The Slayer Rune is stirring

I am proud to tell you that The Slayer Rune is now for sale. You can buy it here at Amazon.com

The Slayer Rune is a historical action-adventure novel with slight supernatural elements. It's a story of love and hate and Viking action, infused with Norse mythology. Does Sigurd’s love for Ylajali lead to his actions, or do darker powers force him to do terrible deeds?

In the book you’ll meet Helgi Blackbeard, Big Bork and his brother Bork Berserk, Skarphedin the Second-Sighted, Grim, Hild, Sigrunn Silkyhair, the Witch from Spedale and the main character Sigurd (later called Sigve the Awful) and his love Ylajali. Will he get her?

Next book in the series is The Lethal Oath. Here I have added in Kale Curved-Cock and the Body, his daughter.

Young heroes and heroines

Sigurd (Arthur Rackham)

In The Slayer Rune, my first Viking novel, the hero, Sigurd (later Sigve the Awful) is young. His love, Ylajali, is even younger. Over the last couple of weeks, I have written reviews of three Old Icelandic legendary sagas, and also in these tales the heroes and heroines are young, very young. Some of the greatest characters were twelve, fifteen or sixteen when they performed their first heroic deeds.

Where did Tolkien find the ring?

The magic-heroic sagas written on the remote medieval island of Iceland are still inspiring artists, writers, TV-producers, and film-makers. The last couple of weeks I have reviewed three of the Old Icelandic legendary sagas.

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Brynhild, Sigurd, Gudrun - the fatal love triangle

The Saga of the Volsungs by Anonymous
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Saga of the Volsungs is a great Old Icelandic legendary saga and one of the best magic-heroic tales ever told. It is the story of Sigurd the Dragon Slayer and his family, the Volsungs, and their conflicts with other northern royal families in the pre-Viking period. It is a story full of mythological figures, human drama, love, hate, and endless series of vengeance and murder.

And Hrolf sliced off both his buttocks

The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki by Anonymous
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

(This is a review of Jesse L. Byock's translation in Penguin Classics, and if we can talk of spoilers in a legend, here are lots of spoilers.)

The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki is a legendary tale and one of the greatest Old Icelandic legendary sagas.

Hrolf Kraki, king in ancient Denmark, was not as many of the other legendary heroes; he was among the quiet and mild rulers, which, of course, didn’t prevent him from taking action and revenge when required. He is famous for having sowed pieces of gold on the Fyri’s Plane (in Sweden) to distract King Adils and his warriors. Hrolf was fleeing after having regained the gold Adils stole when he killed Helgi, Hrolf’s father. Hrolf also threw a gold ring in front of the pursuing king. When King Adils stopped to acquire the ring, Hrolf said that now “I have made the greatest of the Swedes stoop like a swine.” When Adils bent forward to fetch the ring, Hrolf sliced off both his buttocks “right down to the bone.”