E.R. Eddison is known primarily for The Worm Ouroboros, and to a lesser extent the Zimiamvia Trilogy. But he also wrote a historical novel. As a youth he fell under the eddic spell of the Norse sagas (e.g., The Elder Edda.) And why wouldn’t he? The sparse, barebones recitations of blood feuds, raids, treachery, and murder couldn’t help but appeal to an imaginative boy’s spirit. Styrbiorn the Strong, published a mere four years after the successful release of Worm, was Eddison’s expression of his love for the tales, moderated through his poetic gifts as a novelist. He did not produce a work of pastiche or scholarly recreation. As he states in the Afterword of Syrbiorn, “My story is not an imitation of a Saga. I have told it in my own way. Imitations are dead lumber: but having been a reader of Sagas these twenty-five years, and having chosen such a theme and staged it in such an age, I should be foolish to deny that while the defects of this book may be mine, its merits, if it has any, must be fastened on that spirit which lives in the Sagas.”
And with that intention in mind, he wrote a historical novel inspired by a couple of fragments which referenced a character named Styrbiorn the Strong. He cleaved to as much of the historical record as he could, peopled his dramatis personae with actual characters and/or those found in the sagas, and produced a historical novel. Yet not one readers of historical novels would expect. He did not filter the story through the mores and preconceptions of early 20th Century Englishmen. While he did not limit himself to the skeletal narrative of a narrative, neither did he flesh it out in topcoat and top hat, merely providing a bit of muscle and sinew and a hint of flesh. The “spirit of the North” (again quoting from the Afterword) comes through clearly in the lack of authorial judgment. The characters act, but no moral accusations are intimated, no aspersions cast either directly or indirectly. The reader is left to consider such matters for himself.
The story is, as anyone with even a passing familiarity with the sagas would expect, a tragedy. Styrbiorn is clearly headed for an early grave, given his intractable, self-willed behavior; an attitude bordering on hubris. He is of a mold as Sampson or Beowulf, almost supernaturally strong. Surrounded by fatalistic, violence prone Vikings, the only real question is what will trigger the ultimate doom. This being Eddison, the answer is, of course, a beautiful, strong-willed woman.
The characters do possess a certain similarity to those of Worm and Zimiamvia. Eddison admires those above the common herd. The exception are not — in his view — beholden to morality, conventional or otherwise. But Sytrbiorn is unlike the more typical Eddison hero in his flaws, his stuttering and rather linear, non-Machiavellian mind. But he is nonetheless a fascinating character to follow through the latter years of the Viking Age, which Eddison limns with his customary skill. Styrbiorn’s particular friend Biorn is a skald. Eddison’s depiction of a mead hall celebration and the poetry (adapted by Eddison from the original) that he places in the mouth of Biorn is one of the most evocative scenes I’ve ever read. I felt I was a blink away from finding myself there. The power of words does not reach much higher than that.
Despite the foregone, inescapable conclusion, Eddison manages to maintain a level of suspense. The actual end does offer a degree of the unexpected. And the denouement is moving and goes some way to nudging the novel from historical fiction into the realm of fantasy. For anyone with more than a passing interest in the Northern Thing, I recommend picking up a copy of Styrbiorn the Strong.
I also recommend picking up a copy of the four-volume collection of Semi-Autos and Sorcery. Karl Thorson wouldn’t have felt out of place swinging an axe in the shield wall beside Styrbiorn.