And all the people in the stories had names, and she did not and she would never find her name here in the cave. “All the adventure, all the different and new you need.” The tales of heroes and great deeds, and the riddles and tragic tales, did interest the girl, but many were stories of how to bind a wound and grow a garden, how to husband a flock and dress a fresh-killed fowl, and she already knew these things. “These are tales of the world,” she told her. So it was that her mother, to keep the girl interested, taught her the language of books, and with great reluctance showed the girl her chest of scrolls. Where Hild invited me to luxuriate in its vivid exposition and lured me through its sometimes bewildering complexity with its powerful characterization of Hild herself, Spear seemed mannered, even portentous, at first: I loved Nicola Griffith’s Hild, so I ordered Spear as soon as it was available last year and started reading it as soon as my copy arrived - only to find myself bogged down in, rather than entranced by, the language. She wanted to belong to sit before the hearth and dip soup from the hanging bowl, or sit cross-legged before her mother who perched on a stool that she, her daughter, had made, to hear Elen use her name, Peretur. She was tired of striving, tired of the sideways look of those who did not trust her. She wanted more than anything to be Dawnged to her mother now: a gift, a blessing.

Spear griffith