Uncategorized

Stamford Bridge

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The lone Viking at the bridge, by the great Angus McBride

More Viking stuff tonight.

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Stamford Bridge, traditionally (though somewhat arbitrarily) reckoned as the end of the Viking Age. It happened near a village not far from York, in the year 1066. King Harald Hardrada of Norway, who was getting on in years, had made a pact with Toste, the estranged brother of King Harald Godwinsson of England, to conquer the country. Harald believed he had a technical right to the throne as legal heir to his nephew, who’d had a slim claim.

According to the saga, Harald brought a fleet of 300 ships from Norway. On September 20 they defeated an English army at Fulford, and then accepted the submission of Northumberland. They were on their way to receive hostages on the 25th when they were suddenly attacked by the army of King Harold Godwinsson, who had made a forced march from the south.

The English must have been exhausted, while the Norwegians would have been relatively fresh. However, the Norse were not prepared for battle and many had left their mail shirts behind, because the day was warm and they expected no trouble. The battle, by all accounts, was nevertheless a hard-fought one.

An interesting detail is a story found in English sources (but not, surprisingly, in Norwegian ones as far as I know) about a warrior who defended the bridge with an axe all alone for an extended period of time, giving the Norwegians time to form up their ranks. He was killed at last by a spear thrust from below.

According to the saga, the Norwegians might have won if King Harald Hardrada had not taken an arrow in the throat, finishing on English soil a military career that had stretched from Norway to Russia to the deserts of the Middle East. But that’s how saga writers tell stories – I wouldn’t be surprised if the truth was more complicated. In any case, it’s undisputable that Harald was killed there.

One final item, often overlooked, might be of interest to our readers. There was a final (third) stage of the battle, after Harald’s death, remembered in Norway as Orri’s Storm. A young man named Eystein Orri, who was betrothed to the king’s daughter, had been left at Riccall to guard the ships. When he learned of the army’s peril, he and his force set off at a dead run to join the battle. There was really little they could do for the cause except die with their king, and that’s what they did. According to the saga, they were wearing their mail. But the weight and the heat exhausted them so that they were nearly played out when they got to the battlefield. But then (if you can believe the saga), they went into such a berserk frenzy that they threw off their mail shirts and fought unarmored. This made them easy targets (some, according to the saga, died from sheer exhaustion).

Eystein Orri was Erling Skjalgsson’s grandson, through his daughter Ragnhild.

According to the sagas, of the 300 ships that sailed to England with Harald, only 24 returned home. The English said that whitening bones could still be seen on the battle ground 50 years later.

Authors

Snorri on my mind

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An old friend of mine, Brad Day, mentioned on Facebook that today (actually yesterday) was the anniversary of the death of an author I’ve talked about a lot on this blog – Snorri Sturlusson (your spelling may vary), author of Heimskringla, the Prose Edda, and (very likely) the Saga of Egil Skallagrimsson).

Snorri is an author I identify with, not because of his genius, but because he wrote better than he lived. Born to a powerful Icelandic family and well-educated in the home of a learned relation, he grew up to cherish both literary and political ambitions. These sometimes overlapped. His great historical saga, Heimskringla, was clearly composed to gain favor with the Norwegian king. His Prose Edda was an effort to present the myths of the old religion in a way acceptable to the Church, so that the tradition of Norse poetry might carry on.

He sailed to Norway twice, and got to see a lot of the country. That familiarity comes out in Heimskringla. Lacking the gift of prophecy, he made a bad tactical mistake, attaching himself to the powerful Duke Skuli, uncle of the king, Haakon IV Haakonsson. This would prove fatal, as Skuli and Haakon fell out, and Haakon won the war. Snorri’s second visit to Norway turned out badly, and he actually offended the king. This led eventually to his murder at the hands of his enemies, one of whom was his son-in-law. It is thought that the killers were acting on Haakon’s orders.

Snorri did not die like a saga hero. We are told he was speared to death while cowering in his cellar, crying “Don’t strike!”

It is believed that Snorri also connived in Iceland’s loss of independence to Norway.

But he was a literary genius. Every Viking and mythology buff owes Snorri a tremendous debt. Tolkien’s work would have been vastly different without Snorri – perhaps it might not have been written at all.

