Blood-Eagle Saga-bookcover

By: John Ingham

Blood-Eagle Saga

Pages: 384 Ratings: 4.9
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Deep frozen midwinter in a Viking warlord’s longhouse. From the snow emerges a white-haired saga-teller, Snorri, who offers to entertain the drunken warband.

Sven Ravenfeeder agrees but drops a noose around Snorri’s neck and tells him: “If we like your story, you will live...”

So begins the Blood-Eagle Saga – a tale of greed and betrayal, courage and cowardice, that takes rival Viking longships across the Atlantic to a new world of depravity.

In the menacing forests and on the vast bison-rich plains, Viking enemies Grim and his former right-hand man Asgeir battle over honour and treasure. Along the way, they find themselves in another equally proud and brutal warrior culture, that of the native Americans.

Throughout Asgeir is helped by his muse, Mary, a shape-shifting former Irish slave who has every reason to hate Grim.

At the heart of the saga is one burning question that sends Sven and his men into a frenzy – who will be the victim of the Vikings’ favourite torture – The Blood-Eagle?

John Ingham is an award-winning environment journalist. He has had a lifelong interest in the Vikings and has visited many of their sites across Britain and Scandinavia. He has a PhD in History from Durham University and also studied at universities in America and Canada. His interests include football, food, birdwatching, beer and travel.

Customer Reviews
4.9
10 reviews
10 reviews
  • Babyowl


    A true Skald!

    John Ingham has woven a true 'Skald-spell' which carries the reader headlong into the visceral and brutal world of the Vikings from the very first lines. Written in alliterative verse, Ingham sustains a taut, pacy narrative across nearly 400 pages.

    Elements I particularly enjoyed were the bawdy humor, a compelling mix of supernatural occurrences and gritty reality in the narrative arc, and the sense that these lines were written by an expert deeply and passionately immersed in the language and lives of these extraordinary people.

    Striking also were lines of lyrical beauty and musicality which for me alluded to the spirituality and power of nature as a force in Viking times, for example: "to the boy each tree told its tale. / Each tree sang its life song" or "Paradise reaches beyond its own secret perfection.'

    Notable too is Ingham's writing about birds - earthy and precise and beautiful:
    'Knots of little waders twisted,
    Piping their calls over salt marshes
    While summer's swallows sped south.'

    Blood-Eagle saga is a tour-de-force and would make a smashing film. Dive in.. and enjoy.

  • R Benwell

    Blood Eagle is a tremendous adventure.

    Its epic form and clever wordplay never once get in the way of the story, which is brutal and exciting, but human and humorous.

    I look forward to the sequel very much, so we can set sail with the Vikings once again.

    It'll be different from anything else you've read (for a century or two, probably), but pour a flagon of ale (or a healthy, modern alternative), light the hearth fire, and jump back in time for Snorri's story. You'll be glad you did.

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