Sheltie Gazette: Special tidbits for Aiden of Florida
Feb 28, 2025 3:02 pm
Hey , Aiden’s story is out in the world!
I am pleased to announce that the third story about Maura, her family, and her magical castle is ready to fly to your e-reader. Announcing…
The Knight of the Terrible Valley
and Aiden of Florida
This retelling is based on “Lawn Dyarrig and the Knight of Terrible Valley,” and it is one of the first stories I had in mind when I came up with the idea for this series of fairy tales. “The Horned Women” could be Maura’s story, I thought, and “Terrible Valley” could be Aiden’s.
But then it wouldn’t come together.
I became re-excited about the idea when I decided to make the “pure, helpless princess” into 5-year-old Oona, and release the story for Valentine’s Day. A grown woman shouldn’t be naive and helpless, but it’s pretty reasonable for a kindergartener, and I have always been an advocate for celebrating all kinds of love for Valentine’s Day.
But it still wouldn’t come together.
In the original story, Lawn Dyarrig goes on the quest with his two brothers, who treat him as a servant and betray him. Aiden would go with two schoolmates, and I fleshed them out a little more because modern readers do not love one-dimensional caricatures of pure foolishness and evil. I knew the wise women would give Aiden advice from his past, and I worked that out. But…
It wasn't enough.
Aiden’s story needed Kaylee.
On every page, in every scene. Aiden’s story was all about the 13-year-old sister he had spent his life protecting, and she needed to live for the reader. There is no Kaylee-equivalent in the original fairy tale, but once I figured out how to work her in, the story took off. I hope you agree!
Some fun story tidbits for you…
- Do I need to read the stories in order?
- Theme song
- Typo which is not a typo
- Stitchy magic and hurleys
- The Sheltie story: mud, mud, and more mud
Q: Do I have to read the stories in order? What if I have no idea who Aiden is?
A: If you are intrigued by coming-of-age stories and battles with tin can armies, please — dive in! Each story in the Castle in Kilkenny series is complete.
Theme song:
This one puts me in the mood for Aiden. The lyrics don’t match exactly, but I feel like it twists between yearning for childhood and pushing towards adulthood which is very much Aiden’s central conflict.
Candidate for most flagged typo which is not actually a typo
Here is Aiden's opening paragraph:
“C’mon, Oona-Baloona, can’t we go inside?”
My little sister spins to look at me, and I hold up my hands as she teeters on the rock wall.
“No, Aiden!” She draws out my name in her piercing five-year-old voice. “I’m a unicorn-pegasus! I’m flying and—”
Oona loves to pretend to be a unicorn-pegasus. Which, (many) commenters helpfully inform me, is properly called an alicorn, so out of curiosity I investigated. “Alicorn” has a completely different meaning (either an archaic term for “unicorn,” or the horn of the beast itself), but first Piers Anthony came across it by accident, then the “My Little Pony” creators settled on using it instead of "pegacorn" by Season 3. Since then, the Google N-Gram shows active use of “alicorn,” but mostly within the MLP fandom and D&D. Therefore, “alicorn” seems to be less the correct vocabulary, and more of a fandom/gamer term — neither of which make sense for Oona’s character. So I did not take their advice to change it.
Meanwhile, Word wants to capitalize Pegasus, because there was properly only one of them. However, spellcheck does not even believe in the existence of alicorns, nor an entire host of mythical creatures. Clearly it is not trustworthy.
Oona is five. In five-year-old-land, when you have to decide whether you are playing a unicorn or a pegasus, the obvious answer is to choose both. Furthermore, in five-year-old land, there are many pegasuses, of which you and your best friend are two.
Oona also calls the month Feb-boo-berry, and in a moment of great enthusiasm says “I do it!” None of these are proper grammar. All of them are based on bona fide 5-year-olds.
Teasers, stitchy magic, and what is a hurley anyways?
Knitting friends — this story is for you! It was hard to work in stitchy magic when Maura wasn’t part of the story, but there is still an essential plot point that hinges around her handwork.
Make sure you’re following my Instagram or my Facebook for details, where I've pulled quotes from the book to answer the questions. I'm trying to keep this newsletter not-too-long-ish, but the short answer with hurley is: It's a sport. There are stories about Cúchulainn's hurley stick in the Ulster Cycle (approx 1st century), and teenage boys still walk around Kilkenny with hurleys slung over their shoulders.
Two millennia of hurley: Check out the "blessing of the hurls" and the ordinary Sunday pile-up.
Young Cú Chulainn depicted with sliotar and hurley in a wooden sculpture in Lucan, Wikipedia
While I am busy editing, what are the Shelties up to?
Mud.
And some muddy mud.
Shelties are bred for Scottish weather which is pretty much just like our in Oregon, so they are perfectly happy to run around with their outer coats shedding the rain and their inner fluff keeping them warm. But then they want to come inside (see above), and have become giant happy sponges who want to climb in your lap and hop onto the couch. I have four towels in rotation by the back door, and it’s still not enough.
(I originally wrote “nap” but that is deceptive. In reality, Adare hops onto the couch, and then Malin seizes his tail and drags him off again, and they race in a circle and start all over again. This provides the opportunity to get mud on the couch multiple times, not just once.)
But being a water soaked canine sponge is not enough. Oh no.
Our property also has seasonal streams, and do you know what streams do? They move. If you are a herding dog, making things move is the highlight of your indefatigable existence. If Malin has a chance to slip out of his regular fenced field, he can go over to the stream, and every time he barks the stream goes. Every time! For hours!
Like a Dr Seuss book, Malin can do it from the bank, he can do it from the shore, he can do it from the rocks and he can do it some more!
In order to extract Malin from this font of joy, I need to put on a raincoat and carry a towel, because I end up carrying home a blob of very wiggly mud, with four little paws sticking out one end and a bark coming out the other. (“Must! Keep! Stream! Flowing!”)
So that’s been our Feb-boo-berry, off in puppy land. And in fact, this newsletter is getting to you late, because some of the blustering rain knocked the internet cables down somewhere, so I don’t know when I will be able to actually send this to you.
Meanwhile, let’s escape to Terrible Valley, where there is (almost) no mud
When the nights are long, the politics are scary, and there’s mud all over the furniture, I hope that Aiden’s story can provide you a couple hours of joy and distraction. Let’s all take care of each other.
"I can’t wait to read Aiden’s story" —
"I’ll keep it in mind, but I’m in the middle of something else,
so I'll pop it on my Want to Read shelf" —
OR
"I’ve already read it!" —
*Sorry, I have not yet figured out how to change the covers on GoodReads, so it's still the placeholder. I will get it fixed tomorrow. Or the next day, depending on how many kid crisis happen meanwhile. And how many times I need to bathe the dogs.
What's your joyful read for February?
May March be kind to you.... best wishes...
Christy & the Shelties
Malin was the only one who took a nice photograph lately. Isn't he a pretty boy? This is to commemorate the moment after one bath (with shampoo) and before the next bath (in the creek). NB: I paused working on this newsletter to eat dinner with my kids, and meanwhile Malin got himself into the creek. So there is no more mystery about how long the bath will last.
As for me...Since I don't have any photos from this year, this is from last Feb-boo-berry, when I was taking a research trip in Durham, England.
