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10th Century / Viking Age Tales

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Wulfric of Mercia
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Post by Wulfric of Mercia » Fri May 7th, 2010, 9:27 pm

I got around to picking up The Long Ships by Frans Gunnar Bengtsson. Its considered a classic saga-type tale of the Viking Age. Quite entertaining thus far!

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Ludmilla
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Post by Ludmilla » Fri May 7th, 2010, 10:22 pm

I love my Penguin Deluxe edition of The Sagas of the Icelanders. One of my favorites is Gisli Sursson's Saga (Gisli the Outlaw), which doesn't seem to get as much attention as some of the more famous ones (such as Egil or Njal).

Not 10th Century, but I loved Jane Smiley's novel, The Greenlanders, which depicts the settlement as it's declining. I thought she captured the cadence and spare emotional tone of the sagas beautifully. It instantly went to my top 5 list of best historicals I've ever read.
Last edited by Ludmilla on Fri May 7th, 2010, 10:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Wulfric of Mercia
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Post by Wulfric of Mercia » Wed May 12th, 2010, 5:48 pm

[quote=""Ludmilla""]I love my Penguin Deluxe edition of The Sagas of the Icelanders. One of my favorites is Gisli Sursson's Saga (Gisli the Outlaw), which doesn't seem to get as much attention as some of the more famous ones (such as Egil or Njal).[/quote]

That is a great volume of sagas indeed. That book is what really helped kick start my own writing.

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Leyland
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Post by Leyland » Thu May 13th, 2010, 5:49 pm

[quote=""Ludmilla""]Not 10th Century, but I loved Jane Smiley's novel, The Greenlanders, which depicts the settlement as it's declining. I thought she captured the cadence and spare emotional tone of the sagas beautifully. It instantly went to my top 5 list of best historicals I've ever read.[/quote]

I definitely second Ludmilla's opinion. I haven't read the novel in many years but it does stand out as one of the best I've read for the same reasons. It has an interesting perspective since the formely successful and prosperous generations of raiders leave decendents who eventually must admit failure in the Greenland colony.
We are the music makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams ~ Arthur O'Shaughnessy, Ode

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Michy
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Post by Michy » Fri May 21st, 2010, 7:35 pm

If you haven't already, you might enjoy reading Anya Seton's Avalon. It is set in England, Iceland and Greenland during the time of the Vikings.

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Post by Doug » Mon July 5th, 2010, 3:13 pm

One suggestion, though it wouldn't be easy to get, is "Wulfhere" by A.B. Higginson. The title character eventually became the king of Mercia. It's set in the 7th century and focuses on Wulfhere and his father Penda. It never saw publication in book form, but was serialized in the pulp magazine "Adventure" in 5 parts from June 3, 1920 to August 3, 1920.

And following up on another poster's mention of Harald Hardrada, the story of his time with the Varangian Guard is also told in "He Rules Who Can" by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur, which was serialized in 6 parts in "Argosy" from November 24, 1928 to December 29, 1929. Brodeur wrote several Viking stories for the pulps, chiefly for "Adventure," and knew his source material very well. He translated "The Prose Edda" by Snorri Sturluson and later became a well-known Beowulf scholar when he was a professor at Berkeley. One of my favorites by him, "Vengeance" is a long novelette based on the Volsung saga ("Adventure," June 30, 1925).

The pulp reprint project I'm involved in plans to print these eventually, but in the meantime, both "Adventure" and "Argosy" are pretty common pulps and easy to find on ebay or abebooks, or through dedicated pulp dealers like Adventure House, though finding specific issues can be a challenge. But I'd think you could find these stories within a few months.

Doug

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Orm and Toke

Post by Chris Little » Tue July 13th, 2010, 4:15 am

Bengtsson, Fran. “The Long Ships” is a 500 page book: I’m reading a copy from the local library, a new trade paperback, New York Review Books reprint, 1954, translated from Swedish. Upper tier.

Sample paragraph:

“As the pork approached Orm and Toke, they sat quite still, with their faces turned toward the pot, watching the boy closely as he fished for the meat. They sighed blissfully as he lifted out fine pieces of shoulder pork to put on their plates, reminding each other how long it was since they had last eaten such a dinner, and marveling that they had managed to survive so many years in a country where no pork was allowed to be eaten. But when the blood-sausage arrived, tears came into their eyes, and they declared that they had never eaten a meal worthy of the name since the day they had sailed away with Krok.”

MarkCoakley
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Early Norse and Lindisfarne

Post by MarkCoakley » Wed August 18th, 2010, 5:10 pm

I spent a few years researching early Norse history, especially around the time of the Lindisfarne raid (793). There are a lot of excellent non-fiction works on the era and the sagas of course are very valuable, but I have yet to find a good novel (other than my own) set in the early Viking age. Voyage of the Short Serpent is excellent, amazing, inspiring -- but set a century or two after 1000.
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Mark Coakley -- Author of Berserk Revenge: A Norse Saga

www.scribd.com/MarkCoakley

annis
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Post by annis » Fri August 20th, 2010, 5:32 pm

I recently had a pleasant surprise when I picked up a copy of a 1995 novel by Nadine Crenshaw, called Viking Gold. The breathless blurb seemed to promise bodice-ripper, but instead I found a cracking story set in 9th century Norway and Ireland along saga lines, full of blood-feud and violently dysfunctional family relationships. There is a romance at its heart, but in the style of Tristan and Isolde. The central characters Aasa and Olaf fall in love, but she is forced to marry his father, with tragic results.

One interesting part covers Thorgest's settlement in Ireland-- Olaf joins his forces on the early raids.

"Irish tradition holds that c.832, a Viking leader named Tuirgeis (also Turgeis, Thorgills, Thorgest or Turgesius), taking advantage of a civil war in Munster, invaded Ireland with a great fleet of 120 ships and some ten thousand men. He is said to have divided his force and landed half on the Liffey and himself sailed up the Boyne with the other half. To the amazement of the Irish he sailed his ships all the way to Lough Ree of the inland lakes, after which he built a series of forts across the island from Carlingford Bay to Connacht. Tuirgeis sacked many of the rich monasteries of the neighborhood and, after looting Armagh, sarcastically set himself up as the monastery’s abbot. His men plundered Clonmacnois more than once and his wife, Ota, presided at the altar there as a heathen priestess and oracle.

Tuirgeis is said to have established the first permanent Norse settlements in Ireland and his intent was to found his own kingdom in the northern portion of the country. His era marked the end of Viking raids in Ireland and began the establishment of a lasting presence, together with a melding of Norse and Gael".


I looked for other books by this author, but she seems to have pulled one out of the hat with Viking Gold -- the rest of her novels are just standard historical romances.
Last edited by annis on Fri August 20th, 2010, 10:13 pm, edited 6 times in total.

MarkCoakley
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Post by MarkCoakley » Sun August 29th, 2010, 9:11 pm

I agree that Robert Howard's pulp writing (which sometimes involves Vikings or Viking-like societies) is excellent.
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Mark Coakley -- Author of Berserk Revenge: A Norse Saga

www.scribd.com/MarkCoakley

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