The Day of the Wolf (Erik Haraldsson III) by C R May - a review

The Day of the Wolf is C R May’s final book in his Erik Haraldsson trilogy. Erik Haraldsson goes by the better known (and descriptive!) name of Eric Bloodaxe. Perhaps you are aware of Eric, if you have ever visited the Jorvik Viking Centre, or maybe you remember him from Michael Woods’ excellent TV series and book In Search of the Dark Ages? He is remembered as the last king of an independent Northumbria; his demise at Stainmore signalling the end of the Viking Age in England. The Day of the Wolf ably stands alone as a novel, but you would be doing yourself a disservice not to read Bloodaxe (see my review here) and The Raven and the Cross (review here).

In the hero society of the pagan Viking world reputation was all.  To be a renowned doughty warrior, to command respect amongst your comrades at the ship’s oar and be a worthy opponent on the field of battle, such things were worthy. Warriors would gain reflected glory slaying such an opponent, whilst the slain, denied the shame of the straw death would enter the halls of Valholl, their names extolled and invited to feast until Ragnarök, alongside Odinn and his heroes. Many would forgo their weight in silver to be enriched with fame-wealth, their name remembered long after the count of their years is done.

Four years have passed since Erik Haraldsson – the Bloodaxe- relinquished the throne of York to return to the Orkneys. According to the prophesy given to him many years previously in the far north, it was his wyrd – his destiny – to wear five crowns. The kingdom of York was his fourth. The fates demand that he will wear it again.

Erik and his family have not been tardy in their four years in the Orkneys. Experience has taught him that a ready supply of silver can help hold a throne better than any sword arm. To that end he has been busy raiding as a true Viking, filing his treasure chests with plunder and the profits from slavery. In conjunction with the Archbishop of York, Wulfstan, Erik works to oust the present incumbent, the puppet of Wessex – Olaf Cuaran. With Eadred, the king of Wessex, now old and ailing, Erik seeks to make his fifth crown a success, perhaps carve out a North Sea empire. However, the three Norns that weave men’s fates are fickle; that prophet from long ago spoke also of Erik meeting his death on a windswept fell.

The Day of the Wolf brings Cliff May’s Erik Haraldsson trilogy to a worthy finale. It is a fast-paced tale, reflecting Erik’s lightning strikes to secure his newly won kingdom. He has enemies all around, the English king with his deep pockets of silver, to the south of course is an ever-present threat. However, it is Erik’s immediate neighbours  - the kingdom of Strathclyde to the west, Alba to the north and, in between them, the  strategically positioned Earldom of Bernica and the untrustworthy Oswulf Ealdwulfing - that may snatch away his crown.

Erik truly is a thunderbolt, striking hard and fast on his own terms. Lovers of Mr May’s prose, as the ravens caw above warriors and shields clash together in battle, will not be disappointed. The battle centred around Corebricg and Haydon is truly epic, in scale and description, with Erik facing an alliance of three enemies. He must fight and think like Odinn to prevail. What struck this reader was how Eric, now in his sixth decade, forces himself  to be the dynamic warrior he ever was, but now faces the bone weariness battle inflicts. As ever he has his capable warriors of his hird  (trusted warband) around him and Erik knows when he must be seen to take the lead and when his cause is better served to let others lead the Svinfylking -Boar-snout in attack.

Boarsnout formation - Pintrest.

Mr May has pieced together a riveting tale and has had to research widely  to create the momentous three years of Erik’s fifth kingship. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is very scant, but Eric is mentioned in a variety of  other sources around the Viking world – snippets here and there in the annals of his contemporaries, a few lines written by an anonymous Clerk in York. Perhaps the best description of Erik the man and his true Viking finale is in the Eriksmal, his poetic epitaph, as this last Viking enters Odinn’s halls. The reader finds themselves rooting for Eric, even as the Norns sharpen their shears and the wolf drools in hungry expectation; you always carry the hope that the Bloodaxe will  somehow avoid his doom, that the final battle will be won by him, but…

‘What thunders there as if a thousand were stirring – a mighty host?’ Said Bragi. ‘All the bench planks creak, as if Balder were coming back into the halls of Odinn.’

‘The wise Bragi should not blather, ‘ replied the Allfather, ‘when you know the truth full-well; the clamour is made for Erik, who must be coming here, a prince into Valoll.’

Valholl - Historicmysteries.com

Was it not for that windswept fell one wonders what could have been? Erik’s alliance with Archbishop Wulfstan proves that he had succeeded in bringing together his English and Norse subjects and won the church based in York to his side. For a brief time perhaps Alfred’s dream of a unified England was in jeopardy, but instead it was the last hurrah of a fading age.

