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Synopsis
Wessex Tales Volume 1
▪ WELCOME TO A WORLD in which stories of folklore, adventure, history and historical fiction trace eight thousand years in village life. "Wessex Tales Volume 1" -- this book -- brings you 20 short stories. "Wessex Tales Volume 2" will bring you another 20.
THE PLACE WHERE the road crossed the river "was once a busy centre on the most important road in the Kingdom". Evidence of struggles to control this crossing is still carved into the land. Ramparts of Iron Age hill forts "more important than any others in Wessex" lour over the valley. Three rings of ditch and bank defences etch the crowns of chalk hills. Trails off the Wessex Ridgeway connect them all.
"WESSEX TALES VOLUME 1" sets 20 tales of historical fiction here, where villages now stand. Our tales span nearly eight thousand years, from the Stone Age to the aftermath of the First World War.
OUR LAND IS MYSTICAL, magical, sometimes brutal--historical fiction that's always down-to-earth. Men and women toil, poach game, reap crops and venture as archers, soldiers, carters, smugglers. Press-ganged labourers dig ramparts for hill forts, or haul stones for Stonehenge.
PRIESTS, SHAMANS, BARDS, adventurers and poets; shepherds, cottars, old wives' cures and shifting fortunes weave their ways through "Wessex Tales".
OUR TALES ARE DRAWN in historical fiction. However, some are set in the village that, in fact, not fiction, sent a higher proportion of its young men to the early months of the First World War than any other village in the United Kingdom. A century later, the stories of "Wessex Tales" are dedicated to those who bravely left their villages, never to return.
SEVERAL THOUSAND YEARS AGO a trail led inland from a landing place on England's Channel coast. Trending northeast across the county of Dorset, this track travelled into country farmed by a community that would one day build Stonehenge.
FOR MUCH OF ITS ROUTE this trail--the Wessex Ridgeway--kept to the ridges of hills, but at one point the Ridgeway came down to cross Dorset's River Stour before climbing into hills again.
FOR MUCH OF ITS ROUTE this trail--the Wessex Ridgeway--kept to the ridges of hills, but at one point the Ridgeway came down to cross Dorset's River Stour before climbing into hills again.
THE PLACE WHERE the road crossed the river "was once a busy centre on the most important road in the Kingdom". Evidence of struggles to control this crossing is still carved into the land. Ramparts of Iron Age hill forts "more important than any others in Wessex" lour over the valley. Three rings of ditch and bank defences etch the crowns of chalk hills. Trails off the Wessex Ridgeway connect them all.
"WESSEX TALES VOLUME 1" sets 20 tales of historical fiction here, where villages now stand. Our tales span nearly eight thousand years, from the Stone Age to the aftermath of the First World War.
OUR LAND IS MYSTICAL, magical, sometimes brutal--historical fiction that's always down-to-earth. Men and women toil, poach game, reap crops and venture as archers, soldiers, carters, smugglers. Press-ganged labourers dig ramparts for hill forts, or haul stones for Stonehenge.
PRIESTS, SHAMANS, BARDS, adventurers and poets; shepherds, cottars, old wives' cures and shifting fortunes weave their ways through "Wessex Tales".
OUR TALES ARE DRAWN in historical fiction. However, some are set in the village that, in fact, not fiction, sent a higher proportion of its young men to the early months of the First World War than any other village in the United Kingdom. A century later, the stories of "Wessex Tales" are dedicated to those who bravely left their villages, never to return.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
Robert Fripp (a.k.a. Robert S. P. Fripp): Portsmouth, U.K. was not the best place to be born in 1943. There was a war on. As an infant I spent much time in my grandparents' bomb shelter where my nanny, Kate Bryan, sang Welsh hymns to drown the din of sirens and ack-ack. Those Welsh hymns gave me a musical start: at the age of eight I won a choral scholarship into the choir of Salisbury Cathedral. Five years there gave me a gothic and Taoist persona, and a great education. Next, Canford School in Wimborne, Dorset.
