May 1, 1721 - Jamie is born (OUTLANDISH COMPANION)
May, 1744 - Fergus is branded by Jack Randall; Jamie duels with Randall, wounding him in the groin; Claire miscarries Faith and nearly dies from childbed fever (DRAGONFLY)
May 16, 1753 - Jamie arrives at Ardsmuir prison (VOYAGER)
May, 1757 - Geneva Dunsany blackmails Jamie into sleeping with her (VOYAGER)
May, 1758 - Lord John surprises Percy and Lieutenant Weber in a very compromising situation (BOTB)
May, 1770 - Jemmy is born (DRUMS)
May, 1771 - Roger is hanged and nearly dies (FIERY CROSS)
May, 1775 - Malva Christie falsely accuses Jamie of getting her pregnant (ABOSAA)
May 3, 1777 - Jamie dreams of Jem and Mandy in the broch (ECHO)
Mid-May, 1777 - Jamie, Claire, and young Ian encounter pirates on the high seas (ECHO)
May, 1778 - Lord John marries Claire to keep her from arrest as a spy; Jamie is presumed dead in a shipwreck; Lord John and Claire have sex (ECHO)
May 18, 1778 - Claire and Lord John attend the Mischianza (ECHO)
May 1, 1945 - Claire travels back in time to the 18th century (OUTLANDER)
May, 1948 - Newspaper accounts and Rev. Wakefield's journal document Claire's return from the 18th century (DRAGONFLY)
May 1, 1968 - Gillian Edgars (aka Geillis Duncan) kills her husband at Craigh na Dun and travels back in time to the 18th century (DRAGONFLY)
May 1, 1971 - Brianna goes back in time to the 18th century (DRUMS)
Are you fascinated by the details of 18th-century life that Diana Gabaldon describes in her books? Have you ever wondered what it would be like to travel back in time and live the way the people at Lallybroch or on Fraser's Ridge would have lived?
Challenged to prove her claim that an 18th-century diet was better than today's, for a full year Fiona J. Houston recreated the lifestyle of her 1790s rural Scottish ancestors in a basic one-roomed cottage, cooking from her garden and the wild, often entertaining family and friends, and surviving on her own resources. She learned lost crafts and skills, making nettle string, quill pens and ink as well as cheese and ale, lighting her fire from flints, and dressing in hand-sewn period clothing, with nothing but an old range stove and candles for warmth and light. This beautiful, quirky, illustrated title tells her extraordinary story and is packed with historical anecdotes, folklore, practical gardening info, seasonal menus, recipes, wildlife notes and more. Includes linocuts, photos and historic engravings.
If you've ever wondered how people coped with the mundane tasks of daily life in the 18th century, you'll find it in this book. Everything from doing the laundry, to making candles, to the best method for airing out a wool-stuffed mattress, to cooking bannocks on a girdle over the fire, and much, much more!
Houston handles the challenges of 18th-century life very well, for the most part, though she occasionally "cheats", taking advantage of modern forms of transportation to visit family or friends elsewhere in the UK, for example. At one point, overcome with frustration when her freshly washed sheets became soiled while hanging on a line to dry, she takes them back to her 21st century house to run through the washing machine. I can't really say I blame her for that -- the temptation must have been too much to resist -- but I admit I was a bit disappointed on the rare occasions when she confesses to using some item of modern technology.
But that's really a minor quibble. I think anyone who enjoys the details of daily life in the 18th century as described in Diana Gabaldon's books would find this book fascinating. I certainly did! <g>
Thanks very much to MC on Compuserve for telling me about the book!
I will be there, with my mom and dad. This will be our second time at GFM. I really enjoyed my first visit, in 2010, and I'm very much looking forward to going back!
Our current plan is to drive out there on Thursday, July 11th, attend the Games on Friday, and drive back Saturday morning. If you're planning to be there, let me know. It would be fun to see other Diana Gabaldon fans there!
Here are this week's Friday Fun Facts about Diana Gabaldon's books.
1) Have you ever wondered what it's like to write with a quill? Here are some tips.
I chose a quill from the cut-glass holder on the desk, found a silver penknife by it, trimmed the quill to my liking, uncorked the inkwell, and set about the business, deeply aware of the scrutiny of the two men.
This video, by a re-enactor from Alamance Battleground in North Carolina, demonstrates how to write with a quill pen and ink.
