Book
Sword Song
Buy the book from:
Audio available
Viking Age Britain. After killing a man in anger and breaking an oath, the young Norseman Bjarni is outlawed for five years. Armed with a sword but separated from home and kin, he enters the service of seafarers whose voyages take him through Dublin, the Hebrides and the contested western coasts of Scotland.
Raids and sea fights alternate with harvests, marriages and the obligations of households caught in clan feuds. Bjarni’s exile becomes an education in the difference between reputation and honour, and in the discipline required to master violence rather than merely survive it. The novel, completed shortly before Sutcliff’s death and published posthumously, follows his attempt to return as a man capable of accepting responsibility for his first impulsive act.
Historical periods
More by the author
Other books by Rosemary Sutcliff
