In this collection, Hill takes the historical figure of King Offa and builds a series of modern hymns around him. Honestly, I found the idea behind this collection more appealing than the execution of it. There's a very strong (perhaps too strong) reliance on historic/modern melding - for instance, in the first hymn, Offa is "King of the perennial holly-groves, the riven sandstone: overlord of the M5..." - but this trick didn't sustain my interest. Which is a shame, as there were odd lines - my favourite concludes hymn 14 ("At dinner, he relished the mockery of drinking his family's health. He did this whenever it suited him, which was not often") - that I found bitingly entertaining. Shame they were so often smothered by effect.