2) This is the interior of a priest hole at Baddesley Clinton, a medieval manor in Warwickshire, England. (Photos by jedi58 and Brownie_Bear, on Flickr. Click on the photos to enlarge them.) You'll recall that Claire advised Ian to build a priest hole at Lallybroch.
[Jenny] followed him without comment, down to the stone-floored back hall that separated kitchen and pantry.
Set into the flags of the floor was a large wooden panel, perforated with drilled holes, apparently mortared into the floorstones. Theoretically, this gave air to the root cellar below, and in fact--should any suspicious person choose to investigate, the root cellar, reached by a sunken door outside the house, did have just such a panel set into its ceiling.
What was not apparent was that the panel also gave light and air to a small priest hole that had been built just behind the root cellar, which could be reached by pulling up the panel, mortared frame and all, to reveal a short ladder leading down into the tiny room. It was no more than five feet square, equipped with nothing in the way of furniture beyond a rude bench, a blanket, and a chamber pot. A large jug of water and a small box of hard biscuit completed the chamber’s accoutrements.
3) This photo shows a hand where the fourth finger has been amputated, just like Claire did for Jamie in ECHO. (Thanks to my friend Belinda on Facebook, who sent me the link.)
It was a clean, neat job, but I felt a brief sense of sadness as I set the mangled piece of flesh aside. I had a fleeting vision of him holding newly born Jemmy, counting the tiny fingers and toes, delight and wonder on his face. His father had counted his fingers, too. “It’s all right,” I whispered, as much to myself as to him. “It’s all right. It will heal."
Jamie's hand would, of course, have more scars, including the one left by the nail that Black Jack Randall drove into his palm, but otherwise I think this is pretty close.
4) Shinty, known as camanachd in Gaelic, is an ancient Scottish sport resembling field hockey, played with curved wooden sticks. Click on the picture for a bigger view.
"What on earth makes ye mention Letitia?” Jamie asked curiously. “I lived at the Castle for a year, and had speech of her maybe once that I remember, when she called me to her chamber and gave me the raw side of her tongue for leading a game of shinty through her rose garden."
Here's a brief video showing how the game is played today.
For more information about shinty, look here and here.
5) Rose madder is a red pigment made from the roots of a plant called Rubia tinctorum. It has been used since ancient times to make red dyes, and in fact, rose madder was used to dye British soldiers' uniform coats from the late 17th century until about 1870.
I thought the use of it in DRAGONFLY was pretty clever:
And should any doubt remain, the madder-stained urine gave an absolutely perfect illusion of a man pissing blood as the smallpox attacked his kidneys.
“Christ!” Jamie had exclaimed, startled despite himself at the first demonstration of the herb’s efficacy.
“Oh, jolly good!” I said, peering over his shoulder at the white porcelain chamber pot and its crimson contents. “That’s better than I expected.”
I was surprised to learn that it is traditional in the country of Georgia to dye Easter eggs a deep blood-red color using rose madder, as shown in the photo above.
I hope you enjoyed these Friday Fun Facts! Look here to see all of my Friday Fun Facts blog posts, and please come back next week for more.
Happy Birthday to Jeremiah Alexander Ian Fraser MacKenzie, otherwise known as Roger and Brianna's son Jem.
He was born on May 15, 1770, so depending on how you count his age, he's either 243 years old, or 41. Either way, it's pretty mind-boggling!
The exact date of Jem's birth is not mentioned in the books, but the Timeline on Diana Gabaldon's website gives the date as May 15, so that's what I'm going with. He's a Taurus, like his grandda. <g>
Poor Jem has had a hard time of it in recent years. Tormented by his teacher at school for speaking Gaelic, kidnapped, then stuck down in a dark tunnel all by himself...where he's remained since AN ECHO IN THE BONE was published more than 3 1/2 years ago.
That's a long, long time for an eight-year-old boy to wait. I sincerely hope that Jem gets out of that tunnel in plenty of time for his next birthday!
Here's something that looks like fun, for those of you who live in the vicinity of Sacramento, CA.
I just got an email from Stephenee at the Sacramento Public Library, asking me to help spread the word about a special series of OUTLANDER-related programs they will be running from June 2 through November 3, called "How Outlandish! Step Through the Stones of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander".
See the library's website here for details. And here is a link to the flyer describing the various programs. They will be covering a wide variety of topics, and it sounds very interesting!
If you have questions about the program, please contact Stephenee Borelli at sborelli@saclibrary.org.
