Pat McDermott continues her #YAlit GLIMMER series about Irish fairies

Always a pleasure to welcome back Pat McDermott. If you're intrigued by ancient Ireland and fairies, you do not want to miss her books!

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Blending Folk Tales, Boosting Glimmer

by Pat McDermott

When I started writing my young adult adventure series featuring Ireland’s fairies, I knew that at some point, I’d be dealing with leprechauns. They appeared at last in the third Glimmer book, A Pot of Glimmer. How to describe these famous sprites without making them sound like the run-of-the-mill gremlins on cereal boxes and in tourism ads proved challenging.

A Pot of Glimmer opens in medieval Ireland, 1014 AD, just before the historic Battle of Clontarf in which High King Brian Boru defeated the Vikings. My patriotic commando leprechauns, led by one Awley O’Hay, rob a Dublin mint to provide silver coinage for King Brian’s troops. The theft leaves Steng the Money Master a tad annoyed with Awley.

“Irlander insect! I will hunt you down and find you! I will burn out your thieving eyes and leave your corpse for the crows to devour!”

Awley isn’t worried. How can a mere Norseman capture a leprechaun?

“You and your kind couldn’t catch the plague! King Brian will send yez back where yez came from!”

The unfairness of Awley wielding his magical glimmer while Steng lacked a comparable gift compelled me to even the playing field. My investigation into Viking mythology offered a fabulous way for the money master to take his revenge. From past research, I knew a good deal about Vikings, but I’d never heard of a draugr, an undead creature who leaves its grave at night to feed on men and cattle. Awley finds himself in serious trouble each time the money master-turned-draugr turns up to haunt him. There’s little he can do, however, for draugrs can only be slain by mortals. Yet he’s not without resources. More than once, he’s turned to Becula, a powerful fairy witch, for assistance.

“’Tis fine to see you, ma’am. I find I’m again in need of your help. Your latest Draugr Confinement Spell has kept the essence of Steng beneath the ground for two hundred years. He’d no doubt be there forever, but for the Yank ambassador.”

“The American ambassador? Ambassador Gleason?”

“You know him?”

“I do. His young granddaughter is a friend of mine.” Becula narrowed her eyes. “’Twould displease me if anyone tried to harm her. What’s this all about?”

“The ambassador’s hired diggin’ machines. I don’t know why, but those gizmos are pokin’ too close to the stone we set over Steng’s coffin box. If they disturb it before we can move him to a safer place…”

Awley’s dilemma casts American teen Janet Gleason and her royal friend, Prince Liam Boru, into a web of unthinkable horror. In the first two Glimmer books, Janet and Liam’s budding romance suffers from fairy mischief, but fighting a draugr together takes the cake.

“Are you saying there’s a dead Viking monster buried in my grandfather’s putting green?”

Liam and his royal clan are descendants of High King Brian Boru. Liam’s lineage impresses the leprechauns, yet he has no time for formality: the draugr has kidnapped Janet.

“We have to do something. Draugrs eat mortals, and my friend is a mortal!”

Melding elements of two unique oral traditions entertained me enormously as I wrote. The characters seemed to dictate to me, guiding me through their struggles with danger and romance (leprechauns fall in love too). These classic story ingredients, commonly found in the folklore of every culture, gave the world its first great sagas. May folk tales ever inspire us!

Blurb:

Ireland, 1014 - Leprechaun Awley O’Hay robs a Dublin mint to help King Brian fight the Vikings. The money master’s vengeful ghost troubles Awley for centuries.

Ireland, 2015 - The fairies have not only plagued American teen Janet Gleason since she arrived in Dublin, they’ve also hindered her romance with Prince Liam Boru. When Janet’s grandfather, the American Ambassador, throws a Fourth of July celebration, Liam stops by. Also attending are several uninvited guests whose appearance plunges Liam and Janet into a nightmare they never imagined. Nor did they imagine that real leprechauns are nothing like the “little men” of Irish lore.

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A Pot of Glimmer, Book Three in the Glimmer Series, is available in print and eBook from Amazon.

Learn more about Pat and her books on her website.

Pat McDermott on Fairies and Shanachies

Welcome to the glittering, glimmering, mischievous world of Pat McDermott. Her YA novels about ancient Ireland are part contemporary, part historical, and part magical, and she's not telling how much of each is in the mix!

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Storytelling for Actors and Monsters

Aspiring actress Janet Gleason, the teenage heroine of my young adult books, Glancing Through the Glimmer and Autumn Glimmer, has lived in Dublin since her grandfather became the U.S. Ambassador to Ireland. At first, she hated Dublin. (She really hated being kidnapped by the King of the Fairies, but that’s the first book.) In Autumn Glimmer, Janet has settled into her new Irish school. She loves the Drama Club, and she’s learned a lot about acting. She’ll soon pick up some fabulous new techniques.

