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sutcliff_spaceThere's some interesting background on The Shield Ring and The Eagle of the Ninth in this piece from British Children's Authors: Interviews at Home by Cornelia Jones and Olivia R. Way, which you can read here on Internet Archive. It looks like an essay at first glance, as the interviewers have not included most of their own side of the conversation.
The book mentioned as an inspiration for The Shield Ring is perhaps by Nicholas Size, in what I think a plausible guess by a commenter on the official blog. (I say "guess" because I don't know her source. If you do, tell us!) We will learn from a later essay it was non-fiction, not a novel. I.e. if Size was indeed the author, The Epic of Buttermere not The Secret Valley. Anyone familiar with either?
BRITISH CHILDREN'S AUTHORS: INTERVIEWS AT HOME
Born in 1920 in England, Rosemary Sutcliff moved frequently in her early years. Her father was a naval officer, and she and her mother changed homes as often as he was transferred.
When she was two she became ill, and as a result had to spend a number of years in bed. Because this made formal education difficult, she studied at home with her mother and was read to extensively. Among the books read to her were those of Rudyard Kipling and Kenneth Grahame, and these have had a lasting influence.
She began school when she was nine, left at fourteen, and from then on educated herself. Her schooling was not completely over, however, for she attended the Bideford School of Art and became an accomplished painter of miniatures. Her work has been exhibited at the Royal Academy, and she is a member of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters.
Miss Sutcliff began to write when she was twenty-five, and from 1950, when her first children’s book was published, she devoted herself exclusively to writing.
She lives in the village of Walberton on the Sussex Downs in a house secluded behind a high wall. The wall is misleading, however, for there is nothing secluded about Rosemary Sutcliff’s life. Though her illness left her with impaired mobility, it did not impair her zest for living. Her study is the hub of the household and it is here that she welcomes visitors, watched over by her two dogs, a dignified golden Labrador and an impetuous long-haired Chihuahua. Despite the flow of life through this room, she manages to work here, too, researching and writing the historical novels which have made her famous.
Interview
Writing historical fiction is one of those things that happened, I suppose, because I had so much read to me when I was small. I don’t always enjoy writing. It’s too much like hard work. But I have no wish to write modern books. I don’t think I could write modern books. To me half the fun of writing a book is the research entailed. I love trying to piece together historical background and to catch the right smell of the period. Every period has very much its own whole difference in smell, and the whole atmosphere changes a little bit every few years in history. It’s a fascinating exercise to try to catch this difference.
Usually I prepare myself by getting a great many books together from the county library. This acts like a snowball. Every book has a bibliography and I get a great many more books from each bibliography. I just go on until I am completely embedded in the period and place that I’m writing about. Generally the plot comes from the historical background, not the other way around. The two things gradually move together in my mind as I get the research further, so that the plot grows with it, if plot it can be called––I’m not very good at plots. They just grow fairly naturally, side by side.
I suppose I’ve always had a particular interest in the time of the Roman occupation of Britain. I was brought up on Rudyard Kipling’s Puck of Pook’s Hill, notably the three Roman stories. They seemed to me quite marvellous. At that time I didn’t really understand what they were about and didn’t know what the Roman empire was, but I loved them and they had a sort of magic for me. I think for this reason when I started to write my own books, they automatically gravitated towards Roman Britain.
These people were Celts, and the Celt is very different from the Roman. Romans are very like the modern Anglo-Saxon in some ways. They are very down-to-earth, straightforward people who think in straight lines. The Celt is the chap who has the imagination and who thinks in curves. He takes right off––he takes both feet off the ground at once and takes off into the blue. I think that the basic difference is that the Celts were at a very much earlier state of civilization. They were tribesmen and they worshipped much more primitive gods. They had much more faith in magic and ritual and the dark sort of secret side of things than the Romans had. So neither of them could understand the other at all.
I keep a little red exercise book with notes and get a new one each time I’m writing a book. In this I write down all that I’m going to write about the characters, real and imaginary. I gradually think these people out, what their personal appearance is going to be, any kind of odd tricks and habits and likes and dislikes that they’ve got, their backgrounds, anything I can think of that makes them into real people, so that if one walked around behind them they would have a back view as well as a front view. By the time I’ve got all this locked together, they’ve become kind of acquaintances. As I write about them, I get to know them better. By the time I’ve finished a book, our acquaintance has ripened and I know them as one knows a person whom you’ve known through the years and got to know very well. If I make them do something out of character, I know instantly: “But that isn’t how Marcus would react to the particular circumstance. There’s a wrong tone here somewhere. It’s got to be put right. He wouldn’t have said that––it’s not in his character.” I know it as I would know it about a person that I knew well, but it’s something that happens of its own accord.
It just always happens like that. I think I’ve got where I can understand boys better than I do girls. I did once try to write one in which a girl was the main character––that was The Shield Ring. Then, of course, even in that it switched from the girl to the boy.
