candace robb
walking the Mean Streets of Medieval York
A chat with Jean Roberts about women & history
While I’m working on a proper post I wanted to share a link to Jean Roberts’s book blog The Books Delight in which we chat about “history, the lovely city of York, writing, and [my] wonderful books.” Enjoy! https://www.thebookdelight.com/2020/12/author-interview-candace-robb.html
candace robb 
I’ve always been curious about the reasons why Magda speaks in riddles. Is it a kind of amusement for her? (the joke she played on both the thief and Owen Archer in “Bone Jar” implies that perhaps she can be something of a trickster at times)
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Great question, Anthony! Riddles are a traditional way for teachers to encourage their students to look within and discover how much they already know. She can be a bit gleeful about it on occasion, and at times she’s avoiding revealing too much about herself or someone else’s secret.
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This trait really reminds me of other eccentric sages, such as Yoda or Tia Dalma from Pirates of the Caribbean. There seems to be a correlation between wisdom and speaking in riddles, and also between wisdom and unusual speech patterns (Yoda’s word order, Tia Dalma’s accent and grammar, and Magda’s old English and third-person).
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I’ve come up with the following explanations after the fact–the truth is Magda just spoke in this way when she first appeared on the screen and I accepted it. In retrospect I’ve gleaned that Magda’s use of thee and thou arose from stories people told me of their grandparents in Yorkshire still using that language. I added the more Biblical verb forms to go with it. The riddles are from my study of Zen koans, a way of nudging the student’s mind to break out from habitual patterns.
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