Word Wenches

Nae Fash, Nae Fear

Fishermen at Sea, by J.M.W. Turner

Susanna here, with a true-life New Year’s tale for you, from Aberdeen (well, properly from Footdee—pronounced “Fittie”—which is like a little early 19th century fishing village tucked within the city, by the harbour).

So much of the news always seems to be negative, but even our forebears did their best to look for the positive. I came across this little gem in the Aberdeen Herald for Saturday, January 6, 1844 (courtesy of the British Newspaper Archive, of which I’ve been a member for several years). Rather than trying to paraphrase or summarize it, I’m going to simply transcribe the entire article for you, because I don’t think I could possibly improve on the original.

On the Seventh Day of Christmas

Nicola here. It’s New Year’s Eve here in the UK, with fireworks, celebrations and all the traditions that go with the ending of one year and the start of the new. One of my favourite new year'e eve traditions was celebrated by my grandmother for many years - She would open the windows at the front and back of the house to invite good luck in and the front and let bad luck out at the back! However this might just have had the practical intention of airing the house after all the smells of Christmas cooking!

It may be the end of December, but in an older tradition it’s only the seventh day of the “twelvetide,” the 12 days of Christmas that started on 25^th December and end with Twelfth Night on 5^th January. In the medieval calendar there was still a lot of festive celebration to go!

In the carol, on the 7^th day of Christmas my true love sent to me seven swans a swimming. In the old Celtic tradition the seven swans were linked to the seven known planets, elegance and mystery personified. In the 17^th century, when the carol originated, swans were seen as good omens, tasty to eat and a source of warmth from the feathers and down. The Christian interpretation of the song was that the seven swans symbolise the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.

There’s a rather nice idea here the binds the 12 days of Christmas to the idea of New Year’s resolutions. We all have different gifts and qualities. For example, some are good teachers, others can encourage and motivate people and some people are creative. In the New Year, whether or not we make specific resolutions, we can all plan to use and enjoy our own unique gifts.

A very happy New Year’s Eve! Do you have any special traditions you enjoy at this time of year or resolutions you are intent on making?

And the Sunday After Christmas ...

photocredit ClaiieK

The first Sunday after Christmas is traditionally the day folks say,

“I gotta go to work tomorrow. Let’s clear all these boxes and wrappings outta here.”

The animals, in the True Spirit of animals everywhere, refuse to relinquish.

photocredit Natalia

 

 

Bûche de Noël

Pat here, drooling over the images of the chocolate Yule Log (or bûche de Noël) fellow Wenches have been posting. I’ve never been in a place with a French bakery and have never tasted this dessert, although, since it’s made of sponge cake and decked out in meringue mushrooms (this image, disappointingly, isn't), I’m not much interested. I like my cake rich, flavorful, and moist—give me carrot cake, and we’ll talk. But the bûche de Noël is a symbol of our pagan past.

Many of you may be familiar with the tradition of the Yule log that burned in medieval fireplaces for the twelve days of Christmas. But did you know that the tradition dates back to the Iron Age? The pagan Celts celebrated the winter solstice intelligently—by burning an enormous log and keeping warm. But because they were human like us and decorating is what we do, they made it special by adding holly, pinecones, ivy, and whatever else they could find. Sometimes they offered wine and salt to the fire as well, because all gods like to be appreciated. And once the log was burned to ashes, they collected the ashes for their perceived medicinal benefits and/or to guard against evil.

I don’t know who first dragged the log to an inside hearth—those medieval castles had fireplaces large enough to house half a dozen knights. But eventually, smaller fireplaces became prevalent and a twelve-day log no longer fit. We don’t know who baked the first bûche de Noël, either, although I’m betting they were French. But marzipan, meringue, and sponge cake can be found in recipes as far back as the 1600s. Chocolate, maybe not so much, but a cake worked better in the new smaller fireplaces!

I like the idea that the tradition of our pagan ancestors has carried through the generations in the form of a delicious little cake. What traditions do you enjoy?