Please pass the word to any OUTLANDER fans you may know in the Sacramento area. Thanks!
Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there! Here are a few of my favorite quotes about motherhood from Diana Gabaldon's books. Hope you enjoy them!
1) Marsali, in an advanced state of pregnancy, and five-year-old Germain:
She leaned back a little and pushed a hand firmly into the side of her mound. Then she seized Germain's hand and put it on the spot. Even from where I stood, I could see the surge of flesh as the baby kicked vigorously in response to being poked.
Germain jerked his hand away, startled, then put it back, looking fascinated, and pushed.
"Hello!" he said loudly, putting his face close to his mother's belly. "Comment ça va in there, Monsieur L'Oeuf?"
"He's fine," his mother assured him. "Or she. But babies dinna talk right at first. Ye ken that much. Félicité doesna say anything but 'Mama' yet."
2) I like the realistic depictions of breastfeeding in these books, even though I've never had kids of my own. Here's Claire with Brianna, age three months:
Brianna burrowed into the front of my red chenille dressing gown making small voracious grunting noises.
"You can't be hungry again," I said to the top of her head. "I fed you not two hours ago." My breasts were beginning to leak in response to her rooting, though, and I was already sitting down and loosening the front of my gown.
"Mrs. Hinchcliffe said that a baby shouldn't be fed every time it cries," Frank observed. "They get spoilt if they aren't kept to a schedule."
It wasn't the first time I had heard Mrs. Hinchcliffe's opinions on child-rearing.
"Then she'll be spoilt, won't she?" I said coldly, not looking at him. The small pink mouth clamped down fiercely, and Brianna began to suck with mindless appetite. I was aware that Mrs. Hinchcliffe also thought breast-feeding both vulgar and insanitary. I, who had seen any number of eighteenth-century babies nursing contentedly at their mothers' breasts, didn't.
3) Jamie lost his mother at a very young age, but he hasn't forgotten her:
I had heard what he said to the plover he released. Though I had only a few words of Gaelic, I had heard the old salutation often enough to be familiar with it. “God go with ye, Mother," he had said.
A young mother, dead in childbirth. And a child left behind. I touched his arm and he looked down at me.
“How old were you?” I asked.
He gave me a half-smile. “Eight,” he answered. “Weaned, at least."
4) Bree's reaction on the night before Claire goes back through the stones, when she thinks she'll never see her mother again:
"It's
like--there are all these things I don't even know!" she said, pacing
with quick, angry steps. "Do you think I remember what I looked like,
learning to walk, or what the first word I said was? No, but Mama does!
And that's so stupid, because what difference does it make, it
doesn't make any difference at all, but it's important, it matters
because she thought it was, and...oh, Roger, if she's gone, there won't
be a soul left in the world who cares what I'm like, or thinks I'm
special not because of anything, but just because I'm me! She's the only
person in the world who really, really cares I was born, and if she's
gone..." She stood still on the hearthrug, hands clenched at her
sides, and mouth twisted with the effort to control herself, tears wet
on her cheeks. Then her shoulders slumped and the tension went out of
her tall figure.
"And that's just really dumb and
selfish," she said, in a quietly reasonable tone. "And you don't
understand, and you think I'm awful."
"No," Roger said
quietly. "I think maybe not." He stood and came behind her, putting
his arms around her waist, urging her to lean back against him. She
resisted at first, stiff in his arms, but then yielded to the need for
physical comfort and relaxed, his chin propped on her shoulder, head
tilted to touch her own.
5) Roger's mother saved his life in the moments before she died in the Bethnal Green tube station collapse in March, 1943.
"She let go my hand,” he said. The words came more easily now; the
tightness in his throat and chest was gone. “She let go my hand...and then she picked me up. That small woman--she picked me up, and threw
me over the wall. Down into the crowd of people on the platform below. I
was knocked mostly out by the fall, I think--but I remember the roar as
the roof went. No one on the stair survived."
6) And finally, here is my favorite Mother's Day quote from the whole series:
“Did I ever think to thank ye, Sassenach?" he said, his voice a little husky.
“For what?" I said, puzzled. He took my hand, and drew me gently toward him. He smelled of ale and damp wool, and very faintly of the brandied sweetness of fruitcake.
“For my bairns," he said softly. "For the children that ye bore me."
