“No longer needing to sing at high frequencies that could be heard over the
highway’s rumble, the sparrows’ songs became more expansive, occupying more of
the soundscape’s ‘acoustic bandwidth.’ Even those with quiet voices became
audible; in those first months, ‘you could hear four times as many birds as you
could before,’ says [Professor Elizabeth] Derryberry.”
“So when Hild is called hægtes, she is being labelled uncanny, powerful,
fearsome, and dangerous — but also perhaps necessary to a group’s survival, even
admirable, and most definitely to be paid attention to — not for her femininity
but for her otherworldly power.”