Japanese: Yagiza no buresuretto: Buritania no rushiusu no monogatari, trans. Shirō Yamamoto.

The Capricorn Bracelet was originally written as a series of scripts for the series "Stories from Scottish History", broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland. However, frustrated by the limitations imposed by the twenty minutes allocated to each episode, Sutcliff subsequently rewrote them as series of short stories. Each episode focussed on a member of the Calpurnii family, the first of whom, Lucius Calpurnius, fled London during the Boudiccan revolt and joined the Roman army. Lucius' descendants, who often share his name and inherit the eponymous Capricorn Bracelet, live on the northern frontier: the second is dispatched to oversee the construction of a section of Hadrian's Wall; the third is a cavalry commander at Trimontium (on the River Tweed); the fourth is also a cavalry officer who marries a girl from Traprain Law and becomes a bronzesmith, while his new brother-in-law joins the Roman army; the fifth is a frontier scout who helps prevent an early Saxon raid; and the final Calpurnii is a boy whose father must leave to fight in the usurper Magnus Maximus' campaigns on the continent. When word reaches the boy and his mother that his father has been executed along with Maximus by the emperor Theodosius, they go to live with his mother’s tribe, the Dumnonii, who reside to the northwest, as the last remnants of Roman power in Northern Britain disappear.  

Many of the stories included here are relatable to children and teenagers (particularly males) as they deal with a rite of passage. The first and last stories see a boy transition into manhood (as Britain itself undergoes a transition during the earliest and last days of Roman rule), while several other Calpurnii are outsiders who are eventually accepted into a group after proving themselves to their peers. The desire among the Calpurnii to be accepted into the group echoes Sutcliff's own experiences as a child, as recounted in her memoirs (1983), when she experienced severe bouts of loneliness as a result of her illness and frequent relocations.

The stories emphasise a sense of continuity throughout this period, as the rise and fall of Roman power in Britain, mainly along the northern frontier, is told from the perspective of different generations of the same family. Moreover, this does not end with the collapse of Roman hegemony, as the final incumbent of the bracelet will pass it onto his children. This is reminiscent of a recurrent trend in children's literature published in the 1950s–1970s, whereby the protagonist would discover an object which connects them to the past and serves as a reminder of the legacy that has been bequeathed to the them by their forebearers (Butler 2006, pp. 262–263). In this case, the bracelet represents a legacy consisting of Roman "values" that include loyalty, perseverance, fair play and temperance, and they are exhibited – or learned – by the various generations of the Calpurnii family. Such qualities were originally summarised in Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome (1842), and then taken up by Kipling's centurion Parnesius in Puck of Pook's Hill (1906), both of which Sutcliff read, and, just as with Macaulay and Kipling's works, Sutcliff's stories serve a didactic purpose, demonstrating the positive qualities that young people should develop. As Sutcliff explained in her essay History is People (1973, p. 306): "… I do try to put over to the child reading any book of mine some kind of ethic, a set of values… I try to show the reader that doing the right/kind/brave/honest thing doesn’t have to result in any concrete reward… and that doesn’t matter." 

Moreover, as is often the case in Sutcliff's Roman Britain novels, nearly all the protagonists are Romano-British soldiers of middling rank. Sutcliff had encountered many such men in a contemporary setting, including among her own family, during her childhood spent at various naval bases in the UK and then when living through World War II. Subsequently, her novels infer that military service provides an opportunity for people, particularly young men, to find a place in the world and learn the aforementioned admirable values originally outlined by Macaulay. In particular, the first Calpurnii and Straun, whose sister marries a Calpurnii, are able to find a new home in the military ranks. 

In contrast to many of Sutcliff's other stories written after the 1950s which provided a more complex and darker image of Roman imperialism in Britain, such as Mark of the Horse Lord (1965) and Song for a Dark Queen (1978), The Capricorn Bracelet returns to a more straightforward narrative that sees the amicable integration of Roman and local, as was the case with Marcus, Cottia and Esca in The Eagle of the Ninth. The stories here generally include the Calpurnii marrying local women, and in the fourth story we see a two-way process whereby Lucian Calpurnius retires to Traprain Law with his wife to become a bronzesmith while his new brother-in-law joins the Roman army. Sutcliff's decision to present these stories in a lighter tone is perhaps due to the fact they were originally intended to be used as scripts for radio drama for children, and the medium and time restrictions would make it harder to provide a more nuanced narrative.

Only the first and last stories include historical events, the Boudiccan Revolt and the usurpation of Magnus Maximus. In the case of the latter, the removal of soldiers from Hadrian's Wall is likely to be a homage to Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill, which also features these events. However, the narrative does include many historical sites that were inhabited at this time, including Traprain Law and the fort of Trimontium.

Breeze, David, Hadrian’s Wall, London: English Heritage, 2003.

Collins, Rob, Hadrian's Wall and the End of Empire, New York and London: Routledge, 2012.

Haselgrove, Colin, The Traprain Law Environs Project: Fieldwork and Excavations 2000–2004, Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 2009.

Hunter, Fraser and Lawrence Keppie, A Roman Frontier Post and its People: Newstead 1911–2011, Edinburgh: National Museums of Scotland, 2012.

Kipling, Rudyard, Puck of Pook’s Hill, London: Macmillan and Company, 1906.

Macaulay, Thomas Babington, Lays of Ancient Rome, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1842.

Sutcliff, Rosemary, Blue Remembered Hills, London: Bodley Head, 1983.

Sutcliff, Rosemary, "History is People", in Virginia Haviland, ed., Children and Literature: Views and Reviews, Brighton: Scott Foresman and Company,1973, 305–312.

Thompson, Raymond H., "Interview with Rosemary Sutcliff", 1986, d.lib.rochester.edu (accessed: July 1, 2021).

Wright, Hilary, "Shadows on the Downs: Some Influences of Rudyard Kipling on Rosemary Sutcliff", Children's Literature in Education 12.2 (1981): 90–102.

An audio-documentary on Rosemary Sutcliff’s life and works can be found at audioboom.com (accessed: July 1, 2021).