As a teenager I sometimes read the serial stories in my mother's weekly magazine. Most of the time it was quite simple stories of love lost and found, and I didn't really remember them afterwards. One of them caught my attention, however: Margit Sandemo's Kungakronan (The King's Crown). It tells the story of a group of university students heading out to the Norwegian west coast to investigate a possible Celtic archaeologic find. One of them is an archaeology student, one is an almost finished medical doctor, and two of them are in Celtic studies. True to the romance genre, Sandemo focuses quite extensively on the relationships between the the characters, but I have to admit that I found the allusions to Celtic history and the story of the finds much more interesting.

As the years went by, I kept remembering this story. It was at the back of my mind when I toyed with the idea of studying Celtic languages at the university, it surfaced when I met Gaelic-speaking friends in the UK, and it made me read the Arthurian stories with greater interest. I have looked for it now and then over the years, and whereas I did remember the name, Kungakronan, the name of the author was lost to me. Remembering the story again a few weeks ago, I decided to have another go at finding it and this time I did. (Thank God for the Internet!) I ordered it and yesterday I re-read it for the first time, with a knowledge of its influence on my life and how I approach my work. I'd better thank Margit Sandemo for awakening my interest in research and old cultures.