Fiction

10 Mystery Authors You Should Read

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Crime novelist Martin Edwards recommends ten Golden Age mystery authors he believes should be more widely known than they are. Henry Wade, Elisabeth Sanxay Holding, and C. Daly King are his top three.

Our top three begins with another American, a psychiatrist whose extraordinarily convoluted puzzles are at times maddening, but occasionally breathtaking. The Curious Mr Tarrant is a famous collection of short stories, but his three ‘obelist’ novels, each with an elaborate ‘cluefinder’ at the end, highlighting the clues in the text, fascinate me most. Obelists Fly High is a book I’ve always enjoyed—so much so that I pay tribute to it in a couple of different ways in my own latest novel, Mortmain Hall, a novel which revives the concept of the ‘cluefinder’.

Non-fiction, Religion

By Dreaming Big, Do You Mean Satifaction?

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I’m in the middle of Carl Trueman’s 2010 book, Republocrat: Confessions of a Liberal Conservative, which sounds like a more political book than it has been so far. His chapter on the secularization of the church suggests secular British society is similar to religious American society with mainly different comfort levels with religious words.

[David Wells] argues that many churches are as secular in their ambitions and methods as any straightforwardly secular organization. The difference, we might say, is the the latter are just a whole lot more honest about what they are doing.

This reminds me of the way some ministry leaders talk of doing big things for God, maybe pulling down a miracle or dreaming a dream only God can fulfill. I don’t want to judge the motives of people I barely know, but I’m skeptical of how much glory God receives from the city’s largest and brightest Christmas display or filling a stadium for what amounts to a religiously themed civics event.

Is it really a big dream for God’s glory when the results hit all the marks for secular success?

Photo by Vita Vilcina on Unsplash

Fiction, Reading, Reviews

Reading report: ‘The Fellowship of the Ring,’ by J.R.R. Tolkien: A veteran’s story

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‘Yes sir!’ said Sam. ‘Begging your pardon, sir! But I meant no wrong to you, Mr. Frodo, nor to Mr. Gandalf for that matter. He has some sense, mind you; and when you said go alone, he said no! take someone as you can trust.’

‘But it does not seem that I can trust anyone,’ said Frodo.

Sam looked at him unhappily. ‘It all depends on what you want’ put in Merry. ‘You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin – to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours – closer than you keep it yourself. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo. Anyway: there it is. We know most of what Gandalf has told you. We know a good deal about the Ring. We are horribly afraid – but we are coming with you; or following you like hounds.’

No major revelations from my reading of The Fellowship of the Ring tonight. Just a thought on a subject I’ve touched on before – The Lord of the Rings as veteran’s literature.

What struck me in the scene above – which takes place at Frodo’s new house in Crickhollow, before the adventure even properly begins – is how different the tone is from what we see of the hobbits in the films. Merry and Pippin are pure comic relief in the movies – up till the moments when they’re forced to grow up.

And there’s certainly an element of that in the books too. But in this scene we see them in a different light. Here they are Frodo’s comrades – his buddies in the military sense. They’re freemen and equals, under no illusions, and loyal to their officer. There’s a time for games and laughter, but when it comes to the point, we all know what we’re here for, and we’re in to the end. Whatever the cost.

If we were privileged to have access to Tolkien’s memories, I think we’d find that this scene echoes some moment (or moments) in his wartime career. He’s memorializing men he served with – most of whom would probably have never come home. Jack Lewis would have recognized it right off.

Fiction, Reading, Reviews

Reading report: ‘The Fellowship of the Ring,’ by J.R.R. Tolkien: Bombadil and Goldberry

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There on the hill-brow she stood beckoning to them: her hair was flying loose, and as it caught the sun it shone and shimmered. A light like the glint of water on dewy grass flashed from under her feet as she danced.

Blogging through the Lord of the Rings, still on The Fellowship of the Ring:

What are we to make of Tom Bombadil? He’s a riddle inside an enigma inside a mathom, which is probably just what the author intended. The narrative of the epic can endure without him, as the movies demonstrated. But every reader knows he belongs, somehow, in Tolkien’s world. Every reader will think of Tom in his own way. I’ve stated my view before on this blog, but I’ll repeat it here:

Tom seems to me to be a representation of Adam, or at least of unfallen Man. Adam tended the Garden, and he named the animals; whatever he called the beasts, that was their name. Tom Bombadil controls all nature within his domains, and when he names the hobbits’ ponies, those are the names they answer to ever after. Tom says of himself:

“Eldest, that’s what I am. Mark my words, my friends: Tom was here before the river and the trees; Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn.”

