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.

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.