The Hermit of Eyton Forest [Hardcover]

Ellis Peters (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 25, 1987

In 1142, in the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul a momentous chain of events begins. Following the demise of Richard Ludel, his 10-year-old son becomes the new lord of Eaton. Soon after, a corpse is found in the forest and Brother Cadfael must track down a ruthless murderer.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Little peace is to be found in England in the year 1142 as civil war continues to rage. The effects of the violence reach even into the cloistered world of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul. Richard Ludel, the father of one of the abbey's students, has recently died of wounds received in battle. His ten-year-old son, also called Richard, has now become Lord of Eaton. Richard's formidable grandmother, Dionysia, wants the boy released from the abbey's custody, where his father placed him, into her own. She has contracted a child marriage for young Richard that will gain the Ludels control over a large neighboring estate. No one is exactly what they seem, and more than one character has a past that bears closer examination. Add to this several subplots and a large amount of political intrigue, and you have a great story. Although Brother Cadfael is more an observer than an actor in this work, bodies and red herrings pile up in a satisfying way before all the puzzles are solved. In a departure from most of the Cadfael books, the reader here is female, Roe Kendall. The gender change does not diminish the listener's pleasure; Kendall has a fine touch with accents, and it is easy to tell the characters apart. Recommended for public library collections where works by Peters and historical mysteries are popular. Barbara Rhodes, Northeast Texas Lib. Syst., Garland
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Review

'Charmingly and humourously told.' TLS --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Headline Book Publishing; 1ST edition (June 25, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0747200378
• ISBN-13: 978-0747200376
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,926,808 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A forest full of dangers, holy hermit or no, December 24, 2005

By 

Michele L. Worley (Kingdom of the Mouse, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hermit of Eyton Forest: The Fourteenth Chronicle of Brother Cadfael (Audio Cassette)

As with several other entries in the Chronicles of Brother Cadfael, at the center of this book stands one of the younger members of the community of the Abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul, and his relationship to the community versus his romantic relationships in the world outside. But this time the youngster isn't a novice who made a mistaken commitment to the cloister after a love affair gone wrong, nor even an embittered older man seeking solace after a disastrous marriage.

No, Richard Ludel (his father's namesake and only child) is ten years old, doesn't yet see any use for girls, and is happy enough to be one of the handful of students boarded at the monastery, well away from his formidable grandmother's plans to marry him off to the heiress of a neighbouring manor - "quite old", being past twenty, and a nuisance rather than a person from Richard's point of view. This makes an oblique, fairly subtle contrast to the events of the ongoing civil war between the empress and the king - the empress, like Richard's intended, is years older than her husband, tied to him in a marriage with little love lost, as demonstrated when Geoffrey of Anjou not only refuses to send so much as a single soldier to her aid while she is under siege in Oxford, but has lured away her half-brother and best general to help *him* with the battles for the Norman lands in contention in the struggle for the throne.

Upon the death of the elder Richard Ludel (still young, but never recovered from wounds suffered in the battle of Lincoln), Richard's elders plan to let matters proceed according to their settled routine - but there's a disagreement about what that routine is. Hugh Beringar as sheriff has no wish to antagonize the loyal Ludels by interfering with Richard's inheritance, despite his being a minor; his only concern is that the Ludels' steward should be competent and loyal. Abbot Radulfus (by charter the boy's guardian until he comes of age), intends for the boy to stay in school - as Radulfus objects to children being handed over as infant oblates into monastic vows before they can consent, he also objects to children being bound in marriage, without any designs on pressuring the boy into becoming a monk. But Dame Dionisia Ludel's idea of the status quo is to continue with her campaign to marry the boy off, beginning by playing on public sympathy for a poor bereaved widow, cruelly kept from bringing her grandson home for a visit (and backing it up with judicious threats of taking the abbey to law).

Even as Dame Dionisia piously installs the hermit Cuthred in a long-empty hermitage in Eyton forest - who unlike the brothers of Shrewsbury would be under vows to remain solitary and enclosed in his hermitage, with only a youngster acting as his errand boy for regular company - the lady at first seems piously resigned, though she sees no use in having him educated and a *lot* of use in getting the neighbouring manors of Wroxiter and Leighton joined with the Ludel's manor of Eaton. Curiously, events then seem to conspire against the brothers, as accidents become disturbingly frequent in the abbey lands near Eaton, and the hermit (through his errand boy, the mischievous Hyacinth) issues a public warning to the abbey that perhaps these signs of nature in revolt should be taken as a sign that Richard should not unnaturally be kept away from his only remaining blood kin.

