Maelstrom

By Ian McKay Nunn

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synopsis

Maelstrom [ed3] The Chronicle of the Ostmen; b

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pen Culture Solutions
• Release date: Mar 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9781638125495

Book preview

MAELSTROM

The Chronicle of the Ostme

Copyright © 2023 by Ian McKay Nunn

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-63812-548-8

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63812-549-5

All rights reserved. No part in this book may be produced and transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Published by Pen Culture Solutions 01/24/2023

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MAELSTROM

The Chronicle of the Ostmen

Book One

Third Edition

Written and Illustrated by

Ian McKay Nunn

Reviews for Maelstrom

‘We will if the boy will play that tune we heard on our arrival.’ He nodded towards Mael.

Mael the young son of an Irish clan lord is left to live a carefree life, playing with his friends. He has become recognized for his musical talent with the lute and his enchanting voice. The village adults hammer home the importance of paying strict attention to the new Christian leaders and never speaking about the old ways. Little does Mael know, though, that their lives are going to change forever.

Mael is taken hostage by Imar the Boneless. He soon discovers life’s dark, violent reality during a time of religious and cultural upheaval. Mael has little time to process his trauma. The band of warriors holding him captive move from place to place. Life very quickly becomes about merely surviving.

Nunn crafts a lyrical story based on a strong foundation in history. He artfully weaves in critical myths and legends of the people to broaden the perspective of the narrative. These variations help illustrate how diverse and colorful the communities were who lived together during that era. His characters are vivid and multidimensional. The author demonstrates patience with developing them, which draws readers in. Full-scale battles and smaller sneak attacks pack the book with exciting action. The author introduces diverse military tactics used by the different nations. Leaving the audience at a critical point in the story, Nunn sets the table for the second book. Readers will be anxiously awaiting its arrival.

Gretchen Hansen US Review of Books

The rich descriptions establish a historical visual that draws you into this world through poignant details which are perfect examples - such as the Danes loading captives, gold, and silver onto a ship, a camp located at the catchment of three rivers, the beautiful manuscripts tossed aside, and a monk transcribing a text. The subtle details of the scenery truly capture the feeling and tone of the time while also fully embracing the frosty season of winter through imagery such as chilled land that hibernates, leaf litter replenishing the soil, and a horse determined to go to war on a frost-covered morning. The battle moments are even stunning in the beauty of the writing such as a moment before battle, swords honed with whetstones.

The preface depicts a portrait of a peaceful and curious people about the men who came with tools and stories from the Mediterranean. This beginning offers a sense of hope these people had as they truly wanted to believe in these stories for the wonders they told about a better life.

The images vividly provide characters with expressions and depict them among cattle and scenery. These details add a poignancy which pairs well with the writing style to create a historical aesthetic while delivering visuals to various important moments throughout the story.

Historical fiction comes to life in Maelstrom, taking you directly into the fight for a Saxon kingdom through poignant writing, different perspectives, and a well-crafted escapade of battle

Liz Konkel Pacific Book Review

More compelling are the book’s religious details, as of those around Norse mythology, with its ideas about the world of the dead. ... details about the ancient kingdoms’ economic activities and weapons help to bring the settings to life. And the book’s language is also formal and archaic, further vivifying its sense of the past; terms are explained in context where necessary. Only the illustrated renderings of the characters and scenes are not useful; ... , as with a depiction of figures from Irish myths that’s shared amid coverage of the ship’s crew.

Edith Wairimu Foreword Clarion Review

Readers are immediately swept into the story, meeting young Mael MacConaill in the Ard Mhacha monastery hours before a marauding band of Danes sweeps in to overpower his clan. Mael is taken hostage, and the Norsemen continue their path toward Saxon kingdoms, cutting a fierce path in their wake. Ultimately, the Danes encounter their most formidable challenger: Aethelred, King of Wessex.

BlueInk Review

What a fascinating insight into life in the British Kingdoms in the 9th Century during which the country side was invaded by Viking warlords and their armies. Nunn manages to immerse us in the lifestyle, strategies and challenges of the opposing forces. The development of the various characters, the outline of the logistics involved moving men equipment and the description of the gruesome battles gives the reader a vivid account of the times. Throughout my reading I couldn’t help but think that we haven’t learnt much about living and working in harmony without the brutality of war, religious tolerance and greed. I look forward to Book Two.

From Laurie Jackson.

Maelstrom is an apt title for this book which vividly captures the violent, troubled and fabled Dark Ages through story-telling and illustrations that is rich in detail. Although a work of fiction, it is clear that much careful and thorough research has gone into it.

Stanley Yeo

As someone who has a keen, though non-academic, interest in history I found this novel gives a very vivid story of life and events in a time that is not so commonly told. 

The little incidental details of the people, the way of life, and their equipment (from Lutes to Longships) intrigue me and certainly add to the bigger story. They also show the depth of research that it has taken to create this work.

