***Well, Hywela Lyn came through with her research on Norse myth and Scandinavia for us! ~Skhye

The amazingly talented Skhye was kind enough to ask me back on her wonderful Blog to talk about some of the research I did for my recently released book ‘Children Of The Mist, the sequel to my debut novel ‘Starquest’.  Thanks Skhye.  Well, you see, it’s like this:

When I began writing ‘Starquest’ the only research I thought I would need to do would be in the area of space physics. star drives, and the like.  Niflheim was merely the home planet of two fairly minor characters.  However, they were telepaths and I needed a justification for this ‘mind reading’ ability. 

I’m a great believer in having a ‘rationale’.  I’m not one of those people who think because it’s ‘fantasy’ and there are dragons, the dragons should be there just ‘because it’s fantasy’ (for the record there aren’t any dragons in either book, although I’ve nothing against dragons, in fact I love ‘em).  But - if dragons are in a story, I want to know how they evolved and what their function is, their reason for being.  The same thing applies to telepaths.

So I decided that the planet had originally been colonised by settlers from Earth.  When the early pioneers settled on this new world, at first finding it very inhospitable, cold and  misty, many parts covered in ice and snow for much of the year, they had to have something special to enable them to survive when scattered across the planet.  They renounced the technology of Earth, with all its problems, but how would they deal with life in such a hostile environment with no means to communicate across miles of unsettled territory?  The answer was simple.  The colonists would include individuals who each had some extra sensory ability.  Over time they would develop and increase these skills until telepathy became their usual form of communication and telekinesis was commonplace.  I’m not sure when I first knew that the settlers had called their new planet Nifheim, but as the Norse ‘land of cold and mist, it seemed fitting..  As a teenager I devoured the books of H Rider Haggard, including his Viking saga ‘Eric Brighteyes’ and the romance and  adventure of the Norselands stayed in my imagination.  I decided the settlers would name their settlements and the main features of their planet after the Norse gods, or names derived from places in Scandinavian mythology.   They would also draw on this mythology when naming their descendents.  Thus many of the characters in ‘Children Of The Mist’ have names borrowed from the gods of  Norse legends.  I tried to make the characters fit their names as far as possible, without making it seem too contrived. . (Vidarh, for instance, is named after Vidarh ‘the valiant’.)   None of the myths and legends of Niflheim actually appear in either of my books, but I needed to read as much as I could about them, to ensure the names fitted and to absorb the atmosphere to help me build my imaginary world. These are just a few of the websites I used.

http://www.godchecker.com/pantheon/norse-mythology.php

http://www.niflheim.com/home.htm

http://www.cybersamurai.net/mythology/nordic_gods/N/Niflheim.htm

http://www.northernshamanism.org/nine/niflheim.html  

I wish I could direct you to more sources,  but my research for these two books was somewhat scattered and covered many different books and websites.  I even checked out the Macdonald encyclopedia of horses, just one of my dozens and dozens of horse reference books in my collection) to ensure that my generically engineered ponies fit the general breed specifications for the Fjord (Westlands) pony which to me would be the logical foundation stock for the ponies of Niflheim, who play their own part in the story. 

Thanks so much for having me here Skhye, I’m feel very honoured to have been invited again, and to be among so many great authors featured on your Blog.

If anyone would like to find out more about my books please visit my Blog or my ‘Starquest’ ‘My Space’.

***Thanks, Lyn! I'm the same way about how/why something came to be like dragons! These are excellent resources, espically Godchecker.com. It's one of my favorite places. The voice cracks me up! Thanks so much for sharing. ~Skhye