The Shield Ring began because friends were spring cleaning. In getting things out of their attic, they dug out a little paperback book that somebody had written twenty or thirty years ago about a sort of Norse pocket, a settlement of Norsemen in the Lake District in Norman times. It told about the tremendous resistance these Norsemen put up to the Norman invasion. This fascinated me. I was halfway through another book at the time. But this other idea fascinated me so much that the other book went dead on me and I had to drop it and start this one. It’s a kind of subject which is really a readymade book in itself: a small enclosed sea of action like this, an enclosed society, and a kind of rearguard action as well. I always like rearguard actions––they make good story material. They story just grew from that. I was able to get a lot of books about the north country which helped me greatly. Sometimes you find certain parts of the country are not well documented, and it is much more difficult to catch the atmosphere of the countryside. But the Lake District of England was very well documented. There were lots of books that evoked the countryside and the sights and sounds and smells vividly. So I was able to get very deeply into it and I enjoyed writing it.
I think The Eagle of the Ninth is my favourite among my books. I think and hope that I have written better books since, but you know you don’t love people for their brilliance or anything of this sort. The Eagle of the Ninth has always been my favourite and probably always will be. I think I’m so fond of it because when I wrote it I was going into the hospital to have an operation. I’d had quite a lot before but they’d been a long time before and I was out of practice. You can get out of practice with operations. I was scared stiff and wanted, really, someone to keep me company. I created Marcus and had him for a companion. I’ve always felt rather special towards him, as though he was a friend who’s been with me in a tough corner.
History is a continuous process. You know, in history books, history has been chopped up into little static pictures. But it isn’t like that. It’s a continuous process, like a tree growing or a river. I think it’s important to children today because it’s how we got to be where we are now. You can’t properly understand where you are now if you don’t know how you grew to be there––what your roots are, where you came from. Because we’re still part of history. It’s not complete unless you see what’s behind you.
The book mentioned as an inspiration for The Shield Ring is perhaps by Nicholas Size, in what I think a plausible guess by a commenter on the official blog. (I say "guess" because I don't know her source. If you do, tell us!) We will learn from a later essay it was non-fiction, not a novel. I.e. if Size was indeed the author, The Epic of Buttermere not The Secret Valley. Anyone familiar with either?
BRITISH CHILDREN'S AUTHORS: INTERVIEWS AT HOME
Born in 1920 in England, Rosemary Sutcliff moved frequently in her early years. Her father was a naval officer, and she and her mother changed homes as often as he was transferred.
When she was two she became ill, and as a result had to spend a number of years in bed. Because this made formal education difficult, she studied at home with her mother and was read to extensively. Among the books read to her were those of Rudyard Kipling and Kenneth Grahame, and these have had a lasting influence.
She began school when she was nine, left at fourteen, and from then on educated herself. Her schooling was not completely over, however, for she attended the Bideford School of Art and became an accomplished painter of miniatures. Her work has been exhibited at the Royal Academy, and she is a member of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters.
Miss Sutcliff began to write when she was twenty-five, and from 1950, when her first children’s book was published, she devoted herself exclusively to writing.
She lives in the village of Walberton on the Sussex Downs in a house secluded behind a high wall. The wall is misleading, however, for there is nothing secluded about Rosemary Sutcliff’s life. Though her illness left her with impaired mobility, it did not impair her zest for living. Her study is the hub of the household and it is here that she welcomes visitors, watched over by her two dogs, a dignified golden Labrador and an impetuous long-haired Chihuahua. Despite the flow of life through this room, she manages to work here, too, researching and writing the historical novels which have made her famous.
Interview
Writing historical fiction is one of those things that happened, I suppose, because I had so much read to me when I was small. I don’t always enjoy writing. It’s too much like hard work. But I have no wish to write modern books. I don’t think I could write modern books. To me half the fun of writing a book is the research entailed. I love trying to piece together historical background and to catch the right smell of the period. Every period has very much its own whole difference in smell, and the whole atmosphere changes a little bit every few years in history. It’s a fascinating exercise to try to catch this difference.
Usually I prepare myself by getting a great many books together from the county library. This acts like a snowball. Every book has a bibliography and I get a great many more books from each bibliography. I just go on until I am completely embedded in the period and place that I’m writing about. Generally the plot comes from the historical background, not the other way around. The two things gradually move together in my mind as I get the research further, so that the plot grows with it, if plot it can be called––I’m not very good at plots. They just grow fairly naturally, side by side.
I suppose I’ve always had a particular interest in the time of the Roman occupation of Britain. I was brought up on Rudyard Kipling’s Puck of Pook’s Hill, notably the three Roman stories. They seemed to me quite marvellous. At that time I didn’t really understand what they were about and didn’t know what the Roman empire was, but I loved them and they had a sort of magic for me. I think for this reason when I started to write my own books, they automatically gravitated towards Roman Britain.
Two of the Roman Britain stories are The Eagle of the Ninth and The Mark of the Horse Lord. In each of them the hero becomes involved in the superstitions and tribal practices of the primitive people of what is now northern Scotland. As Marcus and Phaedrus discovered, life beyond Hadrian’s Wall was very different from that of Roman Britain.
