![]() ![]() This is a book that seeks to do for British myth what Natalie Haynes and Madeline Miller have done so brilliantly for classical literature: uncovering stories of feminine power that have been occluded by the male hand of history. Now there come whispers from the west of a young Briton gathering tribes around him in an attempt to overthrow the Saxons. This is an age of turmoil and flux: the Saxons carry memories of the “Old Country” from which they had fled to England Osric has a new wife from Gaul who professes a dangerous religion – Christianity Osric’s favourite son, Vort, is machinating to seize power from his ailing father. The girls find themselves drawn into the court from which their father had been exiled, that of Osric, king of the Saxons, descended from “Hengist and Horsa, the first Seax warrior brothers”.Īll is not well with Osric, though. Blue has her own mantic powers, being skilled in divination and “leechcraft”. She has also, much against the taboos of her tribe, learned the art of sword-making. Isla has eyes of different colours, a sign of the second sight, which visits her in vivid dreams. ![]() ![]() At the beginning of the novel, Smith dies and the girls find themselves alone and seemingly powerless. The girls’ mother was, like Boudicca, a member of the Ikeni tribe, murdered by raiders. Our heroes are sisters Isla and Blue, daughters of the Great Smith, a Saxon who has been exiled to a mudflat in the middle of the Thames. ![]()
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