Letter To Hild Quotes

“You were magnificent, I think, but hidden: a black hole at the heart of history. We can trace you only by gravitational pull. We know, for example, that the very first piece of English literature was forged in the fire of your influence; that in the so-called Dark Ages you built and ran Whitby Abbey, the foundation at the centre of what became Northumbria’s Golden Age. There you hosted and facilitated the meeting of kings, princes, and bishops that changed Britain, the Synod of Whitby. But we have no account of you beyond a five-page sketch in a 1,300-year-old history, most of which recits the standard hagiographic miracles and visions of time. We have no gossipy Life, no scholarly monograph, no racy romance cycle. There isn’t even a grave.”
― Nicola Griffith, She is Here

“You are remembered as a woman so revered everyone called you Mother, but we don’t know if you had children of your own. the colour of your hair, or the names of anyone you kissed. You have two legends: that the ammonite that are found in such plenty in Whitby are the snakes you turned to stone, and the seagulls dip their wings over the cliffs in your memory. The rest is a mystery.”
― Nicola Griffith, She is Here