I had not realised the extent of influence, and ruthlessness, of the men from the East throughout the British Isles. These were indeed brutal times.

Graeme McKenzie

An exciting yarn in a brutal and little know patch of history. The author’s attention to detail makes you almost smell the blood and stench of those frontier villages. I loved the battle scenes, they seemed so real, stupid decisions under fear and blood lust, conscripted villagers as pawns. Now I’m acquainted with the Ostmen characters, I can’t wait to live their lives through the author’s sequels.

Frank Day

Chronicle of the Ostmen in Albion

Preface

All things came out of the south-west. The winds pushed rain to the island; the warm current brought the sea life, and the traders came from the southlands. Those men brought tools, oil, wine, and told exotic stories from the warm lands of the Mediterranean―stories of wonder, of rulers with wealth beyond belief who lived in grand and beautiful palaces. They brought fine fabrics of dazzling colours and they told of the great trading cities of the south, imperial Rome and the Arab city of Cordoba. They also gave passage to the monks with their mission to bringing the word of the great story. The story of their Lord who offered everyone, noble and slave alike, a pathway to peace in a paradise, an eternal respite from their daily suffering and anxiety.

The people wanted to believe this wondrous message of a better life beyond their present existence of continual toil: gathering fuel for warmth and cooking, digging the soil for crops, and relying on the weather to provide a harvest that often failed or was damaged before reaping the harvest. They had cattle or sheep or goats needing to be milked and fed, and those folk protected their animals. A neighbouring tribe would raid a herd, or capture young girls or boys for slaves. The clan needed to defend itself. That was the role of the land holding lord, who had the power to demand the tenants take up arms and the wealth to pay his own guards to defend the villagers from the raiders and to mount reprisals.

Eireann was a land of petty kingdoms. The stronger wealthier ones were in the north and central east. By the ninth century they had ceased to be concerned with raiding and counter attacking one another because a far greater threat to their survival had arrived. It came firstly from the north: the Norsemen who sought to plunder and then chose to settle and establish their own communities. They were called the Norse Gaels and were believed to have come from the Shetlands and Orkneys. The local folk referred to them as white foreigners.

Then despite the prevailing head winds and currents the Danes came out of the east to reap a harvest of gold, silver, and whatever else they wanted: grain, cattle, sheep, and any metal tool. They sought out a highly tradable commodity‒slaves. The Danes established trading settlements on the south eastern coast, and the most successful Dubh Linn, by the dark pool on the River Liffee. They soon became a dominant force, penetrating deep into the island by the River Shannon with their longships.

By the mid 800s the remaining kingdoms that survived like the lands of the powerful Eóganacht clan, Munster came under threat from the Danes.The kingdom Mide which included the heart land of Tara, the ancestral centre of Irish kingship, looked to others for help. Ailech on the north coast home to the Ui Neill clan showed some resistance to the raiding bands of the foreigners. The Ui Néills were long time rivals of the Eóganacht clan, and they fought a protracted power struggle for dominance and the status of the High King’s throne.

To this volatile realm of leaders aggressively negotiating allegiances came the Danes presenting their demands with an armed menace numbering in the hundreds. Amlaíb (known to the Irish as Olaf the White) was believed to have descended from the Norse colonies on the Western Isles of Scotland, and he commanded the Northmen of Dubh Linn. He shared the leadership with Ragnall Ímar (referred to in the Annal of Ulster as Rögnvaldr ua Ímar) whose identity could understandably be attributed to Ivar Ragnarsson (‘the Boneless’). According to a saga in the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland Amlaib, Auisle (brother of Amlaib) and Ímar led their army on plunder raids into the ancients’ sacred barrows.

It is recorded that Auisle and Amlaib united and took a force into Fortriu and all Pictland, plundering, taking slaves and there remained over the winter of 866‒867. In that year, Ímar is believed to have joined the Great Heathen Army in East Anglia. The Danes decimated the Saxon kingdoms, capturing York in a lightning raid and naming it Jorvic while Northhumbria was in a state of civil war. Ímar is credited with repelling a Northumbrian assault to regain their city. Then in 869 he is said to have led the Danish forces into East Anglia. In the same year Ímar departed to return to Dubh Linn: the reason for his departure is unknown.

{Old Woman in red farewells the king on Eamhain Mhacha}

Ard Mhacha, AD 869

D id Aed couple with Eriu here to make good his rule over this land? Mael imagined this is where it might have been. He often contemplated what the tanner had told him as he watched the crest of the great circular barrow. Perched on a whitebeam he shifted to view the outer circular ditch and mound. He waited for Paedar to find him. A chill wind from the west blew the drying leaves about the few grazing sheep. He thought how folks once converged on this place from all over to witness the old ceremonies. When men prepared for battle they gathered within the earth ramparts of the hill-top fort. He knew his friend would look in the stone lintel entrance to the great mound where they had squeezed through. Many had gone in only to find bones of the ancestors, treasures or trinkets were pillaged long before. The memory of the giants who built these things remained only in folk tales.

