Shiny new paperbacks of The Modern World have finally shipped and are available from all good book retailers, including Amazon.

There's also a new review: Keith Brooke in The Guardian says 'Swainston's world is impressively complete, a setting that is richly detailed and gritty.' You can read the full review here.

Thanks, everyone who mailed me after the last back pain post. Those of you who are suffering, I hope you soon get better and remember: never give in.

Here are a few more gadgets I've tried and found they really help:

• A telescopic 'sit/stand' desk: if you find sitting down difficult, this desk raises and lowers its top by an electric motor, so you can work standing up. Better for the waistline, too! If sitting, you can set it to the perfect height. Mine is delightful but was a complicated order as there are many variations. Order directly from the manufacturer, not through a middle man - it’s cheaper and simpler. It arrives flat-packed so if you construct it yourself be warned - it's straightforward but bloody frustrating.
• Among other things, The MacKenzie Institute makes good back support cushions. I use their ‘super roll’ all the time.
• This ‘Salli’ chair is the best I’ve tried. It keeps your posture upright, and it's simple and light - I recommend it to strengthen core muscles. It is saddle-shaped, so best for women; if you’re male, try the man’s version or it will squash your nads!
• Tempur make wonderful memory foam mattresses and pillows. It’s cheaper to buy Tempur products from ‘Back in Action’ and they deliver next day. The simple 15cm mattress was good enough for me - certainly no need for the luxury version.

The best relief is always a good philosophy. Read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. He was a Stoic philosopher as well as a warrior emperor. Stoicism isn't stuffy, nor is it straight-laced - it's a sensible outlook and method of self-help as useful today as it was for Marcus, campaigning 'among the Quadi, on the River Gran'. 'Meditations' is the most peaceful and reassuring book I've ever read; I return to it often - and you will, too.

‘Pain is never unbearable or unending, as long as you remember its limitations and do not indulge in fanciful exaggerations.’ - Epictetus, quoted in 'Meditations'.

I've posted some of my sketches of Jant and Co. on my Facebook profile. The album is open to all, whether you're on Facebook or not - see them here.

Jant and Cyan

In the distant past everyone in Morenzia followed the 'red hand' ritual, but now only the rustic Cathee preserve the tradition. If you were a Cathee woman, like Savory who married Lightning, on the morning of your wedding day your father and brothers would secretly lead your husband-to-be out of the village to a hut some distance away. He would sit inside all day, fasting, given ample time to consider whether he really wants to marry.

But from the moment you wake you're the centre of attention! Girls, it is a wonderful day! The woodsmen start to build a bonfire for the feast. Friends and family crowd round to bring you gifts, your favourite food, women visit to dress you in new clothes for the ceremony, and they paint your face with red dots and concentric rings on your cheeks. They keep asking: do you want to marry him? Are you sure you really love him? Marriage is blood-brotherhood; divorce is unknown. For one partner to leave another is so unheard-of it could cause a feud between the villages.

You are sure. You are resolved, so when night falls you pass alone through the gates, into the forest. The village falls silent with anticipation and your footsteps crunch loud on the pine litter. Stars are emerging in the clear sky and you follow luminous white-painted stones to the hut with the Marriage Stone outside. What if the hut is empty? What if he has decided against it and left already? But the door is closed and you know he is inside, waiting equally nervously for you to call his name.

You call him and out he walks, more handsome than ever, to the Marriage Stone. Everyone has been married by this stone, since the village was built, in fact, since people first came to Cathee. It is as tall as an altar and has a shallow hollow surrounded by concentric rings carved on top. A channel runs from the hollow cup to the edge of the stone. You steel yourself, draw your knife and cut the palm of your hand. Blood trickles out and you drip it into the little cup. He takes the knife and without hesitating does the same. Though you can scarcely see it in the darkness your blood, mixed together, flows down the channel and runs from the stone. You put your hands under the drips and catch them on your warm, stinging palms. Only now is he allowed to speak: you are married and you can bandage your hands. To the Cathee the scar is a wedding ring - one which cannot be lost or removed - which is why Lightning is still so aware of his scar even though he was married two hundred and six years ago.


The cup-and-ring stones of Yorkshire were an inspiration for the Cathee marriage stone. On the crags and solitary boulders of the moors you can find early Bronze Age rock art - shallow cups with rings around them. Sometimes there are cups without rings, clustered together, sometimes seven or more beautifully carved rings have a channel cutting through them to the cup in the center.

The Yorkshire carvings have become very worn, noticeably so even in my lifetime, especially the Panorama Stone . It’s a great shame that it wasn't taken into a museum - and protective shelters should have been built over larger stones such as the Badger Stone to preserve them.

There is similar rock art in Argyll; the ones I have seen appear to have more rings around each cup than do the Ikley carvings. They are also less worn - perhaps because they escaped acid rain - and very photogenic: the best are at Achnabreck and Kilmichael Glassary. When I saw them the locals had poured a little milk into them, as an offering to 'the fairies' - so cups and rings showed up beautifully white against the black rock.

Last week my parents went for a walk on the moors and took photographs of the Badger Stone above Ilkley which is the most similar to the Cathee Marriage Stone - see the deep bowl and gutter - deeper than the one on the Marriage Stone that fills with blood! They also photographed the Hanging Stones on Ilkley Moor and the Tree of Life on Snowden Moor near Otley. The Tree of Life is difficult to find but it’s interesting because the grooves of several cups link to a central stem.

At Faweather Grange, Baildon, they discovered a new cup-and-ring stone that hadn’t been recorded before. It's built into the base of a dry stone wall and on the photo you can easily see two hollows and a large circle. They reported it to the West Yorkshire Archaeological Service and it turned out to be a previously unknown carving. So WYAS have recorded it with my parents' names as discoverers!

All the photographs are in my Facebook album. Even if you’re not on Facebook, you can see them by clicking here.

The Badger Stone
The Badger Stone showing cup and ring carvings

I have just posted a new chapter of Linnet's Tour Guide, 'Grass Isle', on the Unpublished Material page. Linnet takes her auspicious young ladies to the island off the Cobalt Coast in an attempt to engage them with a sense of adventure and the quaint customs of the locals.

Ata's tower on Grass Isle: click for full size