Kate Mosse Assembles Fictitious and Real People in The Winter Ghosts

Summary: Kate Mosse assembles fictitious and real people in The Winter Ghosts, historical fiction novel about Good Christians in 14th-century southwestern France.

"God talks to human beings through many vectors: through each other, through organized religion, through the great books of those religions, through wise people, through art and music and literature and poetry, but nowhere with such detail and grace and color and joy as through creation. When we destroy a species, when we destroy a special place, we're diminishing our capacity to sense the divine, understand who God is and what our own potential is." Robert Francis Kennedy Jr., April 19, 2023, Boston Park Plaza Hotel, Back Bay, Boston, Massachusetts.

“And there’s many people out there who want us to move to the next planet already and I’m like, hang on, let’s not give up on this planet yet," William, Prince of Wales, July 31, 2023, Sorted Food food truck, London, England, United Kingdom.

Gawain (from Middle English Gawayne, from French Gauvain, from Common Brittonic gwalx gwinn, "hawk white?" via Welsh) abided as perhaps historical, perhaps legendary nephew of perhaps historical, perhaps legendary King Arthur of the Round Table in the British Isles. He accounts for the one allusion by fictitious Frederick Watson in The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse to someone who achieves perhaps ahistorical, perhaps fictitious, perhaps historical, perhaps legendary accreditation; illustration of celebration of the Pentecost at the Round Table, with Gawain (second from upper left edge) and King Arthur (third from upper right edge), commissioned by Jacques d'Armagnac (1433-Aug. 4, 1477), Duke of Nemours, and created ca. 1475 by 15th-century French manuscript illuminator Évrard d'Espinques, in manuscript 116 of Lancelot-Graal, also known as Lancelot in Prose: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Kate Mosse assembles fictitious and real people in The Winter Ghosts, historical fiction novel about Good Christians, also acknowledged as Albigensians and Cathars (from Greek καθαροί, “pure ones”), in 14th-century southwestern France.

The 21st-century basis built upon a 14th-century base brings together fictitious people who respectively belong to Cathar-bequeathed and belonged to Cathar-berthed Ax, Foix, Tarascon and Toulouse. The fictitious characters cluster around Frederick Watson, called Freddie by brother George, father George and mother Anne, in 1928 and 1933 and decades, even centuries before. We discern actual persons during the daytime-dreaming dialogues that Freddie develops during his dwelling in real, 20th-century Tarascon-sur-Ariège in 1928 and real, 20th-century Toulouse in 1933.

Real musicians Johann Sebastian Bach (March 31, 1685-July 28, 1750), Edward Elgar (June 2, 1857-Feb. 23, 1934), Vaughan Williams (Oct. 12, 1872-Aug. 26, 1958) emerge fancifully.

Algernon Blackwood (March 14, 1869-Dec. 10, 1951), Henry James (April 15, 1843-Feb. 28, 1916) and Sheridan Le Fanu (Aug. 28, 1814-Feb. 7, 1873) furnish ghost stories.

Real-life writers Charles Dickens (Feb. 7, 1812-June 9, 1870), Anatole France (April 16, 1844-Oct. 12, 1924), Rudyard Kipling (Dec. 30, 1865-Jan. 18, 1936) fancifully generate novels. Antonin Gadal (March 15, 1877-June 15, 1962), Félix Garrigou (Sep. 17, 1835-March 18, 1920), Michel de Montaigne (Feb. 28, 1533-Sep. 13, 1592) hone histories, prehistories, philosophy. Rider Haggard (June 22, 1856-May 14, 1925), Thomas Malory (1393?/1425?-1470?) and Guy de Maupassant (Aug. 5, 1850-July 6, 1893) integrate lost-world fiction, chronicles and naturalist-school stories.

Kate Mosse in The Winter Ghosts respectively jubilates fictitious and real persons with villager Michel Authier and explorer Henry Robertson Bowers (July 29, 1883-March 29, 1912).

Antarctic blizzards killed Bowers, Robert Scott (June 6, 1868-March 29, 1912?), Edward Wilson (July 23, 1872-March 29, 1912), not Ernest Shackleton (Feb. 15, 1874-Jan. 5, 1922).

Mountaineers Andrew Irvine (April 8, 1902-June 8?/9?, 1924) and George Mallory (June 18, 1886-June 8?/9?, 1924) similarly lost their lives, during Mount Everest's south-Asian freezing blizzards. Explorer Fridtjof Nansen (Oct. 10, 1861-May 13, 1930) contrastingly met with a natural-causes death, like Ernest Shackleton, even as three non-exploring real persons met with murder. Knight-soldier Guy Fawkes (April 13, 1570-Jan. 31, 1606), King Henry IV (Dec. 13, 1553-May 14, 1610), deacon Saint-Étienne (5?-33?/36?) respectively numbered among stake-burned, assassin-stabbed, stoning casualties.

