Hild

I have Feels about this book.It's historical fiction, which generally means a lot of “Look, Ma, I did the research!” and that is definitely going on here, but I never felt it was dumped on me. Hild (the character) is written in such a way that the information a reader needs to know (or, more often, the writer wants to impart) feels like a natural part of her- with a HUGE caveat: Four-year-olds, and seven-year-olds, do not have the maturity Hild displays at these stages of the story. Maybe when she approaches teenage years, given her position in the royal family and the role created for her, the insight and maturity she is given is a bit more believable. Until the story got there, however, I was firmly rolling my eyes but willing to press on a bit more until that rocky start resolved itself.It's a character-driven story, to the point where nothing happens for extremely long stretches, in an already long book. Which is fine for real life, tedious for a pleasurable read. By half-way I was extremely ready for the book to be over. But the reasons the book is slow are also it's greatest strengths for this medieval historian reader. If you're interested in fifth-century daily life, noble life, political struggles and scheming and the machinations of the court, the loud and noisy manoeuvring of men and the quiet and subtle manoeuvring of women, marriage alliances and childbirth and weaving and healing and the conflict of Ionian and Roman Christianity with each other and with the ‘pagan' gods already established, this novel is full. It's historical fiction in the purest sense - Griffith has taken the highlights of a historical figure whose life we know nothing about, and reverse engineered them into a story of her childhood and how she developed those talents. The only ‘solid' information extant about Hild the Saint is the hagiography helpfully provided by Bede ([b:Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum 18935708 Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum Bede https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1385328180s/18935708.jpg 26943388]) in his documentation of the Christian conversion of the Anglo-Saxons. Griffith is explicit that she made up this story, but I worry that readers will miss that part. An improbable-but-not-impossible role is carved for Hild that makes her a woman of agency in the world of men, but it is her mother's role that is far more usual for a noble woman politicking in the court, and the role of her sister more usual still.