Travel Light
The enchanting rediscovered fantasy classic
Published on 12. March 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
192 pages
978-0-349-02054-9 (ISBN)
Description
A REDISCOVERED FANTASY CLASSIC - INTRODUCED BY SAMANTHA SHANNON
'Read it now' URSULA K. LE GUIN
'Quiet and thoughtful, playful and wayward, rich 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
'Utterly contemporary' DAILY MAIL
***
Riding on that horse you would need nothing, no cloak even. She dropped it on the edge of the marshland. Nothing. You could travel light.
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 times are changing, and an encounter with the Wanderer, Odin All-Father, finds her at a crossroads. Cutting a fold from his night-blue cloak and laying it over her shoulders, the Wanderer sends her on a journey into the unknown. With only her bear-like kindness, her dragonish wisdom and her own fierce spirit to guide her, Halla must forge her own path . . .
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.
'Read it now' URSULA K. LE GUIN
'Quiet and thoughtful, playful and wayward, rich 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
'Utterly contemporary' DAILY MAIL
***
Riding on that horse you would need nothing, no cloak even. She dropped it on the edge of the marshland. Nothing. You could travel light.
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 times are changing, and an encounter with the Wanderer, Odin All-Father, finds her at a crossroads. Cutting a fold from his night-blue cloak and laying it over her shoulders, the Wanderer sends her on a journey into the unknown. With only her bear-like kindness, her dragonish wisdom and her own fierce spirit to guide her, Halla must forge her own path . . .
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.
Reviews / Votes
Despite its 1950s publication, this feels utterly contemporary * Daily Mail *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Little, Brown Book Group
Dimensions
Height: 196 mm
Width: 122 mm
Thickness: 16 mm
Weight
162 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-349-02054-9 (9780349020549)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
03/2026
Virago Press
€6.49
Available for download
Person
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.