Hild: A Novel (The Hild Sequence)

The story is woven with facts and fiction. It’s based on real people in early 7th century England at king Edwin’s courts in Northumbria a couple of hundred years after the Roman Empire civilisation had left and just as the new Romans are coming in with their Christ god. This is the interregnum when the Angles, Saxons and Jutes came in to England and pushed the British Celts west and settled kingdoms of Saxons, Jutes and Angles. These new peoples sit up against the Britons/Celts in Wales and Scotland. Irish Christianity is lurking about but the principal gods are naturists with Woden being dominant.Hild, who is fictionally imagined here, is known to historians as Hilda of Whitby. The Venerable Bede in his 8th century history of England noted that as a child and youth, Hilda was an adviser to the king her cousin or great uncle. Bede was clearly impressed at the life of the woman and Nicola Griffith looks at the possibilities of Hild’s life from that of a child growing to about 22 through the nearly 600 page book which snakes around Edwin’s growth of kingship looping in other kingdoms to become Over King. The novel ends just before Edwin’s kingdom and his life ends in battles with a confederation of Welsh and Britons.Later, in known history as Hilda prioress of Whitby Abbey, Hild was a major player in issues of Church and state and played a pivotal role in aligning Catholicism in England to Rome rather than to Ireland, which had Greek leanings.It is probable that Hild was a precocious, prescient and unusually intelligent child. With her as the central player Nicola Grrifith explores the rhythms of life, the values, customs and beliefs of a part of England that she herself grew up in in the 20th century. The writer pairs two characters through the book, Hild principally, and also the boy Cian her childhood companion with whom Hild confides and comes to know the world as they grow. Cian is a fictionalised character and a very useful device for the writer given his guessed at birth father and his empathetic knowledge of Hild. We understand Hild not as some mythic witch and seer to the king, as the people about see her, and accept her as an intelligent person who has learnt to observe and read the natural world and the political ambitions of its people.A great amount of the novel is to do with the life and work of the women of the household of the king and, from time to time, the women of the house holds of lords and lesser men and down to the huts and hovels of the peasants and poor. As well as divining the patterns of nature it seems that Hild is adept at setting the patters to be woven in the cloth making rooms. Women weaving is a major task in this world and it is this that leads into Griffith’s major metaphor in her own woven story. The deftness of the weft (wic) in daily weaving ensuring the smoothing lines of weft is as daily live in the domain. However, of greater importance underlying all this is the warp of the fabric; the lines of long thread in the weave, their strength and necessity of the weights at the end of each warp line.This warp and the weights holding the line true are akin to the holding the line of belief in the fabric of life in this spot in 7th England. These are changing in this part of the world in history. As always and anywhere, the bulk of the people adhere within a social order to the extent of shared values and beliefs and most people accept a belief without exploring the myth or principle behind it. In this novel the principle of ‘belief’ is somewhat explored. The weights of the warp lines are going awry. There are a whole lot of gods floating about in the people’s minds – Woden principally – that determine the order of the way of life and the natural world. That order is being challenged; being undermined even. In a political power aligned marriage Edwin brings in a Roman Bishop and a bunch of evangelisers and through the novel we are part of the swirl as the power elite of the old ways are replaced by the problem elites of the Italian Christ god world – while always the rhythms of the natural world and human husbandry of it keep going on.We see the issue of ‘belief’, and the use of swaying people’s minds and loyalty, become a matter of the use of power, force and fear. There are Irish priest people too in the undergrowth and, as a child, Hild is blown away recognising the use and benefit of writing and an Irish priest is engaged to teach her writing but not about his Christ god. But the Roman Christ priests see the Irish Christ priests as spies to be expelled so what is believed in by the priests becomes less important than the male persons holding the influence of political and temporal power.The writer has researched her history and the way of life – the rhythms – of that period and rather than Hild being a magician seer, it is more that she notices things and can ‘read’ the natural world. The novel is great. The language used and its rhythms are akin to the world Hild lived in. it is quite poetic. It is not so much a page turner, not that it was hard to put down but it was always a pleasure to pick up.