Now the monks seem to determine how things are, telling us how to act and what to learn. Would the kings in the south consult the sisters of Eriu? Or why should they even bother? They had their own monks, he thought.

Paedar did look under the lintel and then he ran up onto the barrow housing the bones of the ancestors. He continued running around the top to check its outer slope. Running onto the concentric mound outside he repeated his circumambulation to check in the ditch, the outer defence of Eamhain Mhacha, once the ancient ritual site of the ancestors. The village tanner had told him about the ancestors’ warrior goddess who shared the name. She was said to appear as an old woman in red.

Found you, Paedar yelled between deep gasps.

Mael swung down from the limb of the tree with a fall of yellow leaves.

Do you think Mhacha will ever be seen here? he asked.

Had not thought about it.

Then why is it called Mhacha’s Height?

She was the warrior goddess, and it is up a hill, Paedar said as if it was obvious. He looked earnestly at his friend. I should pay no mind to what Uiliam tells us. My father says those legends are just that, from too long ago.

The monks don’t like us talking about them. My father wants Abbot Seumas and the monks to be filling our minds. I heard him tell my mother that they keep the tenants in their grasp, Mael revealed. Paedar’s look hardened.

Well, Pa says your father owns us, and there is nothing we can do about it, he stated plainly.

That home truth silenced Mael. He had seen Paedar’s father working hard, often with the boy’s help, sunup to sundown on their own field which was no larger than any of the other tenants’ portions. They had to feed their family of five. They had to work on the lord’s fields two whole days each week as well. Kellan was the feitheoir, his father’s overseer, and kept tally of who owed and days worked. He was a tenant farmer himself who contrived his fealty accounting to get other tenants to plough his own plots.

Why don’t you tenants stand up to Kellan? Mael asked, attempting to ease the tension.

When he demands we work his plot, I will come for you, and you can tell him that he is not entitled to our labour, even though it is his plough and his team of oxen we use on our field. He will tell his lord, and your father will whip you. And we will still have to work Kellan’s plots.

You could leave, Mael suggested. The wind made his skin raw and he knew he had chilled their friendship.

With resignation, Paeder drew in a full breath through his nostrils, spat sizeable phlegm on the ground, and left.

Not now, Mael pleaded with a whine. His friend did not turn back and continued walking back to the village.

Ard Mhacha had always been the meeting place of the ancients. Kings would come to garner fealty from the folk through their chiefs. Lords offered their valuable possessions, even bulls or slaves, to the gods in expectation that their lands could receive good harvests. Priests conducted ceremonies and told the sagas of heroic battles against giants and of the goddesses who could favour them in victory. When the monks came with their message of Christ, the location of the church and the establishment of the monastery was no coincidence.

The boys’ fathers warned them about listening to the old heathen nonsense from the tanner. They dared not mention the ancient gods around the monks or the elders. Neither had they any interest in hearing about God’s life plan for them to reach heaven. It gave them the impression of a world where freedom was limited, and their every act would be scrutinized by saints, the dead monks. Uiliam the Tanner had told the boys that the barrow hill had long been the scene of kinship to this land. That power was now held at Ailech, on the north coast, by Aed Findliath. He had aggressively defended the north against the kings of the south, who had accepted allegiances with the Northmen.

Here’s something to share with the brothers, Father, the cook said as she handed Brother Eachan a warm pork pie.

Aw, you are too kind to me. You know I will be fortunate to taste any―those gannets wait to prey on your heavenly delights. God bless you.

Do I have to make you two next time?

Oh, no. The folk would turn up as well, and too many are waiting at our kitchen gate now.

Eachan had been summoned to MacConaill’s hall, this time to treat the Lady Gormlah, who had been suffering, one of her megrims, as the Lord Bran MacConaill described the affliction that confined her to a darkened room with her head swathed in furs to silence any noise. After the cook left Eachan, Bran came over to the monk in the dark robe that just came to his knees. He wore leggings and sandals on his feet, and a leather satchel slung over his shoulder.

The lord walked him to the door.

I am sure you did whatever you could for her. Will you advise Father Seumas that he needs to give the brothers more direction in the sermons they preach? That rant about the devil we were forced to endure from Brother Lynas threw most of the womenfolk into hysteria and sent half the men to Uiliam the tanner for concoctions to ward off evil spirits.

I’ll mention it to the abbot. We don’t want to give Uiliam anymore encouragement than he already gets from our superstitious folk, Eachan conceded.

Say a prayer for me, Father, Lord MacConaill added and handed him a couple of silver coins as he went to open the door.

