I would like to point out that this book is a historical fiction. Several parts of the book include snippets of history of the Windeby bog child and recounts of history of the time from Tacitus explaining cultural rituals surrounding the bog. While these recounts from Tacitus were true, my main critique lies in the painful misrepresentation of ancient Germanic tribal culture surrounding women's rights.

It is okay to have a strong female character to represent the girls reading this book. I quite enjoyed reading Estrild's story and was rooting for her, but we all know how her story ended so there's not much we could have done about that. The story itself was fine. What I did not find "fine" was the incorrect history that Lowry held onto with a death grip. Pre-Christian pagan history finds that women were highly respected and equal to men. We find Goddesses, deities of strong women such as the Morrigan, Danu, Athena, Hecate, Freyja, and Hel. There are legends of strong women such as the Valkyrie and Scathach. What baffled me the most was the incessant depiction of only male druids. It really, to me, seemed like the author's only source of druid history and depiction came from popular media, which wraps the druids around a mysterious aura, dark robed and hooded men, slaughtering animals and reading their innards for omens, and MEN. Women in druidic history could be druids just as equally as men. To have read Tacitus' accounts on the history of this era and completely avoid the mention of Banduri, or female druids, was astonishing. Again, this IS only the authors interpretation, however to call her story a historical fiction and avoid all historically accurate inspiration infuriated me.

What also bothered me and only angered me more was one of her quotes at the end of her book, on page 182 Lowry states, "Although I was creating fiction, it was to be based on truth". Except it was far from it. While yes, the child did meant and untimely and unfortunate death, the act of making these stories and claiming them to be as close to truth as possible made me upset. There was certainly an attempt made in TRYING to be historically accurate, but that attempt was so short that that it failed her stories.

Below are two links to support my claims, thought I have done past research in druidic history in published books as I consider myself a new age druid. These links are only meant to serve as a quick and easy read for those that want to actually do the research on strong pagan women in pre-Christian history as well as the Banduri.

https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/female-druids-forgotten-priestesses-celts-005910
https://www.sheathenry.com/roles-of-pre-christian-germanic-women/

Here are my notes during reading. WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW

-The book is sectioned off by real history and then fictional "What might have happened".
-To think that the girl wasn't married or wasn't "sophisticated" enough to marry is very close-minded. It is important to look back at he cultures written at the time the girl died and be sure that the theories are correct. While she was about 13 years old at the time of her death, if the history of her culture is true and women did marry early, then that is that. It is easy for our minds to find these features of an ancient culture to be alien. It's easy to think that a girl of 13 could only have childish behaviors like having an awkward crush on a person. Times were very different back in the first century AD Germany. It is very likely that he was punished and thrown into a bog for loving a different boy. She was a child.
-Mention of Ogham staves.
-Varick likely has scoliosis.
-My main issue concerning the story so far is that women are underminded. Caretakers, yes, but women before Christianity were worshipping. There were Goddesses, strong women who fought in battle that inspired mortal women to follow. Goddesses that not only birthed and raised children, but fought wars as well. Here, women are just baby making machines and submissive. Celtic/Germanic women had more purpose, strength, and freedom than that. Women conducted war plans along male leaders equally.
-The fear of the Gods is also a Christian instilled concept. While there were wrathful Gods, the Gods called upon to help were typically not wrathful and typically weren't ones to act spitefully.
-I feel as though the author did the barest minimum of research as far of druid and their history go. As if the author took what was popular in media and ran it as truth. For one, druids weren't mysterious and secluded, they were everyday people that worked with the village, doing chores as a normal person would, and could be found in the higher ranks with leaders and war planning. Secondly, druids could be women as well, it wasn't an exclusively male job. To have a section for history before the story begins and fail to implement the history into your historical fiction story is bazaar. "Why are there no women druids? she had asked her mother once. Her mother had looked startled, shocked. "It's not our role," she said. (Lowry, pg 66). The druid role was a job for women as equally as men. It most certainly was their role as a woman.
-I confess. It was excruciating for me to read Estrild's story. The history was all wrong, and it was almost like the author was romanticizing an evil heathenistic, barbaric, tribe with horrible druids. While yes, druids were considered judges and did help make decisions for the tribes, druids were looked up to by all peoples in the tribe. Druids helped people and sought to better their peoples, by seeking out word from the Gods/Goddesses. Druids were also equally women as were men. It could be easy to say "oh well this is Lowry's interpretation of the story", sure, but at least get the history right. WOMEN WERE JUST AS IMPORTANT AND RESPECTED IN THESE COMMUNITIES AS MEN WERE!!!!! There were female deities, there were strong female warriors, female raiders, female judges, female druids, female leaders. Women were NOT disregarded, ignored, placed upon the outskirts, or only meant to please the men. Women were HIGHLY respected in these cultures and to write a historical fiction based around the culture and managed to get this wrong is infuriating.
-It's like the author was piecing her puzzle together with jigsaw pieces and legos.
-Starting Varick's story
-You can't hear owls wingbeats.