Six years ago, I published the last novel in the Dancing Priest series, Dancing Prince. A good deal of it is set on a fictitious island named Broughby in the Orkneys, off the northern coast of Scotland. One of the characters, Erica Larsson, becomes the romantic interest of Thomas Kent-Hughes, the reclusive son of King Michael who has gone his own way and avoided the royal limelight.
Thomas, or Tommy, leads an archaeological team that discovers what looks like a Viking tomb, except that it is carved with a cross, a very Christian cross. And Erica writes a story, of novella length, entitled “Island,” which imagines how such an anomaly could have happened. Vikings destroyed churches and abbeys; they didn’t get buried as Christians. Or did they?
I read a lot about the Vikings as research for Dancing Prince. If I’d included everything I learned, it would have made another book. But I did write the story that Erica would tell, and the publisher agreed to include it as an addendum with the novel. And I explained the story and how it came to be in a post entitled “The Story of the Novella ‘Island’”. Dancing Price, like it four predecessors, is classified as “alternative contemporary history.” Island is historical fiction, and it was the first time I attempted anything in the genre.
As it turns out, considerable information exists about the Viking Christians, or how the Vikings turned to Christianity. This past weekend, I stumbled across this short video, which describes what happened rather succinctly. It’s a fascinating story.
The Viking Christians: The Day Valhalla Died.
Top illustration: “Ansgar Preaches the Christian Doctrine in Sweden” by Hugo Hamilton (1830).