To celebrate Halloween, Janet and her grandparents visit Ireland’s royal family (hint - she likes Prince Liam). Cousin Fintan, an elderly shanachie, is also visiting to entertain everyone.

A shanachie (from the Irish seanchaí) is a traditional Irish storyteller. The ancient Celts wrote nothing down. They entrusted their laws and legends to the minds of brehons, poets, and shanachies. The shanachies told hundreds of tales from memory. And, as Janet is going to learn, some of those tales were inspired by real events.

Janet’s theatrical eye noted the arrangement of chairs before the hearth. The rough half-circle they formed gave everyone an unobstructed view of Cousin Fintan, perched on a stool beside the fireplace. His right hand held his blackthorn stick like a pole in a subway train.

He laid the blackthorn across his knees. Like a safecracker coaxing a bank vault open, he ran the tips of his long white fingers over the knobby wood. Twisting the stick toward him, he deftly reeled his audience into the story world he summoned.

“I’ll tell ye a story to shorten the night. Ye’ll scarcely believe a word I say, for I’m going back on old times, to the days when the Good People made the rounds more than they do now.”

Fintan had no idea that the Good People were making the rounds that night. In fact, two were outside the open window, listening. Janet listened too, fascinated by Fintan’s tales. He painted pictures in her head no stage set could ever match.

“Long before the great ice came, giant creatures lived in Ireland. They foraged and fought and ate each other, and no man ever saw them. The ice killed all but the swimmers among them, monsters who slumbered in caves beneath the lakes until the glaciers disappeared.

“New animals came to Ireland. Men came too, and the hungry monsters leapt from the lakes and devoured them all. The heroes among the men fought back.”

Fintan told the story of Gann of the Glen, a hero who helped the fairies in the lake get rid of a hungry monster.

“Gann drew his weapons. The battle fury rose in him.” The blackthorn whooshed through the air as Fintan, shouting now, mimicked Gann’s swordsmanship. “With a mighty cry, he raised his sword and cut off the Crogall’s head. This he hurled away, spattering the shore with its blood. To this day, the rocks on the shores of the pond are red, and the Crogall’s bones became the jagged stones on the northern bank.”

The fairies outside the window recalled a different version. The correct version. One that Janet is going to find out all about…

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Pat’s Website: http://patmcdermott.net/

Autumn Glimmer - E-book available from MuseItUp Publishing, Amazon Kindle, and Nook

Glancing Through the Glimmer  - Available Now in Print!

Kate Wolford on Writing Fairy Tales

My guest today is Kate Wolford, best known to many of you as the editor of Enchanted Conversation. In Kate's eyes, her new book of fairy tales is as much education as it is entertainment. She explains:

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For Writers and Others

Beyond the Glass Slipper  (BTGS) was written for fairy tale fans and students and book clubs and teachers—all kinds of readers. But it was also written for writers. As editor of Enchanted Conversation: A Fairy Tale Magazine, I receive numerous entries for each monthly writing contest.

I enjoy reading the submissions, but I included a set of questions that writers could use in each of the fairy tale comments in the book, because I tend to see the same kind of entries month after month. There are 10 stories in BTGS, and each has some questions about front stories, back stories, and lesser character stories. Wanting to give would-be fairy-tale rewriters some encouragement and ideas was a major impetus behind BTGS.

In other words, I am often looking for fresh ways of writing fairy tales--and writing fairy tales does not always mean rewriting them. I often publish fairy tale stories and poems that are inspired by classic tales but are new otherwise.

Also, one of the many reasons I chose to publish a collection of lesser-known fairy tales is that as great as “Snow White” and “Beauty and the Beast” and all the other usual suspects are, they are but a fraction of the tales that are out there. After five years of publishing fairy tales and fairy-tale poems, I am looking for writers to go beyond the obvious.

That’s one of the reasons why you’ll find a vampire story in BTGS, and a ghost story. There’s a pig who marries a woman in this book, but he doesn’t become a human prince for awhile afterward. There’s a story about two toys that have a kind of(?) romance, but the tale is clearly about social class.

I suppose I want writers to get beyond the Disney stranglehold that still seems to immobilize us culturally when it comes to fairy tales. Of course, I like “Sleeping Beauty” and “The Little Mermaid,” both as stories (in the original) and as movies. But the world of inspiration to be found in fairy tales contains multitudes. I want writers to be thrilled by and moved to write by something that is not widely known.

BTGS is at least as much for writers as it is for any other group. And not just writers who would like to be published in Enchanted Conversation. The ideas throughout the book, in every section, are meant to fire the imagination, and who know what might result?

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Beyond the Glass Slipper can be purchased at Amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com. The paperback and Kindle edition are both available at Amazon.

Enchanted Conversation can be found at fairytalemagazine.com.