This weekend, I has been mostly reading...

An aside from painting stuff today...

After my mammoth post on Saturday, I settled down to a bit of a read. My other half had toddled off to Birmingham for a wedding dress fitting thingy, leaving me 'home alone'. So I went to the bookshelf and found a dusty little paperback that I'd picked up from Amazon last year: 'The Shining Company' by Rosemary Sutcliff. Yes, it's a book designed for folk from 10 years old, but, by golly, it's one of the best 'Arthurian' books you'll ever find! Detailing the last stand of the people of Gododdin at the Battle of Catraeth (Catterick) around 600AD, it's a story of coming of age through the horror of war and the valour, yet futility of battle. Ok, you have to excuse the stereotype Saxons with horsetail banners and huge axes and the artistic license of warriors wearing face-covering mail masks, but once you've got past that, it's bloody fab. Beg, buy, borrow, steal a copy...errr...ok, don't steal, but you know what I mean!

Which reminds me, if you want a CRACKING Arthur story, also check out Sutcliff's 'Sword at Sunset' which is her attempt at the story of the Romano-British Arthur, for grown ups, this time! It really is a belter of a book, with all the ingredients (again, excuse the generic barbarians, but I honestly can't recommend it highly enough! Both Sutcliff books are available on Amazon as I type (in fact, have just ordered two more that I last read when I was about 12, but can still remember as being the dog's dangly bits, so to speak, so have ordered second-hand copies to re-read when painting has driven me bonkers!)

Am currently reading 'The White Phantom', second in an Arthurian series by Patrick McCormack. It's bloody great! The first book, 'The Last Companion' is superb as well. They tell the story of Bedwyr, last of Arthur's Companion cavalry, 10 years after the disaster at Camlann. With a cracking plot of vengeance, ancient chalices, etc, with tantalising glimpses of Arthur's life told in flashback, if you like the period, for Heaven's sake read these books! The warfare is small-scale and very realistic (i.e. tactics, weapon-handling, etc). Very good indeed and providing serious inspiration as I battle to complete the first 1500pts of my various Arthurian armies...

Talking of which, back to the paintbrush...sigh........