Falcon Queen

By Val Manning

Vivacious and imperious, ambitious and devious, jealous and sensuous, bounteous and beauteous—that was Gunnhild, enchantress daughter of King Gorm of the Danes.

Her provocative nature is swept by desire for the golden Viking of her dreams—Eirik Bloodaxe. She is lured and spellbound by one Thorolf Skallagrimsson. Befriended and abetted by King Harald Finehair of Norway. Intrigued and importuned by Gregory, King Athelstan’s emissary from England.

High Priestess of Fertility, and loyal follower of Freyja, Goddess of Loving, whose symbol is the falcon, Gunnhild uses her powers of witchcraft and divination to aid the struggle against the Serpent, the Prince of Evil, and to realise her dream to become High Queen of Norway.

\Abducted by Lapland sorcerers to become a neophyte in the magic arts, Gunnhild is finally borne upon the swell of fate and by the sweep of love, to magnificent destiny.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Emissary Publishing
• Release date: Aug 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005370701

Book preview

Falcon Queen

© Val Manning 1979

First published in Great Britain 1979

Vivacious and imperious, ambitious and devious, jealous and sensuous, bounteous and beauteous—that was Gunnhild, enchantress daughter of King Gorm of the Danes.

Her provocative nature is swept by desire for the golden Viking of her dreams—Eirik Bloodaxe. She is lured and spellbound by one Thorolf Skallagrimsson. Befriended and abetted by King Harald Finehair of Norway. Intrigued and importuned by Gregory, King Athelstan’s emissary from England.

High Priestess of Fertility, and loyal follower of Freyja, Goddess of Loving, whose symbol is the falcon, Gunnhild uses her powers of witchcraft and divination to aid the struggle against the Serpent, the Prince of Evil, and to realise her dream to become High Queen of Norway.

Abducted by Lapland sorcerers to become a neophyte in the magic arts, Gunnhild is finally borne upon the swell of fate and by the sweep of love, to magnificent destiny.

By the same author

Daughter of the Norse Gods

Valkyrie Queen

Queen of the Dragon Ships

Swanmaiden Queen

Foreword

Those of you who are following my series about famous Viking Queens will be aware of my passion for that era. This book, like those before it, is aimed at lifting the veil still further from the shadowy role of the female Viking.

Women of that time were often amorous, ambitious, courageous, enterprising, vengeful, spirited or proud. Perhaps Gunnhild, the woman who possessed all these qualities and who is the subject of this novel, was the most outstanding of them all. The only daughter of King Gorm of the Danes, she was also a sorceress of exceptional beauty.

There is no undisputed chronology for the 9th and 10th centuries no unequivocal agreement concerning what is fact and what is myth or legend. For the purpose of this book I have followed the chronology which seemed to me most reasonable in the face of so much confusion and distortion in various documentary sources, relying largely, though not exclusively, on Gwyn Jones’ A History of the Vikings. Where the sagas are concerned many historians doubt their veracity, but I believe they are the stuff of truth and I have followed them where it seemed pertinent to do so.

To give you some idea of the problems chronology raises, I briefly mention the following examples.

Captain Ernest Rason (Saga Book Vol. VIII) puts Gorm on the throne in 865 at the height of his power in Denmark, whereas Gwyn Jones believes that Gorm became King of Denmark between 935—50, seventy to eighty-five years later. And Jacqueline Simpson (Everyday Life in the Viking Age) says he died about 940

Traditionally King Harald was held to be born in 850, but modern historians now put it nearer 865—70, a difference of fifteen to twenty years.

Egil's Saga, The Heimskringla, and others, see King Athelstan still reigning in England in 948, whereas Athelstan died in 939 (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle), nine years earlier.

In the same way genealogies come into conflict.

The Heimskringla and other sources record Gunnhild as the daughter of Ozur Toti Halogaland in Norway, but it is generally accepted today that she was the daughter of King Gorm the Old of Denmark, and sister of Harald Bluetooth.

Even in the 20th century it is easy to become confused by the relationship of one person to another, the duplicity of names, the uncertainty of age, despite the fact that we have the advantages of birth registration, written records, family surnames, and swift communications.

The Vikings had no such advantages, and there was doubtless considerable confusion and opportunity for error when news took so much longer to travel from one place to another and was often impossible to check, and when facts had to be consigned to memory—often faulty or wishful memory at that!

Eirik, the son of King Harald Finehair, was known simply as Eirik Harald’s son, or Eirik Haraldsson, and, as was often the case, given a distinguishing name, so that he became Eirik Bloodaxe, or Eirik Bloodaxe Haraldsson. Harold, the son of Eirik, would be called Harald Eiriksson, there being no common name to link him with his grandparents, thus making it difficult to trace family connections.

