Author's Message

Queen Maeve always appealed to me as a Celtic heroine because she is unique in ancient Irish myth. In most tales, women are secondary to men: manipulative maidens who ruin heroes, scolding wives, or daughters who end up as pawns. But Maeve is different: in the ancient stories she is a queen in her own right, a blooded warrior, and a ruler powerful enough to set off the greatest war in Irish mythical history.
 
The Tain, or the Cattle Raid of Cooley, is the Irish epic. It captures all that is exciting and moving about the Celts, peppered with feats of bravery, twists of fate, and heart-breaking acts of honour and betrayal. Maeve is at the center of it all when her kingdom, Connacht, goes to war with Ulster – led by her enemy King Conor, her former husband in a political marriage forced upon Maeve by her power-hungry father. Previous books about the battle epic The Tain have focused on the male heroes, but there is very little written in fiction with Maeve as the hero. I wanted to change that!
 
Women were respected in Celtic culture, but their role in myth (or was it history!) was downplayed by the monks who were the first to actually write down the old tales, previously passed on by word of mouth. As part of establishing Christianity in Ireland in the dark ages, they were keen to dampen the power of the old pagan religion and the powerful and sensual (and therefore threatening) women and goddesses that inhabit the old stories. So they portrayed Maeve in the first written stories as an abomination: a promiscuous harlot and ruthless, bloodthirsty war-mongerer.
 
I was intrigued by the idea of taking this maligned woman and restoring her reputation after this ancient smear campaign. So The Raven Queen is a re-imagining of her life, and how she ends up triggering the Tain war. I wanted to come up with a backstory of real events – real motivations – that might have led to her later, negative portrayals. I didn’t want to water her down, or make her sweet and innocent – I wanted to create a believable, flesh and blood woman living in bloodthirsty times about whom these things could have been said. My aim is to give readers an insight into what led to her being this way, so though she commits what could be seen as ruthless acts, readers will see why and (I hope!) still root for her. After all, she is only forced to defend herself against the greed and betrayals of men! It was a delicious challenge to write.
 
It was also a big change from my previous Celtic books. My first Dalriada Trilogy was set in Scotland at the time of the Roman invasions, and based on the historical fight between the invaders and the native peoples. The Swan Maiden, released in 2009, is a companion to The Raven Queen. It is about Deirdre, another of the great characters of Irish myth. She is the wild, beautiful maiden to Maeve’s more fiery, worldly queen; however both women are trapped by the destructive desires of men, and both end up finding their power and breaking free to forge lives on their own terms.
 
All my previous heroines have been priestesses, or otherworldly in some way, and all my heroes have been sword-wielding (but sensitive!) warriors. In this book, I flip that on its head: Maeve is the warrior, practical and, at times hard hearted, and the hero Ruan is the druid searching for a connection to the sidhe, the Otherworld beings of Irish myth. This was a great writing challenge. Also, Maeve is my first character who is a mother, though much of her life’s pain has arisen from that role. Maeve reconciling her warrior-self with the “goddess” in her is a major part of the book. This fits in with what scholars think Maeve actually was: a goddess who was demoted to a mere mortal woman through time.
 
And as for the ravens? Well, birds travel between heaven and earth, and so ravens and swans are often associated with Irish goddesses, or appear as Otherworldly messengers or shape-shifters. I wanted both Deirdre and Maeve to have strong associations with birds, since they both hover on the borders of the Otherworld, too. The ethereal swan was Deirdre’s symbol. Ravens are often agents of prophecy, and being carrion eaters, were often associated with the goddesses of death and battle. This fits Maeve, the great warrior-queen, perfectly!

- Jules Watson