how it was the Christianizing of Ireland that made this class of intellectuals into “wizards.” And the Matthews book was the inspiration for the two narrative “lays” or poems that figure in Books 1 and 2 of Waterspell. The Matthews encyclopedia contains lots of excerpts from incomprehensible Celtic poetry. After reading enough of it to blur my brain, I decided to write my own incomprehensible poems—though I hope that, by the time the reader has reached the end of Book 2, both poems will make perfect sense.
Q: How hard was that to do—to write poems which contain clues to the mystery but don’t give the whole thing away?
A: It was eerily simple. I think Stephen Hawking is right with his theory of “alternate universes.” At least, I think that’s Hawking’s theory! Anyway, it’s been treated in enough episodes of Star Trek that I expect everybody reading this will know exactly what I’m talking about: the notion that everything that could have happened, has happened, with the result that all these “other realities” are playing themselves out in alternate universes. As an example, think of the forks in the road of your own life. Haven’t you wondered how your life would be different if you’d taken the other fork? Well, the alternate-universe notion suggests that some other “you” is in fact living the life that would have resulted from making that choice.
What all of this has to do with the poems in Waterspell is this: It’s become simple for me to think that this story has actually happened, to real people, in some “other universe” because, in the course of writing it, none of it has felt contrived. Each scene or episode has fallen into place with what seems very little nudging from me; I’ve been the scribe, taking down what the characters are saying and recording the action. Each of the poems came in a flash of inspiration, as the cliché goes. And they both “arrived” well before I’d reached the point in each book where they were to be included. I mean, it wasn’t a matter of writing “up to” the point where the poems went, and then crafting them line by line. Each of them came all-of-a-piece at an unexpected moment.
“The Writer and the Editor”
The Writer and
the Editor
Had reached no
deal as yet;
Her books
called Waterspell
had been
With some
approval met;
But with no
word for many months,
She had begun
to fret.
The Writer
thought up ways to get
The Editor to read
The first four
chapters of her book,
So that they
might proceed;
She polished
up the rest of it
In hopes he
would give heed.
“The time
has come,” the Writer said,
“To talk
of many things:
Of
when—and how—there are to be
These
hoped-for happenings
Of
acceptance—some revisions?—
On the way to publishings.
“Let’s
wait no more!” the Writer cried,
“But get
things under way;
For
waiting’s hard, and I'm afire
With eagerness today
To hear and
know and take to heart
All my Editor
might say.”
“A yes
from him,” the Agent said,
“Is what
we chiefly need:
Contracts and
advances, too,
Are very good indeed;
If Patrick
will but hear this plea,
We can at once proceed.”
—Deborah J. Lightfoot
