Tag Archives: Bracelet of Bones
It is 1036. Halfdan is a Viking mercenary who is determined to travel to Constantinople and become one of the Viking Guard serving Empress Zoe. He promises to take his daughter, but one morning Solveig wakes up to find him gone…
This last weekend, the Financial Times picked Kevin Crossley-Holland’s Bracelet of Bones as its children’s book choice.
It wrote:
“Historical novels for children don’t get much better than this . . . an 11th century world of clashing faiths that we don’t often see depicted in fiction.”
High praise indeed!
Our fabulous Viking saga also had a lovely review on the Books for Keeps blog, which gave it 5 stars:
The vivid bringing to life of this great cast of major and minor characters is a great achievement. Crossley-Holland’s evocation of the period is detailed and fascinating . . . The author’s language is rich with unforced metaphor, the use of subtle alliteration and caesura reminiscent of Anglo-Saxon poetry and seemingly almost to echo the movement of the waters and the shapes of the landscape that Solveig travels through. Superb story-telling is enriched by Hemesh Alles’ informative map and chapter-reading miniatures, and by the author’s notes.
Since we published Kevin Crossley-Holland’s new Viking adventure back in April, there has been a slow build of fanatastic reviews and successful events, not least a sell-out session at Hay.
To celebrate the fact that we’ve just ordered the first reprint of the hardback, we thought we’d put the Guardian review on the blog, a review that puts Kevin in the exalted company of such writers as Rosemary Sutcliff and Henry Treece.
If you haven’t got it yet, after reading this review by author Tony Bradman, you’ll be rushing off to your nearest bookshop.
Bracelet of Bones, from The Guardian, May 28th 2011
There’s a great tradition in children’s historical fiction of writers being inspired by something specific, an object or an inscription. It was the discovery in Silchester of a battered Roman eagle that gave Rosemary Sutcliff the idea for The Eagle of the Ninth, and in an “Author’s Note” at the end of his superb new novel Kevin Crossley-Holland describes a similar epiphany. On a visit to Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia, he found carved into a balustrade some runes that read “Halfdan”, probably the name of an 11th-century Viking mercenary.
That name gave him a character, a Viking who sets off to serve the Greek emperor in Constantinople, a place the Vikings called Miklagard, “the great city”, and which later became the Turkish Istanbul. Halfdan has sworn to follow his hero Harald Sigurdsson – better known to history as Harald Hardrada, the greatest Viking of all – but breaks a promise to his 14-year-old daughter to take her along. Solveig refuses to be left behind, and leaves Norway to go after him on an epic journey across Sweden, Russia and the Black Sea.
Of course there’s another great tradition in children’s historical fiction of journeys through the “wild east”, of Viking adventurers sailing to Byzantium down the rivers of Russia. Both Rosemary Sutcliff and Henry Treece wrote novels of quests to Miklagard, books I read avidly as a boy, and Bracelet of Bones has the same feel. Crossley-Holland knows the period – and the Vikings – so well I’m sure that were Dr Who to whisk him back to 11th-century Scandinavia in the Tardis, he would be perfectly at home.
A girl central character does make a difference, though. Solveig is brave and quick-witted, but she’s pretty too, and that brings its own dangers. So although there is very little of the violence and swordplay you find in many Viking stories, there’s still a huge amount of tension. Can Solveig persuade Red Ottar the grumpy merchant to give her passage on his ship? Will she manage to fend off the unwelcome attention of the handsome but slimy Vigot? Ultimately, will she make it to Miklagard and find her beloved father once more?
Most of the action takes place on Red Ottar’s ship, with its crew of well-drawn characters. Solveig becomes a friend of Red Ottar’s concubine Edith, an Englishwoman kidnapped by raiders and sold. There are simmering tensions between a couple of the men, and threats to Solveig from one of the wives, a devotee of the old Gods and a fan of human sacrifice. Questions are raised about honour and betrayal, the relative merits of Christianity and paganism, and that central issue of Viking philosophy, the right way to live your life.
And then there is the language. Crossley-Holland writes prose with a poet’s eye and love of words, painting a vivid picture of the world his characters move through, whether it’s the morning mist on the river or the smoke from a funeral pyre. “The acrid smoke dwindled. At last it thinned to no more than a silver stream. Heaven swallowed it. The air began to clear.” It almost sounds like a line from an Icelandic saga or a retelling of a Norse myth, which is no surprise from a writer so deeply imbued with the spirit of the north.
I was disappointed by one thing, though. The story does have a resolution, but it turns out there’s to be a sequel, so it will be a while before we find out what finally happens to Solveig. Still, I think it will be worth the wait.
It is 1036. Halfdan is a Viking mercenary who is determined to travel to Constantinople and become one of the Viking Guard serving Empress Zoe. He promises to take his daughter, but one morning Solveig wakes up to find him gone. Setting off in her own tiny boat, she is determined to make the journey from Norway to the breathtaking city. Her boat is washed up, but Solveig is undeterred. What awaits Solveig as she continues on her summer journey across the world?
