STORIES, TALES, AND LEGENDS

     The Newseum in Washington, D.C. displays photos of rocks, circa 4,000 B.C., portraying people talking in Tassela, Algeria—is an elder relating a legend to young people about the past? A visit to Uluru, Australia, offers cave drawings of plants and animals drawn long before our time on earth by Indigenous Australians.

                                                                                 

 

     The Lascaux Caves in southwestern France are famous for Paleolithic cave paintings thought to be 17,300 years old. 

     A tour of Sydney, Australia’s Opera House, where a Possum Drawing is exhibited, attracts the attention of local attendees and visitors avid to learn the history of this fascinating country.

      Pompeii’s mosaics and frescos, and portraits illustrate the history of the residents, work by poets like Menander and panels depicting scenes from the Iliad. I can picture our ancestors, sitting around campfires, exchanging news of food, shelter and survival and telling tales—non-fiction and fiction—of conquests, their vision of the future and how they came to live on earth—then painting, drawing and carving their stories on a canvas of rock.

     

     Text and coins proves that Julius Caesar used words to great advantage. He wrote a history of his military feats in 59 B.C. and minted coins to commemorate his victories. A daily news-sheet—Acta Diurna—was published and posted in places accessible to the public.

     Drums, bells, horns and gongs once carried messages to villages in Asia and Africa. Councils answered the call when the beat of drums meant danger or death. Bronze bells called the Chinese to worship, meet, plant and harvest in 600 B.C.—by 740 A.D., their descendants invented printing by pressing carved, inked blocks of wood onto paper.

     Stained glass windows in Cathedrals such as Chartres tell biblical stories that instruct uneducated parishioners who could not read the written word. Four panels originally made in 1145 survived the fire of 1195 and are displayed along with others were created between 1205 and 1240. The windows tell stories of The Virgin and Child, the Old and New Testament and the Lives of Saints.

Photo by Eusebius

 

     Koreans produced bronze type for molds in 1403, while in Cuzco Valley, Peru, Inca messengers recorded and tallied new conquests, birth, and death and crop yields on knotted, multi-colored cords called quipas. The quipas were then carried to local officials.  This was the century Johann Gutenberg invented movable type and type metal. Little changed for 400 years but with the development of the linotype—a typesetting machine—printing was revolutionized. Low priced publication of books and newspapers was now possible leading Thomas Edison to call the machine, “The eighth wonder of the world.”

     In 1609, printed weekly newspapers made their appearance around the globe—the first regularly printed American paper was the Boston Newsletter, printed in 1704. James Gordon Bennett published the first penny papers in 1833. Featured were lurid crime stories, human interest and diverting pieces of gossip—most far fetched—just like today’s tabloids. The front page of an 1835 edition of the New York Sun reads, “Exclusive! Creatures with Wings … on the Moon.” Science fiction and fantasy?

     A copy of The Charleston Mercury, dated December 20, 1860, announced the start of the Civil War; reporters followed the troops into battle providing the public with eyewitness news. Matthew Brady hired a team of photographers who covered nearly every battle of the Civil War. 

     Pulitzer and Hearst competed with their coverage of the Spanish-American War in 1898. The focus back then—railroads, civil rights, suffrage and immigration are still in the news today. Newspapers went unchallenged until 1920 when the public was introduced to newsreels, newsmagazines and radio. The Federal Radio Commission issued the first television station license W3XK to Charles Jenkins in 1928 and by 1948 cable television was introduced in Pennsylvania bringing television to rural areas and challenging motion pictures. An e-reader was first introduced around 1998 but didn’t take off until 2009 when new models for e-books began to be marketed and produced. In the 1930s, elevator music was easily available streaming media. Today we can hear stories and novels via audio books, stream via screen capture over the internet and yet love the feel of paper when we pick up a hard cover book. So many ways to hear tales, stories, fables, legends, fiction and fact.

    

STEPPING INTO HISTORY

Stepping into History

      Each morning, a rooster issues a raucous wake-up call; an invitation to begin another picture postcard day. I take a deep breath - the air is fresh in Tuscany and in the distance, the Apennine’s snow capped peaks provide an impressive backdrop for northern Italy’s cypress trees and chestnut forests. Sheep rest in the shade of Umbrella pines and nets stretch languorously between gray-green olive trees waiting to catch their fruit. Lemon and orange trees—bittersweet and perfect for marmalade—add golden highlights to the lush greenery. Perfect days to walk the walls of one of Tuscany’s medieval hill towns and step into Etruscan and Roman history. A perfect time to visit small wineries nestled in the Tuscan hills and join in heated discussions over which community produces the finest wine or olive oil.

