What is most remarkable about Amy’s reimagining of this particular story is that it is depicted through the eyes of Bladud’s son, Prince Leir – Shakespeare’s King Lear – which adds another layer of complexity to the narrative as we think about what and who Leir became in later life. Jeffs is the narrator, providing a reading that is suffused with portent and otherworldliness. Listeners gain a series of folk songs, written and performed by Jeffs, each of which adds a thrilling new dimension to these ancient fables." The mix of modern iterations, translated originals and modern commentary providing a smooth and engaging link betwixt past and present.

Most listeners to The Folklore Podcast will be familiar with Dr. Amy Jeffs’ brilliance. Art historian, artist, and regular contributor to Country Life Magazine, Jeffs is a multifaceted individual, who pairs her linocut and wood-engraving artwork with her historically inspired writing. Her previous book Storyland, which focused upon the history and legends of the United Kingdom and Ireland as a whole, was covered in Season 7, Episode 108 of The Folklore Podcast. Wild: Tales From Early Medieval Britain, her new book published by Quercus Publishing, focuses not upon the history of the founding of Britain, but rather upon the life experience and mentality of those living there. 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." From 1st July 2021, VAT will be applicable to those EU countries where VAT is applied to books - this additional charge will be collected by Fed Ex (or the Royal Mail) at the time of delivery. Shipments to the USA & Canada: In the authors's own words: "The ice-encrusted, storm-swept, eel-infested, midnight-sun-illuminated wilderness of literature in Old English, Insular Latin and Middle Welsh, lends drama to the articulation of philosophies inherited from the works of Classical thinkers, the Bible, and Germanic and Celtic pre-Christian traditions. The messages that shine through are timeless in their comfort: this too shall pass, we are part of something beautiful, creation is full of wisdom. I hope the stories' accessibility will encourage the greatest number of readers towards the wonders of the primary sources, while keeping those sources alive in our culture by means of creative interpretation."Jeffs teases out nuance, divining moral and metaphorical meaning from each story, and questions ways that this living history of Britain impacts upon our present-day understanding of landscape. The writing throughout is celebratory and evocative." I think when we forget the histories we once believed, we can’t appreciate the motivations that led to events and decisions that had a real material impact on the future. Just because we no longer believe in giants doesn’t mean we should dismiss them as whimsy.” A desire to share the stories and get people excited about them was the beginning of it all. I was fascinated by how the illustrations in the Brut legend followed the narrative action but they were very concise illustrations and communicated so many elements of an episode so efficiently. I really enjoyed that challenge of persuading people through pictures that these were stories to pay attention to and to enjoy.” A linocut illustration by Amy Jeffs depicting the ancient story that saw Merlin, the wizard of Arthurian legend, create Stonehenge. From the chapter titled Stonehenge With her musical creations equally as enchanting as her other work, there is no doubt that Amy is a multi-talented artist and author with plenty more to come. Chapter two a hauntingly melancholic highlight where loneliness stands out for a delicate twist to an epic saga

It was as I was studying Britain’s medieval origin myth, the Brut, and completing my thesis for my phD that I came across so many things that made my heart leap,” Amy tells me. “They weren’t necessarily of deep academic interest but I felt that not enough people appreciated the hilarity and drama and beauty of these origin myths of Britain.” In her debut book, Amy Jeffs reimagines the myths of Britain that once served a more profound purpose in ancient cultures. Millie Bruce-Watt escapes through the mists of time to discover a world steeped in magic and mystery.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. Most interestingly to us in Bath, Amy retells the ancient story of Bladud of Bath – a legendary king of the Britons. Supposedly, he ruled for 20 years several hundred centuries BC, and is credited as the architect of Bath, channelling the hot springs by the use of magic and building temples dedicated to the goddess Minerva. Practising necromancy and communicating with the dead, he was a genius, a magician and respected by all 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.

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. The seven chapters of the book each focus upon a theme: Earth, Ocean, Forest, Beast, Fen, Catastrophe, and Paradise. The chapters open with a reimagining of a poem or riddle from the Exeter Book, and end with the author’s reflections upon what was just written. While the writings are beautiful, they also add enough to the writing itself that I was tempted to reread and capture what I had missed the first time around. The RLF fellow told me on Tuesday that enthusiasm and love for a subject seeps through writing- this book is a prime example of that. Jason Watkins reads this terrific portrait of London’s Soho between the wars, featuring a long cast of characters including Nellie Coker, a nightclub owner; Frobisher, a police inspector investigating Nellie’s business; and Gwendolen, a young librarian hired to search for some missing girls. Jeffs is the narrator, providing a reading that is suffused with portent and otherworldliness. Listeners miss out on the author’s elegant wood engravings that adorn the print edition, though they gain a series of folksongs, written and performed by Jeffs, each of which adds a thrilling new dimension to these ancient fables.With her musical creations as equally enchanting as her other work, there is no doubt that Amy is a multi-talented artist and author with plenty more to come. Ultimately, Amy’s retellings open up a remarkable world brimming with wonderous tales of giants, legends and magical myths; one that is hard to put down and ever-enthralling to explore. I suppose with choosing to tell it through the eyes of Prince Leir – I was interested in what parental pride looks like through the eyes of a child because, of course, children trust and believe their parents, and so maybe there is a disjunct between what Leir sees and what the reader sees. 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. Many of these stories were really dominant in Britain until the mid-16th century when we would see more modern techniques of historical inquiry take over and tales of goddesses and giants fall by the wayside slightly, but some of these stories were taken so seriously that they really did inform political decision making.

A desire to share the stories and get people excited about them was the beginning of it all. I was fascinated by how the illustrations in the Brut legend followed the narrative action but they were very concise illustrations and communicated so many elements of an episode so efficiently. I really enjoyed that challenge of persuading people through pictures that these were stories to pay attention to and to enjoy.”

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What is most remarkable about Amy’s reimagining of this particular story is that it is depicted through the eyes of Bladud’s son, Prince Leir – Shakespeare’s King Lear – which adds another layer of complexity to the narrative as we think about what and who ‘Leir’ became in later life.