A Little Medieval Christmas Spirit

Susan here, continuing the Yuletide celebration with a little bit of medieval holiday spirit. Some of the most beautiful, touching, whimsical and enduring holiday images are by medieval artists, and these artworks still convey the brightness, meaning, and grace of the holidays. Here are a few of my favorites - my virtual Christmas card to you. Enjoy!                    

          Wishing you a wonderful holiday season and a peaceful new year! 

Geertgen tot Sint Jans, Nativity at Night, c. 1490, London National Gallery

 

Limbourg Brothers, New Year's Feast, Les Tres Riches Heures de Duc de Berry, 1416, Musee Conde, Chantilly, France

Snowball Fight, Venceslao Gennaio, mural, 15th c., Castello Buonconsiglio, Trento, Italy

 

Mummers and Dancers, English manuscript, 14th c., Bodleian Library

 

Angels, 14th c. manuscript, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

 

Gerard David, Nativity, 1480s, The Metropolitan Museum, NYC

 

Gerard David, Nativity, detail.

Family Ties

Andrea here, continuing our daily celebration of the Twelve Days of Christmastide with short posts on the spirit of the season. The holidays have been a bit quiet for me as this year, instead of our usual Christmas Day gathering, my family has been scattered around the globe. In celebration of my niece getting her PhD in English two weeks ago, my older brother and his wife took her to Rome (it had to be that timing because both my niece and SIL are teaching at different universities with different breaks) My younger brother and his family just moved houses in Wyoming and were frantically getting their old place ready for sale . . . And my nephew (the PhD's brother) jetted off to Brazil to be with his fiancee. (Niece and nephew pictured here)

So, I was feeling a little nostalgic with everyone so far away. And then very early on Christmas Eve morning I was awakened by the "beep-beep" of a text coming into my cellphone. Hmmm. I was tempted to ignore it—I'm not big on texting or being a slave to my phone. However, I decided to take a quick look and it's my nephew from Brazil, apologizing for the wake-up call but in need of immediate cookie help! He was surprising his fiancee with a batch of traditional Swiss "hasselnuss stengeli" Christmas cookies and couldn't remember how to make the lemon-sugar glaze.

So off we go on a flurry of texts . . . He has very fond memories of making the cookies with his grandmother (my mother). As do I. (He loves to cook and is very good at it.) The missing piece of the recipe was easy-peasy to send off but for the next little while we were also exchanging funny memories of past holidays . . . like the time my mother's usually well-behaved German Shepherd, who NEVER stole food, walked through the dining room in mid-feast with a huge wedge of Jarlsberg that he had snatched from the low cocktail table in the living room . . . and the time my mother was insisting on taking SO many group pictures of the family that he instigated getting everyone to take their shirts off when she was fiddling with the camera. (She framed that picture.)

Anyway, when it ended, I was laughing aloud and feeling, well, very connected, even though we were very far away. To me it was a perfect vignette of what the spirit of the season is all about. Family, friends, laughter, sharing . . . and though I don't think of devices are a very good way to do that, I was grateful for modern technology letting me connect to a loved one and share a few laughs.

What about you? Were you able to celebrate together with loved ones? Or did you do some long distance connecting too?

Silent Night

by Mary Jo

For the second of our Word Wench Christmastide posts, I wanted to tell you about a wonderful article on the history of the beoved Christmas carol Silent Night, which ran in the Baltimore Sun on Christmas Day.  Written by Youngsuck Kim, a music professor at Mansfield University in Pennsylvania, it commemorates the 200th anniversary of the song and starts with the lovely story from WWI when three armies in the trenches sang Silent Night in German, English, and French for a moment of Christmas peace. 

I knew that story, though not that a Scottish piper in the British army chimed in on his
bagpipes to accompany the singing.  Nor did I know the song was written because the composer, a priest called Father Joseph Mohr, was having trouble with his church organ and had to quickly come up with a song that could be accompanied on a guitar.  And a miracle of music it was as church organist Franz Xaver Gruber composed a melody to go with the music!