As with all Mr Mays novels I would thoroughly recommend reading his afterword section. It is perhaps the fate of writers of historical fiction (unfairly in my view) to have to justify their stories with factual records, but it offers fantastic factual snippets as well as an overview of the evolution of the author’s telling of their story. Such snippets are the fate of Erik’s family, from his remarkable widow Gunnhild (who deserves a storytelling herself) to that of his sons and daughter. Alas Erik’s dream of a dynasty was not to be, but to be remembered, to have the glint of his fame-wealth shine down the ages; perhaps he would be content.

The Fertile Crescent and the lost days of Sumer

Throughout June and July, the Historical Writers’ Forum’s Blog Hop has been publishing posts regarding various singularly significant historical events. Please be certain to visit the  Hop's Facebook Page to catch up on posts you may have missed and up and coming posts. Today it is my turn and I’m going to look at more of a process rather than a single event. 

Approximately 12,000 years ago humanity altered its lifestyle and destiny in the most fundamental way. For most of our history, humans have led a nomadic lifestyle, at least for part of the year, obtaining nourishment from hunting, fishing and gathering; very much like the traditional lifestyles of Amazonian tribes, Kalahari bushmen and native aborigines. 

These prehistoric hunter/gatherers had collected wild grains at least 105,000 years ago. But it was not until approx. 11,500 years ago (in the Epipaleolithic) that stone age people actively began cultivating founder crops of wheat, barley, peas, lentils and chickpeas. The archaeological evidence points this as first occurring in the Levant region, part of what was termed “The Fertile Crescent”. This occurred as the climate began to warm, as the Pleistocene Ice Age yielded to the climate of the current Holocene geological epoch. 

Fertile Crescent - Encyclopaedia Britannica

The Fertile Crescent is a sickle shaped area extending from the Mediterranean Sea at Egypt, through the Levant, through Syria and Southern Turkey and then down through Iraq – ancient Mesopotamia -following the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to the Persian Gulf. Historically this region was blessed with extremely fertile soils, with an abundance of fresh and brackish water sources, far removed from the arid lands they are now. This really was almost the biblical Garden of Eden, with many edible plant species native to the region. 

The transition from hunter gatherers to settled farmers was a long process, no doubt replete with trial and error, with many prehistoric cultures coming and going. It is difficult to pinpoint the exact moment that such a fundamental change in lifestyle began. We are in a process of learning more about this lost period, the most exciting development perhaps being the discovery of the Göbekli Tepe site in Turkey. It is a temple perhaps from the dawn of agriculture at around 10000 BCE but exhibiting levels of remarkable sophistication. It might well cause a complete re-evaluation of our prehistory. At present its offering more questions than answers, such as why was it purposely filled in and buried?

Göbekli Tepe - Ancient Origins

It was, in the former British Protectorate of Palestine, in 1928, that the British archaeologist Dorothy Garrod, initially searching for biblical archaeology, discovered the Natufian culture of the late Epipaleolithic. During this time, the Levant was a rich land of oak forests and high scrublands. The Natufians were prehistoric hunter gatherers, practicing a semi-permanent sedentary culture. They reused settlements, building walls and setting post holes as well as using caves. Their stone age technology involved using microliths, small flint blades, to process kills and to make rudimentary sickles to cut plants. What set these people apart from previous stone age cultures in this region was the rudimentary agriculture they began practising during the Younger Dryas period - a 1000-year interruption in the warming of the climate. It is thought this caused drought, endangering wild cereals growing on the wild scrublands. The Natufian people had become dependent on the gathering of these cereals and began to clear areas to actively sow these plants. Using these wild grains these people baked unleavened bread initially. However (as recently discovered evidence indicates) they even brewed beer. This is some 8000 years earlier than previously thought beer was first brewed. Bread and beer occurring together makes sense, as both use yeast. Using yeast allows for the baking of leavened bread. It was also this culture that is thought to have first domesticated dogs; two Natufian burials have been found to include the skeletal remains of canids.

 

Temperature Graph - WUWT

It was in Mesopotamia that archaeological evidence points to a real agricultural revolution taking place. Situated at the Upper Tigris and Euphrates valleys, around 9500BCE, people began living in permanent settlements of round mud dwellings, farming lentils, wheat and barley as well as domesticating pigs and sheep. The archaeological record of the Syrian village of Tell Abu Hureyra shows the switch from the hunting of gazelle to the farming and processing of grains. The mainstay nutritional value of bread - one of the oldest processed  foods - cannot be overstated. It is perhaps not surprising that the staff of life has such cultural significance among many cultures, even being used in religious ritual. The farming of cattle would take another 1000 years with animals descended from the wild Aurochs being domesticated in areas of modern Turkey and Pakistan. 

