The Shining Company

The Shining Company is the story of Prosper, the second son of Gerontius, the lord of the village Nant Ffrancon in Britain around A.D. 600. Being the second son, his older brother is definitely the favored one and Prosper is sometimes regarded as worth less. On his twelfth birthday his father gives him a boy named Conn to be his bondman. Prosper has no use for a body servant so he regards Conn more as a friend than anything else. He spends most of his time with Conn and Luned, one of his girl relatives. Then Prince Gorthyn appears to hunt for a white hart that has been spotted in the nearby forest. Not wanting the prince to kill the white deer, he sneaks along on the hunt. At the last moment the prince calls off his hounds from killing the animal, and Prosper suddenly has much more respect for the man. He asks the prince is he can ride with him as a shieldbearer. The prince tells him to wait two years and then he can ride with him.

Two years pass and the prince sends his other shieldbearer, Lleyn to get Prosper. The King of the Gododdin, Mynyddog, has summoned warriors from all over to come to Dyn Eidin (where present day Edinburgh now stands). He gets three hundred men to come, each with two shieldbearers. The are known as the Companions or the Shining Company.

Conn rides along with Prosper. When they get to Dyn Eidin, he wishes to pursue his dream of swordmaking, but as he is a bondservant it is forbidden. Prosper allows him to learn the craft, however, and in essence it frees him because he now knows a trade.

After housing them and training them for a year, Mynyddog receives word that Aelle, King of Deira has died and that Aethelfrith, a Saxon king of another area has seized the dead king's throne in the city of Catraeth (where modern day Catterick stands now.)

Mynyddog sends his men to attack Catraeth and kill Aethelfrith and as many Saxons as they can, but things don't go quite as the Company has planned.
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This book is actually based on the poem Y Gododdin by the poet Aneirin. Y Gododdin in one of the first surviving North British poems. To learn more about Aneirin, click here.

To read Y Gododdin, click here.

For more info on the Gododdin click on the link.
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I'm going to warn that this book can be very slow. It is also a bit gory in places. I had to read it for school, but I didn't really start enjoying it until about 200 pages into it. Now when you are reading a 300 page book, that can be quite discouraging. However, when I was done reading it, I like it a lot. Otherwise, I wouldn't even be writing about it right now.
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Book Info

Author: Rosemary Sutcliff
Publisher: First published in Great Britain by The Bodley Head
Published in the United States of American by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
Publication Date: 1990 / Sunburst Edition 1992
ISBN: 0-374-46616-5
Ages: Young Adult
Publisher Website: Click here.
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