Chasing the Bard
Nominated for the Sir Julius Vogel Award for best novel 2006, the podiobook won the Sir Julius Vogel award for fan production in 2009.
The ebook is now available in a number of formats
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(Cover image by Alex White of the Gearheart podcast)
He is born into the human world with a gift; a gift that brings him to the attention of powers both dark and light from the World of the Fey. Sive, the goddess of battle, hopes that he may be able to change the fate of her people.
The Fey are dying, killed by something beyond the boundaries of worlds, and Sive will do anything to save them. So she enlists the help of her trickster cousin Puck to guard the child, and watch him grow into his gift. But a dark power imprisoned by human and Fey, plots to destroy both worlds, and unmake all that they have created.
Can one boy stop the destruction, even if he is William Shakespeare?
Reviews
In the Library Review
7 gargoyles out of 9
This book is an imaginative extension of Shakespeare’s play. The premise is much darker than the original, but there is enough light-hearted banter by Puck to keep the story from getting too dark.
Fallen Angel Reviews
Chasing the Bard is a saga of love and betrayal. In a time when magic is slowly dying at the hand of the church, the fey return one last time for help. Philippa Ballantine expertly describes the life and times of Elizabethan England within a story of ancient magic and power. Chasing the Bard deftly weaves history and fantasy within the mortal and fey world. Maybe he was called the Bard for reasons beyond his plays and sonnets.
Chasing the Bard intrigued and mesmerized me with its tale of heartache and sorrow. Sive and Will’s relationship captured my heart and I longed for them to be together. Will became more than a part of history, he lived in Chasing the Bard and I will miss him. Philippa Ballantine brilliantly exposes the blindness that causes us to believe we don’t need each other whether human or not.
What people are saying…
Amazon
…This book just grabbed me from the first page and absorbed me into it. It is very elegantly paced. Not a word I’d normally use to describe a fantasy book but it is the correct word. A lot happens in it reading from page to page. This is very consistent throughout the whole book…
…the plot is fast paced and the witty dialogue makes it hard to put down. The characters are intriguing and they leave you wanting to know more as if they were real and not fictionalised. But I think it is in the plot development where it really shines, we start off in a real world and end up in an unreal time and place without becoming yet another fantasy bodice-ripper…
The Setting 
The book is set not only in England, but also in that place where our dreams come from, where the world is made up of the creatures that inhabit our stories. In many cultures this world has many names, in this time and place it is called the Fey. Faeries, Puck, Auberon, they all live there. Their world needs ours, and ours would be a dead place without theirs. It is a place of magic and danger, both alluring as each other to mere mortals.
Of course Elizabethan England is just as fascinating. It is a golden age of achievement. After many long years of turmoil, finally England has a Queen who is different from those that immediately preceded her. Elizabeth said she did not want to make a window into men’s souls, and the realm was stable for the first time since her father’s arguments with the Catholic church. This was the time of great literature, and great patriotism. But of course every remembers this time as being when William Shakespeare lived, and his words have survived time even better than Elizabeth’s beloved England.
Characters
Some are based on real people, some on myth, and some are mine alone.
Sive (Rhymes with ‘hive’)- the Fey goddess of battle, seen in many guises, and known by many names around the world. The inspiration for the dark goddess comes from the worldwide phenomenon of the destroyer goddess. Kali, the Morrigan, Hine-nui-te-po; she has many faces and always frightens and intrigues humanity.
Auberon – King of the Fey. Lifted from Midsummer Night’s Dream, but transformed from Titiana’s husband, to Sive’s brother. Languid and confident in his Art, things may be about to change for him.
Puck- cousin to Sive. The Trickster known for his mercurial nature. Shakespeare did not invent this otherworldly trickster, he was already part of European folklore. Puck has been with us in various forms since before the beginning of recorded history. He has gone by many various aliases like any good Trickster; Pwca, Phouka, Phooka, and Robin Goodfellow. But in all forms his is full of tricks and has a nasty habit of shapeshifting as well. The Irish Pooka would in the shape of a horse lure traveller onto his back and then take them on a hellish journey that would often end with being dumped in the sea. Before Shakespeare the Trickster, Pooka and Robin Goodfellow were considered two different creatures. Robin was generally considered a more benign creature. Puck has been a hairy little hobgoblin, an old man, a creature with the head of an ass, or a cute looking hobbit-like creature. Truly he is a master of form and shape. But no matter what body he wears he remains a Fairy to beware of.
