Guy Kay - The Last Light of the Sun

Charts can take one only so far in a novel, but in a work of this sort, drawing upon very specific periods and motifs of the past, it is folly to embark without them, and I have had the benefit of some exceptional cartographers (if I may be indulged in a continuing metaphor). There are too many to be named here, but some must surely be noted.

On the Vikings, I owe much to the elegant and stylish synthesis of Gwyn Jones, and to the work of Peter Sawyer, R. I. Page, Jenny Jochens, and Thomas A. Dubois. I have drawn upon many different commentaries on and translations of the Sagas, but my admiration for the epic renderings of Lee M. Hollander is very great.

Histories of the North are caught up in agendas today (as is so much of the past), and clear thinking and personal notes became a necessary aid. I am grateful to Paul Bibire for answers, suggestions, and steering me to sources. Kristen Pederson provided a score of articles and essays, principally on the role of women in the Viking world, and offered glosses on many of them. Max Vinner of the Viking Ship Museum at Roskald kindly answered my questions.

For the Anglo-Saxons, I found Richard Abels invaluable on Alfred the Great. Peter Hunter Blair, Stephen Pollington (on leechcraft and warcraft), Michael Swanton's version of the Chronicles, and the splendidly detailed work of Anne Hagen on Anglo-Saxon food and drink were variously and considerably of use. So were works written or edited by Richard Fletcher, Ronald Hutton, James Campbell, Simon Keynes, and Michael Lapidge, and the verse translations of Michael Alexander.

With respect to the Welsh, and the Celtic spirit more generally, I must mention Wendy Davies, John Davies, Alwyn and Brinley Rees, Charles Thomas, John T. Koch, Peter Beresford Ellis (on the role of women), the verse translations and notes of Joseph P. Clancy, and the classic, unruffled overview of Nora Chadwick. I am deeply grateful to Jeffrey Huntsman for permission to use his translation of the epigraph, and for generously sending me alternative variants and commentary. The poem that concludes the book is from The Pilgrim's Regress, copyright C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd., 1933, and is used here with their kind permission.

On a more personal level, I owe gratitude to Darren Nash, Tim Binding, Laura Anne Gilman, Jennifer Heddle, and Barbara Berson—a panoply of editors—for enthusiam en route and when I was done. Catherine Marjoribanks brings more wit and sensitivity to the role of copy editor than an author has a right to expect. My brother Rex is still the first and perhaps the most acute of my readers. Linda McKnight, Anthea Morton-Saner, and Nicole Winstanley remain friends as much as agents, greatly valued in both regards.

For many years, when asked where my website was, I would paraphrase Cato the Elder, the Roman statesman. "I would rather people asked," I'd reply, "where Kay's website is, than why Kay has a website." Cato, famously, said that about the absence of statues honouring him in Rome. A while ago the markedly intelligent and insistent Deborah Meghnagi persuaded me that it was time for a statue online (as it were), and I gave her permission to devise and launch brightweavings.com. I am deeply grateful for all she's done (and continues to do) with that site, and I remain impressed and touched by the generous and witty community evolving there.