She finds passage with Viking traders, witnesses the immolation of a young slave girl and learns to fight. She sees the clashes between those who praise her Norse Gods and the new Christians. In this perilous and exciting world, a young girl alone could be quickly endangered or made a slave. Will Solveig live to see her father again, and if she survives, will she remain free?
The Viking Sagas: Bracelet of Bones is a glittering novel that explores friendship and betrayal, the father-daughter relationship, the clash of religions and the journey from childhood to adulthood.
Not published until the end of the month, Kevin Crossley-Holland’s latest book is already causing quite a stir…
And we’ve just had a great review come in from the excellent Book Monkey blog:
Kevin Crossley-Holland is perhaps most well known for his King Arthur trilogy (beginning with The Seeing Stone) which won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize and has been published in twenty-five different countries. He has also translated Beowulf from the Anglo-Saxon and has retold many traditional tales such as Norse Myths, and British Folk Tales. It is obvious that Kevin Crossley-Holland has quite the passion for Viking tales and Norse mythology and so his latest trilogy – The Viking Sagas – comes as no surprise.
Bracelet of Bones is the first of The Viking Sagas and is due for publication on 31st March 2011 by Quercus and it is a brilliant introduction to the trilogy. The whole novel surrounds Solveig’s journey to find her father, who is compelled to keep a promise given long ago to a friend during a war. Solveig is a brilliant representation of what it means to be a Viking woman – she is strong-willed, strong-minded and very independent. However, she is also kind and warm – she always tries to see the good in those around her. It is incredible to see a young girl leave everything she knows to embark on a journey to the land of Miklagard which seems almost mythical to Solveig. The only things she knows of Miklagard are things she has heard from other travellers (more…)
Kevin Crossley-Holland is a poet, prize-winning children’s author and a teller of traditional tales. In this guest blog for Quercus, Kevin writes about meeting W.H. Auden, Norse cosmology and the lasting power of Norse myths…
Some people grow eager and bright-eyed; some screw up their faces. ‘The Norse myths,’ they say, ‘such a mouthful of teeth-cracking names.’
My first encounter with early north-west European literature was at Oxford – Anglo-Saxon was then part of the English course. First time round, I failed my exams, but then I was rescued by a swan. That’s another story!
After (mis-)spending much of my twenties translating Beowulf while my peers were listening to the Beatles and generally living it up, I met W. H. Auden. Crotchety apostle of the north, author with MacNeice of Letters from Iceland and translator of the eddaic poems from Old Norse. Turning his back on a little green room (at the Festival Hall) packed with the most astounding group of luminaries – Betjeman, Dionne Warwick, Gielgud, Frank Muir and Dame Edna! – the great man, dusty as ever with cigarette ash, strongly encouraged me to acquaint myself with the Norse myths, even to consider retelling them.
Never one to do things by halves, I threw over my job as editorial director of Victor Gollancz and made for Iceland. And there, I saw the astounding, frozen, fiery landscape that forms the backdrop to the myths.
‘Burning ice,’ I wrote, ‘biting flame; that is how life began.’
In stories by turns racy, ice-bright, ironic, downright funny and fearsome, the myths lay before us the nine worlds of Norse cosmology – a universe on three levels, like plates suspended one above the other, peopled by humans, gods, spirits, dark elves, giants, dwarfs, monsters and all manner of animals.
The axis of this universe is the world ash-tree Yggdrasill (another of those jaw-cracking names), which has one root embedded in each of the three levels: Asgard the world of the gods, Midgard the home of men, and Hel the realm of the dead.
Yggdrasill nourishes and sustains all creation, it suffers, it ensures continuity. Pregnant woman drink dew from its branches to ensure safe childbirth. The three goddesses of destiny sit beneath its branches and apportion human fates. And the greatest of the gods, Odin, hangs for nine nights on the tree, his side gashed with a spear (like Christ’s) as to win wisdom.
What we find in the myths are all our own hopes and passions and courage and ditherings and terrors and absurdities, embodied in their huge cast of characters and dilemmas. What happens when the giants steal the apples of youth? When magic triumphs over physical force? When the greatest threat to the gods are not the blunderbuss giants but one of their own number?
Many of the Norse myths were written down in Iceland by Snorri Sturluson in the early 13th century at a time when belief in the old gods was dying out. When I retold his brilliant versions, and published them in 1980, I hadn’t the least idea that this would become one of my longest-lived and successful books, now selling almost 10,000 copies each year.
You can put this down to the ever-increasing number of USA college courses studying traditional tale. But doesn’t it also have to do with the western world’s growing spiritual hunger, its growing interest in belief systems new and old?
Kevin Crossley-Holland
Kevin’s book on Norse Mythology The Penguin Book of Norse Myths is being re-issued by Penguin next year.
Norse Myth also features in his next children’s book The Viking Saga: Bracelet of Bones, which traces the epic journey of a young Viking heroine (out in April 2011).
For more information, please visit Kevin’s website.
