Amy Jeffs > Quotes

“Learning, debating and growing, we will tell each other stories into the night. Our lives will encircle the sun: setting and rising, setting and rising.”
― Amy Jeffs, Storyland: A New Mythology of Britain

“Myths hold the echo of collective emotion, whatever they reveal of events.”
― Amy Jeffs, Storyland: A New Mythology of Britain

“They worshiped the golden idols and they feared no invasion. For who would disinherit the devil?”
― Amy Jeffs, Storyland: A New Mythology of Britain

“from THE WANDERER (lines 92–6) Where has the horse gone? Where has the man gone? Where have the treasure-givers gone? Where are the seats at the feast? Where are the joys of the hall? So long to the sparkling cup. So long to the warrior in wargear. So long to princely power. See how that era has passed, faded into nothingness under night’s helmet, as if it had never been.”
― Amy Jeffs, Wild: Tales from Early Medieval Britain

“And so my spirit roams beyond the heart’s restraints. My mind casts off on the swollen sea, eddies freely in the whale’s wake, spins to the edges of the earth, then returns to me, restless and ravenous. Again, the lonely flier cries, prompting my powerless heart back to the way of the whale, onto the sweep of the sea.”
― Amy Jeffs, Wild: Tales from Early Medieval Britain

“You are not like them,' she used to say, stroking my forehead as I lay in her arms. ‘They will attack you and, when you fight back, they will blame you. Never go to the hall. Never open the door.”
― Amy Jeffs, Wild: Tales from Early Medieval Britain

“Caught beneath the bright gaze of kings and princes, I am homesick for the abyss.”
― Amy Jeffs

“In Isidore of Seville’s Etymologies, the tides are characterised as ‘a restlessness’, and it was the ocean’s restlessness, as well as its separation from the habitable parts of the world, that gave it rich metaphorical potential.”
― Amy Jeffs, Wild: Tales from Early Medieval Britain

“These are not the familiar vessels now floating in the harbour, raised up by the tide. These are larger, much larger, and driving through the water, dragon-prowed, square-sailed, sailing towards us. ‘Ships,’ is all I can say to my brothers. Men are moving on the decks, axes in their hands. In my mind’s eye: whirlwinds, flames and dragons on the waves. An altar running with blood.”
― Amy Jeffs, Wild: Tales from Early Medieval Britain

“I sat down and put my head on my knees, the great vastness of the ocean seeming to yawn on every side.”
― Amy Jeffs, Wild: Tales from Early Medieval Britain