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Wolf-Saga
In the land of reindeer, a far corner of the World, way out north of Thule and Slabland, the deaf-mute Starkather, son of Grim the Eight-Handed, carves his name in summer runes in the bark of the ancient Wishing Tree.
What un-luck had awakened when Starkather had been born? The boy could not hear. Every elf-doctor and charm-weaver had come to try to mend him by their craft; but he remained stone deaf and could utter no word. A useless ox, meek and patient, without accomplishments – beyond that of whittling wood. Unworthy to accompany his father in his warring, or to inherit Clodhangra and the Green Stone of Gefjun.
The hunchback, Spindle-Shanks, outcast fortune-teller, had seen something in him, though, and had taught him the how to carve them, colour them, how to try them. Nor had his mildness escaped the dough-faced Nodd Mistletoe, nor Mochuda, barefoot priest of the White Christ.
Then came the shadow-goer – old, bent and starveling; foul with vermin – to scratch on the doors of Clodhangra, bringing a terrible sickness and a famine on the Valley of Ydalir. The sickness took his mother, the matchless Feithlinn, whilst Stroma and his brothers slew his tyrant father, Grim, far away at Knave’s Conscience, by the Lumb.
Out for more than wergild, the dummy of Clodhangra set off down Mad Lane, pursued, at a distance, by his friends. Tales of his vengeance were carried, as if by the winds, to the ears of Laf Hunting-Spider – was this the man the Rune-Script told of? – and to Baba Yaga, and the Eaves-Runner.
Thus begins the saga of the one they called ‘the ’ by turns bloody, earthy, and fantastical – but also, after a fashion, completely true. Wolf-Saga is the latest novel by Sile Rice, author of the Saxon Tapestry and Danse in Indigo.
What un-luck had awakened when Starkather had been born? The boy could not hear. Every elf-doctor and charm-weaver had come to try to mend him by their craft; but he remained stone deaf and could utter no word. A useless ox, meek and patient, without accomplishments – beyond that of whittling wood. Unworthy to accompany his father in his warring, or to inherit Clodhangra and the Green Stone of Gefjun.
The hunchback, Spindle-Shanks, outcast fortune-teller, had seen something in him, though, and had taught him the how to carve them, colour them, how to try them. Nor had his mildness escaped the dough-faced Nodd Mistletoe, nor Mochuda, barefoot priest of the White Christ.
Then came the shadow-goer – old, bent and starveling; foul with vermin – to scratch on the doors of Clodhangra, bringing a terrible sickness and a famine on the Valley of Ydalir. The sickness took his mother, the matchless Feithlinn, whilst Stroma and his brothers slew his tyrant father, Grim, far away at Knave’s Conscience, by the Lumb.
Out for more than wergild, the dummy of Clodhangra set off down Mad Lane, pursued, at a distance, by his friends. Tales of his vengeance were carried, as if by the winds, to the ears of Laf Hunting-Spider – was this the man the Rune-Script told of? – and to Baba Yaga, and the Eaves-Runner.
Thus begins the saga of the one they called ‘the ’ by turns bloody, earthy, and fantastical – but also, after a fashion, completely true. Wolf-Saga is the latest novel by Sile Rice, author of the Saxon Tapestry and Danse in Indigo.
211 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 29, 2012
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