Wild: Tales from Early Medieval Britain

Product Information

In Wild, Amy Jeffs journeys – on foot and through medieval texts – from landscapes of desolation to hope, offering the reader an insight into a world at once distant and profoundly close to home. Set between the Creation and Noah’s Flood and embellished with a series of linocut illustrations, Storyland reimagines the myths of Britain through a modern lens. An extraordinarily multidimensional work, moving seamlessly from creative retellings of the stories to explanations of the texts and where they came from, underpinned all the time by sound academic understanding. Her previous book Storyland, which focused upon the history and legends of the United Kingdom and Ireland as a whole, was covered in Season 7, Episode 108 of The Folklore Podcast. What is most remarkable about Amy’s reimagining of this particular story is that it is depicted through the eyes of Bladud’s son, Prince Leir – Shakespeare’s King Lear – which adds another layer of complexity to the narrative as we think about what and who ‘Leir’ became in later life.

Please Note: By their very nature, all signed books will have been handled several times before they get to you. I had really loved the storytelling and art work in Storyland and when I found out that there was a sequel coming out covering the early medieval period in a similar fashion I was excited. Many of these stories were really dominant in Britain until the mid-16th century when we would see more modern techniques of historical inquiry take over and tales of goddesses and giants fall by the wayside slightly, but some of these stories were taken so seriously that they really did inform political decision-making. One very interesting thing about Bladud is the resemblance between the story of Icarus and Daedalus.Most interestingly to us in Bath, Amy retells the ancient story of Bladud of Bath – a legendary king of the Britons. Via being Latin for road or path, meant that avia described the “wayless” flight of the birds around them. Had an amazing synchronicitous experience of , a day earlier, having been writing of the connections between murmurations and written language when the same odd linkage appeared here, which only made me love the book more.

With her musical creations equally as enchanting as her other work, there is no doubt that Amy is a multi-talented artist and author with plenty more to come.A lovely blend of stories, poetry and non-fiction all transporting the reader back to the ancient wilds of Britain.

Reading Wild feels like being led by the hand through a gnarled, old growth forest, along empty shoreflats, and along the edge of windswept cliffs - and shown how to experience them through medieval eyes. In a commentary that follows each retelling, Amy expands on the historical references and hidden meanings buried within the original source materials – a fascinating and much-welcome addition to the book. Her stories are arranged across seven chapters - Earth, Ocean, Forest, Beast, Fen, Catastrophe and Paradise. I'd like to find a copy of "The Exeter Book" as well as other suggestions from the "Further Reading" chapter.The seven chapters, entitled Earth, Ocean, Forest, Beast, Fen, Catastrophe, Paradise, open with fiction and close with reflection. Jeffs teases out nuance, divining moral and metaphorical meaning from each story, and questions ways that this living history of Britain impacts upon our present-day understanding of landscape. What is most remarkable about Amy’s reimagining of this particular story is that it is depicted through the eyes of Bladud’s son, Prince Leir – Shakespeare’s King Lear – which adds another layer of complexity to the narrative as we think about what and who Leir became in later life. The exquisitely designed cover of this book contains art and literature, which combine to create a beautifully described combination of poems and short fiction based on biblical and old world texts about the elements of the natural world in historical times. They weren’t necessarily of deep academic interest but I felt that not enough people appreciated the hilarity and drama and beauty of these origin myths of Britain.