These people were Celts, and the Celt is very different from the Roman. Romans are very like the modern Anglo-Saxon in some ways. They are very down-to-earth, straightforward people who think in straight lines. The Celt is the chap who has the imagination and who thinks in curves. He takes right off––he takes both feet off the ground at once and takes off into the blue. I think that the basic difference is that the Celts were at a very much earlier state of civilization. They were tribesmen and they worshipped much more primitive gods. They had much more faith in magic and ritual and the dark sort of secret side of things than the Romans had. So neither of them could understand the other at all.
I keep a little red exercise book with notes and get a new one each time I’m writing a book. In this I write down all that I’m going to write about the characters, real and imaginary. I gradually think these people out, what their personal appearance is going to be, any kind of odd tricks and habits and likes and dislikes that they’ve got, their backgrounds, anything I can think of that makes them into real people, so that if one walked around behind them they would have a back view as well as a front view. By the time I’ve got all this locked together, they’ve become kind of acquaintances. As I write about them, I get to know them better. By the time I’ve finished a book, our acquaintance has ripened and I know them as one knows a person whom you’ve known through the years and got to know very well. If I make them do something out of character, I know instantly: “But that isn’t how Marcus would react to the particular circumstance. There’s a wrong tone here somewhere. It’s got to be put right. He wouldn’t have said that––it’s not in his character.” I know it as I would know it about a person that I knew well, but it’s something that happens of its own accord.
Marcus, Phaedrus, Beric, Drem, Randal, Owain––all the main characters are boys. There are often girls in the stories and they are strongly portrayed, but they act as minor characters.
It just always happens like that. I think I’ve got where I can understand boys better than I do girls. I did once try to write one in which a girl was the main character––that was The Shield Ring. Then, of course, even in that it switched from the girl to the boy.
The Shield Ring began because friends were spring cleaning. In getting things out of their attic, they dug out a little paperback book that somebody had written twenty or thirty years ago about a sort of Norse pocket, a settlement of Norsemen in the Lake District in Norman times. It told about the tremendous resistance these Norsemen put up to the Norman invasion. This fascinated me. I was halfway through another book at the time. But this other idea fascinated me so much that the other book went dead on me and I had to drop it and start this one. It’s a kind of subject which is really a readymade book in itself: a small enclosed sea of action like this, an enclosed society, and a kind of rearguard action as well. I always like rearguard actions––they make good story material. They story just grew from that. I was able to get a lot of books about the north country which helped me greatly. Sometimes you find certain parts of the country are not well documented, and it is much more difficult to catch the atmosphere of the countryside. But the Lake District of England was very well documented. There were lots of books that evoked the countryside and the sights and sounds and smells vividly. So I was able to get very deeply into it and I enjoyed writing it.
I think The Eagle of the Ninth is my favourite among my books. I think and hope that I have written better books since, but you know you don’t love people for their brilliance or anything of this sort. The Eagle of the Ninth has always been my favourite and probably always will be. I think I’m so fond of it because when I wrote it I was going into the hospital to have an operation. I’d had quite a lot before but they’d been a long time before and I was out of practice. You can get out of practice with operations. I was scared stiff and wanted, really, someone to keep me company. I created Marcus and had him for a companion. I’ve always felt rather special towards him, as though he was a friend who’s been with me in a tough corner.
History is a continuous process. You know, in history books, history has been chopped up into little static pictures. But it isn’t like that. It’s a continuous process, like a tree growing or a river. I think it’s important to children today because it’s how we got to be where we are now. You can’t properly understand where you are now if you don’t know how you grew to be there––what your roots are, where you came from. Because we’re still part of history. It’s not complete unless you see what’s behind you.
This sense of history speaks clearly to us in Rosemary Sutcliff’s books. In Dawn Wind, we are in the Dark Ages. Owain has spend bitter years as a thrall. But as the story ends, he is aware of himself as a part of history. He can look back and see the last of the light before the dark set in and ahead to the dawn wind stirring: “Deep within him . . . was a sense of change, like the change in the wind at winter’s end.”
no subject
Date: 2020-06-05 05:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-06 02:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-08 07:23 pm (UTC)I also enjoyed the insights into how The Shield Ring came about and hijacked her away from another book. And although it's a favourite book of mine, you can definitely see in the writing how hard she struggles with the point of view, having tried to make Frytha the main character. (I think it's one of the very few books she wrote where we switch focus between characters several times rather than sticking with one character?)
And it's lovely to learn why Marcus and the Eagle of the Ninth were so special to her. As you said above, it's really endearing.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-10 12:31 pm (UTC)I think Shield Ring is the one YA novel with POV shifts, yeah. The only others I can think of are The Rider of the White Horse, The Flowers of Adonis, The Chronicles of Robin Hood (maybe?), The Armourer's House and Brother Dusty-Feet. And some of the retellings, which are a different beast.
I'm so curious what the story that "went dead" on her was. One we have, or one she never finished?