Werewolves

by Marie-Louise Jensen


I had a new book out in late July. Which was weird because I didn't see it until mid August because I was in Europe when it appeared.
I arrived at a friend's house in Germany and she (being a wonderful friend) had ordered a copy. That was my first glimpse of the print edition. Cue squeaks of excitement.

The book is a short novel for younger readers and was originally written as an interactive e-book for 10-11 year olds in schools.
Educational publishing - that strange animal, where not offending religious schools takes precedence over what people believed in the past.

Because let's not beat about the bush; the Norse believed in shape-shifting. In the saga of Egil Skallagrimson (not a tale for the faint hearted and certainly not for children) we are told in quite a matter of fact way that Egil's grandfather was known to be a shape-shifter. He was even called Kveld-Ulf (Evening Wolf.) Egil himself has beserker tendencies and behaves a lot more like a werewolf than a man a lot of the time, splitting enemies heads open with axes and other charming incidents.

The Christanisation of Iceland happened peacefully shortly after his death and his son had his body exhumed and reburied near the chapel that was built on his land. I can't believe he'd have been happy with that. He was a true pagan. Forgiveness and meekness were totally alien to him.

By all accounts, the official acceptance of Christianity in Iceland was a formality. The country was threatened with conversion by force from Norway if the population didn't accept the new god. Sensibly, they accepted him and privately continued with their worship of the Norse gods for many years. To this day, the majority of Icelanders confess to believing in 'The Hidden Folk,' - elves.

But my 'werewolf' wasn't allowed to be real. Which was fine. It made for a perfectly good mystery story anyway. But the people of Viking-age Iceland would have had no trouble believing in werewolves. I should think they'd have been more astonished if you said such things didn't exist. Even after the arrival of Christianity. Werewolves, trolls, elves, ghosts and other supernatural beings were an indisputable part of the rich and brutal fabric of their world.

Vik and The Night Raider

by Marie-Louise Jensen

One of the first questions I tend to ask myself, once a story has formed in my mind, is where is it set? I need to be able to see it. I've mentioned this in connection with Runaway in my last post, but it's true of everything I write. Sometimes it's a wonderful excuse to revisit a place I love.
When I wrote The Night Raider for the Fiction Express website last year, I wanted to choose a different location in Iceland to my two teen novels. There, I fictionalised the settlement of Husavik on the north coast. For this story for younger readers, I chose another place in Iceland that made a big impression on me.
I don't know whether it was the incredible weather we had the first time I visited Vik on the south coast, the sky cloudless and the deepest blue I've ever seen, or whether it was the incredible black volcanic-shingle beach:

"Reynisfjara, Suðurland, Islandia, 2014-08-17, DD 163" by Diego Delso. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reynisfjara,_Su%C3%B0urland,_Islandia,_2014-08-
17,_DD_163.JPG#/media/File:Reynisfjara,_Su%C3%B0urland,_Islandia,_2014-08-17,_DD_163.JPG

This is a beautiful picture, but it doesn't fully depict how black the shingle is to stand on, and no picture can communicate the sound of the beach - the roar and rattle of the stones as the wild North Atlantic ocean surges against it. 

Another thing I loved about Vik, was that it was the first place I saw puffins flying from the cliffs. I saw plenty later, but this was my first sighting of the funny, charming, awkward fliers:

"Puffin002" by T.Müller - Own work. Licensed under CC BY 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Puffin002.jpg#/media/File:Puffin002.jpg

A third thing I loved about Vik was the campsite was right below bird cliffs, so the second time I visited, and camped, we had kitiwakes and other gulls nesting right around us. Of course Vik also lies close to one of Iceland's big volcanoes, Katla. It is due an eruption soon  and the town is on permanent alert. 
The Vikings settlers in my story don't know about the volcano; it's lurking beneath the glaciers. They are more concerned with a mysterious thief who is stealing livestock in the night...


The Night Raider is print-publishing at the end of June and is suitable for ages 9-11. 
Follow me on twitter: @jensen_ml

Democracy, Law Enforcement and Honour

by Marie-Louise Jensen

I'm currently writing a new Viking e-book for Fiction Express and it has set me thinking again about just how unusual a country Iceland was and is.
When Iceland was claimed and settled by the Scandinavians in 800-900, it became Europe's first republic (or commonwealth) and first democracy. Without a feudal system of Kings, lords and land ownership, this new land forged its own way. All the settlers came from monarchies, but this model wasn't how they chose to shape or build their new country.
Land was claimed by the settlers as they arrived (apparently according to how many bonfires you could light within view of each other in a day if you were a man or how much land you could lead a goat around in a day if you were a woman, but I'm sure it was also a matter of what you could grab!) As the land became settled, a number of regional councils were set up which met in spring to agree laws and settle disputes. And ultimately a national council was set up at Thingvellir, (council valley) in the rift valley outside Reykyavik. These type of councils had already existed elsewhere in Scandinavia but there they were ultimately subject to the king. Men (yes, I'm afraid it was almost all men, though women in Scandinavia were far from powerless) met inside a circle into which they could bring no weapons and there they talked.

 

This annual meeting - the largest in the Icelandic calendar - was held with all the side shows such a gathering would naturally attract: booths, food, trade, horseracing and so on. A lawmaker was appointed to serve for a number of years and he would recite the laws of the land as agreed by the council. Disputes were settled, and important decisions taken, such as the occasion on which Iceland faced the ultimatum from Norway: convert to Christianity or be invaded from Norway. The Icelanders democratically appointed a man to take the decision, and he opted for a peaceful conversion.

This sounds idyllic and in many ways it was. It worked. The problem was that there was no independent law enforcement to ensure the sentences passed at the Thing were carried out. If a sentence such as outlawry was passed on an individual (typical for the crime of killing a man), it was up to the guilty party to abide by it. If he did not, he could lawfully be killed by anyone.
Some people openly flouted the law and stayed on their farms or didn't pay their fines. Then a posse of vigilantes (often the families

who had been injured in the first place) would get together and kill him.
The real problem here came with the Icelandic notions of honour. If someone in your family has been killed, your honour is in question until you have avenged him. This didn't theoretically apply to lawful killings, but in practice often did. And then his family would be honour bound to take revenge in their turn.
From this stemmed many blood feuds that over generations wiped out whole familes. Many of the Icelandic sagas centre around feuds and their resolutions. Gradually, a few powerful familes gathered most of the country's wealth and influence into their hands; never a healthy situation.
Tragically, violence and killing reached such a pitch by the  thirteenth century, that the Icelanders decided to call the Norwegian crown to restore peace. This was their undoing and led to a long period of colonial oppression, poverty and starvation, even worse than the initial problem. The darkest period of Iceland history was when Norway and Iceland came under the Danish crown and were treated with heartlessness and cruelty.
Iceland didn't become a democratic, monarch-free state again until Denmark was occupied by Germany during World War Two. They then seized their opportunity and who can blame them?
Thus from its earliest history, Iceland led the way for democracy. I find it fascinating to note that recently they have led the way again, by refusing to be crushed for several generations by the unscrupulous business practices of a few Icelandic bankers. Instead of agreeing to accept their debt as a nation, they rejected the notion of national guilt and (as I understand it) democratically rewrote their constitution online. As a result, after a brief but severe recession, the country is thriving while the rest of Europe is groaning under the yoke of austerity.
This view of Iceland's history is of course open to debate and not everyone agrees they made a right or fair decision. But as far as I'm concerned the message is: Long live democracy! (but you do need law enforcement...)