"Oh," I said. I leaned slowly forward, and rested my forehead against the solid warmth of his chest. I cupped my hands at the small of his back beneath his coat, and sighed. "It was...my pleasure."
This phenomenon has been recognized since the early 19th century. According to Wikipedia:
In 1825, F. Gall mentioned a "musical organ" in a specific region of the human brain that could be spared or disrupted after a traumatic event resulting in brain damage. In 1865, Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud described the first series of cases that involved the loss of music abilities that were due to brain injury.
In this video, Dr. Oliver Sacks talks about what it feels like to live with amusia. And here's an article with more information.
2) A marlinspike (also known as a fid) is a device for tightening and loosening knots in the ropes on a sailing ship. Here are a couple of examples. The top photo shows a marlinspike made of whalebone, from New England circa 1840. The bottom photo is from Wikipedia.
It sounds like a very useful item, especially when you consider how difficult it would be to disentangle wet, tightly knotted ropes on a ship at sea! And in a pinch, it might be used as a weapon:
A piece of wood showed among the rubble on the desk, the blunt end of a marlinespike.
[Bonnet] frowned, attention fastened momentarily on a knot in the string. She took two long steps and seized the marlinespike, yanking it off the desk in a shower of rubbish and clanging oddments.
"Stand back." She held the thing like a baseball bat, gripped in both hands. Sweat streamed down the hollow of her back, but her hands felt cold and her face went hot and cold and hot again, ripples of heat and terror rolling down her skin.
Bonnet looked at her as though she had gone mad.
"Whatever will ye be after doing with that, woman?" He left off fiddling with his shirt and took a step toward her. She took one back, raising the club.
Most marlinspikes are 6 to 12 inches long, but may reach 2 feet and more for working heavy cables and rodes. They are usually made from iron or steel, whereas fids, similar in shape and function, are formed from wood or bone.
Bonus fun fact: the fish known as a marlin (which you may remember from Hemingway's THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA) actually got its name from the marlinspike.
3) This is a portrait of Flora MacDonald (1722-1790), by Scottish artist Allan Ramsay, from the Ashmolean Museum. Many of you will know the story of Flora MacDonald's role in saving Charles Stuart in the aftermath of Culloden, but for those who don't, here is a synopsis.
[So] far as the people here knew, the MacDonalds had immigrated permanently.
But I had seen the tall memorial stone on Skye--where Flora MacDonald had been born, and would someday die, disillusioned with America.
It wasn’t the first time I’d met someone and known their fate, of course—but it was always unsettling.
Here's Flora MacDonald's grave on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. Click on the photo for a bigger view.
4) Bitter cascara, more commonly known as cascara sagrada (scientific name, Rhamnus purshiana) is a laxative made from the bark of a tree called cascara that is native to the Pacific Northwest. From Wikipedia:
Spanish conquerors exploring the Pacific Northwest in the 1600s came across many Native peoples using the bark of R. purshiana as a laxative. They gave it the name "Sacred Bark" (cascara sagrada) in honor of its effectiveness.
Given its extremely bitter taste, I wonder how Claire managed to ingest enough of it to make her violently ill without noticing it?
The pain increased once more, a vise squeezing my insides, and I gasped and doubled up once more. As it eased a bit, I opened my eyes and saw one of the ladies, her eyes fixed alertly on my face. A look of dawning realization passed over her features, and still looking at me, she leaned over to whisper to one of her companions. There was too much noise in the room to hear, but I read her lips clearly.
"Poison,” she said.
The pain shifted abruptly lower with an ominous interior gurgle, and I realized finally what it was. Not a miscarriage. Not appendicitis, still less a chilled liver. Nor was it poison, precisely. It was bitter cascara.
For more on the medicinal uses of cascara sagrada, look here and here.
5) The photos above show what a wild boar (Sus scrofa) looks like.
Jemmy had tight hold of the cloth with both hands. He was looking toward the wood.
“Pig, Daddy,” he whispered. “Big pig.”
Roger glanced in the direction of the little boy's gaze and froze.
It was a huge black boar, perhaps eight feet away. The thing stood more than three feet at the shoulder, and must weigh two hundred pounds or more, with curving yellow tushes the length of Jemmy’s forearm. It stood with lifted head, piggy snout moistly working as it snuffed the air for food or threat.
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All quotes, characters, and events from the OUTLANDER and Lord John books are copyright (c) Diana Gabaldon. This site is not intended to infringe on the author's copyright in any way.
