Although Thalakrea is invented, its volcanic features were inspired by the real ones I experienced on my travels. Milos gave me the astonishing white ravine that Hylas and Pirra find; the vividly colored rocks and caves; the smelly hot springs; and, most memorably for me, the obsidian ridge, with its great drifts of obsidian shards and hammerstones left behind by stoneworkers many thousands of years ago. (The lonely wild pear tree is real, too. Many times I sat in its shade, watching falcons patrolling the ridge.)
Vulcano gave me Thalakrea’s black plain; the broom thickets, the smelly green mudpool, and the Mountain’s great smoking crater—not to mention Thalakrea’s headachy smell. On several solo climbs of the (dormant) volcano, I had unforgettable encounters with its many fumaroles: the hissing, sulfur-crusted cracks that become the fire spirits’ lairs in the story. I was often driven back by their choking smoke, and although I never spotted a fire spirit, it was easy to imagine how such a place would affect a Bronze Age boy like Hylas.
I’ll admit that I haven’t spent time inside the crater of an erupting volcano; for that part of the story, I’ve relied on the accounts of accident victims who survived to tell the tale. But to observe an eruption at first hand, I climbed Stromboli (off the coast of Sicily), which is in a state of almost constant activity. We reached the summit at nightfall, and watched fierce spurts of lava shooting from the crater. That was followed by an equally memorable night-time descent down the black ashen slopes, which inspired Pirra’s descent in the story.
I want to thank the many people—too numerous to name—who gave me advice and assistance while I was exploring Milos and Sifnos, Vulcano and Stromboli. I’m also extremely grateful to Todd Whitelaw, Professor of Aegean Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, for his help. He gave so generously of his time in answering my questions on the prehistoric Aegean, as well as providing detailed and invaluable guidance on which sites to visit on Milos and Sifnos and the significance of what I might see. He also let me handle many Mycenaean and Minoan artefacts (with gloves on, of course!) in the Institute’s collection. To hold in your hand a small Bronze Age earthenware bull which might once have been someone’s precious offering, and to see the painter’s brushstrokes and even their fingerprints, is to feel very close to those long-ago people.
Finally, and as always, I want to thank my wonderful and indefatigable agent, Peter Cox, for his commitment and support, and my hugely talented editor at Puffin Books, Elv Moody, for her endless enthusiasm and unfailing support for the story of Hylas and Pirra.
Michelle Paver, 2013
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHOR
MICHELLE PAVER
is an avid researcher who tirelessly investigates the worlds she creates—traveling extensively in the wild, encountering bears, boars, and wolves, and swimming with dolphins and killer whales. Her bestselling novels bring the past vividly and excitingly to life, including the critically acclaimed Wolf Brother, the first book in her award-winning Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series.
www.michellepaver.com
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