Agriculture allowed for  population growth and the establishment of sedentary human settlements, enabling a surplus of crops and livestock to be raised, and an end to having to move due to exhaustion of wild game. By 8000BCE agriculture was fully established along the Nile. It’s also intriguing that around this time, independent of the cultures of the Fertile Crescent, agriculture began to spring up in different areas of the globe, using native plants to these regions, such as rice and millet in China, and maize and potatoes in Mexico. Its intriguing to contemplate that there may have been considerable cultural interaction in this prehistoric world, as the domestication of plants and animals began to become the norm. Around 6000BCE domestic species appear in the Iberian Peninsula and pigs are farmed in the forests of Europe. 

However, it is in Mesopotamia where settlements, that can truly be described as cities, begin to take shape as the Stone Age yielded to the Copper and then Bronze Ages. In southern Iraq, a prehistoric people - the Ubadians - began farming and constructing mud brick dwellings. They have left fine examples of pottery and developed trade links as far away as Oman for copper. The Ubadian society would be supplanted by the Sumerian civilisation, which was established between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The Sumerian society would last for approximately 3000 years and create the template for all government and urban societies that followed.  Yet astonishingly the Sumerians were almost entirely forgotten for thousands of years, until archaeological discoveries were made in the C19th. 

The Sumerians were a fascinating civilisation, founded around 4000BCE, they were independent city states, each with their own king, linked by a common language and culture. At the time, the shoreline was further inland than now, their main city of Ur was situated on the Persian Gulf of antiquity. 

Where the Sumerians originated from is somewhat of a mystery, as their language was different from those of neighbouring Semitic cultures. Some have postulated that they were originally of North African origin migrating from the green Sahara, others that they could have been descendants of our old friends the Natufians, or even originally Dravidians from the Indus river area. 

It might well be a mixture of cultures that explains the genesis of Sumer. One of their oldest cities was that of Eridu on the Persian Gulf, which fused the proto-Sumerian Ubaidian farmers, Semitic herds people and fisher folk of the southern Mesopotamian marshlands. Living in an area of low rainfall the Sumerians drained marshes and built canals to irrigate their crops. 

Sumer showing ancient coastline - Wikipedia

Such projects require a defined division of labour and as such, Sumerian society evolved and made great strides in innovation, which we take for granted now. Sumerian trade links became even more extensive than the Ubadian, their influence, goods and ideas stretching west to Egypt and east to the Indus. As well as goods, communication and record keeping were essential for trade and so it was that their written language of Cuneiform developed. Initially for bookkeeping this written communication flowered into one capable of great literature, perhaps best illustrated with The Epic of Gilmagesh – a poem which may have inspired in part the Iliad, The Odyssey and perhaps even sections of the Hebrew bible, such as the great flood myth. 

Cuneiform - the Epic of Gilmagesh

Sumer had an established religion, although each city had their own patron god or goddess. Each city was built around the religious centre – the Ziggurat, the design of which may have influenced that of Egyptian pyramids. The Sumerians believed that it was humanities’ task to work alongside the gods and establish order from chaos. To do this the gods required people to cooperate and set aside their petty differences for the common good. Men and women enjoyed equal status in Sumerian society. The Sumerians really thought themselves as shapers of the earth, altering the land for their agriculture to prosper. They studied cosmology, recorded their history, wrote farmer’s almanacs, introduced taxation (and tax cuts!), developed literary devices, wrote fables, set moral codes on behaviour and set up schools. They even invented the concept of time, dividing day and night into 12 hours, each hour consisting of 60 minutes, each minute made up of 60 seconds.

 

However, there is always a snake in the garden, the Sumerians also conducted the first recorded war, with their successful campaign and sacking of the city of Elam around 2700BCE. The Sumerians did practice slavery, mainly to work their fields, although some would also serve in homes too. Slaves would be either debtors, able to buy their freedom or prisoners taken in war as part of  plunder.  As farmers group together, creating towns and in turns cities, freedom from subsistence farming allows for the development of specific professions and trade. Life becomes easier, yet it also creates greed and  societal hierarchies develop. The fields that supply food, once painstakingly drained from the marshes by their forebears, becomes a valuable commodity. There are the haves and the have-nots, and on the  very bottom rung of society are the slaves. Regrettably its a truism that slavery is as old as civilisation itself.

