Catherine, Called Birdy

Because Birdy has yet to mature—she reveals herself to be naïve, overly idealistic, and stubborn—the reader cannot always trust her perspective on people and events. She is an unreliable narrator in that every situation is colored by her particular passions, limited knowledge, and self-centered desires. She records her thoughts in a diary, using a voice filled with descriptive colloquialisms and epithets unique to the time period: “Corpus bones!” is a common cry of exasperation for Birdy. Her tone is often sarcastic and critical, sometimes of herself but often of others; her father is a favorite target, the primary antagonist to her wishes to stay unmarried and unfettered. Her mother Lady Aislinn and nursemaid Morwenna also frustrate her, namely through their desire to turn her into a lady. Birdy is a classic example of a “tom boy,” yearning for adventure and action rather than settling into domestic chores.

The metaphor of spinning captures the emotional center of the book; Birdy’s attempts at learning to spin yarn are comically vexed, “tangled and untangled, ”much like her emotional state. She becomes entangled in the relationship between Uncle George and Aelis, eventually casting a curse upon them. This action also reveals her naiveté in thinking that her half-hearted and superstitious attempts to sabotage their relationship would actually lead to the events that follow. She is also entangled in an antagonistic relationship with her father and his attempts to find her an appropriate suitor. She rails against the proscribed gender and class roles that define the age.

The central conflict of the book is Birdy’s stubborn refusal to submit to the medieval system that demands she learn the “useless”—to her—skills of a lady. These are the skills that will allow her to become a valuable bride to a preferably wealthy and titled man. In both instances, Birdy chafes against the limitations placed upon her freedom.

This is best illuminated in the metaphor of her caged birds and her fascination with birds in general—her nickname is wholly appropriate. She rattles the cage that society has placed around her while ironically keeping her own set of birds captive. Back home, she muses about her love of birds, thinking that she likes geese the best, “because no one else does” (24) and describes why she likes them in particular: “They are cunning, greedy, shortsighted, and stubborn—much like me, now that I think on it” (24). She finds that swans are not smart but vain, like her mother, and she compares her brother Robert to a rooster, strutting about. Her friend Perkin is a falcon, keen-eyed and sharp. Her father she likens to a buzzard, greedy and opportunistic. She, in contrast, sees herself as just“ a plain gray and brown goose” (24).

In this coming-of-age tale, Birdy must learn how to grow into Catherine, her true self, as mirrored in one of the tales relayed by the Jewish matriarch. The matriarch tells a story about a “stupid man” who cannot take care of himself because he does not know who he is or what his place is in the world, impressing upon Birdy the importance of finding one’s own identity: “Just as a river by night shines with the reflected light of the moon, so too do you shine with the light of your family, your people, and your God. So you are never far from home, never alone, wherever you go” (12). The experience of meeting the Jews—who are remarkably like Christians, as Birdy points out—highlights her dawning sense that injustice is prevalent in the world, not just directed at her. This reflects a growing state of maturity in that she begins to think for herself rather than rely on rumor and popular opinion. The monks at Edward’s abbey may think that she is not yet enough of a woman to be barred from the men’s quarters, but she is beginning her journey toward becoming one.

Finally, the figure of Uncle George can be seen as a play on the heroic figure of Saint George, the patron saint of England who is said to have saved the country from a dragon. Birdy has a dream wherein she is assisting Saint George in fighting off the dragon, until he turns into her Uncle George who whisks her off to the crusades. Ironically, Uncle George’s realistic descriptions of the deprivations and pointlessness of the crusade are undercut by his fanciful depictions of the foreign lands and peoples he has seen, complete with giants and little people, or dragons and unicorns commingling with elephants. Just as Uncle George’s tales are full of fanciful details, so is Birdy’s vision of George himself full of romanticized exaggerations.