     I study guidebooks and maps, listen to our local guides and learn something about the region. Its Italian name—Toscana—is as lilting as the countryside and pays homage to an ancient people the Romans called Etrusci or Tusci. Thought to have settled the northwest coast of the Italian peninsula as early as 1000 BC, Etruscans were at their peak of power

between the 7^th and 5^th century when they controlled Italy from the Alps to the Tiber River. Even Rome, in its infancy from 616 to 509 BC, was ruled by the Etruscans.  Governed by three leagues of twelve politically independent, quarrelsome city-states bound together by a shared history of religion and language; Etruscans were led by aristocratic, warrior-kings. Their cities were constructed in the shape of a quadrangle and protected by walls enforced by double gates and forbidding towers—a response to alliances formed by Romans, Greeks and Carthaginians. After the 5^th century, when the Greeks and Carthaginians defeated Etruria, power began to shift. By the 4^th century, the swelling Roman state, ruled by kings inspired by Greek culture, absorbed Etruscan cities and uprisings led to defeat. Defeat made more palatable when the Etruscans accepted Roman citizenship in the 1^st century BC.

     Forty-five miles west of Florence and thirteen miles northeast of Pisa is the fine olive-oil producing town of Lucca. It was here in 56 BC that Caesar, Crassus and Pompey met and agreed to rule Rome as a Triumvirate. It is here that I walk on the Passieggieta delle Mura, a walk of about 2 ½ miles that gives an overview of the town. The Passieggieta is one of the three walls built by Flemish engineers between 1500 and 1645. The walls were built to stem flooding by the Serchio River. As I walk, I can see flowering plants growing on top of a tower—an imposing medieval vase.   

     A visit to Lucca’s past includes a look at the Piazza Amfiteatro where the Roman Amphitheater once stood, the Duomo, with its green and white marble façade and San Michele in Foro topped by the statue of the Archangel Michael accompanied by two angels. The Carrera marble that once adorned the Amphitheater now adorns many of Lucca’s churches including the Duomo and San Michele. The unofficial capital of Tuscany during the rule of the Franks and Lombards, Lucca still enjoys an on-going rivalry with Pisa and Florence—Tuscan towns persevere in centuries-old squabbles.  Lucca was a Roman town, then a free commune from the 12^th century until 1369 when it became a republic. At the turn of the 19^th century, Tuscany became part of the French Empire and Lucca a principality, ruled by Elisa Bonaparte, Napoleon’s sister. Her villa is now an up-scale hotel—opposite another said to have once been owned by her lover, an army officer. Marie Louise de Bourbon, Napoleon’s widow, succeeded Elisa and Lucca became a duchy. The Lucchesi were so fond of her, they erected as statue which stands in Piazza Napoleone. The town rejoined Tuscany in 1847.

     A gate cut into 13^th century walls, via Porta San Giovanni, allows entry into San Gimignano. No cars are permitted inside the walls that protect one of the most charming towns in Tuscany. Because of the town’s 13 preserved towers—originally there were 72—San Gimignano is affectionately known as “Medieval Manhattan.” The towers were erected as symbols of wealth and power by patrician families who controlled this free commune as it reached its zenith during the 12^th and 13^th centuries. The height and number of towers grew along with the competition between the families.

     Located in the hills of Chianti, 34 miles southwest of Florence, the town bears the name of St. Gimignano, the Bishop of Modena, said to have saved the town from barbarian hordes. Pilgrims resting their weary bodies in San Gimignano as they traveled to and from Rome on the via Francigena, led to the town’s growth in the Middle Ages.  Today, after a walk through San Gimignano’s narrow, cobbled streets I can rest my body at an outdoor café in the Piazza della Cisterna, named for a well constructed in 1273, and sip Vernaccia—a light, white wine famous in the region. A welcome respite after viewing the town’s 14^th and 15^th century masterpieces in the museums and Duomo and experiencing a few shivers of horror at the Museum of Medieval Criminology housed in the Torre del Diavolo Devil’s Tower.

