“Tell me about King
Erik, Your Grace.”
The archbishop blew
the froth from his ale and peered across the rim, chuckling softly as he took a
sip. “Bloodaxe?”
Under Harald Fairhair Norway has been unified, but the
question of succession casted a shadow over the great king’s twilight rule. He
wants Erik to be his heir for high kingship, but Harald has fathered many sons,
all kings in their own right, each eager for the spoils the great king’s death
will bring.
I’ve always had a fascination with the character of Erik
Bloodaxe, the last Viking king of an independent Northumbria, if only for his
descriptive name. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting Jorvik Viking
museum you may well have bought the T-Shirt or perhaps the mug, such as I have!
When I heard that C R May was embarking on telling his
Erik’s saga I knew I would be in for a spectacular ride aboard a dragon prowed
longship; and what a ride this is. Those familiar with Mr May’s (in my opinion)
unrivalled word-craft in bringing this historical period to life, will have an
inkling of what to expect, and for those new to his work, you will be in for a
real treat and wonder why you haven’t read his work before. You can taste the
salt tang of spray as you pull oar on Erik’s Skei, feel the fear and pride as your sea king disembarks first, to lead
his hird to a bloody and glorious
victory, amid hoarse shouts of blóðøx.
It is the author’s great skill that he is able to put flesh
on the bones of a few lines of Norse literature and create a wealth of
believable characters, which the reader becomes utterly invested in. Mr May invites his reader to suspend their
disbelief in the fantastic with such subtlety that the presence of a
lycanthropic monster, or the earthly manifestation of a god, is accepted
without question. This is the heroic world where tales are told in the mead
hall and monstrous shapes summoned by skalds in the shadows of flickering
flames. Odin, the All-Father, does love his poetry, after all.
"When
one-eyed wandering poets ask you to honour their wishes Erik, it's usually a
good idea to do so... Particularly if they haven't aged a day in twenty
winters."
Yet just when you think the tale is told, that a kingdom is
won and Erik’s tapestry is woven, such is the fate of men that the three
sisters of wyrd pick at loose threads, their shears poised to cut the warp and
weft of heroes, and bring all crashing down in ruination and death in the world of Midgard. For, as Erik has
concentrated on the Nor’way, foreign kings
have conspired to weave patterns of their own.
But Erik has a destiny, told him by a warlock of the far
north, and will snatch the threads of his life from the blades of the hags of
fate, which fortunately for us means there will be an Erik Haraldsson Book 2.
Form the shieldwall, raise the standard, Blóðøx! Blóðøx!
This is historical fiction as it’s
meant to be written, absolutely top notch stuff from a writer at the peak of
his craft.
Bloodaxe is available at Amazon
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