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Hild: A Novel

Page 65

by Nicola Griffith


  Gipswīc: 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

  wīc: 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 Wr
iter’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

  www.twitter.com/fsgbooks • www.facebook.com/fsgbooks

  eISBN 9780374711016

 

 

 


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