HILD is a little girl in Northumbria, aged three. Her father the prince dies and she and her friend Cian, aged seven, and older sister Hereswith are not safe, for battle approaches. The various kingdoms of Britain fight among themselves at this time and women need protection. Hild's mother is afraid that her husband's cousins will not protect the children, so she travels home to her brother King Edwin with them.

The king's court moves around the land as no one place could keep five hundred people supplied with food. The great walled city of York is one stop, fortified against winter war. Franks and Anglisc peoples are to be found, as well as Irish and British, Pictish and the isle of Vannin. Yule brings feasting and more talk of war. A few years later the sharp Hild is shown around a ruined Roman villa, with its own piped water supply, hypocaust and mosaics - all exotic and ancient to her eyes. By observing nature and listening, Hild can tell that the winter is going to be mild, or the spring has come early, or that enemies have sailed around the coast to take a castle while the king is absent. She is thought to be a seer, and battles are joined on her advice, though the new Christian religion disapproves of prophecies - especially by women.

Some words are adapted from the early forms of English used and may confuse those not used to seeing them; aethling, reeve and thegn are terms of status at the time. The trees are appropriately elm, hornbeam, birch and the newly imported beech, ash, oak, holly, crabapple. Details of food, drink and clothing are carefully presented, while furs and amber are traded from the Baltic. HILD is a very good read for anyone wishing to learn about these turbulent times, and about the life of people in the British Isles after the Romans had left the shores. Nicola Griffith uses the story of one girl to explain the cultures and histories of the scattered kingdoms and the daily lives of women at that time.

HILD is not really a tale for young adults although it would help anyone studying the period. This is a complex adventure and a fascinating read.

Book Summary

A brilliant, lush, sweeping historical novel about the rise of the most powerful woman of the Middle Ages: Hild

Hild is born into a world in transition. In seventh-century Britain, small kingdoms are merging, usually violently. A new religion is coming ashore; the old gods’ priests are worrying. Edwin of Northumbria plots to become overking of the Angles, ruthlessly using every tool at his disposal: blood, bribery, belief.

Hild is the king’s youngest niece. She has the powerful curiosity of a bright child, a will of adamant, and a way of seeing the world—of studying nature, of matching cause with effect, of observing human nature and predicting what will happen next—that can seem uncanny, even supernatural, to those around her. She establishes herself as the king’s seer. And she is indispensable—until she should ever lead the king astray. The stakes are life and death: for Hild, her family, her loved ones, and the increasing numbers who seek the protection of the strange girl who can read the world and see the future.

Hild is a young woman at the heart of the violence, subtlety, and mysticism of the early medieval age—all of it brilliantly and accurately evoked by Nicola Griffith’s luminous prose. Recalling such feats of historical fiction as Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter, Hild brings a beautiful, brutal world—and one of its most fascinating, pivotal figures, the girl who would become St. Hilda of Whitby—to vivid, absorbing life.

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