The idea for Carthian Chronicles first came to me when I was fourteen. I had a dream in which I fell down a well and came up in a bizarre world. I was befriended by four travellers with odd faces, and taken on a trek across a wide land. Our task was to visit a white serpent called Sett, who was coiled in a marble tower. I began daydreaming about the story for years after I had the dream. Then, at twenty, I had another dream. This time I was in a mansion on a rainy day, lying on an enormous rug by a roaring fire. For some reason, I got up and went to the window. I saw a flash of gold behind a tree outside in the rain. I followed the flashing golden ball out into the forest and was led, once again, down into a deep stone well. Like the first dream, I came out into a strange world, populated by bizarre creatures. My interest in dreams and symbols growing, I studied myth, creative writing and film-making at university, and the story kept pushing through at the back of my mind. Then, in 1998, I was living near a stone church which overlooked a park by the ocean. The church was called 'Our Lady Star of the Sea'. I walked every morning past the church through the park and along the cliffs. The words 'Our Lady Star of the Sea' were engraved in stone over an archway, and, for some reason, this was so evocative to me that the whole story began to emerge into my mind on those morning walks. Just as the Egyptian goddess, Isis, and her infant son, Horus, became the Madonna and Child of Christian theology - so did those engraved words conjure an image which caused these two archetypes to reincarnate in my story as The Star and Her Foal (see Chapter 6). A few other things happened between then and now, which is 2007, that helped the story along, but I shall not elaborate too much. Suffice to say, the story just kept ballooning in my head until I realized it would take five books to tell the whole tale. Carolyn Beaumont, a reviewer for The Australian for ten years, called the story: "one of the most beautiful texts I have ever read". If you wish to order the book, please email me at
[email protected] and I will send you a signed copy. I am also on Facebook as Hamish Gordon. And yes there is a code of meanings hidden in the text. Yes it is an allegorical code such as one would find in Hearts of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, or St George and the Dragon, only mine is far more detailed, and, in addition to using Jungian archetypes, has embraced the science of Ayurveda, which is the most thorough science of understanding, diagnosing and treating the human condition that has ever been devised. So if you want to solve the puzzle and win the prize, my suggestion is that you first look up the word 'allegory' in the dictionary, so as to be absolutely clear as to what you are dealing with. Have fun. HayGor.
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