Remember how important “subcreation” was in Tolkien’s artistic/religious vision. Man in fellowship with God becomes a kind of little god – he can’t create ex nihilo as God does, but he creates in a smaller way that brings glory to his Master. In the same way, I think, unfallen Tom Bombadil glorifies his Creator by ruling the Garden that’s been set under his stewardship.

Tom Bombadil, incidentally, began as a toy, a Dutch doll owned by Tolkien’s daughter Priscilla. She lost it down a sewer, and was distraught. Her father comforted her with tales of how Tom floated along the river and had numerous adventures, overcoming all kinds of dangers through his magical powers. Eventually he even overcomes the powerful River-woman, and marries her daughter, Goldberry (herself a rather sinister figure until Tom tames her).

Which brings us to Goldberry. Goldberry has a very special place in this reader’s heart.

The year must have been 1973; I was in college, and my roommate was an even bigger Tolkien geek than I was. We agreed that I would read the Hobbit and the Trilogy to him, one chapter a night (I love to read aloud). And we did that – straight through. It took a while.

During that same period I went out on my first date, with a girl who was very Goldberry-esque. I fell hard for that girl, and have never quite gotten over her. She’s a grandmother today, and lives far away, but to me she’ll be forever young and slender and graceful.

Whenever Tolkien tells us of a woman dancing, and how her feet tinkle on the grass (as in the case of Luthien), I’m pretty sure he’s harkening back to Edith Bratt and how she danced for him in the woods the day he fell in love with her. For my own part, I always look forward to seeing Goldberry again.

Fiction, Reading

Reading Report: ‘The Fellowship of the Ring,’ by J.R.R. Tolkien

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He thought he had come to the end of his adventure, and a terrible end, but the thought hardened him. He found himself stiffening, as if for a final spring; he no longer felt limp like a helpless prey.

This quotation, concerning Frodo Baggins in the Barrow Downs, from The Fellowship of the Ring, seems to me a good epitome of what I’ve found in my current reading of the Lord of the Rings

Actually, the thought was mainly inspired (to my shame, I suppose) by watching the movies twice through recently. I’ve found them inspirational as I wrestle with my Work in Progress. It’s a remarkable thing, as I see it, that in spite of the movie industry’s well-earned notoriety for messing with original sources, the Peter Jackson movies managed – overall – to preserve the heart of the story. Even though most of the people involved must surely have been a thousand miles away from Tolkien’s beliefs.

Anyway, what struck me as I watched and read was this. It hardly needs saying that we’re in perilous times. I never thought I’d live to see a day when I worried about the breakdown of civil society and the loss of our republic, but such things don’t seem unthinkable now.

I’m not a man known for confidence and courage. I reserve heroism for my books. I know heroism when I see it, and I salute it from a safe distance. I’m pretty sure that if the day comes when I must raise my sword in defense of my rights, I’ll probably trip over the scabbard.

But it occurred to me that maybe this isn’t the end. That’s the thing about stories.

In every good story, there comes a moment when the main character thinks the tale is told – and that he’s lost. A moment when his strongest instinct is to lay his weapon down and surrender.

But that’s not really the end, in a good story. It’s only the Final Crisis. It’s the hero’s test. The climax is yet to come – and at the climax, the hero either triumphs or fails in a way that means something.

So this is my message. Not the message of a prophet, or the son of a prophet, but of a storyteller.

This isn’t the end. It’s the crisis. Hold on. Carry on doing your service, at the station where God has set you. As Sam Gamgee said:

“It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.”

Fiction, Reviews, Writing

‘Beren and Luthien,’ by J. R. R. Tolkien

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Tevildo however, himself a great and skilled liar, was so deeply versed in the lies and subtleties of all the beasts and creatures that he seldom knew whether to believe what was said to him or not, and was wont to disbelieve all things save those he wished to believe true, and so was he often deceived by the most honest.

