Hild: A Novel (82 page)

We don’t know exactly where Hild was born and when her father died—or her mother. We have no idea what she looked like, what she was good at, whether she married or had children. But clearly she was extraordinary. In a time of warlords and kings, when might was right, she began as the second daughter of a homeless widow, probably without much in the way of material resources and certainly in an illiterate culture, and ended up a powerful adviser to statesmen-kings and teacher of five bishops. Today she is revered as Saint Hilda.

So how did Hild ride this cultural transformation of petty kingdoms into sophisticated, literate states? We don’t know. I wrote this book to find out. I learnt what I could of the late sixth and early seventh centuries: ethnography, archaeology, poetry, numismatics, jewellery, textiles, languages, food production, weapons, and more. And then I re-created that world and its known historical incidents, put Hild inside the world, and watched, fascinated, as she grew up, influenced and influencing. (The deeper I go, the more certain I become that I’ve caught a tiger by the tail. I’m writing the next part of her story now.)

While people in Hild’s time may have understood their world a little differently from how we understand ours, they were still people—as human as we are. Their dreams, fears, political machinations, fights, loves, and hesitations were shaped by circumstance and temperament, as are ours. Hild, though singular, was singular within the constraints of her time. Her time was occasionally brutal.

I don’t pretend to be an historian. Although I did my utmost not to contravene what is known about the early seventh-century material culture, languages, natural world, power politics, and individuals of the British Isles, this is a novel. I made it up.

A NOTE ON PRONUNCIATION

Hild would have encountered at least four languages on a regular basis: Old Irish (Irish), Ancient British (Brythonic), Latin, and Old English (Anglisc).

I won’t attempt to codify the pronunciation of Old Irish; it’s defeated better than me.

Ancient British is easier. If you think of it in the same terms as modern Welsh, you’ll get a sense of how to proceed. Every letter is sounded,
c
is pronounced
k
,
dd
as
th
,
ff
as
v
,
rh
as
hr
, and
u
,
g,
and
w
can be … mercurial. So:

Cian: KEE-an

Gwladus: OO-la-doose

Arddun: AR-thun

Rhroedd: HRO-eth

Urien: IRRI-yen

Uinniau: oo-IN-NI-eye
(the short form sounds very like
Winny
)

Latin sounds much as it looks with the exception of
v
, which sounds like
w
. Consonants are hard (
g
as in
go
, and
c
as
k
).

Old English is a particular and deliberate tongue, with every consonant and vowel sounded,
r
’s trilled, and dipthongs accented on the first element. Some simplified rules include pronouncing:

æ:
like the
a
in
cat

sc: sh,
as in
ship

g:
sometimes
y,
as in
yes

ī
c:
usually as
itch

f:
sometimes as
v,
as in
very

ð: th,
as in
then

So:

Gipsw
ī
c: Yips-witch

gesith: yeh-SEETH

gemæcce: yeh-MATCH-eh

thegn: thayn

ætheling: ATH-ell-ing

scop: SHOW-p

Anglisc: ANG-glish

Eanflæd: AY-on-vlad

seax: sax

Yffi: IFF-y

Hereric: herr-EHR-itch

Wilnoð: oo-ILL-noth

*
Read a translation, by Professor Roy M. Liuzza (Joseph Black et al., eds.,
Broadview Anthology of British Literature, Volume 1: The Medieval Period
. Peterborough, Ont: Broadview Press, 2006; hosted and linked to with permission of the translator), of the relevant passages here:
http://nicolagriffith.com/Bede_on_Hild.pdf
.

Glossary

æfen:
  six to nine in the evening

ætheling:
  male youth in the line of succession, prince

Anglisc:
  pertaining to Angles (the people, the language)

Arawn:
  British (wealh) underworld

baldric:
  wide belt for weapons worn crosswise over the shoulder

basilica:
  main hall of old Roman administration building

Belenos:
  British god

Beli Mawr:
  legendary British figure

Blodmonath:
  November

Cait Sith:
  black cat of British legends

ceorl:
  freeman

chape:
  tip of a scabbard, usually metal, often highly decorated

Coel Hen:
  fifth-century British king

cyrtel:
  loose, long-sleeved dress; informal

dryhten:
  absolute lord

ealdorman:
  high lord (similar to viceroy)

ell:
  about thirty inches

Elmetsætne:
  the people of Elmet

Eorðe:
  Anglisc goddess

etin:
  giant

freemartin:
  female calf masculinised in the womb by male twin

gemæcce:
  formal female friendship or partnership; one of a pair

gesith:
  member of a king’s personal war band; elite warrior

Gewisse:
  people of Upper Thames area; West Saxons

hægtes:
  supernatural figure; witch

Hel:
  Anglisc for hell, a cold place

Hrethmonath:
  March

Hwicce:
  people of the area around Worcester; Saxons

hythe:
  
landing place or harbour

Idings:
  royal dynasty of Bernicia

league:
  about three miles

Loides:
  ruling tribe of British Elmet

Lyr:
  legendary British god

mene:
  valley

middæg:
  middle of the day, noon to three o’clock

morgen:
  six to nine in the morning

nithing:
  oath-breaker; one who is shunned

Northumbria:
  Bernicia and Deira

Œstremonath:
  April

Oiscingas:
  royal dynasty of Kent

pace:
  two strides, about five feet

principia:
  old Roman administrative building

redcrest:
  Roman

rhyne:
  ditch, canal

scop:
  Anglisc bard

seax:
  knife with a large, single-edged blade

selkie:
  mythical creature who lives as a seal in the sea but becomes human on land

sidsa:
  magic

Sigel:
  Anglisc god

Sirona:
  Romano-British goddess

snakesteel:
  pattern-welded steel

snakestone:
  ammonite (fossil)