     San Gimignano was often at war with Volterra, another walled medieval town, and fought against other municipalities. The hostilities plus the mutually destructive clashes between political factions—the Guelphs who supported the papacy and the Ghibellines supporters of the imperial authority—divided the town and led to its decline. Devastated by the black plague of 1348, San Gimignano came under the protection of Florence; now a powerful and influential, medieval republic that dominated Tuscany.

     Called the “Town of Wind and Rock,” by D’Annuzio, and described by D.H. Lawrence as a city “that gets all the wind and sees all the world,” the views from Volterra are impressive. Located in the central part of Tuscany, Volterra, at diverse times in history, was called home by Umbrians, Etruscans and Florentines and, in the 3^rd century BC, controlled large expanses of territory. An important Etruscan hub, the Iron Age contributed to its affluence in the 6^th century when its merchants traded with Gaul but by the 16^th century, devastated by plague and malaria, Volterra’s power waned.

     Volterra is known for its fine Etruscan Museum—Etrusco Guarnacci, medieval squares, Etruscan walls, built of huge rocks, that stand on the edge of a precipice and Roman ruins. Its massive stone walls include the Roman-Etruscan Gate of the Arch where three Etruscan heads, inserted during the Roman era, keep a wary eye on visitors.

     Legend tells us, the medieval city of Siena was founded by Senius—son of Remus of Romulus and Remus—the legendary forefathers of Rome who were suckled by a wolf with extreme maternal instincts. Siena, another walled city, abounds with statues paying tribute to the wolf. Built on three lion-colored hills, Siena suggests a meander through the middle ages with its Gothic Palaces, steep, narrow streets and medieval gates plus its justly famous Chianti wine and delectably sweet, and for me, impossible to resist, panforte. Siena is known throughout the world for the Palio delle Contra held since the 13^th century in honor of the Madonna. Every July and August, preceded by a flag throwing ceremony and accompanied by costumes and banners that whisk us back to a 15^th century pageant, the Palio draws thousands to a celebration and tournament where jockeys ride bareback on the Piazza del Campo and anything goes—even a horse without a rider can win.

  

Bests,

Elise

Time and Place

I have the travel bug. I've always love travel through the United States and Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand. I find it exciting to learn history, meet people, gaze at mountains and oceans and let my mind wander. It leads to non-fiction articles and stirs my imagination leading to fiction.

Articles have been written about the monasteries in Greece, the amphitheatres in Syracuse, and the Gelato in Rome, Italy, Shakespeare Globe in London, and Gillette's Castle in Connecticut. My eBook cozy, Scene Stealer, takes place, here at home, in New York, short stories on Manhattan's streets and one influenced by a garden that was in the back of my apartment building. A mystery takes place in an affluent community in New Jersey and another in an abandoned mill in Sorrento many centuries ago.

Does travel and a sense of time and place influence your writing?