Kate Mosse in The Winter Ghosts respectively offers as fictitious and real persons widowed Na Azéma (Occitan na, "Madame") and Saint Wenceslaus I (907?–Sep. 28, 935).

Edward Burne-Jones (Aug. 28, 1833-June 17, 1898) and John Waterhouse (April 6, 1849-Feb. 10, 1917) fancifully paint even as Brian Gallagher really produced Winter Ghosts art.

Gawain perhaps queues between fictitious and real persons depending upon whether or not he and his uncle, King Arthur (400s?/500s?/600s?), as historical or legendary Welsh royals. The Ax-Foix-Tarascon-Toulouse region fictitiously rallies Michel Breillac and his twin sons George and Pierre; Bulot children; Sènher Bernard (from Occitan sènher, “Mr.”); Florence; Augustin Pierre Galy. Southern France shelters fictitious Jean, Maisie, Guillaume Marty, Raymonde and Blanche Maury, Na Sanchez and Saurat even as British Isles shelter fictitious Simpson and Mrs. Taylor.

Kate Mosse in The Winter Ghosts tenders fictitious and real persons, the former as Fabrissa of Nulle, the latter as Rider Haggard with fictitious Allan Quartermain.

Sir Henry Rider Haggard (June 22, 1856-May 14, 1925) acquiesces to household-name acquaintance as a real person among the fictitious and the real persons in The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse. Allan Quartermain acquires household-name acquaintance as a fictitious person activated in lost-world and romance adventures authored by the aforementioned real person; chromolithograph of Sir (Henry) Rider Haggard, as "Men of the Day No. 376," by British portrait artist and caricaturist Sir Leslie Matthew Ward (Nov. 21, 1851-May 15, 1922), under pseudonym of "Spy," in Vanity Fair, May 21, 1887: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Gawain (from Middle English Gawayne, from French Gauvain, from Common Brittonic gwalx gwinn, "hawk white?" via Welsh) abided as perhaps historical, perhaps legendary nephew of perhaps historical, perhaps legendary King Arthur of the Round Table in the British Isles. He accounts for the one allusion by fictitious Frederick Watson in The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse to someone who achieves perhaps ahistorical, perhaps fictitious, perhaps historical, perhaps legendary accreditation; illustration of celebration of the Pentecost at the Round Table, with Gawain (second from upper left edge) and King Arthur (third from upper right edge), commissioned by Jacques d'Armagnac (1433-Aug. 4, 1477), Duke of Nemours, and created ca. 1475 by 15th-century French manuscript illuminator Évrard d'Espinques, in manuscript 116 of Lancelot-Graal, also known as Lancelot in Prose: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Holy-grail-round-table-bnf-ms_fr-116F-f610v-15th-detail.jpg; Public Domain, viaBnF (Bibliothèque nationale de France) Gallica @ https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6000093b/f78

Sir Henry Rider Haggard (June 22, 1856-May 14, 1925) acquiesces to household-name acquaintance as a real person among the fictitious and the real persons in The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse. Allan Quartermain acquires household-name acquaintance as a fictitious person activated in lost-world and romance adventures authored by the aforementioned real person; chromolithograph of Sir (Henry) Rider Haggard, as "Men of the Day No. 376," by British portrait artist and caricaturist Sir Leslie Matthew Ward (Nov. 21, 1851-May 15, 1922), under pseudonym of "Spy," in Vanity Fair, May 21, 1887: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:H.Rider.Haggard.by.Leslie.Ward.for.Vanity_Fair.May.21,1887.jpg; via National Portrait Gallery, London, @ https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw258076/Sir-Henry-Rider-Haggard-Men-of-the-Day-No-376?LinkID=mp01963&search=sas&sText=rider+haggard&OConly=true&role=sit&rNo=17

For further information:

Dictionnaire de l’Occitan Médiéval. DOM en ligne. Munich, Germany: Bavarian Academy of Sciences..
Available @ https://dom-en-ligne.de/dom.php?lhid=4dqN83calp4xbiz5Nsx8Wu

Lepage, Denis. 2024. Avibase – Bird Checklists of the World France.” Avibase – The World Bird Database > Checklists > Avibase – Bird Checklists of the World > Europe > France.
Available @ https://avibase.bsc-eoc.org/checklist.jsp?region=FR

Mosse, Kate. October 2009. The Winter Ghosts. London UK: Orion Publishing Group.