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As stated in the Foreword to Two Pigs and a Chicken (partially repeated below), the setting of the Erindale Tales is an imaginary land, which has no relation to any real place or time in our own world, save that — as in the case of much ‘historical’ fiction — it basks in the rosy glow which nostalgia casts on ‘simpler’ times, long past:
There is a land which exists not in ordinary space and time, but only in our collective imaginations. A land where, far removed from the turmoil and strife of great cities and kingdoms, good men can live simple, honest lives, and pass on their values, little changed by the passage of time, to their sons and grandsons, and from them to their sons and grandsons.
However, some readers may feel more comfortable with the stories if they seem to refer to some real-world setting, and there is another reason that a ‘real’ timeline might be justified — namely, to remove any confusion as to when each novel takes place, in relation to the others.
As a result, if you prefer to think of Erindale as ‘real’, I would suggest a remote area on the west coast of England, Ireland, or Wales, in the early to mid-1800’s — though the Tales could be told with very little change anywhere else, as much as a century earlier or later. With that caveat in mind, the following is a reasonable timeline (ignoring prologues) for the Tales, as currently planned. |
