Abigail Vermillion - Hush

Abigail Vermillion

Hush by Donna Jo Napoli

Main characters:

• Mel: Mel was an Irish princess who got captured by vikings with her sister and a few other slaves. She was around the age of 16 and her family ruled over Erie.Clay Man her master for most of the novel believes she is a witch but he eventually sells her  to an icelandic man named Hoskuld and fathers his child.
• Bridge: Bridge is Mel’s younger sister. She is also captured by viking but jumps off the boat and is never seen again. Bridge is very smart and very good with animals.
• Clay Man: Clay man is the lead slave owner or viking. He believes that because Mel refuses to speak and has bird feather, he thinks she is a witch that has turned into a human and can curse him.
• Hoskuld: Hoskuld buys Mel from Clay Man and makes her his special peasant. She becomes his lover and he fathers her child. He is the chief of a ragtag group of men, women, and children heading back to iceland.
• Thora: She is a norse girl that was captured along with Mel and Bridge. She becomes very close with Mel towards the end of their journey. She teacher Mel norse and about the land where Clay man keeps them. Eventually they both get sold to different masters.
• Maeve: She is known as the crazy lady for the most part of the journey. Though she seems crazy when she  screams and thrashes at the crew it's really her way of keeping them away. She is very wise and tells Mel all about the land and translates what the vikings are saying. She is the one who encourages Mel to stay silent throughout the entire novel and to keep up the sharaded of being a superior being.

Main Conflict:

Two princess get captured while fleeing their town. They are out on a slave ship along with other women and children. They have to face harsh conditions and cruel treatment of the crew. Eventually they get sold off to different masters. Bridge and a british boy jump from the side of the ship and are presumed dead. After everyone is sold Mel is sold to Hoskuld and has to endure his conditions all while trying to come up with an escape plan.

Quotes:

• He shoots his left hand into the boiling water and shrieks as it comes out with a stone. His forearm and hand are bright red.” (Napoli 325) - This quote shows the task a praell or slave would have to go through in order to prove he was trustworthy. When a master accuses a slave of doing wrong, on a viking ship they would make them retrieve two stones from boiling water and if after two days their arm has no blister he is deemed trustworthy.
• “A common silversmith has no right to look at a princess like that. I lift my chin to confront his impindence with my own eyes.” (Napoli 9) - This quotes gives one an idea about how royalty see the common folk. When Princess Mel and her sister Bridge are walking around the market she makes eye contact with a silversmith but this quote shows that in the olden times it was shameful to look directly at royalty.

• “Ransom for holy men is the highest, I hope this cleric si an important one.” (Napoli 282)

• This quotes shows yet another way of how vikings get their money. The vikings during this time were ruthless and would go from port to port looting and taking anything that wasn't tied down. When Hoskuld and his men go to Eire, Mel’s hometown they loot and take a priest in order to get more money. DUring this time it was common for vikings to take over the cities and leave it in ruins.

Historical Perspective:

• Princess Melkorka is a real princess who really did marry and have a icelandic vikings son. Hoskuld supposivly pearchesed Mel as a mute but later became a companion and lived with him and his wife in their home. Once he found out Mel really could talk fights between her and Hoskuld’s wife broke out and he had to move his son and Mel to a different farm.
• Vikings really would ransack towns and take priest and other important people as ransom money. In the novel Hoskuld and his crew take a priest and a nephew and niece of the king hostage. Just like in real life vikings would hold the hostage until an agreement was made and drop them off on a deserted island. Though vikings are mostly a bunch of savages they upheld their word in order to keep a reputation.
• Hoskuld takes his crew to iceland. While on the journey he tells the crew what it's like. He says not many people live there and it's mostly ice caps and the trees are scares. Though there is little green they have plenty of farms and beautiful waterfalls. Many vikings lived there because resources were limited unless you knew how to get them. Once vikings realized they could marron their enemies on iceland they changed the name to Greenland to trick their rivals.

Author Information:

Donna Jo Napoli was born February 28, 1948. She's a child and young adult fiction writer. She received her B.A. (mathematics, 1970) and PhD  from Harvard, fellowship in linguistics at M.I.T. Napoli has dual citizenship in the U.S. and Italy. Hush is considered a 5 star rating by goodreads.