Meanwhile I just ignored Midgard......

I have been reading and researching English/British history since the 4th grade. Kind of a long time for a specific obsession in my case, yet one that for me has direct and precise parameters. In my world  English history was not worth studying until the Norman Conquest of 1066. I have spent hundreds of hours organizing and reorganizing and coveting and obtaining books on all the monarchs of England/Britain since the Conquest. (I still need 2, Henry I, and James II) My single minded obsession was changed earlier this year thanks to this guy. Ragnar Lothbrok or Lodbrok; depending on your source. This is obviously the actor Travis Fimmel in an idealized vision of the possibly historical warrior on the History Channel's series ''The Vikings"

Ragnar was a badass. Did he exist? Maybe, Maybe not. Most sources state that he was an amalgamation of several Norse raiders and warriors. What is interesting to me is that Ragnar has been mentioned in several sagas and medieval source material  including the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. An abstract from Princeton University states the following about his life:

"The namesake and subject of “Ragnar’s Saga”, and one of the most popular Viking heroes among the Norse themselves, Ragnar was a great Viking commander and the scourge of France and England. A perennial seeker after the Danish throne, he was briefly ‘king’ of both Denmark and a large part of Sweden. A colorful figure, he claimed to be descended from Odin, was linked to two famous shieldmaidens,Lathgertha in the Gesta Danorum, and Queen Aslaug according to the Völsungasaga.

He told people he always sought greater adventures for fear that his (possibly adoptive) sons who included such notable Vikings as Björn Ironside and Ivar the Boneless would eclipse him in fame and honor. Ragnar raided France many times, sing the rivers as highways for his fleets of longships. By remaining on the move, he cleverly avoided battles with large concentrations of heavy Frankish cavalry, while maximizing his advantages of mobility and the general climate of fear of Viking unpredictability.

 His most notable raid was probably the raid upon Paris in 845 AD, which was spared from burning only by the payment of 7,000 lbs of silver as danegeld by Charles the Bald. To court his second wife, the Swedish princess Thora, Ragnar traveled to Sweden and quelled an infestation of venomous snakes, famously wearing the hairy breeches whereby he gained his nickname. He continued the series of successful raids against France throughout the mid 9th century, and fought numerous civil wars in Denmark, until his luck ran out at last in Britain. After being shipwrecked on the English coast during a freak storm, he was captured by Anglian king Ælla of Northumbria and put to death in an infamous manner by being thrown into a pit of vipers."

What is not in dispute is the invasion of the Danes in 865 CE, by the presumed sons of Ragnar; Ivar the Boneless, Ubbe Ragnarsson, and Halfdan Ragnarsson who led an invasion against the East Anglians around the modern City of York and were successful at putting the area under the rule of the Danelaw for several decades.

The Danes carried with them the Raven Banner and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the following for the year 878; 

"And in the winter of this same year the brother of Ivar and Halfdan landed in Wessex, in Devonshire, with 23 ships, and there was he slain, and 800 men with him, and 40 of his army. There also was taken the war-flag (guðfani), which they called "Raven".

A depiction of the Raven Banner on the famed Bayeux Tapestry

While trying to research some non-fiction works on the Danish Invasion and the event leading to the Conquest I was recommended by some kind folks on my Facebook History Pages to check out Bernard Cornwell's, The Saxon Series. I read the first book The Last Kingdom and was very impressed. The story is essentially that of a young English nobleman captured and later feted by the Danes for his valor. He then has to choose between his life with the Danes, who he has come to love and admire and his old life among the English. The book has as minor characters the sons of Ragnar Lothbrok, and chronicles the rise of a young King Alfred the Great. 

I am looking forward to reading the rest of the series, as well as expanding my book collection to include more pre-Conquest history. 

Elizabeth Bathory, Blood Countess or Super Freak?

Elizabeth Bathory has been of interest to me since I saw an episode of  "In search of....." on a Saturday morning at some point in the late '70's early '80's. I like many others just got creeped out by the introductory music for the series:  

                       

At this point I am not even certain the Countess got her own episode. I think her story may have been linked to that of the ''real'' basis for Dracula, the Wallachian Prince, Vlad Tepes. I remember the ever creepy Leonard Nimoy visiting a hall of portraits  resplendent  with pictures of Elizabeth, Vlad, and a couple of unfortunate children with fur covering their faces. I digress.....

The information regarding Elizabeth (Erzsebet) Bathory is somewhat scanty. The Encyclopedia Britannica offers the following entry regarding her life and supposed criminal activities written by Richard Pallardy:

"Elizabeth Báthory, Hungarian Erzsébet Báthory   (born Aug. 7, 1560, Nyírbátor, Hung.—found dead Aug. 21, 1614, Castle C̆achtice, C̆achtice, Hung. [now in Slovakia]), Hungarian countess who purportedly tortured and murdered hundreds of young women in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Báthory was born into prominent Protestant nobility in Hungary. Her family controlled Transylvania, and her uncle, Stephen Báthory, was king of Poland. She was raised at the family castle in Ecséd, Hung. In 1575 Báthory married Count Ferencz Nádasdy, a member of another powerful Hungarian family, and subsequently moved to Castle C̆achtice, a wedding gift from the Nádasdy family. From 1585 to 1595, Báthory bore four children.

