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Lucy Hounsom: Author

Also writing as Lucy Holland

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02/05/16

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Author, SFF podcaster, book merchant Read More…

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Dug out these photos of my Alan Garner pilgrimage

Dug out these photos of my Alan Garner pilgrimage to Alderley Edge yesterday for Folklore Thursday and thought I'd share them here too.

Brisingamen and Gomrath were formative books for me and will always have pride of place on my shelf. Imagine my delight to see the words from the book carved in the rock above the real life wizard's well!

𝘋𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴
𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘺 𝘧𝘪𝘭𝘭
𝘍𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘴
𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘻𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭.

The Edge is a spectacular place and it was wonderful to wander the paths that I first followed Colin and Susan down so many years before.

✥

#alderleyedge #alangarner #theweirdstoneofbrisingamen #themoonofgomrath #cheshire #wizardswell #bookstagram #booklove #inspirations #myth #fundindelve #booksofinstagram #fantasy #fantasybooks #woodland #enchanted #FolkloreThursday

Last week I shared some of @rebecca.j.stockburn's

Last week I shared some of @rebecca.j.stockburn's incredible art. Today here is a repost of some of my favourite pieces from @alexboonart 😊

Alex is a friend who lives locally to me and takes inspiration from the natural Devon landscape - I love seeing places I know appear in his journal. The rabbits in the first two pictures are from his Lapine Botanica series, inspired by – you guessed it –Watership Down. (Otherwise known as the film that most terrified child Lucy. Let us not mention the general).

It has been such a pleasure to watch Alex's art taking off on here and all the people discovering it. Go check out his page for more, plus tutorials and lots of interesting live videos. Oh and if you like colouring, he offers the rabbits of Lapine Botanica as colouring sheets over at his Etsy store (plus lots more) 👏

✿

#lapinebotanica #alexboonart #art #artistsofinstagram #natureart #naturalworld #naturejournal #naturejournaling #devon #eastdevon #watershipdown #richardadams

Reading these two in tandem for obvious bee relate

Reading these two in tandem for obvious bee related reasons. *And* because I'm helping host their launch event this Thursday 10th June!

Very excited to be chatting to Joanne M. Harris and Ed Cox (both of whom are lovely people as well as exceptional authors) about fairytales, magic, myth and folklore and how these intersect in their new books, Honeycomb and The Wood Bee Queen. And yes I will be congratulating Ed on that title as I love a good word play👏

You can find tickets on @cymerafestival website. Thank you to @gollancz for these arcs. See you there?

🐝

#bookstagram #bookevent #booksofinstagram #booklaunch #honeycomb #joanneharris #thewoodbeequeen #edwardcox #gollancz #fantasy #folklore #thefolk #theotherworld #myth #bees #newbooks #igreads #booklove #alwaysreading #booksbooksbooks

Mevagissey harbour, scene of the great seagull tug

Mevagissey harbour, scene of the great seagull tug of war

✿

#cornwall #visitcornwall #mevagissey #sea #onthecoast #historic #mevagisseyharbour #fishingboats #fishingvillage #port #boats #dramaticsky #seagulls

Maybe my favourite view from the walls of Tintagel

Maybe my favourite view from the walls of Tintagel. It really is the kind of landscape to inspire legends.

I wonder how different this coastline would have looked to the folk who lived here sixteen centuries back.

➳

#tintagel #kernow #cornwall #visitcornwall #westcountry #southwestengland #ruins #coastline #seascape #landseasky #blueskies #ancientbritain #ocean #spring #nature #myth #legend

Cornwall doing its Mediterranean thing again. Port

Cornwall doing its Mediterranean thing again. Port Isaac is a little town on the north coast near Tintagel and it is as lovely as it looks.

✿

#portisaac #cornwall #visitcornwall #northcornwall #turquoisesea #blueskies #coastline #spring #seaside #sea #england #nature #southwestengland #westcountry

What a wonderful art community instagram has! Foll

What a wonderful art community instagram has! Following my friend @alexboonart's journey to building a presence here and 'meeting' @rebecca.j.stockburn have been some of my best social media experiences (it is not all doom scrolling)! So I thought I would showcase some of their work and hope that you go check out their pages too.

