I'll give that up, now I'm retiring. Drop by any time. I've got to go. The silence will end when I do. One more magick, then I'll get to the business of renouncing my vows."
The wizard was so excited he flubbed his incantation three times. The fourth, while Bragi watched, saw woman, sorcerer, cart, and two donkeys vanishing in a fearsome cloud of smoke.
Shrugging the affair off as profitable and amusing, but of no great import, Bragi returned to Itaskia. He stopped by the Red Hart Inn for a stoop with old friends.
But the story did not end so easily. Bragi found himself outlawed for his part in the affair. Off he went, on an adventure into Freyland where he planned to liberate a fortune said to be lying in the heart of a certain mountain. The treasure he found—and the dragon guarding it. The worm won the ensuing battle handily.
The singed northman, outlawed all along the western coast, decided to impose upon Aristithorn's hospitality. The wizard welcomed him warmly, immediately took him to see his children. Yselda had recently given birth to a pair of sturdy little blond, blue-eyed sons.
Innocently, Bragi asked, "How old are they?"
"Two months," Yselda replied. Confirmation of his suspicions was in her face.
Aristithorn said something about it being time to feed the vampires in the basement. He shuffled off. Bragi and Yselda went for a walk in the garden.
"Is he the man he claimed?" the northman asked.
"Indeed! A one-man army on that battlefield. There's a problem, though. He abstained so long he can't father children. He doesn't know, I'm sure." A strange light twinkled in the Princess's eyes as she added, "It's a pity. He wants more children. So do I, but I just don't know how we'll manage . . . ."
"If I can be of any help . . . ."
Deep in the dungeons, Aristithorn hummed to himself as he tossed wriggling mice to his vampire bats while watching a garden scene in a magical mirror . . . .
He'd lied when he said he was retiring.
Celibacy has nothing to do with his kind of magic.
He'd known of his sterility.
Trust a wizard no more than a King. They're all chess players.
Finding Svale's Daughter
After completing two vast, never published, lethally influenced by Tolkien, Eddison, and the Victorian fantasists, inscribed in a nineteenth-century writing style trilogies, I became intrigued by the simple storytelling of folk tales. I was especially fond of the folklore of Norway. That became a powerful influence in the creation of both Bragi Ragnarson and his native Trolledyngja. The first few centuries after Norway's at-point-of-sword conversion to Christianity gave rise to many interesting tales as the Old Gods receded—much more slowly in the mountains and remote provinces, naturally. The Old Ones lived on as lesser, wicked supernatural beings. The Oskorei is sometimes identified with the Aesir. A character type identifiable as Thor can be found in tales as late as the first half of the twentieth-century—though the Thunderer has been demoted all the way to drunken troll.
This story, appearing for the first time, and "Silverheels" later, fit equally well into the Trolledyngja of the Dread Empire world or that of twelth-century Norway.
From small bricks like this, never-to-see-the-light novels like The King of Thunder Mountain and two others would arise—and in their turn provide the soil from which A Shadow of All Night Falling sprang. Nepanthe and the Storm Kings, Varthlokkur and others, had a long, quiet history ere ever they stepped onto the public stage.
Tröndelag was wild country inhabited mainly by trolls and huldre -folk. Hifjell Mountain frowned down on Alstahaug village like a brooding giant. On Hifjell's skirts Dark Wood began, a dense pine forest where wolves prowled and the Hidden People spent summer nights in dances to the wicked Old Gods. Few Alstahaugers were brave enough to climb the mountain. Especially not Svale Skar, the village chieftain.
There was one old man,
The wizard was so excited he flubbed his incantation three times. The fourth, while Bragi watched, saw woman, sorcerer, cart, and two donkeys vanishing in a fearsome cloud of smoke.
Shrugging the affair off as profitable and amusing, but of no great import, Bragi returned to Itaskia. He stopped by the Red Hart Inn for a stoop with old friends.
But the story did not end so easily. Bragi found himself outlawed for his part in the affair. Off he went, on an adventure into Freyland where he planned to liberate a fortune said to be lying in the heart of a certain mountain. The treasure he found—and the dragon guarding it. The worm won the ensuing battle handily.
The singed northman, outlawed all along the western coast, decided to impose upon Aristithorn's hospitality. The wizard welcomed him warmly, immediately took him to see his children. Yselda had recently given birth to a pair of sturdy little blond, blue-eyed sons.
Innocently, Bragi asked, "How old are they?"
"Two months," Yselda replied. Confirmation of his suspicions was in her face.
Aristithorn said something about it being time to feed the vampires in the basement. He shuffled off. Bragi and Yselda went for a walk in the garden.
"Is he the man he claimed?" the northman asked.
"Indeed! A one-man army on that battlefield. There's a problem, though. He abstained so long he can't father children. He doesn't know, I'm sure." A strange light twinkled in the Princess's eyes as she added, "It's a pity. He wants more children. So do I, but I just don't know how we'll manage . . . ."
"If I can be of any help . . . ."
Deep in the dungeons, Aristithorn hummed to himself as he tossed wriggling mice to his vampire bats while watching a garden scene in a magical mirror . . . .
He'd lied when he said he was retiring.
Celibacy has nothing to do with his kind of magic.
He'd known of his sterility.
Trust a wizard no more than a King. They're all chess players.
Finding Svale's Daughter
After completing two vast, never published, lethally influenced by Tolkien, Eddison, and the Victorian fantasists, inscribed in a nineteenth-century writing style trilogies, I became intrigued by the simple storytelling of folk tales. I was especially fond of the folklore of Norway. That became a powerful influence in the creation of both Bragi Ragnarson and his native Trolledyngja. The first few centuries after Norway's at-point-of-sword conversion to Christianity gave rise to many interesting tales as the Old Gods receded—much more slowly in the mountains and remote provinces, naturally. The Old Ones lived on as lesser, wicked supernatural beings. The Oskorei is sometimes identified with the Aesir. A character type identifiable as Thor can be found in tales as late as the first half of the twentieth-century—though the Thunderer has been demoted all the way to drunken troll.
This story, appearing for the first time, and "Silverheels" later, fit equally well into the Trolledyngja of the Dread Empire world or that of twelth-century Norway.
From small bricks like this, never-to-see-the-light novels like The King of Thunder Mountain and two others would arise—and in their turn provide the soil from which A Shadow of All Night Falling sprang. Nepanthe and the Storm Kings, Varthlokkur and others, had a long, quiet history ere ever they stepped onto the public stage.
Tröndelag was wild country inhabited mainly by trolls and huldre -folk. Hifjell Mountain frowned down on Alstahaug village like a brooding giant. On Hifjell's skirts Dark Wood began, a dense pine forest where wolves prowled and the Hidden People spent summer nights in dances to the wicked Old Gods. Few Alstahaugers were brave enough to climb the mountain. Especially not Svale Skar, the village chieftain.
There was one old man,
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