(bell dinging) - I'm Signe Pike, and this is "The Shadowed Land," a retelling of the Arthurian legend based on new scholarship, also around a historical figure, Languoreth, who was an actual queen in Scotland in the early sixth century.

- Why did you choose to focus on her as a character as you're bringing in all of the other legendary and historical characters?

- I think for me it was always about Languoreth.

Discovering her and that she was a real historical figure, married to a historical king that her brother happened to be, her twin brother, happened to be the man who inspired the legend of Merlin was an afterthought for me because the life that she lived and the events that she went through from the coming of Christianity to the increased aggression of the Anglo-Saxons that were moving into the eastern coast of Scotland at the time, she experienced such a life of pain, and beauty and upheaval that I knew from the beginning that I wanted to tell her story.

And the fact that she was, that Arthurian characters were tangential to her was just an added bonus to me.

As you know, a lot of people assume that these books are fantasy, right?

Because they deal with the Arthurian cannon.

And I make a big point in my author's note to talk about how these are historical fiction and why.

Just because we're writing about pre-Christian religion does not mean that this is fantasy.

Everything, especially in "The Shadowed Land," we're talking about weather work.

People have believed they could influence the weather almost in every culture across humanity.

And so, this is actually a really ancient tradition.

It just so happens that Scotland is one of those really special places where a lot of those traditions, as you know, when you go visit, they last and they last.

It was exciting moment for me to be able to take weather working and plunk it into these books, and really weave it in to show people what ancient Celtic thought would really have been like.

- Signe, thank you so much for being here.

This was so much fun.

- It was so much fun to be here.

- And thank you for watching the Word on Words.

I'm JT Ellison, keep reading.

(bell dinging) This is fantastic.

We could talk all day.

Happily, we're gonna talk some more.

- [Signe] We will, and probably with some whiskey.

- [JT] Maybe with some whiskey.

I think that's a really good idea.