An sf writer can extend a list into the future. See:
Can a fantasy writer extend a list into the past?
When:
"Imric the elf-earl rode out by night to see what had happened in the lands of men." (p. 18)
- a witch told him that the Danes had come to eastern England to kill, loot, burn and seize. Imric replied that that was not bad because several groups had done likewise earlier.
Imric's list:
Angles and Saxons;
Picts and Scots;
Romans;
Brythons and Goidels;
still others before.
Brythons and Goidels?
However:
Brythons are Celtic Britons - in Welsh, Brythoniaid;
So Imric was using unfamiliar (to me) terminology, not referring to fictional populations like Robert E. Howard's Cimmerians.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And who dwelt in what came to be called the British Isles before the invasions of the Celt/Gaels? Obscure, so little known peoples that scholars have to use DNA analysis to glean some knowledge of them. IRRC Stirling said their fate was to be exterminated by the Celts (except for whatever slaves, usually women, were kept).
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: well, in 2500 BCE or thereabouts, a group from what's now the NW Netherlands migrated to the British Isles.
In no more than 5 centuries, and possibly as little as 1, there was a 93% genetic turnover. That's when the base population of the British Isles was set.
NB: they were almost certainly the first Indo-European speakers in Britain. At 2500 BCE, it was probably fairly close to Proto-Indo-European, which had been spoken only 500 years earlier.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Iow, it was no Arcadian paradise for the older inhabitants. I recall you commenting that if you had known of what you wrote above while writing the ISLAND IN THE SEA OF TIME books, you would have needed to rewrite the parts set in Britain. That 93% population turnover was certainly not achieved peacefully.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yeah, though some of it was probably due to disease -- the Beaker/Corded Wear people introduced diseases from the steppe. Undoubtedly there was head-bashing involved, too.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
That makes sense, new diseases doing their bit to kill off the older inhabitants of the British Isles. And lots of head bashing!
Ad astra! Sean
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