Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison

A REDISCOVERED FANTASY CLASSIC – INTRODUCED BY SAMANTHA SHANNON

‘Read it now’ URSULA K. LE GUIN

‘Quiet and thoughtful, playful and wayward, thick with exquisite worldbuilding detail. I only wish – as an author who always dreamed of dragons – that I had discovered Travel Light sooner’ SAMANTHA SHANNON

‘No one knows better how to spin a fairy tale than Naomi Mitchison’ OBSERVER

‘I felt, very powerfully, that I had been waiting for Travel Light‘ AMAL EL-MOHTAR, author of THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE THE TIME WAR

‘Disarmingly familiar, like a memory only half-recalled. You will love this book’ HOLLY BLACK, author of BOOK OF NIGHT

***

‘Perhaps her nurse turned into a bear and carried her away into the forest. Perhaps she was brought up by bears and dragons. Perhaps it was better for her in the end than being a king’s child.’

‘That was never the story,’ said Modolf.

‘Forget the story,’ said Halla.

Halla is the daughter of a king, cast out as a baby into a world of danger and enchantment. She is raised by bears, lives amongst dragons, converses with Valkyries and avoids warmongering heroes. But an encounter with Odin All-Father finds her at a crossroads: is her story already written, or will she travel light?

Weaving folklore, fairy tale and Norse myth into a shimmering, witty and slyly subversive tapestry, Travel Light is a rediscovered gem of classic fantasy writing – perfect for fans of Tolkien, Philip Pullman and Ursula K. Le Guin.

A rediscovered mid-century fantasy classic for fans of Tolkien, Ursula K. le Guin and Philip Pullman – the story of a king’s daughter saved by bears, raised by dragons and learning how to ‘travel light’ through the world. Introduced by bestseller Samantha Shannon.

About the Author: Naomi Mitchison (1897-1999) was a distinguished Scottish author whose groundbreaking feminist books of historical fiction, fantasy and sci-fi are as radical, free thinking and bohemian as any author writing today. At the time, her radical voice inspired such writers as Ursula K. Le Guin. She also led a fascinating life as a passionate campaigner for a range of social and political issues, such as supporting socialists in 1934’s Nazi-threatened Vienna, running a women’s sexual health centre, protesting at Greenham Common in her 80s, and being adopted as adviser and mother of the Bakgatla tribe in Botswana. She died in 1999 at the age of 101, with over seventy books to her name.

12 Mar 2026
 

Travel Light: ‘Read it now’ (Ursula K. Le Guin) by Naomi Mitchison ISBN 9780349020549