I think one of the reasons I enjoy writing fantasy is because it’s a good excuse to include one of my favourite animals – horses.

I’ve always been obsessed with horses to the extent that, when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would answer, ‘horse’! I was very young, don’t judge me!

Growing up in Malaysia, in the 1970s, there weren’t any riding schools that my family were aware of. And the only people who owned horses were the very rich. That didn’t stop me constantly pestering my parents to buy me a horse. Needless to say, it didn’t happen, and as I grew older, I knew it wouldn’t.

Not having a horse to call my own led me to read lots of horse-based stories. I spent hours imagining I had my own horse… and imagining the adventures we’d get up to.

So, when I decided to move on from my amorphous story imaginings and knuckle down to write a story with a beginning, middle and end, what a joy to include horses. Lots of horses.

That story ended up being ‘The Cursed Gift’, and it led to hours of online research on medieval horses, the care of horses, and horses in general.

In ‘The Cursed Gift’, there are a couple of horses that feature prominently – Leah’s second horse, Free, and her father’s horse, Varendis; in ‘The Spellbound Spindle’, Arthur’s horse, Hero, is a constant character that, I hope, adds to the story; and my current WiP is set in a world where horses are the main form of transport.

(New Forest Show 2015 - Household Cavalry - own photo)

The starting point for my second book, ‘Moon Goddess’, was it had to include wolves and a baby as the wolf is another favourite animal of mine.

It’s a shame that many stories, even fairy tales, feature the wolf as the ‘big bad’. Very few show how the wolf usually is – a highly social, intelligent animal.

(New Forest National Park 2010 - own photo)

Some of my favourite stories show the caring side of the wolf, like ‘The Jungle Book’ and the story of Romulus and Remus.

Apart from online research, the book I found most helpful in helping me understand the wolf more is Barry Lopez’s ‘Of Wolves and Men’. A present from Gordon, I did a review for it on my old blog, about 7 years ago. I might rewrite it and post a fresh one, it’s such a good book.

After publishing ‘Moon Goddess’, I did a series of blog posts compiling all the research I’d done, one of which was ‘The Wolves of the Moon Goddess’.

When I came to write the story, I made sure to show the two sides of the wolf. As a creature of the moon goddess, when called to serve, it does so in a caring manner. But, once its duty is done, it returns to the wild, once again becoming a creature of the wild, not one to be approached lightly.

The third animal that showed up in a couple of the short stories in ‘The Raven and Other Tales’ is the cat.

I didn’t make a conscious decision to include cats in my stories, which is odd now I think about it because we’ve had cats for pets for about 30 years!

The black cat in ‘Ashes’ made itself known as I was wondering where to take the story after the mid-point.

While working through drafts of ‘Behind the Door’, I was, again, wondering how to get the protagonist away from the door. And I realised the cat was already sat in the other doorway, waiting to make its move.

The cat in my current WiP is one I’d already planned on including when I was making notes for the story.

I’m glad I finally have cats in my stories especially as we lost Kipaku suddenly last year. He was a black cat, albeit with a little white spot on his neck, which makes the black cat in ‘Ashes’ one of my favourites.

Writing this, I’ve only now realised the dogs that feature in a couple of my stories are there more as background characters. Considering we’ve always had dogs as pets when I was growing up, I should think about writing a more prominent role for one in a future story.

Prince, my dad’s last dog — ***Prince***, my dad’s last dog

Animals in My Stories