This is a saga, to be read round a fire against the lurking dark.

– Robert Low on The Whale Road

Most Robert E. Howard fans find a good Viking saga hard to resist. Many have delved into the treasures hoarded by H. Rider Haggard and Poul Anderson seeking the “Northern thing” that inspired Tolkien and sang with moody restlessness in the blood of Robert E. Howard.

All that is deep and gloomy and Norse in me rises in my blood. I would go east into the sunshine and the nodding palm trees, but I bide and the dream of the twilight of the gods is on me, and the dreams of cold and misty lands and the ancient pessimism of the Vikings.
It seems to me, especially in the autumn, that that one vagrant Danish strain that is mine, predominates above all my Celtic blood.

– To Harold Preece, ca. October 1930

Robert Low, right, lives his tales of the Oathsworn. His deep knowledge of his period gives his writing depth and power.

Scotsman Robert Low has written a saga worthy to stand with the greats of yore. The Whale Road launches the four-book Oathsworn series, which follows a band of Norse mercenaries through adventures across Europe and into Asia, from the market towns of Scandanavia to the steppes of Russia to the Great City of Constantinople, known to the Norse as Miklagard.

The saga follows the growth of Orm Rurikson from a green and fumbling youth into a seasoned fighter and leader of men.

Like Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Stories, Low tells his tale in the first person, giving the story a colloquial and immediate tone. Low told The Cimmerian that telling the story in Orm’s voice fit the style of the saga-tale.

First person is hardest to write, primarily because it does not let you swiftly move to ‘another part of the forest’ – it is one view, from one pair of eyes. I found it natural for the Oathsworn series since, inevitably, that was strongly influenced by the sagas, which are essentially oral accounts told by a skald.

Low is a hardcore reenactor and his depth of understanding of his subject is in evidence in his tale. Fortunately, he is too skilled a writer to fall into the trap that snares too many who immerse themselves in the period. At no time does The Whale Road descend into mere exposition with the author showing off his obscure and detailed knowledge. Low weaves his tapestry seamlessly, each detail rising naturally in the course of the tale.

The Whale Road is a rough road -- especially after a long night in Limerick.

This is especially true in the battle scenes. The reader gets the impression that Low has taken and delivered his share of blows with sword and shield and his experience as a war reporter puts a sharp edge on his descriptions of battle and its aftermath.

The violence of the era is thoroughly deglamorized.

I have been asked by bright-eyed youngsters who have never fought for their lives with shield and steel what it’s like. I never tell them that it is four or five minutes of mad fear and luck, of slashing cuts and savagery, of shit and blood and shrieking.

– Orm Rurikson in The Whale Road

Actually, Orm does tell us. This is a world where a wound as often as not leads to a slow, painful, undignified death from infection and gangrene. Where the mightiest warrior must feel a clenching in his guts as he girds himself for a battle he may well not survive. No world-bestriding super heroes here.

Writing in a realist vein, with a naturalistic style, Low yet manages to convey the magic-soaked worldview that turns any Viking tale, no matter how historical, into a form of heroic fantasy. As he tells The Cimmerian:

Nowadays, we are all so used to the concept of magic in fantasy and a deal of that was moulded by Tolkien – but that concept came from the Norse sagas. The Norse believed in the gods, runespells, the weaving of the Norns — the very ideas of a dragon hoard, a named sword of power comes mainly from the Sagas — so I tried to reflect the fact that the Vikings lived constantly with the idea that the membrane between this world and the Other was thin and sometimes breached, without actually making any overt magic at all.

 

Low is no stranger to heroic fantasy. He has clearly absorbed Tolkien and he is an ardent admirer of the Gent from Cross Plains, as he explained to The Cimmerian:

I devoured Howard books as a boy more than 50 years ago. Currently, I am dipping in and out of the Conan collection published just last year and edited by Rod Green. I have always held Howard in high esteem — to be honest, I never came across anyone who could touch him for that  high fantasy genre — until I stumbled on Harold Lamb, that great, virtually unsung giant of pulp fantasy. Everything since, from Tolkien to Joe Abercrombie, is perched on the shoulders of that pair.

Low stands tall on the shoulders of giants himself. Having embarked on The Whale Road, I see my wyrd sending me out onto The Wolf Sea and beyond. And there is great news for those hopelessly lost in the Middle Ages: Low is at work on the Kingdom of Scotland series that is poised to rip away the cloak of myth and legend from the tale of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce.

A mighty tale is being wrought in Scotland!

*Photos courtesy of Robert Low

DEUCE ADDS: Author Bill Ward posted his own review of The Whale Road over at the Black Gate website. Y’all might want to check it out here.

I’m definitely looking forward to Low’s novels about Wallace and the Bruce.

Cornwell’s ongoing series The Saxon Stories features vikings, shield walls, axes, dark ages combat, hall-burnings, and general mayhem. If this stuff sounds appealing (and if you’re a reader of The Cimmerian, how could it not?), you owe it to yourself to pick up the first book in the series, The Last Kingdom, and get started. 

