“Unshaken on his rocky throne above the bleak fjords”: A review of H. Rider Haggard’s Eric Brighteyes

The default setting for most fantasy is a faux late-Middle Ages, generally ascribed to the period from the Norman conquest of 1066 to roughly the end of the 15th century. Hence we get novels whose characters live in sprawling, lavishly decorative castles, answer to a high king in a monarchical society, embrace chivalric ideals, and speak in an ornate language of high culture. In comparison, the coarse, rough mine of the early Middle Ages and in particular the Viking Age is relatively untapped. I enjoy the Crusades and the Hundred Years’ War as much as the next guy, but I prefer the song of spear and axe, the smoke of the burning hall, and the sight of the dragon-headed longship against the backdrop of the ruins of ancient civilization.

This disparity is unfortunate, because although the number of novels set during the Viking Age is relatively low, I have generally found them to be of exceeding high quality. Poul Anderson’s Hrolf Kraki’s Saga and The Broken Sword are among the best of this smallish genre (though I’m not sure if the latter can be properly classified as set during the Viking Age, heavily Nordic-influenced though it may be). Bernard Cornwell’s ongoing historic fiction series The Saxon Stories is similarly great, devoid of ant overt references to magic but with all of the poetry of the age. I would add to that mix Harry Harrison’s The Hammer and the Cross, a fun, if savage and bloodthirsty read, while Nancy Farmer’s young adult work The Sea of Trolls is quite good and entertained me as a full-grown man. I have also heard praise from many quarters for E.R. Eddison’s Styrbiorn the Strong, which I have not read (it’s out of print and not easy to acquire).

It’s hard to say which of these Viking Age-inspired works would win a theoretical Holmgang amidst hazel rods, but having just now read H. Rider Haggard’s 1889 novel Eric Brighteyes, I can now state that any previous order I had established is deeply in doubt, so mighty is this book. In fact, I would unhesitatingly declare it among the finest works in the genre, better than Cornwell and at least as good as Anderson’s best. It may not be as much a household name as Haggard’s more famous works King Solomon’s Mines and She, but it’s nevertheless rightly considered a classic in some quarters and one of Haggard’s best.

What do Eric Brighteyes and the aforementioned Viking Age-inspired novels have in common, and what is their appeal? They are based on old sources of rich literature, the Icelandic Sagas, which instead of dark lords, ferocious monsters or wicked races of beings as protagonists, typically concern themselves with problems arising from human nature—a jealous lover’s scorned heart, a generation-spanning blood feud incited by murder over wealth, or a dispute over ancestral land, for example.

The Sagas also at their heart share a bleakness of vision—a belief that fate is unchangeable, and that all roads end in darkness. In Eric Brighteyes fate is depicted as a tapestry woven by the Three Fates, the Norns. Our lives are as threads in this grand but finite pattern, shorn off by the weaver at the Norns’ appointed time. Haggard sums up this unique quality of the Sagas in an introduction to Eric Brighteyes:

The Norns, as they name Fate, have mapped out their path long and long ago; their feet are set therein, and they must tread it to the end. Such was the conclusion of our Scandinavian ancestors—a belief forced upon them by their intense realization of the futility of human hopes and schemings, of the terror and tragedy of life, the vanity of its desires, and the untraveled gloom or sleep, dreamless or dreamful, which lies beyond its end.

Finally, the Viking Age novels have the luxury of drawing upon an established old Northern culture as set down in the Sagas, one that feels simultaneously alien and familiar. Men in these books don’t drown, they “go down to Ran.” Thieves and outlaws are “wolfs heads.” Warriors go “Viking” in season—bloody raids that involved the taking of gold and silver and slaves as plunder—with the same joy and tradition that we tune in to the opening day of the Red Sox each April. Valhalla waits as reward for the brave, not heaven. This was a culture that existed arm-in-arm with violence: Holmgangs, hall-burnings, and blood eagles were parlance of the Age. It’s little wonder that the aforementioned fantasy novels have burst from this fertile ground like sweet fruit.

This northern spirit and Icelandic Saga influence infuses every page of Haggard’s Eric Brighteyes. The action takes place in Iceland, a hard, stony country of hard snows and unforgiving seas. Men either make their fortunes off the land, by trading on the open seas, or by the taking of plunder in coastal raids (often all three). From the bones of this hardy soil is sprung Eric Brighteyes. Eric is the archetype of the Nordic hero: Blond, handsome, fearless, and mighty in arms and feats of strength. Yet for all his strength he too is subject to the same forces of fate that rule all men.

