Norse contraception WAS going a-viking. At least for the women.
For the men, there were always argr. (bottoming men) The shame was not in having sex with a man, but in being penetrated like a woman.

Generally speaking, contraception was very disturbing up into about the 19th century. Even then, a sea sponge on a bit of knitting wool was about the best you could hope for.

The hero of the next book is Ivar.

Whoo-hoo! It’s Ivar.

And with historical contraception, because the nuts and bolts are frankly disgusting (shared condoms anyone? and dung), I tend not to go there.

I just started reading the latest in Ariana Franklin’s “Mistress of the Art of Death” series, and she has Adelia speaking with another woman about the available birth control of the day. “Not on your life” about covers my response to it.

Chris –
As the author, can I assure you that Sela’s perception that Vikar did not want children and in particular her children was false. Given his background, he did want children. At the end of chapter 13, he states that he has no memory of ever saying such a thing. Did he actually say it to Sela? The final days of the first marriage were filled with a desire to hurt on both sides and people can say pretty ugly things that they do not mean. The actual quarrel is never recorded, so it is up to the reader to decide. Part of it for Sela is the self justification/delusion of why she decided to keep her son and not give him up as custom dictated. The plain fact was once she held Kjartan in her arms there was no way she was going to give him up and so she made excuses.
Some of the book deals with perception v reality and whose reality.

And with historical contraception, because the nuts and bolts are frankly disgusting (shared condoms anyone? and dung), I tend not to go there. I believe Durex.com used to have a picture of a Japanese horn sheath on its website… There is some anecdotal evidence that contraception at the end of the Roman Republic improved (for example Augustus’s law about the number of children a woman had to have before she received certain priviledges) but really the Viking sagas do not say much for or against. So on balance, my characters tend not to think about the possibility of prevention.

Hanne — LOL. Yes, I know. Actually in the book, it is again about perception v reality and the sort of lies Sela’s father told v what he actually did.

Hope this helps.
Michelle

There are some in Norway who still believe in them…

I’m afraid we generally don’t :)

This jumped out at me – I haven’t read the book, but this seems both anachronistic (in an age without birth control, basically the only way to not have children is to not have heterosexual sex at all, or at least not PIV, so AFAIK people didn’t really think about whether they wanted children or not; they would come along no matter what) and drastically inconsistent with his behavior upon actually meeting his child.

The “person, usually a man, who says they don’t want children but then melts into a puddle of goo when they meet an actual child and see how cuuuuute they are!” trope really irritates me – it pretty much assumes that there isn’t anyone who really doesn’t want children, they just don’t know what they’re missing. You couldn’t be more insulting if you tried for a week. People who don’t want children have *met* children – they may have nieces and nephews, for example. Many, perhaps even most of them like children just fine. They just don’t want them as a new super-fulltime job or the new focus of their existence or however you want to describe it.

Maybe he wanted children all along and was lying for some reason and none of this applies – like I said, I haven’t read the book.

The tafl they play is indeed hnei tafl or king’s table. It was simply called tafl until chess was introduced into the Norse world. Chess became far more popular and indeed, they think the Lewis chessmen were part of some merchant’s consignment that was lost in the sand and having been to the beach where they were found, I can readily understand that. The Terry Pratchett game of Thud is based on Tafl btw and probably the closest modern equivalent. Fox and geese might owe something to tafl as well. I happen to like to play board games…as Angelia Sparrow says they are good way to pass an rainy afternoon…

Tottr is old Norse and the Scots word — tot is derived from it. It means little. I wanted to do some thing with trolls, but the word troll is actually developed later, according to the online etmotolgy dictionary. The whole concept of trolls figures in Norse folk lore though. There are some in Norway who still believe in them…You do not know how pleased I was when my editor allowed me to keep them…
I love the whole concept of the truth behind the folk tale. I recently read Robin Lane Fox’s Travelling Heroes which looks at the history and influences behind Homer which I found absoultely fascinating.

all the best,
Michelle

The book itself sounds very good.

One wonders how a Viking would unplug a sink? “Ja, shuure. Vot’s a zink?”

I saw this book at my local Home-from-Home (the bookshop) and decided not to buy it ’cause of the lame-o title, but your review changed my mind. Must leave the house now!