In a time when peasants often lived in huts alongside their animals, raiding parties from warring kingdoms regularly slaughtered whole villages, and superstition still held sway with religion, two enlightened women seek to find their own destiny in an emerging Christian Church. Based on historical tradition and set in seventh-century Anglo-Saxon Britain, Fire in the Spirit follows the story of Hild (St. Hild) and Dreda (St. Æthelthryth or St. Audrey) on their journey to sainthood. With an in-depth introduction, detailed endnotes, and appendix, Fire in the Spirit will not only appeal to those interested in medieval Britain and the time of its great conversion to Christianity, but also to anyone interested in the very human story of two women trying to find their own path in a male dominated and often brutish world.
In a time when peasants often lived in huts alongside their animals, raiding parties from warring kingdoms regularly slaughtered whole villages, and superstition still held sway with religion, two enlightened women seek to find their own destiny in an emerging Christian Church. Based on historical tradition and set in seventh-century Anglo-Saxon Britain, Fire in the Spirit follows the story of Hild (St. Hild) and Dreda (St. Æthelthryth or St. Audrey) on their journey to sainthood. With an in-depth introduction, detailed endnotes, and appendix, Fire in the Spirit will not only appeal to those interested in medieval Britain and the time of its great conversion to Christianity, but also to anyone interested in the very human story of two women trying to find their own path in a male dominated and often brutish world.