The author's beautiful writing created a remarkable place and time. The story progresses from the child, Hild, to her rise as a "seer" to powerful men, and into a world tainted by hints of the miraculous. Hild's vision and courage are mirrored in a perfectly tuned mood--dark yet filled with light.

Nicola Griffith’s HILD manages at once to have all the sweep of The Lord of the Rings and all the interiority of The Bell Jar. It is one of the best books I’ve read in years.Set in a war-torn 6th century England, the book follows Hild, a girl at the court of Edwin, overking of the Anglisc. Hild is trained by her mother to be Edwin’s seer, and the narrative follows Hild through childhood to adulthood as she adopts that role and uses it to keep herself and her loved ones safe in uncertain times. In the background, England changes as Christianity spreads across the island.There is so much to rave about in this book. The characters are drawn with an immense amount of depth—most notably Hild, but this extends to virtually everyone who appears on the page. More than that, the characters’ relationships to each others are written with a depth that is remarkable. The web of interactions between the characters is intricate in a way that adds texture to the book, enriches it, instead of ever feeling confusing or distracting.I was most fascinated by Hild’s triangulated relationship to her mother, Breguswith, her role as the king’s seer, and the way this role seemed to, for lack of a better word, queer her gender within the confines of her society. Hild’s capability as a seer is posited externally as a kind of magic, but neither Hild herself or Breguswith seems to regard it as such. Rather, Hild is just exceptionally observant and astute—something which Breguswith actively cultivates in her from a very young age.Her role as seer—the mystique it brings, the isolation the mystique brings with it—helps Hild gather information. It makes her clear-headed. By design she is less distracted by personal social obligations. Her position as a seer keeps her family and loved ones safe. But it also means that she is alone. For much of her childhood and adolescence, she is almost completely alone. She is given a kind of elusive voice and freedom, but a peculiar cost, and the tension it causes between her and her mother, who carved this role out for her, was beautifully written. Those few times that Hild begins to invest in her own personal life, in her own self, and let her get distracted are the exact times she misses something. Those are the times she fails to make a ‘prediction’, that something surprises her. Hild is very quick to course correct—she tries to detach, to become the seer again, but it hurts her to do it.Part of that elusive freedom is that Hild inhabits both feminine and masculine roles throughout the book—she is called a freemartin (defined in the book’s glossary as “a female calf masculinized in the womb by its male twin”) more than once, often disparagingly. She refers to herself as both sword and skirt, which is both literal and symbolic given that she fights with a huge knife. She weaves with the women, and then she takes a band of warriors out to clear bandits in a section of the book that is graphic and haunting and chilling and leaves her with the nickname the Butcher-bird. Hild, because she has always inhabited both and neither gender sphere, has always been a liminal creature of odd gender, seems to watch others’ reactions to her gendered movements with a detachment. She seems to have little yearning to anchor herself to one point or another. But then again, Breguswith has bred into Hild detachment from such an early age that detachment is Hild’s go-to. Hild has never really been allowed to want.There is also, in Griffith’s writing, an immersiveness of a very foreign world. The trick is that it’s a world that once existed but one incredibly different than what we live in now. Things we take for granted, like the rapture of hearing music for the first time, or the sheer political power of being the only faction on an entire island who is literate.I have so much more to say about this book. I loved it. I loved reading it, and I look forward to a year or two or three from now when I can’t remember all the details and it’s time to read it again.