William Shakespeare- a talented but barely educated boy from a rural backwater- who could imagine greatness in his future?
Brigit – Aunt to Puck, Auberon and Sive. Sister to Anu first Queen of the Fey. Guardian of wisdom and insight. Brigit is both a saint and an ancient goddess in celtic myth- acknowledged to have the gift of insight and inspiration.
Mordant – the Fey husband of Sive. He ventured into the Between searching for a cure for the malaise out of love for the dark goddess, but what he found there fractured him. The name seemed just right for him, not based on any mythology. It just sounded right.
Macha- The raven familiar of the dark goddess. Her beginings are ancient. The sound of a raven’s call over the battlefield was once enough to send fear into even the most fearsome of warriors- for such a sound could only mean that the Morrigan, The Phantom Queen was abroad. The Morrigan was either a single deity, or could be part of a trio- like many other Celtic deities. Macha and Badb were often her companions in this triumvirate, meaning respectively ‘battle’ and ‘fury’. She was a powerful, and fickle goddess though- for she could both doom and bless. As one of the Tuatha De Danan she helped overthrow the Firbolgs, but also later she caused the death of Erin’s greatest hero Cú Chulainn. She had many forms either appearing as the crow hovering over the battlefield, or the Washer at the Ford, who washed the bloody clothing of those doomed to die in oncoming battler- or even occasionally as the beautiful young maid, who through her sex could bring success. Before the battle that secured Eiren for the Tuath De Danan, she slept with the mighty Dagda, and aided him in combat. So she had the power of both death and life in her hands- both sides of the same coin- perhaps why she was so feared.
But even a goddess can be influenced by love. And when Morrigan met the mighty Cú Chulainn, she lost herself, and offering up herself to him more than probably expected him to be delighted. Unfortunately the hero was not so clever and did not recognise who she was. Morrigan like many other spurned women, turned a little nasty at this point, condemning his wife Emer to remain childless. She appeared as the Washer of the Ford to him, and then finally forced him to break his geas, never to eat the flesh of a dog. Thus Cú Chulainn was condemned to die. Try reading Morgan Llewlyn’s “On Raven’s Wing” for a magnificent tale about the Hound of Ulster and the Great Queen.
Seed of an idea
The truth is we will never really know what William Shakespeare was like. History is a closed book which we make supositions, educated guesses and dreams on. Unfortunately we will never be able to meet the man who has influenced our language, shaped our theatre, and intrigued his way into our modern world. No one, not even the experts can ever know for sure what went on his mind, how he talked, if he was happy in his marriage or even if he was a good man.
But that makes history fruitful ground for a writer. Authors since Homer on have taken what was past and crafted it for the future.
I have always loved Shakespeare; his richess of language, his exposure of human weakness, and the way he can reach inside a person is unmatched. My musings on what this person could have been, and what magic might have touched his life to bring such greatness about, eventuated in Chasing the Bard.
When I visited Straford in 2001, in the some vein as thousands of others over the years, I could still see the Elizabethan town he would have known, even past the surge of tourists. I stood for ages outside his birthplace, and imagined that I was in the muddy street it must have once been. Driving through the few trees that remain of Arden Wood, I saw the flicker of Puck’s shadow.
Travelling to London, I was a groundling for a production of King Lear at the Globe. I would recommend this to anyone, as despite the lack of footpads, nutsellers and prostitutes that Will would have known, the experience is as close as you will come to spending time with the Bard.
So my writing this novel was done out of love, and hopefully any artistic license I may have taken with his story Will would forgive- after all he above all others new the value of a good story. That is at least one thing we can be sure of…
If you would like to find out more about the life and times of Shakespeare see the back pages of Chasing the Bard for my recommendations on some great books to read on the subject.