First seen as a child and teenager in Hild, Hilda of Whitby grows up to become one of the most powerful women in early English history—and the future Saint Hilda. The second book in the series, titled Menewood, is about Hild’s adult life and continues her growth as a woman and a leader. Her world is in transition from paganism to Christianity, situated timewise between King Arthur during the late fifth and early sixth centuries and Bernard Cornwell’s The Last Kingdom which covers the late ninth century.
Hild is an intelligent child and woman with extraordinary powers of observation, keen intuition, phenomenal attention to detail, and a marvelous kinship with nature. She learns to read and write from a priest. Her conniving mother, while trying to save her family, positions the child to become a seer for Edwin of Northumbria. Denied an ordinary childhood in service to the king, Hild walks a tightrope, knowing if she fails the king, her life—and those of her family—are at stake. She is a strong female, unafraid to fight for justice and so able to kill that she becomes known as the “Butcherbird.”
The series is well-researched and shows the cold, hard, and at times, brutal life of medieval times, alternating between feast and famine, subject to the harshness or benevolence of the weather and the vagaries of the ruling classes. Griffith shows how medieval lives are governed by the seasons. I particularly enjoyed the rich interconnection with nature which Hild experiences. Modern people have grown away from such connections. There were no weathermen back then, so the knowledge that if birds migrate early, winter is coming is invaluable. Griffith deftly weaves nature—from trees, to animals, to birds, to cloud formations—into both Hild and Menewood.
If you enjoy the world-building of Tolkien, Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter series, or Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon, you will enjoy Hild. But aware that at 716 pages for Hild and 919 for Menewood, you’re in for a long haul.
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Menewood is available through:
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You can read my review of Hild here.
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