Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

The thread for discussions of our fiction choice for April and May.

I am quite enjoying the book so far. It is rather different and I had never heard of it or the author before. There are aspects of it which remind me of the TV series Vikings.

I enjoy the way Wulf plays with Brand. It is amusing the way he does at first play along in the roll of the fool or the ignorant and lulls Brand into a false sense of security and arrogance and than catching him off guard.

I really liked the chapter Life Force, particularly the hunting, and gathering of the plants and the discussion about offering the blood sacrifice to the plants.

So glad you're reading it, Silver. I read it a while ago now, but hope to start again in the next few days. I believe it was one of the very first pagan fiction novels - it was certainly very popular when it was first published.

The more I read this book the more I become drawn into it. I just finished the chapter Reading the Omen's of the Wyrd. Loved the discussion about the runes. I have always found runes to be fascinating and my boyfriend who is a Druid is now guiding in better understanding and reading runes.

Runes are fascinating - I keep meaning to make my own - one day soon, hopefully - but so tied up right now :)

Just caught up with you. I'm enjoying reading this one as much a second time as the first. I found the opening chapter just as powerful - maybe more so - and it's good to know that the author has completed a major research project into Anglo-Saxon sorcery.

I have been reading it and although I am not too far in, I am enjoying it very much so far.

I loved the story of the mighty warrior who turned out to be a hedgehog.

Me too, to both replies! I love the fact that there isn't a huge cast of named characters - mostly just Wulf and Brand in contact with Wyrd and Mother Nature.

I'm enjoying the descriptions of plant collection and sorcery, but it would have been good to know the names of the plants, especially the yellow ones they had to harvest entirely undamaged. Perhaps this is due to the author using old texts that didn't mention their names, although I seem to remember looking up 'spearwort' in A Modern Herbal the last time I read this one.

Really loving this and wanting to savour it so I am not reading it too quickly. I wish that Bates had described the appearance of the two characters a bit more although maybe I missed it. . . or maybe that is deliberate.

I started this about a week ago, but set it aside in favor of something else. I just picked it back up and I'm 70 pages in (about to start the chapter Reading the Omens of Wyrd). I was really excited to see this make it as a group read because it was on my TBR list for a while, and I rarely come across any type of Heathen fiction.

So far I'm really enjoying it. I like Wulf a lot, but Brand gets on my nerves. I'm not even sure why, exactly, but he does.

As a side note, I'm probably going to end up with a ton of new books on my TBR list after going through the bibliography of this one.

Wyllow wrote: So far I'm really enjoying it. I like Wulf a lot, but Brand gets on my nerves. I'm not even sure why, exactly, but he does.

I found the same for about the first half of the book - I think it's the frequent expression of his belief that his god is superior to the old gods, even when their power is demonstrated more than adequately :)