After Nádasdy’s death in 1604, rumours of Báthory’s cruelty began to surface. Though previous accounts of the murder of peasant women had apparently been ignored, the claims in 1609 that she had slain women from noble families attracted attention. Her cousin, György Thurzó, count palatine of Hungary, was ordered by Matthias, then king of Hungary, to investigate. The count palatine determined, after taking depositions from people living in the area surrounding her estate, that Báthory had tortured and killed more than 600 girls with the assistance of her servants. On Dec. 30, 1609, Báthory and her servants were arrested. The servants were put on trial in 1611, and three were executed. Although never tried, Báthory was confined to her chambers at Castle C̆achtice. She remained there until she died.

While documents from Báthory’s trial supported the accusations made against her, modern scholarship has questioned the veracity of the allegations. Báthory was a powerful woman, made more so by her control of Nádasdy’s holdings after his death. The fact that a large debt owed by Matthias to Báthory was canceled by her family in exchange for permitting them to manage her captivity suggests that the acts attributed to her were politically motivated slander that allowed relatives to appropriate her lands. 
Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. "Elizabeth Bathory", accessed June 12, 2013,http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1489418/Elizabeth-Bathory.

Recently a lot of novelizations, movies and documentations concerning Elizabeth have been released. Here is an example from the British Docementary Series on Lady Killers.

                    

I have been reading a novel based on dual timelines on concerning a 20th century descendant of Elizabeth Bathory who had fled the communist ruled Hungary in the 1950's and is living in 1980's New York City, and a timeline dealing with the life and crimes of his ancestress the Blood Countess.........   The Blood Countess by Andrei Codrescu

So far the novel has held my interest. It includes a lot of sex, debauchery, and torture....Great for the 40 year Goth Lady! I am looking forward to finishing it.

In doing the research for this post I ran into all kinds of references to Elizabeth everything from Black Metal Bands, to apologetic accounts of her life. There are numerous books about her most are fictional, and maybe a few have landed in the ever-growing Amazon cart. 

She should have kept them closed, or conversely stayed on vacation.

Earlier this year I read the Belinda Carlisle biography. Click here for the book.  This was my response.

I love the Go-Go's, who doesn't? I also love punk rock and reading about both the participants in the subculture and about the art and music it spawned. Although I realized that Belinda Carlisle left her punk rock roots many decades ago I kind of hoped she would have kept some of that punk rock credibility and honesty. This memoir is about Belinda and her decades long dance with cocaine and excess. She lied, scammed, cheated, and was a downright shitty human. Her child was always a secondary consideration in the book, as was her husband. Her pronouncements that the relationship, ''while unconventional'', works for them got to be really old. The book was interesting for the first third maybe, and then ceased to hold my attention. I wanted to finish as quickly as possible.

Issues I had that could have been addressed were manifold. The thing that perplexed me the most was the lack of detail she paid to any relationships other than the one she had with cocaine. How about how she really felt about the fellow members of the Go-Go's, how they grew from girls to women, her family of origin.....did she never interact with them after she became famous, her biological dad....did she talk to him again ever?

Instead I got lunches with Deepak Chopra, let's buy Prada, move to the south of France, wash our dirty feet in five star hotels in India.........

I love music and biography in general. In this case I wish I knew less of Belinda, or maybe it's that I want to know more about her feelings; not a glossy, I was an addict pity party commentary. I think these people who life seems to hand out the golden ticket to, always seem to wallow in the dirt of their own making. We all had shitty childhoods to some extent, you went on to make millions and snort cocaine, and all the others work in factories making plastic key-chains listening to your albums maybe hoping to have one small weekend getaway to some fantastical place you visit on a regular basis. If you are handed a golden ticket don't waste it. Belinda, unfortunately seems to have wasted hers to some extent.

Where is the Vampire Lestat when you need him?

My first foray into the world of modern Young Adult Fiction was much the same as most other 30 something women at the dawn of the 21st century, through the loved/dreaded Twilight series. I was repulsed by the character of Bella Swan, yet I read all 4 of the damned novels. I liked them enough to try to read another series The Vampire Diaries. (I small confession here; I watched the first episode of the Television Adaptation and was taken in...I blame the presence of Ian Sumerhalder.) I made it through the first book, which was actually a double threat featuring books 1 & 2 of the series. It was the absolute worst thing I have ever read. I barely made it through. I willed myself to finish. After that experience I was a little afraid to read another YA title.

I somehow managed to give Beautiful Creatures a try. I'm about 65% in. I confess that I really liked the book at first. I liked it a little less the more I read, but I began liking it again last night. I am fickle like that. Much more mercurial than I would like to be.

Essentially I don't care about the world of YA fiction, and I am perplexed why some women prefer to read this genre. I guess I don't crave the teenage riot anymore. The adult world is an interesting place, even if it slightly less populated with supernatural creatures. Although let me introduce you to Lestat; he's a much more mature vampire, and he doesn't sparkle annoyingly.

Maybe it is because my 40th birthday is fast approaching, but I think I'll leave the YA novels for the YA's of the world. Interestingly enough as a YA myself I remember reading The Stand, Interview With A Vampire, Rosemary's Baby, and Harvest Home. Back in the day it was just called horror and there was no age designation. The quality of the work seemed better, and while maybe I wasn't protected from the vileness of profanity and the evilness of teenage sex in the written form, I survived.