In 1965, Carol Burtin married me in her hometown, Stony Point, N.Y. Next, I produced programs for CBC-TV in Toronto and spent a decade as the series producer of CBC-TV's flagship public affairs series, 'the fifth estate'. Later I set up and managed 'IBM Visions' magazine on high-performance computing, for IBM. Japanese public broadcaster NHK retained me to re-edit and re-voice Japanese science and wildlife films: NHK needed better competitive products for English-language markets.
My books? Eleanor of Aquitaine dictates her life's memoirs in 'Power of a Woman'. On the other hand, studying natural sciences at the University of Bristol helps me write about science for clients.
In the 1980s I crafted a tragedy, 'Dark Sovereign', in English as it was available to Shakespeare and his contemporaries. 'Dark Sovereign' is absolutely true to the English of 1626. It beats Hamlet to become the longest play written in Renaissance English.
RobertFripp.ca , offers more, as well as writing samples; and LinkedIn.com tells more than you want to know about 'Robert S.P. Fripp'. My Twitter ID is @RSPFripp.
'Wessex Tales' will soon land on my 'Author Page'. 'Wessex Tales' covers 'Eight thousand years in the life of an English village' in 40 short stories. Paste this Search Term, "Smashwords Wessex Tales", and the Internet will present you with nine of my stories. Read them. No charge.
Reader, may the Fates be kind to you and yours.
From the Back Cover
▪ EACH YEAR, A SMALL ENGLISH COUNTY welcomes a million visitors. Do they come to breathe its history? Its mysteries? Its mysticism? Dorset's sense of place captivates visitors as well as those who know it well.
▪ THE 'DOR' IN DORSET may derive from the steady stream of migrants in pre-history landing from leather-hulled boats on England's front door, the Dorset coast. Those migrants created the Wessex Ridgeway, a 6,000-year-old trail which still runs inland across Dorset from the coast. People's feet trod out this trail. Then their hands dug and ditched defensive camps and massive forts around the brows of soft chalk hills. Much later their descendants built Stonehenge.
▪ THESE 40 NEW Wessex Tales stories lead us from the Stone Age to the Second World War. We encouner Viking raiders, a medieval wedding, a heroic priest, shamans, a 12th century troubadour lost in dark woods, and the tale of an oak tree's life. Laborers hoist the last lintel onto Stonehenge.Their first sight of bronze strikes fear into Stone Age villagers. A young smuggler leads his pack-train by night, and a soldier from Dorset advances in the second Battle of the Somme.
▪ OUR CHARACTERS toil, poach game, reap crops, and venture as soldiers, carters, lovers and farmers, as life perseveres in Wessex Tales through eight thousand years.
▪ DORSET IS MAGICAL and mystical, but also down-to-earth. You are visiting our forebears and our county here, in these new Wessex Tales.
From the Inside Flap
▪ STORIES FROM HISTORY, ADVENTURE AND FOLKLORE transport readers into "eight thousand years in the life of an English village". Many of these short stories are set in Dorset (Wessex), reflecting historical events in historical fiction. Time passes. From Stone Age hunters we move on to Viking raids, a twelfth century bard lost in dark woods, a medieval wedding, and the history of an ancient tree. Stone Age villagers get their first, frightened sight of a Bronze Age axe while their shaman tries to explain the nature of this very different 'stone'. A work crew lifts the last stone on Stonehenge. A young smuggler leads pack-ponies cross country by night to evade army patrols. And a young soldier advances at the Battle of the Somme.
▪ HISTORIANS OF THE DARK AGES call the year 871 "The Year of Nine Battles". The main Viking army, the mikel here, attacked the southern counties' defenders over and over that year. They were trying to break through the Britons' lines to reach their supply-fleet waiting in Poole Harbour. Did they succeed?
▪ OUR STORY, "From the Wrath of the Norsemen", finds Wessex levies conscripted into King Ethelred's army. Ethelred, wounded at Wilton, dies at Wimborne, and his young brother, King Alfred, takes the throne. In historical fiction -- as in historical fact -- King Alfred and the Wessex levies hold back the Viking advance a few miles west of modern Salisbury.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
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WESSEX TALES: Eight Thousand Years in the Life of an English Village - Volume 1 of 2
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