Is it possible that the gleam of gold is stirring from within 7th century settings for fiction?Nichola Griffith’s HILD is stunning, challenging, exhilarating, courageous – and at times shocking!Fiction set in this period is rare and though many publishers have been wary of taking it on, I have noted with growing excitement new novels set in the 7th century recently emerging. Perhaps this is partly sparked by interest in the discovery of the fantastic Staffordshire Hoard! Whatever it is – I welcome it! Living within sight of Whitby Abbey and utterly obsessed by this period myself, I approached this chunky new novel with some trepidation, but quickly realised that I would be picked up and carried along by a master storyteller. HILD does not give us the traditional religious sainted abbess, but I have never been happy with that pious image. Instead, Nichola Griffiths fills the huge gaps in our knowledge of Hild’s early life with soaring imagination and a tale of epic proportion, without ever straying far from what is known of the period. Young Hild takes on the role of seer, which makes perfect sense to me. We follow her as she learns to survive in a violent, devious world by developing a reputation of ‘otherness’ along with physical strength, intelligence and sensitivity – she is personally vulnerable. A powerful sense of magic and destiny is conveyed, without ever needing to step into fantasy. This Hild is a killer when she deems it necessary and a ruthless warrior – an aspect that I felt slightly less comfortable with. I’m impressed by the enormous breadth of research – we discover every aspect of Hild’s world: smells, sounds, mead-hall culture, stinking hovels, weather, food and song. I particularly enjoyed the theme of textile production that threads and weaves its way throughout. Griffiths does not hold back on her usage of Anglo-Saxon words; she expects her reader to make an effort to understand - and I’m sure that the more we are exposed, the more accessible these words will become - they are after all the roots of the language we use everyday. HILD covers the early, unknown period of Hild’s life and I look forward with enormous curiosity to discover what will happen next. How can she possibly get from here to ruling a double monastery? I can’t wait to find out!

To be successful, an historical novel ought to at least be plausible and the characters in this novel are far from it. The author writes beautifully with wonderful descriptions of the landscape of the north of England but her story line becomes absurd, with pointless sex scenes that add nothing and are completely improbable. There’s a ridiculous subplot about an incestuous relationship between the future Abbess of Whitby and her fictional half brother. The ending just left me thinking, “What?” Read it if you like fantasy but not if you like history.

As l love books set in the early medieval period, l thought l would give this a go. The heroine sounded appealing, part Joan of Arc, part Cassandra of Troy. Also, l had just finished reading The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth and read a review in which the reviewer perceived these two novels to be similar. The Wake took me a month to read. With its approximation of Old English it is rich and tangled and takes you straight into the turbulent mind of its protagonist and into the old ways of a land swiftly and inexorably changing. Hild has already taken me twice that time and l am only a quarter of the way through. Why is it such a slow read? There is so much detail of daily life in the seventh century, and that tends to swamp the narrative. Hild barely emerges as a fully rounded character. She should be fascinating, but she comes across as annoying. The minor characters are more vividly drawn. Nicola Griffith has done admirable research, but the story has little pace and intermittent excitement. Yet there is something compelling about her style which keeps drawing me back. Her prose is distinct and unusual with touches of poetry. It is a time l know little about, and l have already learnt so much about society, clothing, customs and language. In the end, though, it is not a patch on The Wake, or, indeed Bernard Cornwall's Saxon Chronicles.

As always, NG demonstrates mastery of her craft. Her use of the English language is as wondrous as her use of English history; the shared history of our islands (speaking as a wealh myself). As NG says at the end of the book, she set the charismatic character, Hild, down on the fields of Northern England, at this watershed in history and let her run. Run she does, dodging the slings of the sanctimonious Roman Church and the arrows of Gwynedd. Early in the book, the 3 year old Hild describes the sound of the 3 main languages she hears every day. Anglisc - like apples falling on a wooden table. British - like the darting of otters. Irish - like a liquid gleaming. Magic!Good to know that the story has not run it's course and we will hear more of Hild's life in NG's next book.

What an excellent book, a real insight into the culture of the time, history in a digestible format! It is at the end of the day,fiction, in that very little is known of Hild, and in this novel she does not reach the period of her life that we do know about (not wishing to spoil the plot here). The storyline is excellent and the characters built well. Very enjoyable.