On place names

Let’s return to historical fiction v. fantasy and explore the topic of place names. A place name can really help you enter that “once upon a time.”  In fantasy novels, place names are made up by the author.  In the Lord of the Rings series, place names like Mordor and Rohan sound vaguely Anglo-Saxon. Middle Earth even looks a little like the southwest coastline of England.  But these places and their names are all made up.

​In an historical novel, however, it’s the writer’s job to use places that actually existed. Take Septimania, where my own middle-grade novel takes place around 800 C.E.  A province of the Frankish Empire, Septimania was a crucial stepping stone to outside territories like Carthago across the Mediterranean.  For most Franks, the Mediterranean was simply known as “the Big Sea” because it was the biggest body of water they had ever seen. 

​Septimania still exists today. It is known as the Aude department in southern France.  Still today, you can visit what were once Septimania’s two main cities during the Middle Ages: the fortress of Carcassonne and the town of Narbonne, mentioned more than once in my novel.  Here is a picture that I took at Carcassonne almost three decades ago…