Welcome to Litsy!

🤫 don‘t wake Nikki.

This is a delightful 13-century Arthurian romance with a female knight, Silence, forced to hide her identity and act a man. Jealous kings, slain dragons, female healers and a wild-man version of Merlin. It was discovered in 1911, a single manuscript in Old French verse in a box marked “old papers - no value”.

I‘m posting one of this at the beginning and one when I‘m done for motivation. It‘s taking me forever to get to 😫. #embroidery

"At dawn the women came to tell Diarmait that his new wife had borne a daughter."
#firstlinefridays
@ShyBookOwl

Romance written in the 12-13th cent.
Silence is a girl brought up disguised as a boy so she could be her parents' heir. Of course, they are the most valiant, accomplished & virtuous person ever 😁
The King of England likes & values them, but after they reject the Queen's advances, she turns against them & tribulations start.
I thought their gender of birth would be uncovered in battle, as per trope, but no: something stranger & funnier happens 👏

Recent acquisitions:

📖 The Three Edwards: War and State in England 1272-1377 by Michael Prestwich
📖 Early Irish Monasteries by Conleth Manning

#UniteAgainstBookBans #LetUtahRead

So far:
- Hébain married the King of Norway's daughter
- Cador slayed the dragon terrorising Winchester, and earned the right to marry the maid of his choosing
- Eufémie cured Cador's illness and earned the right to marry the man of her choosing
- You guessed it: Cador and Eufémie married each other
- Eufémie gave birth to a girl, but they announced a boy - and therefore heir - to the world
Medieval romances FTW!
I'll stop bc spoilers 😋

This just in, medieval brits ate senapssill

Now that I‘ve finished Chaucer, I‘ve made the Roman de Silence my morning book. This is a 13th century Old French Arthurian romance in verse. And so far, in translation, it reads a lot like the Lais of Marie de France - that is to say, light and charming.

This book.
My morning reading. #coffeeandbooks

How many times in history did this happen? According to to the author, beginning with Reformation, libraries were decimated by varying religious groups, with the intention of burning “controversial texts.” There are lists of these books.available today.“ Femina” was the category that destroyed female texts were cataloged under. I am reading the into- so much to digest on every page!