I recommend reading the whole article, and may it invoke peace--

Mary Jo, who took the pictures at her local mall, where there are many lovely Christmas things

 

Happy Christmas!

Anne here, with the first of our "Christmastide" posts, Christmastide being another way of saying the twelve days of Christmas. Each day for the next 12 days, a wench will post a short holiday post. We hope you'll find time to drop in and join us, sharing your various activities and thoughts.

Today at my house, there's a delicious scent in the air — I'm baking gingerbread. I know, I should have made it earlier, but you do what you can, when you can. I hadn't planned to make it this year, in fact, but inspired by friend's posts on Fb and elsewhere, talking about the various different forms of gingerbread or ginger cookies beloved of different cultures. Surprisingly not all of these "ginger" products contain ginger, mainly because the word 'ginger' also means spicy and a little bit hot. Much as we also use the word peppery. 

Perhaps one of the most famous and recognizable forms of gingerbread are gingerbread men. Some sources credit Queen Elizabeth 1 for the first gingerbread men — in the 16th-century elaborate court dinners often included marzipan (a sugary almond paste) shaped like fruit, castles and birds. The pic on the left shows marzipan shaped and painted like fruit. I always used to give a friend's mother a tray of marzipan fruit for Christmas because she loved it. (Recipe for home-made marzipan here.)

Ginger was still quite an exotic and expensive ingredient then, and there was also a royal gingerbread maker. Queen Elizabeth used to impress visiting dignitaries by presenting them with gingerbread men made in their image. (Recipe for gingerbread here.  I usually put more ginger and spices in because I like it spicy.)

However gingerbread men in this time period were also sold as love tokens — eat the gingerbread man and win the man of your dreams, or present it as a love token. Ginger birscuits (cookies) were also made in heart shapes and beribboned, were sold at fairs, I suppose for the same reason.

But if you like ginger — and I do — they're also delicious. I particularly like gingernuts — a hard ginger biscuit (cookie), and I often have my heroes eating them. Copyeditors almost always query them, so I suppose they're not common in the USA. And now that I've mentioned them, I think I might also make a batch of gingernuts after the gingerbread. (Recipe here I also put more ginger in these, as well.)

What about you? Are you fond of ginger or not? What is your favorite Christmas baked treat?

 

 

My Gift To You

Susanna here, running around as usual trying to get everything finished before Santa comes tonight, and, as usual, failing miserably.

I had the best intentions of cleaning my house this year, and instead it looks like something from the TV show Hoarders. I’ve yet to excavate my kitchen table from under the piles of papers and books so we can eat dinner on it—and come to that, I’ve yet to get to the grocery store to buy the turkey to actually cook for our dinner.

And finally Jo Beverley's story

 Anne here with our final Sunday snippet for the year from our Christmas anthology, The Last Chance Christmas Ball. Here's the start of Jo Beverley's story, Miss Finch and the Angel.

Four steaming horses swept the post chaise up the drive of Holbourne Abbey and were halted by their postilions, snorting and stamping, before the impressive pillared entrance. Liveried footmen hurried out, their own breath white in the crisp air, to open the carriage door and extract luggage from the boot.
First emerged a valet. Then followed a fashionable young gentleman in a many-caped buff greatcoat and a glossy beaver hat set at an exact angle on golden hair. He regarded the house, smiled slightly, and strode forward to climb the steps.

"A pleasure to see you, Munton," he said to the portly butler who stood waiting in the entrance hall to take his hat and gloves and pass them to a liveried footman. 

"And you, my lord. May I offer season's greetings?"

"I'm sure you may," the young gentleman said pleasantly. "All in order?"

"In general, my lord. Mr. Kimball still chooses a contemplative life."

"Even at Christmas?"

"Indeed, my lord, but the ball will take place as usual."

