Ceridwen of Kilton
 Octavia Randolph
 (Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
 2002 Xlibris
  ISBN: 1401032974
Amazon's price is: $32.99

A courageous young woman with divided loyalties is caught in 9th century Anglo-Saxon & Viking wars.

Set in a time long, long ago, this book is written as a journal in the voice & by the hand of Ceridwen, the young matron & Mistress of the Kilton Hall, just as two cultures clash, the Anglo-Saxons at home on the land of Wessex after many generations & forming themselves into one kingdom, & the Vikings, who come raiding from across the seas.

Back in those days the power struggles of home & hearth were reflected in the struggles for thrones & their courts. When wives could not deliver sons to their husbands, their lives were useless. The idea of romantic love was yet to evolve, still four centuries in the future. Households were inherited by who one married, & the sons who survived. Intrigue was as prevalent as fleas & loyalty the most prized coin of the realm.

In this time, circa 800 anno domino, in the eastlands of England, there was another war being fought -- between the new Christianity & the wiser, older religions of the region. It should be no surprise to any Reader of history that it was the men who brought Christianity home, while it was the women who observed the Old Ways.

It has been decades since I read this kind of saga. Ceridwen of Kilton is written in the first person singular, which often makes for a startlingly strange turn of phrase, Olde English notwithstanding.

It has been a long time since I immersed myself in a story from the Old World about the jockeying for power before England was forged by male relatives who banded together to repel invaders, in lethal, hand-to-hand combat, swearing oaths of fealty, & ceaselessly deceiving each other for a crown.

While Ceridwen of Kilton is frequently mesmerizing reading, like a strong mead, to be sipped & swirled around the palette, tasting the bouquet of the story & its telling, I was almost instantly confused by fathers & sons having the same names, & the importance of the cast of characters. Perhaps the hardest thing to overcome was the awkwardness that manifested as either arrogance or timidity, of the voice telling such a story as the person only hears the stories herself, second hand.

If you like to immerse yourself in history as seen through a woman's eyes, from a bygone era, then let the cats out, light the fire & kick back in your chair. When you start Ceridwen of Kilton, be prepared to disappear into another time, another world. After a while you'll even get used to the language.

The author has supplied a Calendar of Feast Days, a glossary of place names from the past & their modern equivalents, a Glossary of Terms, & notes on the Historic Veracity, plus an excerpt from her next book in the Ceridwen series.
(01/26/03)

Rebecca