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. 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. During her PhD Amy co-convened a project researching medieval badges and pilgrim souvenirs at the British Museum. She then worked in the British Library's department of Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern manuscripts. 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, Jeff's uses ancient Medieval Texts (mostly from the Exeter Book) to create some really great short stories all focused around the wilderness of England.

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. 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.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. 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. 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 literature: women, outcasts, animals.

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. 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. They blend reflections of travels through fen, forest and cave, with retelling of medieval texts that offer rich depictions of the natural world.

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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 literature: women, outcasts, animals. My only real disappointment is that there weren’t more tales to read, another beautifully researched and produced book. 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. 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, 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. 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.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."