Red Gloves
Red Gloves

Author: Beth Vaughan

Publisher: Hachette UK

Published: 2010-11-04

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0575087501

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Red Gloves is a mercenary, raised to the blade and trained in the ways of war. She'll take no nonsense and pull no punches; she seizes what she wants and leaves when she's done. She and Bethral, her sword-sister, have come to Palins looking for work, but they find torched fields and razed farms, a land defiled. During a storm they stumble across a derelict mansion and beg shelter of the sole human occupant, the resident goatherd. He's not happy, and he's not impressed with the stroppy mercenary - but Red Gloves is even less impressed when he notices her birthmark and claims it marks her out as Chosen, born to help the people of Palins reclaim their land. Her inclination to help dwindles still further when she discovers there's no money, no reward, in fact, nothing in store for the Chosen but a difficult, bloody battle against the odds. So she takes what she wants of the goatherd, and she leaves. But circumstances force Red back to the mansion, and this time she's more inclined to help - after all, impossible odds and bloody battles are very much her style. She's poised, reluctantly, to do her thing, when it turns out she's not the only Chosen in the race for freedom, and the crown ... RED GLOVES: a beguiling tale of daggers, derring-do and destiny, and heroes who come in all shapes and sizes.

Ritual in Early Bronze Age Grave Goods
Ritual in Early Bronze Age Grave Goods

Author: John Hunter

Publisher: Oxbow Books

Published: 2014-10-31

Total Pages: 593

ISBN-13: 1782976949

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The exotic and impressive grave goods from burials of the ÔWessex CultureÕ in Early Bronze Age Britain are well known and have inspired influential social and economic hypotheses, invoking the former existence of chiefs, warriors and merchants and high-ranking pastoralists. Alternative theories have sought to explain the how display of such objects was related to religious and ritual activity rather than to economic status, and that groups of artefacts found in certain graves may have belonged to religious specialists. This volume is the result of a major research that aimed to investigate Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age grave goods in relation to their possible use as special dress accessories or as equipment employed within ritual activities and ceremonies. Many items of adornment can be shown to have formed elements of elaborate costumes, probably worn by individuals, both male and female, who held important ritual roles within society. Furthermore, the analysis has shown that various categories of object long interpreted as mundane types of tool were in fact items of bodily adornment or implements used in ritual contexts, or in the special embellishment of the human body. Although never intended to form a complete catalogue of all the relevant artefacts from England the volume provides an extensive, and intensively illustrated, overview of a large proportion of the grave goods from English burial sites.