[r-t] Earthsea methods

[Mark Davies]

This is cross-posted from ringing-chat (and FB...), but it may also be 
of interested to this list:

Inspired by David Hull's Coniston Bluebird, I've been looking for 
methods with similar characteristics but reduced falseness. Coniston has 
a musical course and an interesting blueline, but more specifically it 
has the property that the bells are always passed in pure (forward) 
Plain Bob coursing order, except where course or after bells come together.

There are several right-place methods like this, but the interesting 
thing about David's method is that it has wrong-hunting below the 
treble. Since the bells are still passed in the natural coursing order, 
this means that the rollups off the front arrive at the opposite stroke 
to normal, so that for example 23456781 is at the backstroke half-lead, 
generating a wrap of rounds. (Many of my Royal methods, such as Jennie's 
Endeavour and Precambrian, also have this opposite-stroke property).

I have found six new Major methods which meet these criteria, all unrung 
and with just B falseness instead of the BD groups of Coniston Bluebird. 
I have put them into a little series named after some of the dragons of 
Earthsea (http://www.ursulakleguin.com/):

Orm Embar S Major: b -38-1458-56-36.14-34.58.14-16.78
Yevaud S Major: g -38-1458-56-36.14-34.58.14-16.78
Tehanu S Major: d -58-14-56-36-12-58.34-16.78
Kalessin S Major: j -58-14-56-36-12-58.34-16.78
Bar Oth S Major: d -58-14-56-36-34-58.12-16.78
Orm Irian S Major: j -58-14-56-36-34-58.12-16.78

Comments welcome. Good compositions should be available for all. Please 
let me know if you plan to ring one.

MBD