Dear Mr Cornwell To save you looking it up, I think I may have an answer for the person who asked about the past tense of ‘spin’. The usual simple past tense is ‘spun’ as in ‘the women spun wool’, and it’s listed as such in the list of irregular verbs at http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwesl/egw/verbs.htm The past participle is also ‘spun’ as in ‘the women have spun wool’, and is given in the same list. But there is an archaic past tense ‘span’, as in the famous rhyme ‘When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?’. So as your setting is the 9th century, it would seem reasonable to use the archaic past tense (the women span) to add a period flavour. ‘Span’ as in ‘to span a gorge’ or ‘a bridge with a single span’ seems to be an independent word, as my copy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary gives it a different origin. Hope this is helpful, and kind regards -Carla