[UPDATE] More research notes · 5:41pm Aug 7th, 2020
One of the things I enjoy most about writing horsefics is when I have to do research into names to find the origin of something that is just kinda...a word we use but has an etymological source in native words in a dead language that actually refers to something that the people of the time actually knew and understood that it meant a thing.
My current favorite:
'Buckingham' (as in Buckingham Palace) comes from "Buckinghamshire," or "Village of Bucca's People."
Of course, this brought up the question, "...who the hay is Bucca?!"
Bucca is a male sea-spirit in Cornish folklore, a merman, that inhabited mines and coastal communities as a hobgoblin during storms. The mythological creature is a type of water spirit likely related to the Púca from Irish and Welsh folklore and the female mari-morgans, a type of mermaid from Welsh and Breton mythology. Rev W. S. Lach-Szyrma, one 19th-century writer on Cornish antiquities, suggested the Bucca had originally been an ancient pagan deity of the sea such as Irish Nechtan or British Nodens, though his claims are mainly conjecture.[1] Folklore however records votive food offerings made on the beach similar to those made to the subterranean Knockers and may represent some form of continuity with early or pre-Christian Brittonic belief practices.
Makes my inner Sci-Twi go, "Ooooooh!"
So in other words, it's a duchy that the Sirens pointedly didn't terrorize because they capitulated before Aria had a chance to do anything.
I LOVE British folklore (well.. Folklore in general) and am pleased that you are Twilighting over it (as a proud Brit this makes me really happy)
Looking forward to the next instalment of Empire