The genealogies of the period are largely compiled from the memories of contemporary skalds, and consequently are often at variance.

I wish to acknowledge here the debt I owe to University College London for their kindness in providing source material; also the Viking Society for Northern Research, and the York Archaeological Trust. I have endeavoured to trace an accurate path through the datelines, and to read what has not been written as well as what has. I have soaked my consciousness in the material to hand. I have, as an extra-sensory aid, sought Gunnhild’s inner soul across the void of centuries to enable me to set her story down in the manner she herself might have chosen to relate it.

In the final analysis the chronology concerns me less than whether or not I have captured the spirit and the essence of the period, and in particular, of the subject of this book— Gunnhild, Falcon Queen.

PART ONE

Falcon Princess of the Danes

1

FALCON PRINCESS

It was on a day of feasting and revelry that the two Laplanders spellbound my Father and took me away.

Denmark had been cursed by bad crops for several seasons. Sacrifices of oxen, sheep, goats and pigs had been made to the gods but the harvest had not improved. Thereupon stallions, boars, rams and bulls were slaughtered in the temple sanctuary but conditions grew worse. Then human sacrifices were made, but famine and distress continued to increase and discontent murmured throughout the land.

Spring came late that year, following upon a hard winter, and folk brought empty bellies to the spring festival with accompanying stomach cramp from eating the bark-bread, lichen and seaweed that eased winter starvation but was vile to taste and temper. The mood of the people was ugly and voices were raised for a royal sacrifice to appease the God of Abundance and win the favours of the Goddess of Plenty. Across the land sacrificial beasts were slaughtered and hung on poles outside the dwellings in honour of Freyr and Freyja, twin deities of Fruitfulness. And men from distant parts and near thronged to the spring offering at the high temple at Jelling.

As the number of warriors, chiefs and men of mark continued to swell without sign of easing and the great multitude growled with hostility, I felt my security threatened for the first time in my fifteen years. Anxiously I sought and found Father pacing the longfire down the centre of the Great Hall that was the Royal Seat of Denmark, for my Father was none other than King Gorm, ruler of the Danes, and I, Gunnhild, his only daughter.

Father! I called softly, not wishing to intrude upon the wisdom of half a hundred years and ten that strode the hearthside deep in thought but fearful of the hostile press of men massing at the temple. My voice had been barely above a whisper but his attention turned instantly upon me and a smile banished the furrows from his brow.

Ah, Gunnhild my daughter, there you are. But why are you not apparelled for the celebrations? A plain kyrtle is well enough for a plain day, but a festival demands festive robes and fine adornments. 'Would that your Mother had lived/' he sighed. Serving women are competent enough, but even those who are well-born do not have a mother’s eye for detail nor her concern for a daughter's welfare."

Mother had died when I was still a childling and I had heard it said that more could not be expected from a Saxon woman of high birth made soft by good living and whose blood was not of the stock of Danes. But Thyra, for that had been her name, had come from a noble royal line, and was the daughter of King Ethelred of England, favourite brother of that King Alfred the Great who succeeded him and who had commanded respect from the greatest warriors in all Scandinavia. No, Thyra had been no weakling, but she was already eight and twenty summers when she was ship-wrecked off Mano island on her way to Ribe to marry Father whose first wife, also Thyra, had died several years earlier. Mother was at a dangerous age to beget children and it was to her credit that she subsequently birthed one son, Harald, and one daughter that was me, before she waned.

She had been a Christian, and the spring rites would doubtless have revolted her, as they did other Christians, merchants and missionaries who made rare visits from across the water. And the practice of offering up a divine king as a sacrifice to the gods for fertile crops and fruitfulness in men would have filled Mother with as much horror as it filled me but for a different reason. My dismay was not for the sacrifice itself which was necessary if the seasons were to improve and the favours of the gods invoked, but I would have been grief-struck to lose Father who spoiled and indulged me, provided love and security, and whose death would have caused a gaping hole in my heart. Therefore was my voice tremulous, eyes tear-filled, as I made my reply.

Shall I rejoice at your imminent death, Father? The host gathering at the temple grow restless and belligerent. They lay the fault for bad seasons at their King’s door, and will not be stayed from sacrificing him unless he flee the land.

He smiled grimly. I am bold as any Viking and fit as a young warrior. I hold no fear of any man and am the first King to lay all Denmark beneath his hand, which feat even Hardegon-Hardaknut Sveinsson my Father could not achieve without me. I shall not turn my back in flight now.

Only until men’s tempers have run their course, Father, and good harvests line their stomachs, I coaxed. Shall we fly now before the horde have come?

He chuckled deeply. You were ever swift of thought and quicker to act. The Norns will need give fleetly chase if you are not to evade those sisters of fate.

