In Historical Fantasy, When Does History End and Fantasy Begin?

In its revealed format, The Hanged God trilogy is unapologetically epic fantasy, that includes Vikings, gods, giants, hearth demons, and magical runes, however the story didn’t start that approach. At the start, I believed that I used to be setting out on an epic quest to jot down historic fiction, with an emphasis on the historic.

I wished the story to be as correct to the time interval as potential. Ironically, it was exactly this want that ultimately prompted the entire sequence to pivot into the realm of fantasy. A improvement I couldn’t have predicted as I ready to jot down the story, scouring by means of authorized paperwork from Iron Age Scandinavia to find how the Vikings really lived.

I researched the Viking Age for months. With my nostril buried in analysis papers, I toured museums, attended Viking festivals and even ended up becoming a member of the great crew of the reconstructed Viking warship, the Sea Stallion. I discovered not simply what the Vikings did, however how they did it. I knew what meals they loved, how they constructed their ships, dyed their garments, how they lived everyday, and what took their fancies. As I discovered extra about Viking Age individuals, I even started to grasp why they raided.

This final “why, oh why” is our major focal point.

There are many arguments that historians use to elucidate why historic Scandinavians began to go on raids. One instance is that Viking Age Scandinavia had a rising inhabitants that the land may now not assist. Folk wanted to go looking elsewhere for alternatives, in order that they took to the ocean and fought to earn a proper of settlement overseas. Others argue that the promise of riches should have lured many out to sea.

These are each nice arguments to elucidate why they—the Vikings—collectively acted as they did. However, what me greater than their collective alternative, was the selection of the people. Why would a singular younger Viking Age Scandinavian determine not simply to go away the shores of dwelling to commerce overseas and to see the world, however particularly to choose up a spear, be part of a crew, and have interaction in fight, risking their very own life?

Many should have left for his or her first raid and by no means returned, but it was a culture-wide motion. So many extra continued to attempt their luck in battles overseas. Were they simply violent individuals on the core? I questioned and contemplated this as I turned the web page of my newly acquired translations of Old Norse myths. As I stared blankly on the historic textual content, the important thing of eureka turned in my thoughts and Pandora’s field opened earlier than my very eyes. For right here was the justification, mendacity on the desk earlier than me. The myths. The gods. They had been the reply.

If the core perception of an everyday Viking Age farmer was that to be able to get to go to the actually cool afterlife the place they’d get to feast with their mates all night time, each night time, they completely must die in battle, then that may be a good incentive to sail out and discover (or begin) some battles. I may think about massive bands of pals becoming a member of the raids collectively, as a result of that they had determined that there was no approach that dying was going to be what divided them.

Whether the mythology got here first and pushed the Norse individuals out at sea to seek for battles, or whether or not it got here afterwards, as they returned from conflict, to assist justify their actions, we’d by no means know. Either approach, the Viking lifestyle, the life as a Nordic raider, is intrinsically related to the Norse perception system.

Christian rulers in neighboring lands who suffered the fixed assaults of raiding Vikings understood this properly. Attempts to transform the Norse attackers had been underway for hundreds of years. Some makes an attempt had been extra violent than others. Eventually the tactic did succeed, though it took centuries to persuade the fierce raiders that White Christ might be cool. Soon after Scandinavia formally transformed to Christianity (quickly in historic phrases), raids fizzled out and the Viking Age got here to an official shut. Without the core perception system, the observe of raiding died out, as an alternative of adapting to the brand new challenges warriors met overseas.

Of course there may be all the time a couple of cause why issues occur as they do, however once I checked out Vikings after this, I may so clearly see what number of of their actions had been deeply rooted of their myths and their perception in magic. Yet, even the discovered Christian inhabitants had a perception in what we in the present day name magic. Saxo Grammaticus, who wrote the primary historical past of Denmark within the twelfth century, wrote that Odin was not a god, merely a wizard and that one should perceive earlier than studying his historic account that giants did certainly exist in historic Denmark. Saxo argued that the presence of giants was clearly evidenced by the stones which had been erected 1000’s of years earlier to make passage graves all through the lands.

When even Christian scholar centuries later believed so ardently in magic, how may I ignore it? I took to re-reading the Norse tales with recent perception. In the myths I discovered causes for every thing.

A cause they didn’t really feel regret at killing, a cause to exit and seek for battles. Even a cause to worth one sort of dying over one other. There was magic within the tales, and once I walked across the forests of Denmark afterwards, and visited outdated passage graves constructed 5 thousand years in the past, the panorama appeared to wake with magic. The roots of the Norse legends had been interconnected with the panorama and with their actions in such a approach that I couldn’t separate one from the opposite. I realised that I couldn’t write in regards to the Vikings with out writing about their perception techniques.

I did attempt. Yet, it felt disrespectful to not take their perception system significantly. It felt like I used to be calling my characters silly for believing in a number of gods, and particularly for believing in Thor who has gained a little bit of a unique picture in modern-day media.

By dancing across the query of their beliefs in gods and magic and never totally embracing it, I used to be making my characters really feel like that they had no convictions in any respect and no cause for performing as they did both. I wanted extra of their beliefs to characteristic within the story to justify their actions.

That is how I first added a little bit of magic. It began as small mysterious occurrences. A perception that the gods had been watching. Two ravens cawing in a tree had been known as Hugin and Munin, the 2 trusted ravens belonging to the god Odin. Omens and small indicators.

Gradually I expanded upon among the magic I had examine within the sagas, as a result of it felt prefer it belonged. Runic magic, which may put energy into an object and that shortly advanced. Soon the wind was whispering in Runes and one other character had Forefathers caught inside their thoughts, after which, it lastly occurred… a god made a bodily look on the web page.

At that time, I may now not fake that I used to be writing historic fiction. I used to be like a Norse warrior who had died in mattress, arriving in entrance of Helheim’s gates—I had no alternative however to just accept my destiny.

So, I leaned into the magic and fantasy. I referenced myths, some overtly and a few in additional obscure methods, and I welcomed the gods into the narrative. The greatest irony of all is that it was solely once I let the magic take over my story and combined the myths into the historic analysis that the story really felt actual and convincing.

Only once I included the true beliefs of individuals within the Viking Age, did their actions make sense. Only then did the story lastly really feel precisely as I wished it to really feel—correct.

The Hanged God trilogy is accessible now from Solaris publishing.

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