When we say ‘Glamour’ nowadays we tend to mean an attractive or exciting quality that makes certain people or things seem appealing or a beauty or charm that is sexually attractive. We only have to open a fashion or gossip magazine to see a million articles or photographs that allude to this, but did you know that even these are not so far away from the original meaning of the word.

Glamer or Glamour came into use in English courtesy of our cousins north of Hadrian’s Wall in the 18^th century. This referenced a magic, enchantment or charm ‘on the eyes, making them see things differently from what they really are’ (New Standard Illustrated Dictionary). The School of Witchcraft goes a bit further to say, ‘altering the awareness of a physical form in order to trigger certain emotions ’.

There are two schools of thought as to the origins:

• It could derive from the Middle English word grammar, which stems from the Latin grammatica, both of which were used to refer to education and teaching. It has been said, that due to most learning being undertaken in Latin and Greek at that time (which was not spoken by the poorer, uneducated classes), that these words also became synonymous with the occult and dark arts. It then became corrupted to the Scots above.
• Or it could derive from Old Norse Glamr, a word for the moon, which then forms glám-sýni or glam-sight, glamour or illusion. (An Icelandic-English Dictionary, 1874, Cleasby).

Given the effect Old Norse has had on English (and Scots), I would bet on the second option. However, the Latin grammatica, also gave rise to the Old French grammaire, originally meaning any book written in Latin, but then corrupted to grimoire, a book of spells, instructions on how to cast magical spells and charms.

So now back to Glamour, 20^th and 21^st century definition. We can take the definition from the School of Witchcraft, change one phrase and get to where we are today – Glamour is a form of Magic, an illusion based on a projection of one’s magical energy photo manipulation altering the awareness of a physical form in order to trigger certain emotion(s).

Now, what has this got to do with a blog based on Fantasy works, I hear you ask. Well, this short story, ‘The Glamouring of Brond Col’ is an introduction to Brond Col, who was, is and will be, an agent of the mysterious Wanderer. Brond Col will be one of several characters who will all have some connection with this mysterious figure, and they will all wander in and out of each other’s stories and tales.

The idea of this story came from a seed sown by Pat Mills in ‘Dragonheist’, a story of the celtic hero Slaine in the comic 2000AD back in the 80s, where he meets and defeats a dragon called the Mata, that glamours and bewitches a widow into thinking it is her dead husband.