Viking Tales by Jennie Hall
My rating: 4 of 5 stars A Concise, Vigorous Children’s Introduction to Vikings (but listen to the LibriVox audiobook at your own peril) Jennie Hall’s Viking Tales (1902) is an interesting, compact children’s book that depicts a few famous Norse Vikings, their achievements, and the Viking ethos and culture. Hall’s short introduction “What the Sagas Were” vividly introduces Iceland, skalds, sagas, and the first books recording the “stories of kings and battles and ship-sailing” that she has selected from among to retell in her book. The stories she covers in Part One: In Norway recount Harald Shock Hair (AKA Harald Hair Fair) growing up and unifying Norway under his rule; those in Part Two: West-Overseas relate Ingolf and Leif’s chafing under that rule and founding a colony on Iceland, Eric the Red being outlawed and finding Greenland and founding a colony there, Leif Ericson’s discovery of Wineland (Vineland), and Thorfinn’s attempt to found a colony in Wineland. After the tales come a chapter of Descriptive Notes, including interesting information on Norse names, houses, feast halls, foster fathers and brothers, and a chapter of Suggestions for Teachers, including highlighting for young students how Vikings visited and or settled on a chain of islands going west to America and how they possessed three main values: courage through strange adventures, love of truth and hard endurance, and faithfulness to spoken words. The last part of the book is a list of source texts, most of which were published in the 19th century, like The Volsunga Saga (1870) translated by Eirikir Magnusson and William Morris. In her stories and notes, then, Hall entertainingly captures the Viking love of exploring and fighting (“the frolic”) and going a-Viking (when they can take other men’s goods and make them thralls), and provides many details on Norwegian weddings, funerals, gods, sacrifices, Valhalla, sailing, etc. One of my favorites are the “hell-shoes” placed on the feet of men who die in battle so they may comfortably and successfully tread the hard road to Valhalla. Here is a representative passage taken from the start of a tale told by the thrall Olaf to his master, Harald, when Harald was a young boy: "So we harried the coast of Norway. We ate at many men's tables uninvited. Many men we found overburdened with gold. Then I said: 'My dragon's belly is never full,' and on board went the gold. "Oh! it is better to live on the sea and let other men raise your crops and cook your meals. A house smells of smoke, a ship smells of frolic. From a house you see a sooty roof, from a ship you see Valhalla.” Notice the cheerful disregard for contemporary ethics or morals, the pride and pleasure in taking what belongs to other people, the enjoyment in “frolic.” (Olaf then recounts without the slightest regret how, when he tossed his spear in the air to see which direction it would point to when it landed, letting the gods decide which way he should go next, it pointed him right to the large fleet of Harald’s father, King Halfdan, who captured him, nearly executed him, and made him a thrall.) Notice also how well Hall captures the Viking voice. Harald names his banner “War Lover” and goes to battle saying, "I am eager for the frolic!" In his party celebrating being made an exiled outlaw, Eric the Red says, "There is no friend like mead. It always cheers a man's heart." And when about half his men decide to join him in his impending adventures he shouts, "O you bloody birds of battle! . . . Ever hungry for new frolic! Our swords are sisters in blood, and we are brothers in adventure." The Norsemen are also liable to break into song at intense moments, as when Eric’s son Leif travels from Greenland to Norway for the first time: My eyes can see her at last, The mother of mighty men, The field of famous fights. In the sky above I see Fair Asgard's shining roofs, The flying hair of Thor, The wings of Odin's birds, The road that heroes tread. I am here in the land of the gods, The land of mighty men." It’s a man-centered world: “But none may go to Valhalla except warriors that have died bravely in battle. Men who die from sickness go with women and children and cowards to Niflheim. There Hela, who is queen, always sneers at them, and a terrible cold takes hold of their bones, and they sit down and freeze.” That said, there is one promising female figure in the tales, Gyda, who is "fair and proud," a literate healer who sends the dime a dozen king Harald a “Saucy Message” saying she’ll only marry a man able to unify all of Norway under one rule. This is a book for kids, Hall leaving out sex (there is no mention of rapine, of course, and although babies do appear a couple times, they come rather magically as if without natural human agency). But as the above excerpts reveal, she doesn’t sugar coat the violence or Viking ethos, expressing both their courageous thirst for adventure and their callous lack of regard for their victims. Kids and adults should like this book, but if you are an adult interested in Vikings, I’d really recommend The Long Ships (1941/45) by Frans G. Bengtsson. Viking Tales is available for free on LibriVox, but the 18 chapters are read by 11 different people, mostly American men and women and an Australian, with different levels of sound quality and voice/manner appeal. It is jarring to hear a new reader start almost every new chapter. The best reader (whom I wished had read the whole thing) is Lars Rolander, who reads with perfect pace and clarity and a wonderfully appropriate Scandinavian accent. It was so painful listening to the worst reader, who luckily only reads the Descriptive Notes and Suggestions for Teachers after the stories, that when Rolander briefly returned to read the list of texts, his voice was manna for my ears and soul. View all my reviews
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