Sutcliff and the emerald-ring-with-dolphin motif
Q.I recently picked up some Rosemary Sutcliff titles I hadn't read for a number of years- "Dawn Wind" and "The Shield Ring", and also "Sword Song". I'd forgotten that all three had characters who had inherited the emerald signet ring that belonged to...Flavius Aquila, I think the character's name was... of "The Lantern Bearers". So now I'm trying to remember, and to figure out a chronology of, the books in which the ring appeared. (By "chronology", I mean the order in which the books go if one is following the ring, not the order in which they were written.) The *first* one, I'm pretty sure, is "The Lantern Bearers", and "Sword at Sunset" is after that- IIRC, the Aquila of "Sunset" is the same as the one in "Lantern". In "Dawn Wind", the owner (descendant of the Aquila family) goes back to Wales to settle at the end of the book; in "Sword Song", it belongs to the girl on the Welsh farm who goes back to Rafnglas with Bjorn. In "The Shield Ring", it belongs to Bjarni, who has "a foremother out of Wales". However, I KNOW I'm missing at least one title there.... "The Silver Branch", maybe?... which is either just before or just after "Sword at Sunset". Anybody remember any other titles it shows up in?
A.I've just finished re-reading "Frontier Wolf"; it's definitely before "Lantern Bearers", and possibly before "Silver Branch" - will have re-read SB to make sure. The main character is Roman, but born in Britain and "has a British grandmother"- whom I *think* may be Cottia, the girl Marcus marries at the end of "Eagle". (The character speaks of Marcus as "the first of my line to settle in Britain" but doesn't state the relationship.) The story is set entirely in Britain, btw, except for the first 11 pages. :-) They would- they contain events which are pivotal to the entire story, and are action-packed and (of course) vividly described. Main character, young and inexperienced, makes a bad decision and abandons the fort he has unexpectedly ended up in command of. The rest of the story is about him being sent to a remote fort in Britain to command the Wolves, and eventually being faced with having to make the same sort of decision. From memory: The very first one - I think the first Sutcliff wrote: EAGLE OF THE NINTH. When Marcus Flavius Aquila settles in Britain to produce the family we follow through the other stories. Set a generation after Boudicca's rebellion. SILVER BRANCH set a few generations later, under Caracius (sp?). Saxons beginning to be a problem. Flavius Aquila and his cousin Justin find a use for the macguffin from EAGLE. LANTERN BEARERS, Rome is falling, the legions withdraw, Saxons are a problem. Aquila deserts the legion to stay in Britain. FRONTIER WOLF - either just before this or contemporaneous, I think. Not fully set in Britain, IIRC, but the Germanies, but the emerald ring is there, and the story and the Aquila family member returns to Britain.
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