From Wikipedia (extracts):
Naomi Mary Margaret Mitchison, Baroness Mitchison (née Haldane; 1 November 1897 – 11 January 1999), was a Scottish novelist and poet. Often called a doyenne of Scottish literature, she wrote more than 90 books of historical and science fiction, travel writing and autobiography. Her husband Dick Mitchison's life peerage in 1964 entitled her to call herself Lady Mitchison, but she never did. Her 1931 work, The Corn King and the Spring Queen, is seen by some as the prime 20th-century historical novel.
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Literary critic Geoffrey Sadler stated of Mitchison's historical fiction: "On the basis of her early writings, she is unquestionably one of the great historical novelists."
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Undoubtedly her most controversial work, We Have Been Warned, was published in 1935, based on a journey to the Soviet Union. In it she explored sexual behaviour, including rape and abortion. The book was rejected by various publishers and ultimately censored.
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After her husband's death, Mitchison wrote several memoirs, published as separate titles between 1973 and 1985. She was also a good friend of the writer J. R. R. Tolkien, and one of the proof readers of The Lord of the Rings.

'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.