Friday 27 July 2007

I have made the wife, common-​​law wife, and children of Godwine Haroldsson, i.e. old King Harold’s son as well as Matilda’s cousin. I still have to do his younger brother Magnus’s family. (He of the meager mustache.)

If all goes as planned, we should be seeing them sometime next year. More importantly, Yware will be with them. Young Eadwin is Yware’s best buddy. They look quite a bit alike, too, though Eadwin looks even more like Dunstan.

To explain Godwine’s two wives, the first one, Martha, is the illegitimate daughter of King Diarmait of Leinster. (By his true wife he was also the father of Aed’s second wife Orlaith, and the current King of Leinster, Enna.)

Since she was not a legitimate princess, Godwine never bothered marrying her. He waited until he went back to Denmark in the late 1070’s and married himself a daughter of King Sweyn. (She was illegitimate, too, but the laws are different in Denmark.) So now Martha is stuck in Ireland with her half-​​brother, and Godwine has the children, whom she hasn’t seen in years. I don’t know what role any of them will play in the story, but there you go. Matchmakers, have at ‘em.

I also updated Eithne’s sister Condal, taking her hair out of that stiff bun and changing her dress to bring out her eyes. Because wow! I never noticed that she has these gorgeous gray-​​green eyes! It’s been so long since I made Man-​​Flann and his wife that I had forgotten what recessive genes I gave them. I can’t wait to see her in the story.

Condal