I'm setting this novel, at least the beginning, in the year AD 656. Why 656, you ask? Well, in the year 656, some interesting stuff happened.
And that brings me to Wulfhere. After Easter of 656, Prince Wulfhere is heir to the crown of Mercia, his elder brother Peada having been murdered with the connivance of his wife, and having left this world childless.
By the way, does it strike you as odd that Wulfhere's father is named Penda and his older brother is named Peada, while he is named Wulfhere. Wulfhere is totally an Anglo-Saxon name, by the way. The first time I saw it, I guessed it meant "wolf lord," as in Wolfherr, in modern German. But I was wrong. That's a shame. I would love to be able to say the guy is named "Wolf Lord." Oh, well.
No, Wulfhere is cognate with the modern German Wolfheer. That means "Wolf army." What a name. Jamie over at the British History Podcast says it sounds like a name some online gamer would come up with for himself. (It would inevitably be a "him.") Any confusion you may feel about this should be cleared up when I tell you that "wulf" (wolf) is one of the 57 Anglo-Saxon words for "warrior" or "fighter." Anglo-Saxons have lots of words for fighter for the same reason that the Inuit have a lot of words for snow (actually a bit of a myth): because it's how they spent their lives.
Although this has nothing to do with my novel, I can't help but notice how different (and un-Anglo-Saxon) the names "Penda" and "Peada" are. They sound Welsh to me, and my research backs me up on this. Why Mercian Angle royals would be giving their sons Welsh names is a bit of a mystery, and even more so that they would name their first son "Peada," and then follow up with a thoroughly Anglo-Saxon name for the second son. (Unless I can think up a good rationale for that within my novel. Hm. Have to give that some thought.)
But, unless I come up with something clever there, that's a side point. In the novel, it is 656, King Peada has just been murdered, and the disappearance of Prince Wulhere launches the story.
(I have finished the first book of what is now certainly going to be a trilogy. It's about 80,000 words long, and I am shopping it to agents. Time to get cracking on the second book!)
