Sign in with Facebook
‘Dear Stephen,’ he begins. ‘This is a difficult letter to write, but I know it will be a great deal more difficult to read. I will come straight to it. I believe you are in the early stages of dementia, possibly Alzheimer’s.’ Elizabeth can
...more
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
“But the most notable event in the life of Earl Sigurd was that which befel him as he lay in the harbour of Osmondwall shortly after his accession to the earldom. Olaf Tryggvason, King of Norway, returning from a western cruise, happened to run his vessels into the same harbour, as the Pentland Firth was not to be passed that day. On hearing that the earl was there he sent for him on board his ship, and told him, without much parley, that he must allow himself to be baptized, and make all his people profess the Christian faith. The Flateyjarbók says that the king took hold of Sigurd’s boy, who chanced to be with him, and drawing his sword, gave the earl the choice of renouncing for ever the faith of his fathers, or of seeing his boy slain on the spot. In the position in which he found himself placed, Sigurd became a nominal convert, but there is every reason to believe that the Christianity which was thus forced upon the Islanders was for a long time more a name than a reality. Nearly twenty years afterwards we find Earl Sigurd bearing his own raven-banner “woven with mighty spells,” at the battle of Clontarf, against the Christian king Brian; and Sigurd’s fall was made known in Caithness by the twelve weird sisters (the Valkyriar of the ancient mythology) weaving the woof of war:—[27] “The woof y-woven With entrails of men, The warp hardweighted With heads of the slain.”
― The Orkneyinga Saga
― The Orkneyinga Saga
“Dander”
― The Slough House Thrillers Books 1-8
― The Slough House Thrillers Books 1-8
“impignorate”
― The Orkneyinga Saga
― The Orkneyinga Saga
“Whoever’s in government, whichever party it happens to be, and however lacking in leadership skills and a basic grasp of reality, they’re the ones pulling your Service’s strings. This despite the fact that no government we’ve seen over the past ten years has been capable of making the decisions necessary to protect our nation. Take Salisbury. A clear-cut case, evidence stacked a mile high, the guilty party visible for all to see. And yet nothing happens.’ ‘It’s how democracy works.”
― The Slough House Thrillers Books 1-8
― The Slough House Thrillers Books 1-8
“The battle of Clontarf, in which Earl Sigurd fell, is the most celebrated of all the conflicts in which the Norsemen were engaged on this side of the North Sea. “It was at Clontarf, in Brian’s battle,” says Dasent, “that the old and new faiths met in the lists face to face for their last struggle,” and we find Earl Sigurd arrayed on the side of the old faith, though nominally a convert to the new. The Irish account of the battle[28] describes it as seen from the walls of Dublin, and likens the carnage to a party of reapers cutting down a field of oats. Sigurd is described as dealing out wounds and slaughter all around—“no edged weapon could harm him, and there was no strength that yielded not, and no thickness that became not thin before him.” Murcadh,”
― The Orkneyinga Saga
― The Orkneyinga Saga
Margaret’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Margaret’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
108 books
|
49 friends
250 books
|
44 friends
101 books
|
123 friends
20 books
|
28 friends
0 books
|
93 friends
97 books
|
48 friends
1 book
|
8 friends
17 books
|
54 friends
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Margaret
Lists liked by Margaret