The tanner’s stone-walled yard could be seen as one walked down the hill from the MacConaill hall. Eachan had occasion to visit the tannin-saturated property because the tanner supplied the monastery with its vellum. Brother Eachan, did not wish to spoil the relationship he had with Uilaim because he selected only the youngest lambs to produce a quality parchment for the monastery’s scriptorium. A number of the monks were skilled with the quill and brush, and the monastery attracted significant custom for its manuscripts. The abbot had only recently announced that a monk from Church Island had been sent with their annal for repair and additions.

They stepped through the doorway to shouts. There was too much activity in the village. Panic had gripped the folk, running for their homes. Carts clogged the mud-lined street. They quickly got down to the street.

Here, what is the rush? Bran demanded to know.

A woman with a dishevelled bundle of rags covering something precious, most likely food, did not slow her pace to answer her lord. Raiders are coming.

I had better get back to the abbey. An angel will have fallen, Eachan announced as he prepared to join the pandemonium.

They both knew what was coming and where it was heading.

Why have they come now? Bran asked himself. He watched a tall girl struggle to guide a sheep by holding its horn and pushing its rump with her knees. She tripped, let go to save herself, bursting into tears. A boy was tying tattered bits of rope to tether a goat. A woman spread a cloth on the ground and gathered the corners to bundle smoked meat and bread. Tying it only to drop it and untie the cloth to put in a cheese, and an armful of smoked fish her daughter brought out. People were shouting to one another all over. Mothers yelled instructions to children. Men collected their tools; steel implements were prized by raiders whether neighbouring clans or foreign invaders.

Everyone was carrying something they valued.

Bran glimpsed a youth bent over, making for the village.

Paedar, he yelled. Over here, boy. The lad straightened markedly, as if he had been caught out and saw no need to be unobtrusive. Have you seen Mael?

Left him up on the old fort, Paedar called it as it had long lost its ceremonial significance. Lot of folk are heading up there, he added.

They told you? Bran asked.

Paedar looked at his lord with a stern resignation that they were doing all they could, taking their valuables and hiding. He just nodded. Some were going up to the old fort because it had been the traditional defensive position for the tribe, high with an earthen wall and ditch. But without two hundred capable, armed fighters to repel attackers, they could not hold off a war band.

You had better get home. Paedar was certain to get a welt from his father and count himself lucky if his mother only yelled at him. He was the oldest and was called on to collect necessities and the younger children.

Bran thought to find his head guard but he stood, staring. The memory of derangement overtook his conscious. People running spilling their valuables, scrambling to gather their possessions only to be struck down, slaughtered or rounded up by the raiders, destined for slave markets. High-pitched screams of women and the shouts of angry men were quietened by thuds of violent warriors, pacifying their moaning captives. A bearded man emerged from a hut with a woman, crying, held by her hair and arms. A child ran to her shrieking, but was clubbed to silence and left limp on the ground. A guard gripped the neck of Bran’s tunic and hauled him away from the horror. His father was on horseback with his house guards, waiting to ride north. His mother and sisters had fled.

The last he saw of his two older brothers their weapons drawn as they stayed with the house guards to defend their home against the raging Northmen in full battle dress. His father never spoke of them, ever. His mother told him Your brothers held the foreigners with courage that we might live. You must pray for their everlasting souls.

From his father’s tower, as he called it, the stairwell leading to the roof. Mael keenly absorbed sounds of shields buffeting weapons, branches cracked for kindling, the voices and shouts, the smell of smoke, their dank clothes, their height and bulk, the faded paint on gouged shields, the lustre of helmets, chainmail and the glint of weapon’s honed edges. The son of the Lord Bran MacConaill was mesmerized by the warriors who assembled on the lower fields of his father’s land.

Mael frequented the tower because it removed him from the critical gaze of his father. Primarily, it provided a vantage above the village and the sloping fields to the dark water river that fed the Great Lough. Toward the river’s valley, the huge mound of the barrow dominated the western horizon. Uiliam had told him the hill fort had been built by the giants, a race of people who ruled the land long before his ancestors came to Eireann. There were other monumental sites south in the valley that led to the sea. The massive stone tombs were also said to be the work of the giants. Even when he was younger Mael discerned that the giants were credited with any edifice that was beyond the collective memory to explain. Those men gathered below were giants from another land.

An urgent message was relayed to Bran MacConaill that foreigners were approaching from the eastern pastures.

Why have they come now? Niall, the head man-at-arms reflected.

His lord gave him a quizzical glance.

Why have they waited so long? Bran answered.

He had always expected a raiding party of Northmen in these parts. That earlier vision had reminded Bran that Ard Mhacha was a target for the Northman. The monastery was a beacon of wealth, with gold and silver given by all those seeking an introduction into the kingdom of the Christ God.

Niall entered the hall. "Two Ostmen are at the entrance. They carry a green