Title:

Thornhedge

Author:

T. Kingfisher

Category:

Science Fiction / Fantasy

Rating:

Date Reviewed:

September 3, 2023

ow can Kingfisher be so prolific and yet still produce such excellent writing? I suspect wizardry must be involved. Maybe Kingfisher leaves blank manuscript paper out at night, alongside tiny-treats, and elves appear out of the woodwork and write these magical tales. Thornhedge is a novella, just 111 pages long. You can read it in a couple of hours. Once you start, you won't want to stop. It is charming.

Thornhedge is the story of an enormous ring of impassable thorns that has grown up around a keep. A secondary ring of briars and brambles encircles the inner circle, the immense organic walls looks like a natural barrier, a viewer might only spot the tower if they stood at the right point and knew exactly where to look. One day a knight named Hamlin comes riding along the road and stops at the wall of thorns. He carefully studies the barrier, and then camps there for the night.

Watching nervously from the shelter of the great hedge is Toadling. Toadling was a changeling - she was stolen at birth by the fairy folk, swapped out and sent to live amongst the child-eating greenteeth in an immense swamp. Somehow, the human child has survived; and even come to consider the swamp monsters to be her family. Toadling has learned magic. She can shape-shift, turning her human form into a toad (thus, her name), and then back again.

One day, the Hare goddess comes to the swamp and announces that she has need of Toadling. Since no one defies a goddess, Toadling leaves the land of fairy and eventually finds herself in mortal territory; and now she is the timeless keeper of Thornhedge, protecting its secret from the outside world. The decades roll past, the thorns are undisturbed, Toadling keeps her vigil. But now a young knight has come and is peering intently at the wall of thorns, as if he suspects that there is something hidden there.

Since she is not a fairy, but a human changeling, Toadling's magic is not that strong. Perhaps she can find away to chase this too-curious knight away? As Hamlin sleeps beside the campfire, Toadling creeps close and ties his hair into elf-knots. But the knight was only feigning sleep...

Kingfisher tells great stories, but her character development is even better. Every reader will empathize with Toadling, the human girl who can assume toad form. Hamlin, the knight in search of stories, is equally likeable. The two characters interact - it has been so long (centuries!) since Toadling has spoken with anyone and she finds that as a torrent of words escapes her, she reveals too much. Hamlin is keen to know what lies behind the great Thornhedge, even as Toadling warns him that some things are best left undisturbed.

I hope the magic elves that keep generating new manuscripts for Kingfisher take a break for a while, so I have a chance to read some of her earlier works, there are many that sound intriguing.