I’ve long cherished a great fondness for Tolkien’s tale of Beren and Luthien, which impressed me long ago when I read the Silmarillion. And of course, it’s referenced often in The Lord of the Rings. So before I moved on from The Hobbit to the Trilogy, I thought I’d read the (fairly) recent book devoted to that story.

It wasn’t entirely what I expected. It’s sort of a scholarly exercise. In it, the late Christopher Tolkien, the author’s son and literary executor, traces the development of the story through various stages in the collected manuscripts, where it is altered in numerous ways. There are surprises. For instance, an early version of the story has as one of its major villains a great cat called Tevildo (see quotation above), who lives in a castle and serves the evil Melkor. In later versions, Tevildo would be replaced by a great magician who would in time become the Sauron of the Trilogy.

I think we may deduce that Prof. Tolkien was not very fond of cats.

Those who find Tolkien’s work lacking in female heroes need to read Beren and Luthien. Although Beren is a doughty hero, he also seems to be headstrong to point of stupidity. And the two great crises in the story both involve Luthien rescuing him.

I was, frankly, looking for something more like a straight narrative when I bought this book. I’m not enough of a Tolkien scholar to linger happily forever over details of composition and myth-building.

On the other hand, I’d never encountered the words “inexaggerable” and “quook” (past tense of quake) before, so the reading was not without surprises.

The tale of Beren and Luthien was a central matter in Tolkien’s life’s work. If I understand the story correctly, it went back to his attempt to immortalize the day when Edith Bratt danced for him in the woods and he fell in love forever. In a sense, he built all Middle Earth as a kind of ornate setting for the jewel of that memory.

Beren and Luthien is recommended for those who can never get enough Tolkien. If you’re looking for a less strenuous approach to the story, you might just read The Silmarillion.

Oh yes, it has Alan Lee illustrations, so it’s got that going for it.

Blogs, Socials

Viral Photos of Bookcases

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Jeff Reimer writes about how it felt to have a tweet of photos of his father’s handmade bookcases go viral for half a week. His follower count is relatively through the roof.

I hovered over my computer screen counting the clicks from people otherwise unknown to me who pined to luxuriate in the very room I was sitting in. I observed in a follow-up tweet (currently at twenty-four likes) that Walker Percy could have made a lot of hay with this scenario. Even the person who luxuriates in the beautiful room with beautiful bookcases (i.e., me) will be aware of their luxuriating in it, and will take as much pleasure from the idea of luxuriating as they will from luxuriating itself. In order to reassure themselves of their own luxury, that same person (again, me) feels the need to further certify the space by photographing it and publishing it online so that it (or rather he, or rather I) becomes a real, actual thing in the world. Every like is a certification that I exist.

“Going Viral,” Comment Magazine, September 14, 2020

He quickly knew it was trivial, yet still compelling. How much of this draw of public reaction shapes our news, even our churches?

Uncategorized, Writing

Stacked

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Another day, another failure to finish a book to review. So you’re condemned to a personal update. Unless you choose to just surf on. Which might be the way of wisdom.

Today was another example of what I call “temporal stacking.” (Did I invent that term? Or did I borrow it in a moment of absentmindedness, which is what most of my moments are these days?) Today is one of those earmarked for specified chores – on Thursdays I pay my bills. And I take the garbage out.

But I also had to go to the doctor today. (Warning: old fart’s repulsive health talk ahead.) I noticed a spot on my nose that I thought my dermatologist (never thought I’d have a personal dermatologist, but all the cool kids are getting them nowadays) should look at. He, of course, was not available at the office that’s located a mere fifteen minutes away. He was at the office that’s a half hour away. So I drove out to Excelsior (we have a town called Excelsior. So there) and showed it to him. He said no, it was nothing. However, that other spot on my cheek over there looked sketchy. I then received the Deadly Touch of the Frost Giant, and was sent home clothed and in my right mind.

All this was capped (and pleasantly so) by a new batch of paying translation work. It won’t pay my mortgage off, but it’s work and I’m grateful. I’ve put in 2.5 hours on it so far; more is to come.

Meanwhile, I’ve been making slow progress on the new Erling novel. The work is like punching my way through a room full of oatmeal – I can move ahead, but it’s an effort. I’m on the cusp of what ought to be a pretty nifty supernatural scene, but it will probably have to wait for realization.