First up, here is Rebecca's incredible watercolour of the goddess Brigid (and her three aspects of smith, healer and poet). This picture is *so* Sistersong! I adore the detail – look at that chainmail – and the way the image is just brimful of story. This level of imagination characterises all Rebecca's work. Another favourite of mine is her Lady of Shalott which is scarily good and not an easy subject to interpret.

You can buy some of Rebecca's prints as greeting cards on Etsy like the one pictured here. I am saving these for very special people / occasions 😊 And meanwhile please go follow her beautiful page. I will post more of her greeting cards in my stories!

#watercolour #brigid #triplegoddess #goddess #artistsofinstagram #artofinstagram
#art #artwork #beautifulart #celtic #pagan #myth #instafriends #stories #bookstagram

"I refuse to be nothing." Maybe it's best just to

"I refuse to be nothing."

Maybe it's best just to enumerate the things I loved about She Who Became the Sun by @shelleyparkerchan

1. ZHU. The titular character did not disappoint. I loved Zhu for her unflinching resilience. (I say her but Zhu's gender identity is not straight forward). I loved her determination and how she refuses to flinch at the often brutal way the world works, while also acknowledging that compassion has a role to play too.

2. GENDER! Despite it being integral to both Zhu's and Ouyang's character, the treatment of gender identity was seamlessly woven into the narrative.The author shows us two very different experiences of gender and how choice is the all important factor in how we present ourselves in a world obsessed with the binary.

3. SETTING! It is so beautifully realised. The politics, the historical conflict, the structures of empire that harm everyone. Some complex commentary on how war affects everything from economy to social norms.

I really enjoyed She Who Became the Sun and I think you will too. Thanks so much to Pan Macmillan for my proof 😊

#shewhobecamethesun #shelleyparkerchan #swbts #panmacmillan #upcoming #bookstagram #igreads #booklove #alwaysreading #booksbooksbooks #historicalfantasy #ancientchina #chinesehistory #instareads #booklove

Moody king 👑 This seems a good moment to talk

Moody king 👑

This seems a good moment to talk about one of my historical inspirations for the Wild Hunt book.

Ine of Wessex was cyning of the West Saxons from 689 to 726, a reign of 38 years, which is pretty incredible for the early medieval age. The longest serving Wessex monarch, he abdicated in order to 'leave the kingdom to younger men' and sailed with his wife to Rome where they spent their final days. (These end of life Roman pilgrimages were quite popular amongst early Christian kings).

His wife Æthelburg was purportedly one of the few Anglo-Saxon female warriors. She is famous for destroying Ine's castle at Taunton to prevent it falling into rebel hands. Just imagining how that conversation went had me itching to write it.

Ine is known for his law code, which interestingly refers to his subjects as the Englisc, the beginning of a national identity. He also seemed more concerned than his predecessor with Dumnonia and Wessex made gains in the west during his reign. Anyone who has read Sistersong will understand the significance of that, and also why it made me want to visit Cynric's descendants in a followup book.

I'll be talking more about these historical inspirations in my newsletter over the next few months 😊

➳

#wessex #ineofwessex #westsaxons #england #medievalhistory #medieval #englishhistory #england #westcountry #dumnonia #inspiration #tintagel #sculpture #cornwall #moody #bookstagram #Sistersong #Sistersong #writing #wip

Last of the bluebells 🌷 #bluebells #bluebellwo

Last of the bluebells 🌷

#bluebells #bluebellwood #fairyglade #glen #woodland #enchantedforest #faerie #spring #devon #sidmouth

Old quarry works at Carbilly Tor, Bodmin Moor. The

Old quarry works at Carbilly Tor, Bodmin Moor. The megalith on the right is apocryphally known as Arthur's Sword.