Despite this, young Richard immediately takes to Hyacinth, after waylaying him upon Hyacinth's delivery of the message, and the much older Hyacinth is happy enough to give Richard all the information his elders have been withholding from him, in exchange for being put in the picture about Richard's own situation. So when Richard later overhears an abbey guest in pursuit of a runaway villein being informed that Hyacinth matches the runaway's description, he immediately sets out for the hermitage at Eyton to warn his friend, naturally leaving no word at the abbey that he's playing truant, let alone venturing into his grandmother's reach.

But Richard fails to return to the abbey (and as his fellow students cover up for him into the next day, his absence isn't discovered until many hours have passed). Well aware of Dame Dionisia's plans for the boy, the lands in her care are searched thoroughly - but with no trace of the boy, and as the manor folk are more loyal to the boy than to her, it's hard to see where he could've been hidden - or how he can be rescued before being browbeaten into saying vows and signing marriage settlements.

As always, I recommend the unabridged recording narrated by Stephen Thorne. And as usual in Cadfael novels, there *are* love stories amid the pair of loveless arranged marriages for joining lands and titles featured in the story of the civil war and the private war over Richard's future. My congratuations to the reader who manages to spot *all* the puzzles to be solved, and not to be distracted by the enjoyable drama and romance that accompany them. Not least, one of the most dramatic episodes of the war - King Stephen's siege of Oxford, with total victory almost within his grasp as the empress is trapped within the castle - is playing out as the people of Shropshire are concerned with events nearer home.

Drive-in totals:
- Three disappearances (counting the mystery of the missing villein, being hunted ruthlessly by his former masters).
- Three deaths (counting Richard's father).
- Three love stories (the most dramatic of which is played out entirely off-stage, but no less affecting for that).

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The fifteenth chronicle, March 18, 2006

By 

Beverley Strong (Australia) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Hermit of Eyton Forest: The Fourteenth Chronicle of Brother Cadfael (Hardcover)

In October of 1142, Empress Maud is still besieged in the town of Oxford, surrounded by the forces of King Stephen. She sends an emissary bearing jewels and money to her brother, begging him for help, but the man's horse is found with the leathers bloodstained and, of course, with no sign of the money or jewels. A local Lord and father of Richard, one of the young pupils at the Abbey of St.Peter and St.Paul dies and Brother Cadfael is charged with the duty of escorting the boy to his home to attend the funeral. The boy's grandmother, a harsh and grasping woman, wishes to force Richard into a marriage with an older girl, the daughter of a neighbour, so that the lands may be conjoined, but the 10 year old wants only to return with Cadfael to the Abbey and his friends. A minor, local landowner stays as a guest at the Abbey while mounting a search for his missing villein and enlists the reluctant help of Sheriff Hugh Beringar who agrees to help with the search, knowing that the man is a brutal master who treats his servants very badly. A series of events causes Richard to be kidnapped and forced into a marriage by his grandmother and Cuthred, a local hermit and holy man. Yet another stranger arrives at the Abbey with a slight wound and so is taken to be treated by Cadfael who makes his usual assessment of all the events and uses his insatiable curiosity to tie all the loose ends together for a very satisfactory conclusion.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another Pleasant Tale, July 4, 2005

By 

AntiochAndy "antiochandy" (Antioch, CA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Hermit of Eyton Forest (Brother Cadfael Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

THE HERMIT OF EYTON FOREST is another installment in Ellis Peters' popular Brother Cadfael series. I've read most of them and fully intend to read the rest. Clearly, I'm something of a fan. Not because the mysteries are so riveting. They aren't. In fact, most of them are fairly transparent. The how and why might not always be so obvious, but the who isn't usually too hard to figure out. The suspicious characters are rarely difficult to identify.

Further, the picture Ellis paints of life in the eleventh century is sanitized for our enjoyment. Despite the violence of the civil war raging in the background, life in Shrewsbury is slow-paced, calm, and ordered. Filth, squalor, brutality, disease and the appallingly short life expectancy of the period rarely intrude here.

Despite this (or perhaps because of it), the stories are engaging, the characters charming, and Peters' idyllic vision of the time is very attractive. Her prose has an elegant, graceful quality that enhances the pleasure of the overall experience, making these books a delight to read. I never fail to enjoy them, and THE HERMIT OF EYTON FOREST is certainly no exception.