"Of course it will, especially as it's the fiftieth. Where is Lady Holly?"

"In her rooms, my lord."

Eight Writers Walk into a Regency-Era Ballroom...

Nicola here. Over the past few weeks we’ve been sharing excerpts from our Word Wench Christmas Anthology, The Last Chance Christmas Ball (which is currently still on special offer in the US and Canada in the run up to the festive season – you can find it here!) A number of commenters have asked about the process we went through writing the book as a group project (thank you!), so we’ve updated a post from 2015 when the anthology first came out explaining a bit about this and about the individual stories that we came up with. Today's blog title actually came from a review of the anthology that was in Publisher's Weekly: Eight Writers (collectively known as the Word Wenches) walk into a ballroom and wreak fabulous, shimmering holiday mischief all over the place."

Jo Beverley, who drew together the original post, described it as “fun: at times the sort of fun you get from a camping holiday with unpredictable weather and odd creatures invading the tent.*G*” Which is to say that it wasn’t without its challenges. Some of these were logistical. We’re based around the world. Even within the US there’s a considerable time difference between east coast and west coast, but then we add in England, which is five hours ahead of the east coast and eight hours ahead of California. Pat was getting up when Jo Beverley and I were thinking about dinner, and Anne, in Australia, was going to bed round about the time America woke up! Even in this modern age we often had to wait many hours for the answer to a continuity query.

In addition, of course, we are all strong-minded authors who enjoyed a good discussion over many, many plot points and other issues! But we did have fun, and as you'll see, we all love Christmas stories.

And So to Bed

In 1817, some beds are this high and this narrow

If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.
     William H. McRaven

 

I’m in the process of moving, having acquired a new house. This house, in the manner of houses since the beginning of time, is in some ways unsatisfactory and must be modified.

I would guess the first sensible person to move from one cave to another immediately started rolling rocks around till they were in a position more conducive to comfortable living.

That is, in essence, what I’m doing. Rolling rocks. Washing walls; matching the dark color of the old mopboard and window surrounds; spackling cracks; priming walls and, in the fullness of time, picking a wall shade more beautiful than any other, and painting.

Politically Incorrect History

Pat here, diving into the politically sensitive. If you're squeamish, back out now.

As a writer who reveres history and firmly believes that we are doomed to repeat our mistakes until we learn from our past, and as a peace-loving liberal who believes every person on the planet deserves respect, I am left in a quandary by current events.

My opening image is of Oliver Cromwell, a Protestant who hated Catholicism, started a civil war that destroyed immense amounts of artwork and architecture, not to mention thousands of people. He pretty much destroyed an entire culture. He is a politically divisive figure and bigot. 

Should we destroy his statue? The moral quandary is best stated in this article, but I'm working from the historical viewpoint.

 

 

In the Bleak Midwinter: The Last Chance Christmas Ball

By Mary Jo

Eight authors collaborating on an anthology is not the simplest of projects, but we Wenches thought it would be fun to work together, and The Last Chance Christmas Ball (now on sale for a mere 99 cents!) was the result. Our Kensington editor, Alicia Condon, suggested we might do something like a holiday ball where our characters can meet and mingle. This sounded like a fine idea, so we agreed. We had no idea how much work it would be to integrate the stories into a larger framework!

Jo Beverley created a wiki for us so we could add information about the characters and setting so instead of constantly asking things like the name of the butler or the village, we could look it up. This was very convenient.

Then the negotiations began! We talked about our requirements. Susan King, for example, specializes in Scotland so we created a setting in Northumberland, which is next door to Scotland in far northeastern England. A certain kind of great house was required. A promising house was found and modified. I casually talked about how we could have a wounded soldier in the tower as an example of what we could do, and then realized I really did want to write a wounded soldier in the tower!

A Wenchly Bakery

Susan here – presenting, in honor of the holiday season,  Ask-A-Wench: What are we baking? You may want to pour a steaming cup of tea or coffee as you sit down to enjoy the scrumptious assortment of baked goodies that the Wenches are about to offer . . . 

