Despite an apparent physical disability, Perkin has a gifted way with animals and dreams of being a scholar he is a tolerant foil to Birdy’s flights of fancy and fits of anger.
Instead, Birdy prefers the company of Perkin, the goat boy, whom she considers the cleverest person she knows. By far, her greatest nemesis in this ongoing saga to find her a fitting husband is Shaggy Beard, an uncouth older man whose title and wealth make him an attractive prospect to her parents, but not at all to Birdy.
Birdy, like the birds she keeps and so devotedly loves, longs to break out of her cage. She balks at this arrangement, cursing her lot and interfering with her father’s attempts to match her to any number of “lack-wits” and other inappropriate suitors, as she sees them. She is destined, like that of other women of her class during this period of history, to become a Lady and be married off, ideally to a wealthy suitor. She lives in a manor, not a castle, marking her at the lower echelons of the landed classes. In the hierarchy of medieval England, this means that Birdy is of the landed class she is wealthy but not so wealthy that she doesn’t have to work. Her father Rollo is the country knight of the town. This organizing principle shapes the daily lives of all the characters within the book, be they upper class members of the manor or lower-class villagers and servants.īirdy lives in the manor of Stone bridge.
Most entries are introduced by an italicized note indicating which saint’s day is being recognized, with occasional editorial comments from Birdy expressing her approval or disdain for the saint being honored. He believes that this endeavor will help her mature and temper her impulsiveness. The book follows its narrator Catherine, nicknamed Birdy, as she writes in her diary throughout the year in her life when she turns14, beginninginSeptemberof1290.Unusual for a young woman of the time, Birdy was taught to read and write, and her brother Edward has encourages her to keep an account of her life.
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