Artwork by Donato Giancola.

As the novel opens a young Eric falls for the beautiful Gudruda the Fair, and their marriage seems imminent. But Gudruda’s half-sister, the evil, scheming Swanhild, has other plans. Gudruda and Swanhild are both daughters of Asmund Asmundson, but while the former is his daughter from marriage, Swanhild is the offspring of Asmund’s brief extramarital fling with Groa, a fey, Finnish witch-woman. Dubbed Swanhild the Fatherless due to Asmund’s refusal to recognize her as his flesh and blood (every character in the Sagas seems to have an appellation tied to their name), Swanhild grows up spiteful and cruel. Her sole desire is to claim Eric for her own, and she will stop at nothing to get him.

Swanhild’s vow to win Eric sets up an ending string of trials and woe for Eric and Gudruda, as well as Asmund and a number of hapless men whom Swanhild uses to drive a wedge between the two lovers. Swanhild whispers in Asmund’s ear that Eric is not worthy to wed his daughter; he sets before Eric a seemingly impossible task of coming to his Yule-Feast via the route of the Golden Falls, which requires that he Eric come descend down a great waterfall some thirty fathoms high. In a scene of man against cliff rivaling James Dickey’s Deliverance, Eric succeeds in reaching the bottom.

The tests go on: Swanhild convinces Asmund to marry off Gudruda to Oskapar Blacktooth, a prosperous but heartless troll-faced warrior from the northern lands. He and Eric run afoul throughout the book, and their feud finally reaches a bloody conclusion in a scene reminiscent of The Red Wedding from George R.R. Martin’s AStorm of Swords.

Fortunately for Eric he meets a staunch ally in Skallagrim, a great bear of a man and a Baresark/Berserk, a breed of warrior which flew into such a rage in combat that they seemed impervious to weapons. Eric defeats Skallagrim in single combat and the latter swears thralldom to him and refuses to leave his side thereafter.

With Skallagrim at his side and infused with a Northern courage which allows him to endure in the face of bitter adversity, Eric overcomes all obstacles to win his way back to Gudruda—but only briefly. Eric knows that fate is on their tail and that their love cannot outlast the reckless hate of their enemies. In a speech that may have been spoken by a more pessimistic Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings (incidentally, J.R.R. Tolkien was a big fan of Eric Brighteyes), Eric tells Gudruda that although toil and struggle is our lot and we end in darkness, and that life’s rewards are short, they must be preserved, with arms if need be, and despair fought against:

Here, it would seem, is nothing but hate and strife, weariness, and bitter envy to fret away our strength, and at last, if we come so far, sickness, sorrowful age and death, and thereafter we know not what. Little of good do we find to our hands, and much of evil; nor now I for what ill-doing these burdens are laid upon us. Yet must we needs breathe such an air as is blown about us, Gudruda, clasping at that happiness which is given, though we may not hold it.

Presented at numerous times with the choice to flee Iceland and live a happy full life in England, Eric rejects this option at every turn, reeled in by pride, or his love for Gudruda, or his strong ties to Iceland itself. In one poignant scene (there are a half-dozen or more magnificent such scenes in the book), a glimmer of hope appears for the star-crossed lovers. Gudruda asks Eric whither they will go after death; Eric answers:

“Death is but the gate of life and love and rest. Harken Gudruda, my May! Odin does not reign over all the world, for when I sat out yonder in England, a certain holy man taught me of another God—a God who loves not slaughter, a God who died that men might live forever in peace with those they love.”

“How is this God named, Eric?”

“They name him the White Christ, and there are many who cling to him.”

“Would that I knew this Christ, Eric.”

I won’t spoil the ending for readers who wish to see for themselves whether Eric and Gudruda ever find peace, in this world or the next, but this a story about life, and all lives ultimately end in tragedy.

Eric’s passage here on earth wins him fame and honor in the great rolls of heroes; so too does Haggard’s novel deserve to be remembered, and re-read, down through the ages. Eric Brighteyes is the kind of fantasy novel we need more of today: Powerful, well-written, standalone, the stuff of adventure and dark magic that, at its core, grapples with the human condition, featuring heroes and heroines that match their love and loyalty and bravery against the implacable dark.

Note: I can’t review Eric Brighteyes without mentioning the wonderful introduction to my particular edition (1978, Zebra Books), by Lin Carter. Carter was a shrewd editor and a passionate, informed spokesman for fantasy literature of all stripes. It is from his introduction that the title of this post is taken.

This post originally appeared on The Cimmerian Web site.