Viking: Sworn Brother

Sworn Brother is the second volume in Tim Severin's Viking Trilogy. As with the first volume anyone expecting a Hollywood type saga of war and adventure is in for a disappointment. Tim Severin has written a far more believeable story of survival in a world of hardship and violence often governed by laws and codes of behaviour that to modern eyes seem barbaric. Thorgils, having excaped from Ireland, arrives in London where he begins an affair with the wife of King Knut the Viking King of England. Forced to flee he becomes involved with Grettir the Strong a notorious outlaw and becomes his "Sworn Brother". Joining his old mentor Thrand he becomes part of the last foray of the sad remnants of the once all-conquering Jomsvikings. Re-joining his Sworn Bother on his lonely island hideout he is unable to help when Grettir is murdered. He travels east to Russia and then south to Miklagard as Constantinople is known to the Vikings. Thorgils story is packed with incident but not of the sword swinging macho heroic type once played by Kirk Douglas. The Viking world was glamorous only in their own sagas and the books and films that they have inspired Tim Severin tells of life as it was, hard to the point of brutality, very dangerous and sometimes very, very short.