'Battle Book' is aligned to the Hibernia Altera world associated with my Muinbeo and Flux Avellana novels. Like most of the stories in this world, Battle Book is a straightforward fantasy adventure story. It presents an encounter between humans and aliens during the First Alien Invasion, which took place some centuries before the action of the novels.
Cumdach is an Old Irish word meaning a cover, or shrine, for a book (the modern Irish word cumhdach means more generally a protective covering). The idea of a manuscript having talismanic status is not new at all. It is thought that the Book of Kells, when taken out for use on high days and holidays, was not touched by bare hands, but handled through a cloth, probably purple. An archivist working in Trinity College Dublin (where the Book of Kells is kept) told me that once when the manuscript was being escorted downstairs into the storage area, one of the security guards very quickly touched the edge of the book, and then blessed themselves.
The Psalter of St. Columba is better known as the Cathach, the ‘battler’, because when it came into the possession of the O’Donnells of Donegal, they carried it deosil—sunwise—around their army before battle. In the story, Bosco has thrust upon him the job of carrying the battle-book, and when he and his friend Clement lose their way in the dark, the action that was supposed to protect the Earl’s army from the alien enemy is the action that brings the two face-to-face.
'Battle Book' involves a manuscript and a character whose afterlife play an important rôle in my forthcoming novel A Wild Goose Hunt, the second book of the Muinbeo Chronicles.
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| https://books2read.com/BattleBook |
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| https://books2read.com/fid |
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