✥

#bodminmoor #carbillytor #quarry #abandonedplaces #oldquarry #naturereclaims #wildplaces #cornwall #visitcornwall #westcountry #moors #kingarthur #megalith #stoneformation

Bluebells on Salcombe Hill

𝘍𝘢𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴, 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘥𝘶𝘭𝘭 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥,
𝘍𝘰𝘳 𝘐 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘶𝘱𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘥,
𝘙𝘶𝘯 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘱 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘪𝘥𝘦,
𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘶𝘱𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘧𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘦.

– W.B Yeats

✿

#yeats #faeriefolk #fairyforest #poetry #bluebells #peaceful #bluebellwoods #fairybells #fairycore #otherworld #glade #woodland #spring #fairyland #nature #naturephotography #devon #sidmouth

My Venice map from @manuscriptmaps arrived and it

My Venice map from @manuscriptmaps arrived and it is truly a work of art! Look at all the extra detail.

I've been to Venezia twice, most recently during the extreme acqua alta in November 2019. In fact it was the last international trip I did before you know what. I took mum for her birthday and also my writing journal to make notes about the novel I wanted to set there: a dark but whimsical renaissance-inspired fantasy about underworld alchemy.

That turned into my lockdown book, Underlight, which you might get to see one day when I take a break from ancient Britain and give it an overhaul 😅

@manuscriptmaps also does incredible maps of Roman and Saxon Britain, which I shared on here before. Do check them out!

✿

#venice #venezia #italy #cartography #mapmaking #caligraphy #maps #oldcity #inspiration #bookstagram #wip #oldmaps

𝕿𝖎𝖓𝖙𝖆𝖌𝖊𝖑 - 𝑮𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒐𝒔

Sculpture by Rubin Eynon

I had to make this photo look a little mythical given its location. Although it is known as 'King Arthur's Statue' the English Heritage who commissioned it did not apparenty want to call it that; instead it stands as more an idea than an identity, which makes sense to me at least.

There is no solid evidence that a king called Arthur ever existed in Britain. Rather the myth is supported by hazy snippets of history, ancient Welsh stories and a good deal of Geoffrey of Monmouth.

Veracity isn't the point. Rather the power of Arthur lies in what he means to the human psyche, in our collective desire to be guided, to believe there is such a thing as a wise, altruistic protector of the people. He is the archetypal King Under the Hill, the Sleeping Hero, who will aid us in our hour of greatest need.

Despite the romantic image, I appreciate more Susan Cooper's sentiment expressed at the end of The Dark is Rising Sequence, about humankind taking responsibility for its own actions:

𝘍𝘰𝘳 𝘋𝘳𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘯 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘮𝘮𝘰𝘤𝘬, 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘯, 𝘯𝘰𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘈𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘦 𝘪𝘥𝘭𝘺 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘯𝘰𝘸, 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘪𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘶𝘱 𝘵𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶.

Still, I love this art for the ideas it represents, for the stories it embodies and for the land where it stands that has witnessed so much of human history.

➳

#tintagel #tintagelcastle #gallos #rubineynon #kingarthur #arthurianmyth #legends #ancientbritain #theroundtable #camelot #geoffreyofmonmouth #myth #fantasy #englishhistory #cornwall #visitcornwall #kernow #thesouthwest #bookstagram #susancooper #thedarkisrising #merlin #beautifulbooks

🌺 Rhododendrons and camellias of Heligan 🌺

🌺 Rhododendrons and camellias of Heligan 🌺

I've wanted to visit these gardens for ages and I'm so glad we were finally able to make the trip – and in spring no less! According to the website, there are 350 ancient rhododendrons and 70 camellias, earliest dating to 1850. The blaze of colour is incredible. To think they were lost for so many years. Magical. Thinking of your book, @doc_tiff ;)

#thelostgardensofheligan #heligan #rhododendron #camellia #spring #inbloom #flowers #gardens #cornwall #visitcornwall #nature #bluesky #beautifultrees

Beautiful Crackington Haven. It was so peaceful he

Beautiful Crackington Haven. It was so peaceful here, staring out across the water.

