This photo was taken late last week in West Yorkshire–which in Hild‘s day (early seventh century), was the kingdom of Elmet (see nifty map). I’m trying to imagine Hild sitting outside on a bright twelve-days-of-Yule morning and watching those glide over the horizon. What would she have made of them? To me it looks like meringues carved by a god. (Big meringues, carved by a major god: those are wind turbines: easily over 100′ tall.) But in Hild’s time and place there was no meringue because there was no sugar.
So…carved driftwood? Whipped cream from a celestial cow? (I’ve no idea if the Anglo-Saxons whipped cream–it seems unlikely but, hey, so do those clouds.)
Technically speaking these are lenticular clouds:
Where stable moist air flows over a mountain or a range of mountains, a series of large-scale standing waves may form on the downwind side. If the temperature at the crest of the wave drops to the dew point, moisture in the air may condense to form lenticular clouds.
There aren’t any mountains in Elmet/Leeds, though, so this is a rare sight. In Hild’s day, a gift from the gods. I like to think she would have been pleased with the present.
Nicola Griffith 
Snow drifts?
You must have been incredibly careful of your metaphors in 900+ pages! The cloude are weird and awe inspiring.
Mordicai, snowdrifts! Ha! I think too much turkey has dulled my brain. Ha…
barbara, mostly the metaphor constraint was a thing of joy and invention, but every now and again I got viciously frustrated. But mainly it forced my imagination into overdrive. Uh, fifth gear. Uh, well, goddammit, someone else can figure out the 7th C metaphor for that…
cliffs in the sky/heavens
hefenfelth, it does look a bit like eroded cliffs from the land of upside down…
…but an upside down version of the kind of formation found in the US. Do they have that kind of thing in Europe? (Can't think of any offhand.)
I was reading this post based on the pretty pictures (I'd go with driftwood, BTW), but was then brought up short by the conjunction of West Yorkshire and “Elmet”. I used to cycle to a village called Barwick-in-Elmet, when I was a kid, but other than that was unaware of any kingdom of Elmet. Leeds born and bred, I'm wondering if I just took things for granted, or was never taught them in the first place? A fair bit of Googling later, I'm intrigued enough to try and read up some more, as names like 'Penda' are familiar as street names. Any suggestions where to start, please? And I guess I'm definitely going to have to read Hild now…
Gael
Gael, the 'further reading' segment on the Wikipedia entry is a good start, and will lead you to other bibliographies. Michelle at Hefenfelth has some meticulously researched information on Lost Kingdoms of the seventh century, as does historical novelist Carla Naylund.
If the notion of Elmet intrigues you, then, oh yes, you will like Hild. I didn't know Elmet was a kingdom until my early twenties, when I first became intrigued with Whitby and started digging. The thing to bear in mind is that much history–even the apparently authoritative kind–is speculative. And almost all of the relevant history comes from Bede (writing a century or more after Elmet was absorbed by Northumbria) or various Annals kept by and for kings of other Celtic kingdoms who had axes to grind.
Thank you. Those links give me lots to chew my way through, and in the meantime I've ordered Edmund Bogg's The Old Kingdom of Elmet to give me an overview of the local history of the villages I was most familiar with. Also keeping an eye out for Ted Hughes/Fay Godwin's poetry/landscape photography collaboration.
Gael