Lynne Cantwell Writes to Honor Her Heritage

Lynne Cantwell says:
I think of my two published novels, SwanSong and The Maidens’ War, as a two-book series honoring my heritage.

My mother’s family came to America around the turn of the 20^th century from what was then Czechoslovakia.  (Our family’s homelands are now part of the Czech Republic.)  Many of my older relatives spoke Czech as well as English, and I had always wanted to learn Czech.  A few years ago, I discovered a group in Baltimore that taught Czech to adults and began taking classes there.

Being a storyteller, I was also interested in learning the folklore and mythology of my ancestral lands, so I began searching out Czech myths.  I was intrigued by one called “The Girls’ War,” and particularly by the fate of Šárka, who is portrayed in the most popular version of the tale as a wanton who hates all men, and who is all too willing to participate in the downfall of the warrior Ctirad.  But I knew how stories could be exaggerated for effect; look what Disney did to Pocahontas by turning the real-life prepubescent girl into a willowy young woman, all so that the movie could incorporate a love story.  What if the real Šárka (if one had ever existed) was a lot younger, and a lot more confused, than the popular myth portrayed her?  And if a goddess really had led her into a mountain, then my version of her story would have to release her.  That led me to begin crafting Maggie’s story in the present day.

My father’s side of the family is more complex.  Cantwell is an Irish name, more or less – which is to say that the first Cantwell in Ireland arrived with Strongbow’s Anglo-Norman knights, and the family held property in Ireland ‘til Cromwell confiscated it.  But the first of our line in America (Capt. Edmund Cantwell, who was high sheriff of New Castle Co., DE, while Delaware was still part of Pennsylvania) was apparently British.  In any case, we consider ourselves Irish.

So I went looking for the folklore and mythology of Ireland, and found it in spades.  The story that really grabbed me was “The Fate of the Children of Lír.”  Lír – who may be the Irish deity Manannán mac Lir, but is probably not – weds Aobh and has, by her, two sets of twins, a girl and three boys.  Aobh dies in childbirth; the king steps in and pretty much orders Lír to wed her sister Aoife.  Aoife becomes jealous of Lír’s relationship with his children, so one day she pulls a Druid’s wand out of nowhere and turns the four children into swans.  She then curses them with nine hundred years of wandering – three hundred near home, three hundred in the wild North Sea, and three hundred away in the west of Ireland.  Aoife is punished, but that doesn’t help the children, who must spend the next nine hundred years as swans.  Their only hope is in the sound of a church bell; but upon hearing it, they turn into withered old people and pretty much die immediately.  It’s a very sad story.  But being a single mother, I was drawn to the fate of Fionnuala, who becomes de facto mother to her three brothers – and is then locked into the role for nine hundred years.  Imagine being exiled with only your siblings for company!  Imagine having to cook and clean for them, to nurture them, for nearly a thousand years!  That, for me, was the heart of the story.

I’ve never been to Ireland, but I knew my potential readership included people who either lived there or had been there.  So to avoid looking clueless, I moved the story to a fantasy setting and changed a few details, including all the names; Fionnuala, for instance, became Neeve.

I think I’ve done my heritage justice.  Neeve has a much richer life than Fionnuala the swan ever had.  And Šárka is able to give Maggie the sort of help that she was never able to receive.  With that, I am content.