✿

#researchtrip #cornwall #northcornwall #visitcornwall #nofilterneeded #crackingtonhaven #legends #spring #blueskies #sea #naturephotography #coastline #seaside #beach #southwestengland

𝕊𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕨𝕚

𝕊𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕨𝕚𝕟𝕕

Sadly the Museum of Witchcraft wasn't yet open when we visited Boscastle last weekend, so have some shots of beautiful Cornish buildings including "The Otherworld." This village was probably made for me...

Has anyone been to the museum?

✥

#boscastle #cornwall #northcornwall #visitcornwall #westcountry #museumofwitchcraftandmagic #instagrammable #prettyvillage #bluesky #witchcraft #magic #pagan #bookstagram

The red proof is back in honour of Beltane! A fir

The red proof is back in honour of Beltane!

A fire festival celebrated by Celtic Pagans, it falls around 1st May. Ancient peoples lit a huge bonfire, the Tein-eigen, and extinguished their hearth fires so that they could be relit from the main one, bringing cleansing, renewal and fertility. To protect them from disease, cattle were driven through the smoke of the Tein-eigen out to summer pasture.

The Bel in Beltane comes from the name of a Celtic divinity: Bel or Belenos the sun god, the shining one. If he bestowed his favour, it would protect the community and ensure a good harvest.

In Sistersong, I turned the tradition of jumping the Tein-eigen into a fire dance able to call the slumbering magic out of the land :) Beginning to think I should put a Beltane scene in the new book too... anyway, welcome summer! Chase away this rain!

➳

#beltane #pagan #firefestival #celtic #celticgods #summer #mayday #Sistersong #bookstagram #igreads #twosisters #instareads #inspiration #oldways #fantasy #ancientbritain

Happy publication day to this beautiful book! Who

Happy publication day to this beautiful book! Who else has ARIADNE on their TBR?

What is it about? Well...

❝As Princesses of Crete and daughters of the fearsome King Minos, Ariadne and her sister Phaedra grow up hearing the hoofbeats and bellows of the Minotaur echo from the Labyrinth beneath the palace. The Minotaur - Minos's greatest shame and Ariadne's brother - demands blood every year.

When Theseus, Prince of Athens, arrives in Crete as a sacrifice to the beast, Ariadne falls in love with him. But helping Theseus kill the monster means betraying her family and country, and Ariadne knows only too well that in a world ruled by mercurial gods - drawing their attention can cost you everything.

In a world where women are nothing more than the pawns of powerful men, will Ariadne's decision to betray Crete for Theseus ensure her happy ending? Or will she find herself sacrificed for her lover's ambition?❞

Sounds good, right? Although I'm predisposed to hate Theseus because he killed me so many times in Hades 😅

✿

#ariadne #jennifersaint #happypublicationday #greekmyth #retelling
#mythology #ancienttales #feminist #womensvoices #bookstagram #igreads #booklove #alwaysreading #newbook #instareads #historicalfiction #2021reads

'Another world. Another time. In the age of wonder

'Another world. Another time. In the age of wonder.'

🏰

#thedarkcrystal #tintagel #window #ancientruins #earlymedieval #ancientbritain #cornwall #kernow #arthurian #kingarthur #nature #bluesky #myth #legends #merlin #utherpendragon #oldcastle

𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓜𝓾𝓭 𝓜𝓪𝓲𝓭 𝓸𝓯 𝓗𝓮𝓵𝓲𝓰𝓪𝓷

We speak of the king under the hill but what of the green lady who lies in the forest until she is called upon? Perhaps her sleeping is our waking and she guards us in her dreams.

This living sculpture at The Lost Gardens of Heligan was created by Sue and Pete Hill and changes with the seasons.

✿

#mudmaid #heligan #livingart #livingsculpture #forestart #woodland #greenlady #earthmother #magical #lostgardensofheligan #nature #naturalworld #dappledlight #naturephotography #spring #myth

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