Anne here.

I don't usually bake a lot for Christmas these days, but I do like to make sweet treats to give as a little gift to friends. It varies from year to year but I thought I'd talk about a little sweet that apart from being very easy to make, is also historical. It's called a mendiant, and it's a traditional French sweet made of a disk of chocolate, topped with nuts and dried fruit. Traditionally there were four kinds of topping, each representing a monastic order -- raisins (for  Augustinian monks), dried fig (Franciscans), Hazelnuts (Carmelites) and almond (Dominicans).

Not being attached to any order (unless you call the Word Wenches an order <g>) I please myself with what I use as topping, and usually put two or three pieces of dried fruit and some nuts on top of the chocolate. The process is very easy. First prepare your toppings -- I like a range of toppings so I cut up dried fruit (dried figs, crystallized ginger, dried mango) to fit on something the size of a large coin. The nuts I like are almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios and macadamias — but it doesn't matter if you don't use nuts at all.  Carefully melt some good chocolate, drop spoonfuls of it onto foil or parchment paper, then before it sets, arrange your fruit and nut combination on top. Let it set. That's it. Pretty, easy, and delicious — and with a little bit of history. Here are some I made earlier -- not a great photo, but they're blobs of dark chocolate, topped with home made cocoa-spiced almonds, a pistachio, preserved ginger, dried fig and a macadamia nut (macadamias are indigenous to Australia.) Package them up nicely and you have a yummy, quite elegant home-made gift.

Pat here:

I have no historical background for my baking. I like chocolate. I would not have done well in the periods of whiskey-soaked fruit cakes or in an even earlier era when they didn’t have chocolate. (the horror!)

Over the years, while my family was young, I’ve baked tons of cinnamon rolls, coffee cakes, every kind of cookie imaginable, and any kind of pie requested for the holidays. That was all back when we had kids who inhaled everything that crossed the table—and before I bought a house with a gas oven.

Now that the kids are grown, and I’m dealing with an oven that can barely bake canned biscuits without leaving them dough, I keep my baking simple. That’s my excuse anyway. Besides, everyone loves brownies, right? And all they take is top-of-the-line chocolate and removing the pan from the oven before they’re fully baked. Any oven accomplishes that without even trying. Sprinkle some Ghiradelli chips on top before baking, and wow, what else can you ask? If anyone wants pumpkin pie, Costco has a huge one for six bucks, and a giant apple for twelve. Remind me again why I did all that work?

 

The Magic of Harry Potter and History

Andrea here, The holidays are a magical time of year, especially for children. So it seems a perfect time to talk about something truly magical—in every meaning of the word! I just saw the wonderful exhibit at the New York Historical Society entitled Harry Potter: A History of Magic. (It’s the U.S. stop for the show that originated at the British Library, and the linked article from the NY Times shows some wonderful pictures of the display rooms.)

Now of course, Harry isn’t just for kids—I’m a huge fan, even though I’m not usually one for fantasy or paranormal. The magic of J. K. Rowling and her books is the storytelling and how she weaves together the powerful elemental themes of friendship, love, courage in the face of loss and adversity as she tells a riveting tale of Good vs Evil.

Shattered Rainbows: Audio & Interview!

by Mary Jo

The Sound of Shattered Rainbows

I don't spend enough time driving to be much of an audiobook listener, but I know a lot of romance fans love them, so ideally I'd like to have all my classic backlist titles available in audio for those who prefer the format.

However, producing them myself is very expensive and after doing audio of The Bargain, Thunder and Roses, and Dancing on the Wind, I gave up doing them for a while.

