User blog comment:Astar Goldenwing/The Taggerung’s Battle/@comment-26024035-20160426223353/@comment-2142396-20160502185816

Thanks, I’m really glad to hear that people like my stories! I love crafty villains, and that’s one of the reasons I made Gormad to be brains to his brother’s brawn. True that – I always hoped for the book that would tell us about the first battle between Salamandastron and Rapscallions and how Cregga defeated Gormad Tunn, but alas!..

I see what you mean about Juskarath and Juskabor, and no, this isn’t an alternate universe as the story takes place long time before the events of ‘Taggerung’ and thus the chieftains of said tribes were not Ruggan Bor and Sawney Rath. To be honest, I added Juskabor and Juskarath simply because I like referencing things from the other books, but I have an in-story explanation of how is it possible. A Juska tribe changes its name when a new chieftain takes over it (i.e. Juskarath became Jaskazann after Sawney’s death), but I think it can keep the name if the new chieftain is either related to the old one and thus share a name (for example, a father passing the title down to the son; Sawney’s father was the Taggerung, so I think it possible that he was a chieftain as well) or if the new leader takes the name of the tribe because it holds more status or meaning (for example, Ruggan Bor names himself Ruggan Zann Taggerung and not Ruggan Bor Taggerung). So it’s certainly bizarre, but I hope the explanation makes sense anyway, as Juska seem to put a lot of meaning in their names.