Date: Wed, 23 Jun 93 10:46:33 MDT
From: tperreau@banshee.VLA.NRAO.EDU (Tonster)
Message-Id: <9306231646.AA06791@banshee.vla.nrao.edu>
To: alt-ql-creative@cisco.com
Subject: All Soul's Night -- Author's Notes

				All Soul's Night

				 Author's Notes

When I first started to write this, I was going to base the story off
the Scottish tale "Tam Lin" (and call it 'Sam Lin'?  Not on your life!);
however, things changed.  I got the CD mentioned in Part 5, and I felt that
this song _had_ to be a part of the story, thus the title of the song
"All Souls Night" became the title of the story.

As mentioned in ASN, Samhain was considered a very special time for the
Celtic people.  Our modern custom of Trick or Treat probably stems from
the actions of families leaving honey cakes and milk out for the spirits
of their ancestors.  In Ireland, a great bonfire was lighted at the hill
known as Tara, and like ripples from a stone, hilltops all over Ireland
also lit bonfires, symbolizing the New Year.  People ran and jumped over
these fires, casting the year's bad luck behind them (remember the rhyme
'Jack Be Nimble'?).

There is, of course, no book like the one that Sam saw the picture in,
although there is a Black Book of the Taymouth, which is a history of
the dreaded clan Campbell.  It seems to be a custom in Scotland and Ireland
to name a book after a color and family or location.  The description
of the painting actually came from one of the very few nightmares in my
life that woke me up from a sound sleep.  Very Lovecraftean, and I still
vividly remember this dream nearly six years later.  Perhaps someday I'll
write it.

There is, however, the famed Faery Flag of the MacLeods.  It is in the castle
Dunvegan on the isle of Skye, which is open to the public.  The "flag" is a
piece of silk, roughly 3' x 4', and dates from approx. the 3rd to 7th
centuries.  Is it most likely Middle Eastern in origin.  Legend has it that
one of the chieftains of MacLeod, who fell in love with a faery woman, was
given this flag.  When waved in battle, the MacLeods would win -- however,
this could be done only three times.  Twice the flag has been flown in
battle, and twice the MacLeods won.  Legend also states that if anyone other
than a MacLeod touches the flag, then they will burst into flames.  The
comment about the WWII pilots I recall reading somewhere, and I think that
it is a fact that no MacLeod, while flying with a photograph of the Flag,
was killed when he was shot down.

As for the faery.  I wanted to keep them somewhat mystical and alien, yet
curious.  Celtic tales tell of the Si and their paranormal powers; they
were beings that were respected, and feared.  Perhaps someday I'll write
about Sam's adventures in the court of the Elf Queen in the Land of the
Blessed.

There may also be a little confusion about the last part.  Seven years
in the PQL timeline has past -- it is now 2006 there, not 1999.  Sam leaped
out 1 day after he vanished, and he spent an undetermined length of time
in the Otherworld (hint:  time flows differently in the Otherworld, and
the Otherworld is neither Heaven nor Hell).  And no, Sam did _not_ leap
home -- I have a couple more stories planned before Sam comes home (if
he ever does -- After Mirror Image does present interesting possibilities,
and there was the comment about scanning to "the end of the 21st century").