The Saxon Stories is an ongoing historical fiction series about the reign of Alfred the Great and the clash of Danes and Saxons in 9th century Britain. The stories are told through the viewpoint of Uhtred of Bebbanburg, a warrior who was born a Saxon and fights for their cause, but was raised among the Danes, and so has an iron-plated boot in each camp. Uhtred is a fun character, as he’s torn between hereditary love for his ancestral homeland and a passion for the Danes. Although they’re murderous raiders, the Danes drink deep of life, scorn Christian “virtues” of humility and pity, and worship the pagan gods of Thor and Odin. These qualities appeal strongly to Uhtred, who grew to love the Danes during his capture and upbringing under Earl Ragnar.

I read the first four books in the Saxon Stories with gusto (these include The Last Kingdom (2004), The Pale Horseman (2005), The Lords of the North (2006), and Sword Song, published in 2007), and eagerly anticipated the next book in the series, so much so that Cornwell’s decision to interrupt Uhtred’s saga with Agincourt was a bit of a let-down, even though I wound up enjoying the heck out of it.

But I was very pleased to find out that the fifth book, The Burning Land, has been released in the UK and will be available in the United States in January 2010, according to Bernard Cornwell’s official Web site.

Looks like 2010 will be off to a fine, blood-soaked start.

True, Agincourt was a great victory for the English in the Hundred Years’ War, one that has resounded through the ages. The events of October 25, 1415 are an incredible tale of a few (6,000 English soldiers) prevailing against many (an estimated 30,000 French knights and men-at-arms). The battle has gained additional resonance by Shakespeare’s magnificent play Henry V. But its actual events were not glorious.

In other words, it’s a tale that historical fiction writer extraordinaire Bernard Cornwell was born to tell. And tell the story he does, quite faithfully and well, although it does come off as a bit formulaic.

Read enough Cornwell and his formula starts to show, and in the case of Agincourt it actually began to chafe me a bit. All the Cornwell stories I’ve read (The Saxon Stories, The Warlord Chronicles, The Grail Quest novels, and Stonehenge 2000 B.C.) are told through a similar POV character—a strong warrior who encounters and eventually impresses the larger historical figures of the age with his strength, skill at arms, and honesty. Cornwell’s leading men are often cruelly beset by bitter enemies and suffer early setbacks, but always manage to get revenge in the end. In Agincourt we’re introduced to Nicholas Hook, a muscled, tough, laconic archer who I found almost indistinguishable from Thomas of Hookton of The Grail Quest novels.

But you know what? Even though it’s familiar and in some respects predictable to readers of Cornwell, the formula works. Agincourt is, like everything else I’ve read from Cornwell, a compulsive page turner.

Agincourt is dominated by two main battle pieces, the siege of the French city of Harfleur and Agincourt itself. Both are well-told, of course, but I equally enjoyed some of Agincourt’s smaller details. For example, French knights following the beleaguered English army through the French countryside, sometimes stopping for one-on-one jousts, at other times trading insults or amicably talking. Or King Henry, disguised, walking the sodden English lines the night before the battle, weighing the morale of his men and inspiring them to fight for God and England.

Although there are some despicable priests in the book (what Cornwell book would be complete without them?), generally there’s a better depiction of Christianity and the institution of the church in Agincourt than in Cornwell’s other books, particularly The Saxon Stories, in which Cornwell displays an obvious favoritism for the pagans over the “bloody Christians.” There’s also the hand of God at work in Agincourt: Cornwell leaves little doubt that Hook hears the martyred Saint Crispan’s voice in his ear in his times of greatest duress and despair, the same Saint that Henry evokes in his rousing battle speech from Henry V.

Agincourt is certainly not for the squeamish. As with most Cornwell books, rapes, torture, disembowelings, crushed skulls, dagger thrusts through eyes and mouths, and worse are all here on display. The siege of Harfleur features the horror of mining and counter-mining beneath castle walls and the effects of dysentery on the English army. But let’s face it—war is hell and it’s faithfully depicted in Agincourt.

I remain a bit skeptical about some of the feats of archery described in Agincourt, but in the final battle Cornwell shows some restraint. In addition to the might of the English longbow, Agincourt was a stunning victory due to a combination of disastrous French leadership and horrible tactics, a mucky, sodden field across which the heavily armored French had to advance, and the inspiration of Henry, who fought bravely in the English lines. The English longbow was a deadly weapon. It could kill at long range and even punch through plate at short range. But its primary role at Agincourt appears to have been sewing early confusion, driving the French ranks inward, and felling horses and men in the front ranks that slowed the French advance to a crawl. Even if the bows could not/did not penetrate plate armor, the clouds of arrows from 5,000 English archers, striking like hammers on the French men-at-arms, must have been horrible to endure.

For more reading, Cornwell recommends two books which I have not read (Agincourt: A New History by Anne Curry, and Agincourt by Juliet Barker), but also John Keegan’s The Face of Battle, whose greatness I’ve already attested to here at The Cimmerian.