by Judith Tarr
In a little while, from the look on Agni’s face, they would all be sent away so that Tilia and the children could rest. But for the moment they were there, two worlds, two peoples, all together in this one blessed place.
Sarama glanced at Danu.
His eye met hers. He nodded.
Laughter bubbled up in her. His own echoed it. He swept her up and kissed her soundly. “Now,” he said.
“Now,” she agreed with great contentment.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Perhaps the most unexpected discovery for a novelist working in prehistory these days, particularly if the novelist has had the sort of classical education that regards the civilizations of Mesopotamia—Sumeria and Ur of the Chaldees—as the very beginnings of civilized culture, is that Sumer and Ur are in fact quite young as cities go. Long before either of them, a large area in what is now eastern Europe and western Asia, and even as far west as the “heel” of Italy, saw the rise of innumerable towns and cities. Archaeologists have found settlements large enough to match a medieval city, in clusters as close as within a kilometer apart, a population of quite remarkable density—and dating from 7000 B.C. until about 3000 B.C. Even predynastic Egypt does not go back so far.
Interpretation of these cultures is difficult and controversial. One interpretation in particular has been both avidly embraced and bitterly excoriated: that of Marija Gimbutas, who coined the term “Old Europe,” and whose monumental body of archeological and scholarly work operates on the assumption that these Neolithic city-states were centers of peace-loving, Goddess-worshipping people ruled by women and innocent of war. Particularly in her book The Civilizations of the Goddess: The World of Old Europe (San Francisco, 1991), as well as in The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe: Myths and Cult Images (Berkeley, 1982) and The Language of the Goddess (San Francisco, 1991), along with numerous articles, she assembles an impressive collection of archaeological evidence to support her thesis.
However the scholar may feel about her interpretation, for a novelist it is pure gold. Add to this the discovery of a second motherlode in Riane Eisler’s The Chalice and the Blade (San Francisco, 1987), along with Margaret Ehrenberg’s Women in Prehistory (Norman, OK, 1989) and the wonderful examination of the history of weaving in Elizabeth Wayland Barber, Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years (New York, 1994), and a picture emerges of a tremendously rich and sophisticated people who were, perhaps, totally different in mind and emphasis than any later Western culture.
This novel began as a prehistoric epic about women and horses. Its original inspiration was an item that appeared in the newspapers, on the discovery of bit wear on the jaw of a horse dating from about 4000 B.C. This was based on an article by David W. Anthony and Dorcas Brown, “The Origin of Horseback Riding,” in Scientific American 256 (1991), along with subsequent articles including David W. Anthony’s “Horse, Wagon, and Chariot: Indo-European Languages and Archaeology,” in Antiquity 69 (1995). Professors Anthony and Brown, with others, have concluded that there is clear evidence for the riding of horses with bits of either leather or bone as early as 4000 B.C., and possibly earlier—predating the first evidence of the chariot by some thousand years.
It so happens that these dates are significant in the history of Old Europe. These are the dates—between 4500 and about 3000 B.C.—when the civilization of Gimbutas’ “Old Europe” was invaded and eventually either assimilated or destroyed by tribes of pastoral nomads.
These nomads, it must be noted, were horsemen. First as riders and later as warriors in chariots, they overwhelmed the cities and swept westward until, after several millennia, they came to a halt in the isles of Britain and Ireland. Professor Anthony suggested that a novelist well might consider the first contact of these two cultures, Old Europe and the steppe nomads called the Kurgans, either around 4500 or around 3500 B.C. I chose the earlier date, the invasion of riders on horses rather than in chariots.
I have taken great and perhaps unconscionable liberties with the archaeological and geographical evidence, but considerably fewer with the technology and daily details, as far as they are known. Readers in search of the “true” story would do well to go to Gimbutas, Anthony, and other scholars of Neolithic Europe and Asia. The basis however is the Kurgan invasion of the Cucuteni peoples of the area south of what is now Kiev, beginning around the Volga and the Don and sweeping south and west toward the Dnieper and the Dniester rivers.
In the way of all epics, I have simplified the long and complex story, and focused it on one small area and one rather symbolic geography. The wood between the steppe and the Lady’s country could as well have been a river or a mountain range. That there was some barrier which had to be crossed before the warriors from the steppe could overwhelm the Goddess’ country, seems likely.
I should note here that the people of the wood have a basis in archeological evidence; there is some indication of Cro-Magnon survivals in this region, and further indication that these early humans interbred with the peoples of the steppe. Tillu and his kin, or people very like them, well may have existed.
The geography I invented or heavily adapted, but the cultures are based on Gimbutas and on the Rig Veda. The latter, the great Indian sacred cycle, is one of the sources and inspirations of Anthony and Brown’s work on early equestrian societies. If one treats it as legend rather than myth, it becomes a fascinating historical source, a depiction of a culture that must have been based originally on the Kurgans. In the meeting of so strongly male-dominated and warlike a society with a society that worshipped a Mother Goddess and that did not until quite late—after the invasions had begun—appear to make or use weapons of war, I found my story and my characters.
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Copyright & Credits
White Mare’s Daughter
The Epona Sequence, Book 1
Judith Tarr
Book View Café Publishing Cooperative Edition January 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61138-356-0
Copyright © 1998 Judith Tarr
First published: Forge
Cover illustration by Theodor Kittelsen
Cover design by Pati Nagle
Production team: Proofreader: Julianne Lee; Ebook Formatter: Vonda N. McIntyre
This book is a work of fiction. All characters, locations, and events portrayed in this book are fictional or used in an imaginary manner to entertain, and any resemblance to any real people, situations, or incidents is purely coincidental.
Book View Café Publishing Cooperative
PO Box 1624
Cedar Crest, NM 87008-1624
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About the Author
Judith Tarr holds a PhD in Medieval Studies from Yale. She is the author of over three dozen novels and many works of short fiction. She has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award, and has won the Crawford Award for The Isle of Glass and its sequels. She lives near Tucson, Arizona, where she raises and trains Lipizzan horses.
Other Titles by Judith Tarr
Novels
Ars Magica
Alamut
The Dagger and the Cross
Living in Threes
Lord of the Two Lands
A Wind in Cairo
His Majesty’s Elephant
Series
The Epona Sequence
White Mare’s Daughter
Avaryan Rising
The Hall of the Mountain King
The Lady of Han-Gilen
A Fall of Princes
Avaryan Resplendent
Arrows of the Sun
Spear of Heaven
Tides of Darkness
The Hound and the Falcon
The Isle of Glass
The Golden Horn
The Hounds of God
Nonfiction
Writing Horses: The Fine Art of Getting it Right
BVC Anthologies
Beyond Grimm
Breaking Waves
Brewing Fin
e Fiction
Ways to Trash Your Writing Career
Dragon Lords and Warrior Women
Rocket Boy and the Geek Girls
The Shadow Conspiracy
The Shadow Conspiracy
The Shadow Conspiracy II
About Book View Café
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