Interview with Jules Watson, author of Song of the North, part II

Jules Watson, author of the critically acclaimed Song of the North, answers some more fan questions about the book and her characters.

Overlook: Your heroines are all drawn to the the spiritual realms of Celtic life, as priestesses, healers, and seers. Why was this important to you?

Jules Watson: The Celts placed religion and spiritual belief at the very heart of their
culture, with a great reverence for nature. From what they left behind, it
seems they considered that everything was imbued with spirit, that rituals
made even the mundane sacred so that all of life had meaning. I have been
drawn to them because that connection to nature is something I long for, and
the questions my characters ask are my questions, about our relationships to
the earth, to the gods, to our own souls, and to each other.

I am an utter romantic though, so I wanted to explore those things in the
context of a sweeping tale of adventure, peril, love, loss and all the
emotional depths that keep us as readers gripped to the page, and hopefully
shedding some tears.

Overlook: During the course of your historical/archeological research of the Dalriadans during this period, what have been the most fascinating pieces you've come across? Have you learned anything about the period that truly shocked or surprised you?

Jules Watson: There were many times that I felt instinctively about something in the
books and then later found out this fitted in with an existing fact, myth or story. For example, in my books there is a sacred island of priestesses off the west coast of Scotland, and since I had been to the great stone circle at Callanish on the Isle of Lewis I decided to set the priestess retreat there. I found out years later that an ancient writer said a Greek traveler had indeed come across a "sacred island" off the west coast of Scotland - which gave me quite a shock!

It also intrigues me how there are so few remains left of Scottish houses, settlements, and roads, which could make you think the peoples in Scotland at this time lived in a very primitive way, and yet one thing that does survive is their metalwork - incredibly ornate armbands set with enamel, and twisted gold and silver torcs, and incised swords and pommels and intricate
cauldrons and jug handles. Everything - even the tinest part of a horse bridle - boasts a craftsmanship that we can rarely match even today. Seeing how much effort and skill they put into their metalwork, I always think a trifle wistfully about all the other artefacts which must have been just as lavish, ornate and beautiful but which didn't survive the years - their wall
hangings, cushions and rugs, their clothes, their carved woodwork and paintings. And if they made such things, what did they think? We know the druids and their predecessors in earlier ages tracked the movements of stars, eclipses, seasons and cycles. How complex must their religious beliefs really have been? These were not simple savages living in crude huts
but highly sophisticated people.