I tugged at the hard brown arm impatiently. Make haste, Father. Time runs out.

He resisted my force. I shall still be here when it does, Falcon daughter.

The use of his pet name for me softened his refusal and the unexpectedness of his words stunned me to inaction. I regarded him with perplexity.

He had always called me Falcon, ever since that day in the woods when he had surprised me. The day had been hot, the sun unusually glaring, and I had been enjoying the freedom of the woods, thoroughly excited that the following day I would be a full twelve summers and a woman, yet at the same time resentful of the maiden privileges I would be expected to forego and in which I revelled. On the morrow, as a Princess of the Royal House, I would be expected to discard the knee-length kyrtle for one ankle-deep and be chaperoned at all times. Consequently I had been out under the full blue sky from dawn to eventide. As dusk grew gently in I could not bring myself to enter the Great Hall that would forever cage my maiden's wilfulness in womanly submissiveness and confiscate the spirit that soared from out my soul. The evening balm wooed me, and ignoring the hunger that urged me return to the Hall I lay full length upon the sod leaning on my elbows contemplating. It was not long before my head grew heavy and I lay across my arms succumbing to weariness and sleep.

That was how Father found me, as he oft related, face down, silken mane of hair spread upon the sward like a black falcon in flight. Anxious lest I be wounded or dead he strode quickly upon me and kneeling lifted the hair from my face, which action broke my dream of a giant troll finding me asleep in the forest and dragging me by the hair to his foul abode beneath the hills to be his wife. I woke ascream with fright and tore at his flesh with nails that became talons thinking him the troll. Instantly I realised what I had done, and saw blood welling from the long weals on his neck, I drew back in horror and Father, seeing my expression, roared with mirth, ignoring the wound.

So, my ebony falcon, you would attack your own Father, would you?

Impulsively I reached up my hand to stay the blood but it ran in globules over my oval nails and trickled down long slim fingers. Shocked, I said: Not you, Father, but a great ugly troll who sought to abduct me.

He laughed the louder at that and his eyes crinkled merrily. It slowly eased upon me that Father was basking in my assault with the pleasure he normally reserved for brother Harald’s dash and verve. I smiled doubtfully at Father’s roaring glee. I chuckled with confidence as he eyed me with pride, and finally I joined in his rocking laughter till the tears sparkled down our cheeks, our sides ached, and a distant wolf howled its reply.

Always after that he would call me his ebony falcon when he saw me swoop upon a youth or maid who had angered me, dodge a heavy hand, beguile suitors with wild winsomeness, or with falcon tenacity get my way.

Most Danes are characteristically tall and fair, eyes of blue. Mother, Father, brother Harald, Canute my half-brother by Father's first wife, and others of our family warranted this description. Indeed, I was over five and a half feet high myself and had brilliant blue eyes, but there my likeness to kin ceased. My fine hair fell straight to the waist in a natural point, was sable-smooth and deeper hued. Black lashes shaded my eyes and fine black eyebrows arched like a cat above. I had pale creamy skin, strong straight teeth and a wide mouth with over-full lips for the fine-boned face and small, pointed chin. Though I was different, or because of it, I was aware from a young age that men gazed long upon me, that I could charm my way round the male household with pleasant ease, that folk generally were lavish in praise of my beauty. I grew up wholly aware of my sensuality, and at fifteen summers, the age I then was, I knew that my destiny would fly high above the clouds beyond the common lot. Nevertheless, when Father announced his intention of facing the hostile people who only saw him as a King of bad seasons to be sacrificed to the deities of plenty to appease their anger and invoke their pleasure, it seemed that my world was about to crumble before it had barely begun. As I continued to stare my horrified disbelief, Father avoided my eyes, and speaking quietly tried to reassure me.

No harm will befall you, daughter, for your brother will reign after me and things will go on as before. No man can outrun his fate or defy the gods. Duty commands me stay.

As I continued to gaze at Father’s powerful, spear-straight frame, the leaping flames bathing his features in red and orange shadows, I realised for the first time that he was no longer a young man, and the knowledge that I would inevitably outlive him caused me dismay. As quickly, a fierce and rebellious determination burned within me to thwart fate and deprive the gods of his company for as long as I could contrive. He was still vigorous and virile, and above all he was my Father.

Seized by a passionate resolve to find a way around the problem, I thought hard. As sudden and swift as a falcon’s dive, a daring idea lured my reason and compelled my mind. I could do it, I knew. But would Father allow it, even to save his life? As excitement tightened its hold and strangled my breath, I touched his arm. He turned as one mesmerised and seeing the light flaring in my eyes awakened the hope in his.

What is it, Gunnhild?

Sit with me, I pleaded, a tiny thrill running through me at the audacity of what I proposed.

Indicating the benches