Want to dive deeper into the world behind my books? This is the place! And don’t worry, if you’re not ready to uncover certain mysteries yet, I’ve got you covered. Each archive document contains active links to outside sources so you can explore at your own pace, when you’re ready for a side-journey. I’ve also included a nice environment from the story where you might want to sit and relax while you read up on the myths and lore. Each section is headed by the book cover it belongs to, so you won’t get too far ahead of yourself – but they are SLIDESHOWS – so if you click on the right arrow, you’ll be treated to some atmospheric shots that I created on Midjourney for locations in the books that match what I imagined. Enjoy!
Feel free to jump in and start exploring… just remember, some of these treasures are ancient, and they may leave you with more questions than answers. Enjoy the dig!
There are healing tree legends everywhere — but for my first book, I figured I’d stick close to home (South Jersey pride, right?). I started poking around looking for local stories… and next thing I knew, I was totally lost down my first rabbit hole.
Writing a book? Yeah, it’s no joke. I rewrote Elementary Magic at least twice — and every single time, I got stuck at the same part: the tree. Those legends seriously got my imagination spinning, though, and before long, I was making up my own version to fit the story.
If you’re curious (or just looking for a good distraction), here are some fun links you can check out. Fair warning: you might blink and suddenly it’s two hours later. Rabbit holes are dangerous like that.
https://www.native-languages.org/legends-trees.htm
https://peecnature.org/mythology-of-trees/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2913884/ https://www.oneidaindiannation.com/legendsandlore/ https://hotcakencyclopedia.com/ho.TreeSpirits.html
This book is mostly fictional – there weren’t a lot of mythology based elements in this except for the Taino People – The first link does have an awesome gallery of Taino relics for you to view. https://tainomuseum.org/home/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/who-were-taino-original-inhabitants-columbus-island-73824867/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta%C3%ADno
Writing this was a journey, for sure! Going down these rabbit holes actually led to two books – Legendary Magic and Jealous Magic – and I have enough research for another one. Again, I encourage you to go to the side links on Wikipedia because you can really uncover some awesome scholarly articles there.
Some great resources for Watling Street: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watling_Street https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Watling-Street
And about that railway sign that Ari was looking for…while I was looking for something that might point the way, I stumbled across this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Eastern_Railway
Pooka: https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/irish-legend-pooka https://yourirish.com/folklore/irish-pookas
Camulos: https://midguard.org.uk/2021/1074/ https://www.jstor.org/stable/41522086
And just one on the Vulgate Cycle (because you could get lost for DAYS in this rabbit hole: https://matterofbritain.com/htmlpages/legendliterature3.html
R. Leonia Shea 