The Rood and the Torc: The Song of Kristinge, Son of Finn

by Matthew Dickerson

When Kristinge, a young monk at a monastery in southeastern France, discovers he is the son of a famous Frisian hero and king who died in battle six years earlier, he leaves the monastic life and sets out in search of his identity. Traveling with his old mentor Willimond, a monk originally of Lindisfarne, KristingeOCOs journey brings him first across France to Denmark to search of his mother, and eventually back to his native soil of Friesland. Along the way he meets the young, decadent, and half-crazy Frankish king Clovis who resides in Paris, and the holy Abbess Telchild of the nearby monastery of JouarreOCotwo of several historical figures woven through the novel. However, what begins as a quest to uncover his heritage and find whether his mother still lives becomes a sort of spiritual journey of discovery at many other levels. Kristinge wrestles with the question: who is he, and who should he become? Is he the monk he has spent the past six years training to be? Or the gifted bard that was trained as a youth to compose songs, sing, and play the harp? Or is the future king that will unite Friesland and save it from the threat of the increasingly powerful Danes and Vikings on the one side and decaying but still threatening Frankish empire on the other. Compounding his confusion, Kristinge also rediscovers and falls in love with a young whom he had known many years earlier as a young child: a young woman who would be far above his station were he to remain a monk, but not above his station were he to become king."

Genres: Historical Fiction

417 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2013

About the author

Matthew Dickerson (PhD, Cornell University) is a professor at Middlebury College in Vermont, a writer, the former director of the New England Young Writers’ Conference at Bread Loaf and the current co-director of the Northern Pen Young Writers' Conference. His previous works include fantasy novels The Gifted and The Betrayed; works about fantasy including From Homer to Harry Potter along with Narnia and the Fields of Arbol: The Environmental Vision of C. S. Lewis, A Hobbit Journey, and Ents, Elves, and Eriador: The Environmental Vision of J. R .R. Tolkien; some medieval historic romance including The Rood and the Torc; and even philosophy of mind and computation The Mind and the Machine: What it Means to be Human and Why it Matters.

Reviews

[Meredith Rehbach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rich with atmospheric detail, this tale from the Middle Ages captures the imagination and the heart from beginning to end. Kristinge's personal quest to discern and follow his calling, often in conflict with the expectations of others, weaves its way through the larger conflicts of tribe, personal loyalty, and the struggle for power. This book is an unusually skilled combination of exciting adventure and coming-of-age search for identity.

[David O'Hara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dickerson is a natural, easy storyteller who makes you glad you kept turning the pages. His prose is light, disappearing from the eye, easily replaced with a mental image of the place and the characters. This is one of several novels he has written about the peripheries of Beowulf, a beautiful story about poetry, songs, medieval Europe, and the cost of making the right choices. Reading this book was the first time I felt like I could see medieval life, not just read about it. Homes and hearths come alive with smoke and roasting meat and moving songs; the Frisian landscape and the rolling sea and the smell of cowherds seem to lift off the pages and into my imagination as I read it. John Wilson is right: this is "a splendid historical novel." Dickerson is brilliant, and so is his prose.

[Simon Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took great pleasure from this historical novel. I had the sense of being in the hands of someone who has a deep feel for the historical period and never hit those jarring elements of modern social interaction that trip you up in most historical fiction (and which make a mockery of that bit of research by the author into costumes and food and other easily-researched elements of daily life). The story itself I found enjoyable, not least for its unexpected turns - but I was not 100% content with the final resolution.

[Phil Lawless · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting book, following a young Frisian monk on a journey through his heritage as the son of a deceased king. The book examines his own attitudes and those of the people he came from. He wants to reconcile them to himself, while remaining true to his own Christianity.

[Janet Carroll · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the kind of book I love--historical, but no magical rescues, nor improbable plot twists and no larger-than-life characters

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

the impact of the Gospel living on people in 7th century Europe.