Sumerian Warriors - The Standard of Ur

Sumeria itself had a long decline and was conquered itself by Sargon of Akkad around 2340BCE, who appreciated it as an administrative centre of the Akkadian Empire. Sumer and Akkad had long had a history of cultural exchange. After a relatively brief Sumerian renaissance, the rise of Babylon, and resurgence of the Elamanites, combined with overuse of the land finally put paid to its political power, if not its cultural influence, around 1750BCE. Interestingly around the time of its decline, especially its conquest by Babylon there was a notable change of women’s rights in Sumerian society, illustrated by the marginalisation of goddesses in favour of a more patriarchal Babylonian supreme deity, Marduk. Empires came and went, centres of power shifting north to the Assyrians and Hittites, and east to Persia. Ancient Sumer was a mere imperial province, its cities, gods and goddesses forgotten.

It is perhaps fitting that, lying forgotten in and under the sands of time, Sumeria’s later discovery was down to monotheist archaeologists seeking biblical evidence. What they found was not only the wellspring of the bible, but of human civilisation itself.

The Ripper Legacies by Robert Southworth

Jack the Ripper, Saucy Jack  -names synonymous with murder and mystery and terrible crimes unsolved…

The Ripper Legacies are a trilogy of books consisting of The Reaper’s Breath, The Reaper’s Touch and The Reaper’s Kiss.

In The Reaper’s Breath the scene is set, we are transported to the filth and grime of Victorian London, a semi-lawless place of dockyards, crumbling tenement slums, blind alleys and snickleways. Within this world society is split between those of obscene and visible wealth and those held captive in crippling poverty. Into this world is the mysterious Jack the Ripper, a murderer of women forced to sell their bodies to survive. What sets these murders apart is the Ripper’s modus operandi; each victim is subjected to extreme butchery – Jack sees himself as an artist with the blade.

From London we are taken to Cloveney Hall – a country estate home of the Harkness family. Within these walls resides the young William Harkness. William has his destiny plotted for him, heir to his father Simeon’s, fortune, set to wed Emily his childhood sweetheart. Resentful of his father, who he blames for his mother’s passing, William rejects this path and joins the army. Captain William Harkness narrowly avoids death in Afghanistan during the disastrous Battle of Maiwand and returns to Britain scarred, both mentally and physically. He finds solace and comfort in drink and the arms of a young woman called Mary Kelly. When Mary dies under the Ripper’s blade, William’s lust for vengeance leads to his recruitment to Slaughter Yard. Under the wings of the Metropolitan Police, Harkness gathers a group of trusted individuals to hunt down the Ripper, without the constraints of the Police’s code of conduct.

It becomes clear that the Ripper is all too aware of Slaughter Yard, can Harkness outwit his cunning opponent? And what of Emily, now trapped in an abusive marriage?

In the Reaper’s Touch, Harkness and his comrades at Slaughter Yard continue the hunt, now convinced they face more than one individual. The Ripper has now changed target, not content with the slaughter of ladies of the night the Ripper is killing prominent individuals and seems intent on raising the racial tensions in the burgeoning metropolis of London. The nature of the Perpetrator(s) become more apparent with William and his men actively targeted. Fortunately, William has come to terms with his father as all hell breaks loose pursuing the men of Slaughter Yard to Cloveney.

In The Reaper’s Kiss  the Ripper emerges once again after three years since his last reign of terror. William Harkness and his comrades at Slaughter Yard have kept watch certain that the Ripper and his  organisation would emerge once more to inflict his bloody terror on London again. With the backing of his father Simeon, the investigation finds financial tentacles about the empire. Slaughter Yard begins cutting them one by one forcing the monster from the shadows.

Each  book of the trilogy can stand alone as  a novel, but its clear in the first two that a complete resolution is still to be reached.  Personally, I devoured all three one after the other over the course of a  few days. For a week I was walking fearfully in my minds’ eye, experiencing the menacing paranoia of the grimy streets of Victorian London. What death lurks in the shadows? Were those footsteps heard behind?

The author has the skilful ability to lob a shocking twist  into the story, just when you think you know who the perpetrator of evil is you realise you’ve been tricked, just as Harkness has been duped. There is no real happy ever after as the Ripper’s influence has moulded Harkness, unbeknown to him.

Five stars for each book, dare you face the Reaper?

The Ripper Legacies are available as ebooks, audiobooks and paperbacks on
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