However, the market and the economics are continually changing, so I decided to give it another try, starting with Shattered Rainbows, Fallen Angel #5, which is a particular favorite of mine. A RITA finalist and 4 1/2 star GOLD rating from Romantic Times, it's a complicated story of complicated people and enduring love. Here's the blurb:

 

A Season for Marriage

Nicola here, continuing our Sunday excerpts from The Last Chance Christmas Ball, (the e-book is on special sale right now for only $.99!) Here's the setting: Christmas 1815. Upstairs and downstairs, Holbourne Abbey is abuzz with preparations for a grand ball to celebrate the year’s most festive—and romantic—holiday. For at the top of each guest’s wish list is a last chance to find true love before the New Year… My story is A Season for Marriage... Lady Caroline  Camden is unhappily married to a brilliant MP whose work is his life. In love with her husband and resigned to the fact that he will never love her, Caroline runs back home to Holbourne Abbey, hoping that her old family home will work its magic on her marriage and that against the odds, she and Piers may find happiness...

Regency Slang Quiz #4

Anne here, with a little bit of fun for the holiday season — my fourth Regency Slang Quiz. As usual with my quizzes, you'll need a pen and paper to note down your answers, then click on the link at the bottom to check your results, and come back and tell us how you went.

1) To be a trifle disguised means:—
    a) you’re wearing a mask, not a full costume
    b) to be slightly drunk
    c) to be short of money
    d) to be acting shiftily

2) If you make a cake of yourself, you are:—
    a) overdressed, with too many jewels
    b) overdoing things
    c) pretending to act sweet (but you’re not sweet at all)
    d) making a fool of yourself

Shorthand

Susanna here. Last week, on November 29, this Tweet from Jonny Geller of Curtis Brown (my UK agency) crossed my timeline and caught my attention:

C.S. Lewis was born 120 years ago today. His writing tips in this letter to a fan are as spot on now as they were when sent.
“Instead of telling us a thing is terrible, describe it so we’ll be terrified”.

Encapsulated in the Tweet was an image of a page on which were written five of Lewis's writing tips. For the benefit of people who might not be able to read them in the image, here's what C.S. Lewis wrote to his fan:

Anyone for 300 year old ketchup?

Nicola here. There’s something about this time of year that makes me think about food even more than I usually do. Perhaps it’s the run up to the festive season when I’m not only thinking of the dishes I’d like to cook, or more accurately, I’d like the DH to cook for me as he’s a much better chef than I am, but somehow the dark evenings, short days and cold weather make me long to turn to food for both comfort and warmth.

I’m reasonably okay about trying new dishes but when I came across a recipe that mentioned elderberry ketchup I did wince a little. My memories of ketchup, which I haven’t tried in decades, mainly consist of eating fish fingers with tomato ketchup as a child. Anyway, the dictionary definition of ketchup I found is “a spicy sauce made chiefly from tomatoes and vinegar, used as relish.” Historically, ketchup recipes began to appear in British and American cookbooks in the 18^th century. In the UK it was in fact mushrooms rather than tomatoes that first became a staple ingredient, along with shallots and sometimes walnuts. The tomato version only came along 100 years later.

Old Flames Dance . . .

Andrea/Cara here, continuing our Sunday excerpts from The Last Chance Christmas Ball, (the e-book is on special sale right now for only $.99!) Here's the setting: Christmas 1815. Upstairs and downstairs, Holbourne Abbey is abuzz with preparations for a grand ball to celebrate the year’s most festive—and romantic—holiday. For at the top of each guest’s wish list is a last chance to find true love before the New Year… My story is Old Flames Dance . . . Lily Tremaine has accepted that girlish dreams don't always come true. A widow, she's returned to England from ten years in India, intent on living a quiet life alone in a cottage by the sea. But first she's accepted her godmother's invitation to a festive holiday ball—even though the dowager's grandson was the man who broke her heart. She's told herself that the flames of youthful love have long since burned to cold coals. However, on seeing Edward again—who have never married—a spark seems to kindle again. However, word is, he's about to announce his engagement . . . and so if there's to be a second chance at love, Lily will have to trust her heart . . .