Wild: Tales from Early Medieval Britain

Product Information

In Wild, the writer and medievalist Amy Jeffs blends fact and fiction to “evoke and contextualise [Britain’s] ancient imaginative landscape”. Broadly covering the years 600-1000, a period of “migration, conversion and belief in monsters, demons, angels and omens in the sky”, the book comprises seven themed chapters: Earth, Ocean, Forest, Beast, Fen, Catastrophe and Paradise. Each begins with a short story inspired by objects or texts that have survived from early medieval times, and are rooted in their surroundings, after which Jeffs takes a closer look at the sources.

Immersive . . . Her stories are arranged across seven chapters - Earth, Ocean, Forest, Beast, Fen, Catastrophe and Paradise. Jeffs, a medieval scholar with her own wild streak, introduces each in confident, forceful tones. She also sings six of her songs, accompanied by early musical instruments. Lucy Paterson, who has one of those warm, low, 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. The writing throughout is celebratory and evocative." Jeffs is the narrator, providing a reading that is suffused with portent and otherworldliness. Listeners gain a series of folk songs, written and performed by Jeffs, each of which adds a thrilling new dimension to these ancient fables." Read on the train ride home. Wonderful introduction to the subject though inflected quite heavily with the authors voice- which at times I found misplaced. Must return to it in the future and listen to the songs in the audiobook. Whale things. Murmurations. Jeffs has a gift for breathing new life into ancient stories through her lyrical writing, deep research and evocative woodcuts. She connects our mythic history to the landscape with delicacy and humour. 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. It's a jewel of a book."

Author

Amy Jeffs is an art historian specialising in the Middle Ages. In 2019, she gained a PhD in Art History from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, having studied for earlier degrees at the Courtauld Institute of Art and the University of Cambridge. She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. Across seven themed chapters the Storyland author presents an inspiring excavation of the British countryside through diverse medieval texts." The seven chapters, entitled Earth, Ocean, Forest, Beast, Fen, Catastrophe, Paradise, open with fiction and close with reflection. 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. The seven chapters, entitled Earth, Ocean, Forest, Beast, Fen, Catastrophe, Paradise, open with fiction and close with reflection. They blend reflections of travels through fen, forest and cave, with retelling of medieval texts that offer rich depictions of the natural world. From the Old English elegies to the englynion and immrama of the Celtic world - stories that largely represent figures whose voices are not generally heard in the corpus of medieval women, outcasts, animals.

The RLF fellow told me on Tuesday that enthusiasm and love for a subject seeps through writing- this book is a prime example of that. 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. Chapter two a hauntingly melancholic highlight where loneliness stands out for a delicate twist to an epic saga This came into the shop early and didn’t even have time to hit the floor before I had bought it I was looking forward to it so much.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. The seven chapters, entitled Earth, Fen, Forest, Beast, Ocean, Catastrophe, Paradise, open with fiction and close with reflection. They blend reflections of travels through fen, forest and cave, with retelling of medieval texts that offer rich depictions of the natural world, from the Old English elegies, the Welsh Englynion, the Norse poetic Edda - stories that largely represent figures whose voices are not generally heard in the corpus of medieval literature: women, outcasts, animals. Jeffs is the narrator, providing a reading that is suffused with portent and otherworldliness. Listeners miss out on the author’s elegant wood engravings that adorn the print edition, though they gain a series of folksongs, written and performed by Jeffs, each of which adds a thrilling new dimension to these ancient fables. Jason Watkins reads this terrific portrait of London’s Soho between the wars, featuring a long cast of characters including Nellie Coker, a nightclub owner; Frobisher, a police inspector investigating Nellie’s business; and Gwendolen, a young librarian hired to search for some missing girls.

Jeff's tales are haunting and emotive, rich in sensory details; touch and temperature, noise and frosty fingers, the crisp of decay touched leaves, warriors call and sing. A natural world and wild landscape that bring old words shrouded time to imaginative life. Old poetry and it's import for medieval society vague for modern uninitiated reader is still full of emotive humanity. Helpful commentaries elucidate on meanings and how the old poetry sheds light on a rich artistic culture in Medieval Britain, the medieval perspectives and understandings reflecting how they perceived the world they inhabit. Jeffs’ writing shows the reader that the abstract notion of the Wild, ever present to the medieval mind, is still accessible in the modern day. While people may no longer view the ocean as the “restlessness” that the early medieval folk thought of it as, the wandering seafarer remains a familiar figure throughout literature to this day. Similarly, the contemporary climate crisis echoes the experience of Lindisfarne before the Vikings invaded. Most now see us as living on the precipice of Doomsday. Jeffs ventures to show the reader a way to live upon that cliff’s edge with grace and perhaps even joy, through the celebration of unity that the monks used to create some of the most beautiful art of all ages.

Pages

From the Old English elegies to the englynion and immrama of the Celtic world – stories that largely represent figures whose voices are not generally heard in the corpus of medieval literature: women, outcasts, animals. Ongoing Covid restrictions, reduced air and freight capacity, high volumes and winter weather conditions are all impacting transportation and local delivery across the globe. The book is put together in a brilliant way: each chapters starts with Amy Jeffs' re-imagining and retelling a story from this period, enriching them with very human emotions, timeless wisdom, historically accurate facts, she effortlessly weaves art and artifacts from the time into the story and gives them new meaning by doing so. After the retelling of each story, she gives a detailed explanation in a very informative and entertaining way. I believe this is exactly the right way to keep these stories, cultures, ideas and values alive. This is how we can make people care about these extremely valuable treasures of an era long past. They blend reflections of travels through fen, forest and cave, with retelling of medieval texts that offer rich depictions of the natural world.

Once more Amy Jeffs supports these tales with beautiful ink prints at the start of each story, this time wood engravings, which tease the tale in graphic form. Wild is a small selection of stories inspired by medieval poetry and tales found in, The Exeter Book and other medieval sources that are perhaps less well known. We are experiencing delays with deliveries to many countries, but in most cases local services have now resumed. For more details, please consult the latest information provided by Royal Mail's International Incident Bulletin. Wild is one of the best books I've read lately, it absolutely surprised and stunned me. It is intelligent, entertaining, sophisticated, informative and thought-provoking. Reading it has sparked my imagination and my interest in the early medieval history of Britain, this fascinating and complex period in time, when Christian, Celtic, Roman and Germanic art, myths, ideas and languages swirled together and created a truly unique combination. I imagine this is the sort of book, Professor Tolkien would have enjoyed reading and I can't wait to read some of the original sources mentioned in it. As with Storyland Wood engravings (the authors own) imbue chapters with a haunting gothic edge; the silhouette of leafless trees, hunched figures in empty spaces, bursts of white life amidst the darkness....emotive juxatpositions of humanityIn 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.