Eras

Why is it that certain eras attract our imagination more than others? I’ve got a Sherlock Holmes mystery on now. London in the 1880’s seems to be an extremely well-travelled area of the popular imagination, especially for mysteries. Then there’s the earlier Regency era for romances, and the middle ages for all sorts of adventures — Robin Hood and King Arthur and all. And these past few years have seen a big surge in the era of Cromwell and the subsequent Restoration for historical novels.

But there are perfectly good eras going to waste. The time of the winter of 873-874 in the English midlands…. Who thinks of that, but me and a few historians and the archaeologists I used to volunteer for? The kingdom of Mercia, trying to hold itself together under the Viking onslaught, saw the Viking Great Army spend that particular winter in a town called Hreopedune (Repton). The next summer it split up, one half to dwindle away to nothing in the north and east, the other half to go southwest and meet up with a guy called Alfred the Great.

Maybe it’s too distant in the imagination. It was a time as strange to people of Shakespeare’s day as their time is to us. Shouldn’t be, but then, who am I to say?