The Silver Casket

Lava Caves

Posted by elizabeth on Jul 5, 2010 in Edinburgh Castle, The Silver Casket | 1 comment

A writer does learn the oddest things sometimes, in the course of research. For example, I’ve been reading up on lava caves and lava tubes, as background for an ancient secret chamber I’m creating in the solid basalt volcanic “plug” of Castle Rock in Edinburgh. Any tale can benefit from the presence of an ancient secret chamber, no?

In the course of my digging around (a little geological humor, heh) I found a virtual lava tube. Really. The Internet is a remarkable thing, it is.

Summer in North Texas…

Posted by elizabeth on Jun 7, 2010 in The Silver Casket, Washerwomen's Wrists | 2 comments

…means triple-digit heat indexes. Walk early or not at all. Then ice on my wrists and back to sixteenth-century Scotland. I feel for those poor historical washerwomen who didn’t have velcro cold wraps and neatly-packed bottles of aspirin. Although I do have to ask the Broadcasting Legend™ to twist off the #!*%$# child-proof caps.

Short and Sweet

Posted by elizabeth on Jun 5, 2010 in The Silver Casket | 6 comments

Am going to try something new here—very short updates more often, instead of longer posts less often. I’m buried in The Silver Casket (no, not really, but you know what I mean) and the very thought of writing extended blog posts with pictures is freaking me out a little. I may post pictures from time to time on the Photos page. And my wrists are hurting a lot. And that is all for now

I Do Love Books

Posted by elizabeth on Jun 2, 2010 in Books, The Silver Casket | Comments Off

“Lord! when you sell a [reader] a book you don’t sell just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue – you sell [the reader] a whole new life. Love and friendship and humor and ships at sea by night [and intrigue and death and wild adventure and passionate obsession in the Scotland of Mary Stuart]—there’s all heaven and earth in a book, a real book.”

—Christopher Morley (with interpolations)

The Delights of Research

Posted by elizabeth on Apr 27, 2010 in Research, The Silver Casket | 2 comments

One does find the most peculiar things while doing research into historical periods:

Medieval Scottish Ecclesiastical Toilets

It’s good to know the monks at St. Andrews and the Isle of Iona had such, er, comforts.

Naturally I couldn’t help clicking around through the rest of the site (a Shakespearean chamber pot! the Ottoman Sultan’s toilet!).

Stop by Toilets of the World and you too can be privy to all the details.

Un Gentil Huteaudeau

Posted by elizabeth on Apr 25, 2010 in Food Glorious Food, The Silver Casket, Words | 2 comments

I just love words.

At one point in The Silver Casket, the heroine Rinette faces off against Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, soon to be Mary Queen of Scots’ second husband. Now Darnley may have been tall, blond and good-looking, but Queen Mary’s own uncle the Cardinal of Lorraine described him scathingly as un gentil huteaudeau, which pretty much means “a pleasant nitwit.” Heh. The male Paris Hilton of the 1560s. Huteaudeau appears to have been an idiom along the lines of what today we might call “a dumb cluck,” because in the sixteenth century it also literally meant “young chicken” or “pullet.”

The word is preserved not only in the Cardinal’s disparagement of Darnley, but in a traditional Scottish dish called “Howtowdie,” a chicken stuffed with skirlie (savory sautéed oats with onions), roasted (or boiled) and served on a bed of spinach with “drappit eggs” (poached eggs). Intrigued? Here’s a link to a lovely authentic recipe:

Ishbel’s Traditional Scottish Howtowdie

I’m not sure about the poached eggs, but the skirlie sounds pretty yummy. I love cooking from the periods I write about and I think I will have to try this!