Bests,

Elise

THE RIGHT TO KNOW

“News is History,” Mark Twain said, “in its first and best form.” Recorded news began at least 100,000 years ago. At the Newseum in Washington, D.C., displays of a wide range of text and memorabilia include photos of rock, circa 4,000 B.C., portraying people talking in Tassela, Algeria. I can picture our ancestors, sitting around campfires, exchanging news of food, shelter and survival.
As I wander through history, I find that today’s feats of endurance—Marathons—whether athletic competitions or television shows to benefit charities—honor the legendary run of an early war correspondent, named Pheidippides. Pheidippides died of exhaustion after racing from Marathon to Athens bringing news of the Greek Victory over Persia in 490 B.C.
The drums, bells, horns and gongs, exhibited in the Newseum, once carried messages to villages in Asia and Africa. Councils answered the call when the beat of drums meant danger or death. Bronze bells called the Chinese to worship, meet, plant and harvest in 600 B.C.—by 740 A.D., their descendants invented printing by pressing carved, inked blocks of wood onto paper.
Text exhibited along with coins proves that Julius Caesar was no shrinking violet. A daily newssheet—Acta Diurna—was published and posted in places accessible to the public. He wrote a history of his military feats in 59 B.C. and minted coins to commemorate his victories.
Koreans produced bronze type for molds in 1403, while in Cuzco Valley, Peru, Inca messengers recorded and tallied new conquests, birth, and death and crop yields on knotted, multi-colored cords called quipas. The quipas were then carried to local officials. This was the century Johann Gutenberg invented movable type and type metal. Little changed for 400 years but with the development of the linotype, a typesetting machine, printing was revolutionized. Low priced publication of books and newspapers was now possible leading Thomas Edison to call the machine, “The eighth wonder of the world.” The Newseum exhibits a rare 18th century wood printing press, a linotype and other typesetting machines along with video films that demonstrate how the machines work.
In 1609, printed weekly newspapers made their appearance around the globe—the first regularly printed American paper was the Boston Newsletter, printed in 1704 and James Gordon Bennett published the first penny papers in 1833. Featured were lurid crime stories, human interest and diverting pieces of gossip—most far fetched—just like today’s tabloids. The front page of an 1835 edition of the New York Sun reads, “Exclusive! Creatures with Wings…on the Moon.” A copy of The Charleston Mercury, dated December 20, 1860, announces the start of the Civil War; reporters followed the troops into battle providing the public with eyewitness news. Matthew Brady hired a team of photographers who covered nearly every battle of the Civil War.
Pulitzer and Hearst competed with their coverage of the Spanish-American War in 1898. The focus back then—railroads, civil rights, suffrage and immigration are still in the news today. Newspapers went unchallenged until 1920 when the public was introduced to newsreels, newsmagazines and radio.
Nine out of ten American households owned a radio by 1938—families gathered together to listen to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s fireside chats and the broadcasts of commentators like H.V. Kaltenborn, Walter Winchell and Lowell Thomas. The Newseum exhibits their photographs and memorabilia ranging from field glasses, early microphones—including the microphone used by Edward R. Murrow to report the bombing of London and Ernest Hemingway’s press credentials. On display is a television set from the 1950’s, the first video tape recorder made by Ampex and Eleanor Roosevelt’s press pass—evoking memories of a much loved, much criticized and most controversial First Lady. Ernie Pyle’s typewriter and the shovel (used by the Scripps-Howard columnist to dig foxholes during World War II) are here. On April 18, 1945, on the island of Le Shima, a Japanese sniper killed the highly respected Pyle. “No man in this war, “President Harry S. Truman said, “so well told the story of the American fighting man.”
Today more journalists have been killed and wounded than ever before. Thursday news reported the deaths of Marie Colvin, a highly respected war correspondent and Remi Ochlik, a well-known photojournalist. They were reporting from the city of Homs in Syria. Reporting on the latest human tragedy brought on by man’s inhumanity to man.

Remembrance

On August 22, seven lines in the Memorial Section on the obituary page of The New York Times, a tribute to Richard Plantagenet could be read. Remember before God, Richard III, King of england, and those who fell on Bosworth Field, having kept faith, 22 August, 1485. Loyaulte me lie. http://www.r3.org/

Shakespeare's play--the last of four Shakespearean plays were about the Wars of the Roses between the houses of York and Lancaster. Richard III, third son of Richard Platagenet, Duke of York, and the brother of Edward IV seized the throne by force in 1493. The last Plantagenet to fight the first Tudor Monarch and lose--he appeared in Tudor histories and Shakespeare's plays as one of the most vicious rulers in history. In Shakespeare's drama Richard III, he is physically deformed, cruel and guilty of locking his nephews in the Tower of London and having them smothered to death. There is no historical truth to the story and Richard is said to have instituted many reforms, fought courageously at Bosworth Field in 1485 and met death bravely. But Shakespeare's play will forever influence a reader's opinion of Richard.

In our century, Peter Shaffer wrote a play titled Amadeus after hearing about Mozart's mysterious death in the late 18th century. Salieri, the court composer for the Emperor of Austria, was written as a jealous rival who would do anything to vanquish the young genius. It didn't happen but Shaffer's brilliant and vivid writing lives on. the play won five Tony Awards, including best play and eight Oscars, including best picture.

After reading the Memorial, I began to wonder if one of the reasons we write is to remember someone or something, hold on to a piece of history that we hold dear, shape it or perhaps be a part of it or have a bit of ourselves remembered forever.

Bests,

Elise

My small contribution--an eBook titled Scene Stealer is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Carina Press and wherever eBooks are sold. An audio version has been produced by Audible.com