Michael: I was introduced to the Hallows more than two decade ago when I started to research the character of Dr John Dee (1527-1608), for a horror novel I was writing. (Image, Warner Books, 1991).
Over the years, I returned again and again to Dr Dee and have written about him in several novels. Doctor John Dee was Queen Elizabeth I’s mathematician, astronomer and astrologer. He was an extraordinary man, well versed in all aspects of the occult and science (where often the dividing line between the two was very thin indeed.) He had one of the largest libraries in private hands in Elizabethan England and there is some evidence that William Shakespeare based the character of Prospero in The Tempest on him.
Dee’s family came from Wales and he was fascinated by the legendary hallowed — blessed — objects which weave in and out of Welsh and Irish myth. Soon, my research into Dee led me further back in time, as I began to research the thousand year old legends of the ancient hallows.
