“I want to learn, to wander, to ask and think and listen like … like a priest or a prince,” she says. She also briefly befriends a wolf.ĭuring one banquet, Hild has the opportunity to ask her king for a favor, and she asks for an education. Other characters describe her movements in awe: “She vanished from sight … fell from the sky like an eagle … wouldn’t die even when a score, twoscore, threescore Lindseymen attacked from ambush.” While recovering, she learns that she was the target of that ambush and that her life is in danger. During one skirmish, she escapes some arrows by leaping into a tree and balancing on a bough, arms wrapped around the trunk before falling. By 15, she’s earned herself quite a nickname: butcher bird.Įver since she was little, Hild could climb trees. As a lady of the court, Hild is not supposed to concern herself with swords, but after receiving a long slaughter knife at age 10, she learns how to use it to defend herself and to give the direly wounded a merciful death.
Her family is forced first into exile and then obliged to seek refuge at King Edwin’s court, where most of her playtime is with a boy a few years older, with whom she spars using child-proof swords and spears until they graduate to real weapons. (Yep, there’s incest.)Īt age 3, Hild has the world ripped out from under her when her father, prince Hereric, “should-be king of Deira,” is killed, most likely by her uncle, Edwin (there’s a Stannis-Renly vibe going on between the two royal brothers). But the most valid point of comparison is Hild herself - as well as the close relationship she has with her fictional half-brother, Cian. Hild focuses on the Anglisc girl who would grow up to become Saint Hilda of Whitby, a real historical figure from the Dark Ages who made a name for herself as the king’s “seer.” Still, since both authors set the action in medieval times, the books naturally include depictions of how royal courts operated in those eras, with arranged marriages, assassination attempts, and conflicting old and new religions. Our interest piqued, we figured we might as well put Hild to the test for what other Martin-esque qualities we could find.įirst, a few caveats: Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series draws inspiration from the fifteenth-century War of the Roses, with the Lancasters and Yorks replaced by Lannisters and Starks, but the fantasy series’ many plot points are only loosely based on actual events. Martin’s best-selling fantasy epics will no doubt be skeptical of such a comparison, but the premise of Griffith’s 560-page tome doesn’t sound too far off: a brave English girl gets swept up in a battle for supremacy in a brutal land and uses quasi-magical skills to guide her uncle toward the center of power. Hild is a newly released historical novel by the British author Nicola Griffith that she has described as A Game of Thrones without the dragons.
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