When Richard Fisher wrote his December 2020 post in honor of Keith Taylor’s birthday, I expected it to be a well-wrought tribute to one of sword-and-sorcery's living legends. And it was. What I didn't expect was a bombshell announcement from Mr. Taylor himself in the comments section.

Here's what I'm talking about:

"I really have a soft spot for Felimid the bard. A chance has just arisen (by "just" I mean late last year) for me to write a sixth 'Bard' novel and quite possibly get it published. I wouldn't think that a good idea if I'd lost enthusiasm for the character and his adventures, but that's far from the case and I've actually been pondering a sixth novel for quite a while, roughing out the plot, conceiving characters, and so forth. After some discussion with the relevant people I've now started it. My target is to have it finished by the end of June.

With any luck at all ... this year Felimid mac Fal is back!"

Needless to say, this is beyond welcome news for Taylor/Felimid mac Fal fans. The last Felimid mac Fal novel was published thirty years ago. 

For those wondering who this 'Felimid mac Fal guy ' is, here is a quick history:

Felimid is an exiled bard of Erin, born about 490 AD. Upon being exiled, he sailed to Britain, where he wound up fighting on the British side during the great Battle of Badon. After that, Felimid wandered eastward, where he ran afoul of the Jutish king of Kent and the king's were-berserker champion, Tosti. Before all was said and done, Felimid had sailed to Gaul and the Scandian lands, fighting mighty foes, both supernatural and mundane. In the fifth 'Bard' novel, Felimid ends his exile and returns to Erin.

As for the man himself, this is how esteemed S&S critic, Fletcher Vredenburgh describes Felimid:

"Keith Taylor writes great action scenes that will make your heart pound and blood race. There're also passages of poetic beauty as well. His hero, Felimid mac Fal is a bold, lively character with a winning way, well worth any heroic fantasy reader’s time."

Bold and lively, indeed. Felimid claims more than once that he doesn't seek trouble, but it surely finds him, again and again. Much of that comes from the fact that he doesn't lightly suffer fools or insults. Back in Erin, a bard of his attainments is accounted, in legal terms, on par with the lesser aristocracy. Such is not the case in the Germanic lands and the former Roman Empire. In other instances, Felimid has to defend his life due to the fact that women--throughout history and around the world--are fond of poets and musicians.

Felimid may prefer to strum his harp and sing of great deeds, but he's no slouch with a blade. He tends toward finesse and strategems when the swords come out, but his opponents end up just as dead. Felimid's barehanded duel-to-the-death with a Frankish pirate in Bard III: The Wild Sea is as brutal as any in the annals of sword-and-sorcery.

The entire serie so far—including the rare fifth volume, Felimid’s Homecoming—is available in e-book and hardcopy format here.

Over the last forty years, Keith Taylor has also written tales about the various people that Felimid meets in his wanderings: Vivayn, Pendor, Cerdic and Palamides, to name a few.* Taylor has also written some tales set slightly before Felimid's time, such as the saga of Nasach, the spear-wielding pirate of the Irish Sea. Keith has also written two tales of Felimid's father, Fal mac Fergus.

Felimid himself once described his father as “ruthless, self-willed”. Fal let nobody tell him what he could or couldn't do. He’d helped kill a king and turned pirate by the age of fifteen—learning the trade from the aforementioned Nasach. Fal ended up dying a violent death before Felimid was even born. It's not hard to tell where Felimid's touchy pride and skill at arms comes from. Both tales of Fal mac Fergus can be found, fittingly enough, in Renegade Swords II from DMR Books, the first time they have ever been between the same covers.

I'll let Keith Taylor have the final word:

“Bards, like other craftsmen and artists, held a high place in Celtic society.  They extolled their patrons’ great deeds and noble ancestry, and, if slighted or cheated of their fees, could destroy reputations with their greatly feared power of satire.  My idea for Felimid grew out of that, and various minstrels real and fictional, like Alan-a-Dale in the Robin Hood ballads, the French poet and rogue Francois Villon, and Richard the Lionheart’s lute player, Blondel.  

Leigh Brackett, the empress of planetary pulp fiction, had a number of pseudo-Celtic cultures set on Mars and Venus, and other places, Ciaran in 'The Jewel of Bas' being a raffish harper, story-teller and thief, while Romna in ‘Lorelei of the Red Mist’ is a more traditional sort of tribal harper and poet. Robert E. Howard created a memorable mad minstrel, Rinaldo, in ‘The Phoenix on the Sword.’ Reluctant to slay him, in spite of Rinaldo’s dangerous hatred for him, Conan tells Prospero, 'He’s beyond my reach. A true poet is greater than any king.' In one appearance and few words, Rinaldo leaves a vivid memory with the reader. There is Poul Anderson’s comfort-loving minstrel, Cappen Varra, from the warm civilized south, out of place among a crew of roughneck Vikings in 'The Valor of Cappen Varra.' And there is, definitely, John Myers Myers’s Golias, the archetypal storytelling poet in that rollicking novel SILVERLOCK; Golias, whose other names include Orpheus, Widsith and Taliesin.

If readers of Felimid the bard thought him fit to rate among that bunch, it would be a distinction he’d treasure.”

*The latest adventure of Palamides can be found in Death Dealers and Diabolists.