Solmonath:
  February

thegn:
  lord

thung:
  poisonous flowers (e.g., wolfsbane)

Thunor:
  Anglisc god

tree hay:
  chopped-up brush, used as winter fodder

tufa:
  king’s standard

undern:
  nine in the morning to noon

vill:
  royal estate

wariangle:
  butcher-bird, or strike

wealh:
  Anglisc for “stranger” and root word of current “Welsh”

Weodmonath:
  August

w
ī
c:
  king’s trading settlement, usually a port

wight:
  supernatural figure, ghost

Winterfylleth:
  October

Witganmot:
  assembly of notables, usually annual

Woden:
  Anglisc god

Wuffings:
  East Anglian royal dynasty

wyrd:
  fate

Yffings:
  Deiran royal dynasty

Yr Hen Ogledd:
  the Old North; kingdoms of northern England and southern Scotland

Acknowledgements

I’ve been thinking about this book for a long time. The list of people to whom I’d like to offer acknowledgement and thanks is correspondingly long:

To my editor, Sean McDonald, and everyone at Farrar, Straus and Giroux: Jonathan Galassi, Andrew Mandel, Jeff Seroy, Kathy Daneman, Spenser Lee, Devon Mazzone, Emily Bell, Taylor Sperry, Nick Courage, Charlotte Strick, Abby Kagan, and all those who have worked hard and intelligently on behalf of this book. I also want to thank Karla Eoff, my copy editor.

To my agent, Stephanie Cabot, and Anna Worrall and all at the Gernert Company. It’s a privilege working with such a team.

To the Society of Authors, in the United Kingdom, who gave me a grant for travel and research at a critical juncture.

To the medieval bloggers, academic and otherwise—Michelle of Heavenfield, Jonathan Jarret, Magistra et Mater, Tim Clarkson, Sally Wilde, Guy Halsall, Carla Naylund, Reverend Brenda Warren—who have helped me, some unwittingly but most with deliberate effort and patience. Thanks also to Lisa Spangenberg and Wendy Pearson for input on various things, and to Dennis King, and David Burke and John Clay, for fixing my Old Irish. All mistakes are, of course, my own.

To all composers, compilers, translators and enthusiasts of Old English poetry. Rædwald’s elegy
here
is how I imagined part of the first draft of
Beowulf
might have looked if it were written just before the Age of Conversion rather than a little later (as most scholars agree is most likely the case). I used a variety of translations as the basis of my linguistic retro-engineering project and then much poetic license. Again all errors are my own.

To my friends, for practical assistance, patience, encouragement, wine, and more: Angélique Corthals, Liliana Dávalos, Maria Dahvana Headley, Liz Butcher, Guillermo Castro, Ginny Gilder, Lynn Slaughter, Dorothy Allison, Val McDermid, Robert Schenkkan, Karen Joy Fowler, Matt Ruff, Karina Meléndez, Jennifer Durham, and Vicki Platts-Brown.

To my family, in the United Kingdom and the United States. Thank you.

To Steve Swartz, who appears here as Stephanus the Black because he contributed enough money to the African Well Fund to bring potable water to hundreds if not thousands of people.

To Roger Deakin, Robert Macfarlane, and Richard Mabey, for their wonderful books about Britain and its wild and wooded ways. And to Thomas H. Nelson, author of
The Birds of Yorkshire
, published in 1907 and long out of print, for writing about the miracle of doves and starlings in the same nest.

To my community of readers, everywhere, for following me to strange places (sometimes literally).

To the U.K. rugby fans of my youth who introduced me to several scabrous ditties. The song
here
is based on one of them. Some of you will know the tune …

To the experts who (mostly) have never heard of me but who nevertheless helped in ways that one day I hope to pay forward: Sarah Foot, Nicholas Higham, Robin Fleming, Chris Wickham, Barbara Yorke, Richard Underwood, Alex Woolf, D. P. Kirby, Edward James, Kevin Crossley-Holland, Alaric Hall, Rosamond McKitterick, Sally Crawford, Clare Lees and Gillian Overing, Penelope Walton Rogers, John Blair, Peter Hunter Blair, every contributor to
The Heroic Age
, and, naturally, the two who got me started, Trevelyan and Stenton.

To Hild herself, of course, for changing the world, which is what it takes, sometimes, for me to pay attention.

And finally, above all, to Kelley, always Kelley, for not, ever, letting me do less than my best. After all these years, I still want to impress her.

Also by Nicola Griffith

FICTION

Ammonite

Slow River

The Blue Place

Stay

Always

NONFICTION

And Now We Are Going to Have a Party: Liner Notes to a Writer’s Early Life

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

18 West 18th Street, New York 10011

Copyright © 2013 by Nicola Griffith

Map copyright © 2013 by Jeffrey L. Ward

All rights reserved

First edition, 2013

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Griffith, Nicola.

    Hild: a noval / Nicola Griffith. — First edition.

        pages cm

    ISBN 978-0-374-28087-1 (hardback)

    1.  Hilda, of whitby, Saint, 614–680—Fiction.   2.  Christian women saints—England—Whitby—Fiction.   3.  Christian saints—England—Northumbria (Region)—Fiction.   4.  Women—History—Middle Ages, 500–1500—Fiction.   I.  Title

PS3557.R48935 H55 2013

813'.54—dc23

2013022510

www.fsgbooks.com