The Serpent's Tooth

What a great re-telling of an ancient story. Shakespeare gave us much in the English language when he re-told it, and now Paxson brings ancient history to life. Her research into Celtic Britain is fundamental to the story, and the struggle of Cridilla/Cordelia with her father fits into a change from matriarchy to a more warrior culture. The familiar characters are here with changing of the names to more ancient pre-Celtic forms.

Cridilla's two older sisters are anxious to see their queenship with the land restored and this striving for the return of old, half-remembered ways forms the basis of their telling their father they love him more than Cridilla does. And C. is given a more fleshed out life in this re-telling, so that we learn show more her childhood, her warrior training, her understanding that the queen gives life to her land, and her heartbreak when her father casts her out.

My only observation of when the story drags is the point where Cridilla finds Leir in the wastes of the Isle of the Mighty; it's another instance where 5 pages could have sufficed for 20. Otherwise, the writing is top-notch and pulls the reader into a world very different from ours. show less

9.5/10
This is a retelling of the story of King Lear and his three daughters, placed in the early Iron Age and focused on the youngest daughter Cridilla (Cordelia). The author skillfully blends elements drawn from mythology and speculation with those rooted in archeological evidence. The result is a tale filled with human emotions and motivations amidst the details of daily life in prehistoric society, yet threaded with the power of gods, goddesses, and recurring universal themes.

This is the kind of story that I love when done well, in the tradition of Mary Renault's The Bull from the Sea and Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave, Diana L. Paxson attempts to ground a story out of legend in history. In this case it's the tale of King Lear and his daughters that came down to us in Geoffrey Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain, which also gave us the legends of King Arthur. King Lear, of course, was immortalized in the great play of William Shakespeare, and Paxson gives a nod to that in including a character, Crow, inspired by Shakespeare's fool.

But this is above all the story of Cridilla (Shakespeare's Cordelia), Lear's third and youngest daughter, as told by her, starting her account when she's seven years old. show more Paxson sets the tale around the fifth century before the common era, in the time when the Celts first came to Britain. Lear conquered the lands and sealed his rule by marrying native queens and Gunarduilla, Rigana and Cridilla are the daughters of three different queens. The two elder daughters identify with their mothers' peoples, with only Cridilla loving her father.

It could have made for an entrancing tale, but Paxson's style irked me from the start. I don't know if I can quite put my finger on why. She did have this habit I found annoying of having people speak with "thou" and "thy" and "didst" that I think does nothing in the end to put up in a past era. But it's more than that--the story just didn't flow to me and I wasn't connecting with the characters. It's obviously a very well-researched book. That's obvious from the scholarly afterward and list of sources. And Paxson has written nonfiction books about New Age and Goddess subjects. Maybe that's part of the problem--there's something that feels didactic in her narrative, as if she has to cram every bit of her research into the pages. I found it dull, and just not engaging. show less

Read 10/2021. Set in Iron Age Braitan, Celtic King Leir marries native queens to conquer territory. His half-blood daughters Gunarduilla, Regana, Cridilla area Queens in their own right. Cridilla, the youngest is the only one who loves her father as the older sister betray him. The story told through Cridilla's eyes, opens when she is seven. A warrior queen, with the war name of Adder (hence the title), she is loyal and succeeds him.