How a Viking battlefield led to a historical
fantasy series
Long, long ago, before my second son went to live in Sweden, I had a
contract to re-write various Norse myths and legends as short stories for an
educational publisher. I was well into the project when the whole thing was
cancelled. Disappointing, but these things happen, and if you are a writer you
know background reading, research and early drafts are rarely wasted.
Midnight sun on the Baltic coast of northern
Sweden.
A few years later, I returned to the Sigurd, the Dragonslayer story in
the ancient Volsung saga and began to re-draft it as a novel using a fictional
reluctant hero. The story came together well and was published as The
Doomsong Sword. As fantasy the book didn’t fit very well with my two
historical crime fiction series, though, so I largely ignored it until a couple
of years ago, when a combination of factors inspired a second and then a third book
in what is becoming a saga-like series.
The second book, The Doomsong Voyage, developed out of
visit to a Spanish hill-top town in what used to be as Al-Andalus. This patio
features in the story.
Apart from their infamous reputation for raiding for treasure and
slaughtering innocents the Danes as they were called – even if they weren’t
from Denmark – sailed huge distances ‘a-viking’ for trade, and then in search
of warmer fertile lands, where they could farm and prosper far better than in
the ice and snow of the Cold North. I was aware of Viking settlements in Cantabria
and Galicia, (northern Spain) and how they traded in the Levant, but the visit
to this small Moorish town on the southern Atlantic coast of Spain resulted in
a nagging writer’s ‘what if’. The notion that Vikings had docked in a nearby
port lodged in my mind and the outline of a historical-fantasy saga began to
grow. This story, informed by Scandinavian history relating to a volcano and a
verified climate disaster, plus my own travels, takes the reader from a tiny
island on the Baltic Sea to Ibiza in the old Middle Sea in a trading knarr
named Guillemot – after the small, indomitable birds who thrive in the
worst of weathers.
Book 3, recently released, takes a few of the passengers and crew back
to the Cold North, then on a return voyage south. They are pushed off course
during a terrible storm and Guillemot takes shelter in the River
Torridge (North Devon). This is where Scandinavian, British, and my own
personal history come together – on a battlefield.
The stimulus for what happens here is probably connected to my age-related
nostalgia for the bracing winds of a North Devon Atlantic beach. My Spanish
husband and I now live on the Mediterranean, where beaches are narrow, gritty
and rarely exciting. Perhaps for this reason I kept remembering where I grew up.
Our house was built on a Viking battlefield and I used to walk our dog down
Hubba Lane to the river. Most days I passed and took no notice of a monument on
Bloody Corner (!) that says:
Stop Stranger Stop,
Near this spot lies buried
King Hubba the Dane,
who was slayed in a bloody retreat,
by King Alfred the Great
Historians doubt and disagree on what actually happened in the Battle of
Northam, possibly because there was a second battle in much the same location
in early Norman times, but this monument records the supposed defeat of invading
Danes ‘by the men of Defenschire’ in 878. According to the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:
(That) winter the brother of Hingwar
and of Halfdene came with twenty-three ships to Defenschire in Wessex; and he (Hubba/Ubbe/Hudd) was there slain…
Records
of Northam, which was larger and more important than Bideford in those days,
exist from around the 10th/11th Century, and tradition also says a fleet of 33,
not 23, dragonships landed on the beaches around Appledore and sailed up the
Torridge. This is the background to the third Doomsong story, which also
includes aspects of Celtic traditions and legend because Devon and Cornwall
maintained their Celtic heritage well into Norman times.
Fact, fiction, and mythical fantasy – because magic and the fantastical
were a very important element of Viking, Celtic and Anglo-Saxon beliefs before
science and electricity – have combined to become The Doomsong Saga.
Each of the books can be read as a stand-alone, but if you would like to
start at the beginning with how the legendary sword named Doomsong and
Truthteller came into the hands of a lazy boy named Davor begin with Book 1
The Doomsong Sword
Doomsong Sword:
https://mybook.to/DoomsongSaga1
Book 2 The Doomsong Voyage takes the
sword to the Middle Sea and into the hands of a merciless pirate named
Ice-Heart.
Doomsong Voyage https://mybook.to/DoomsongSaga2
If you’d like to read about how a Guardian of the Sword protected it during the attempted Viking invasion of Devon read:
Book 3 The Doomsong
Legend:
https://books2read.com/u/mqlJeZ
 |
| Upsala Rune Stone |
Find out more about J.G. Harlond’s books and travels
on her website:
Or her blog:
https://wp-harlond.jgharlond.com
On Bluesky:
https://bsky.app/profile/janegharlond.bsky.social
On Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/JaneGHarlond
Jane G. Harlond
Málaga, January, 2026
scroll down to leave a comment
thank you!
*
 |
| New release anthology by various authors |
 |
| available from Amazon https://mybook.to/GhostEncounters |
| The story of the events that led to The Battle of Hastings in 1066 Harold the King (UK edition) I Am The Chosen King (US edition) AND 1066 Turned Upside Down an anthology of 'What If'' 1066 tales  |
(subscription reminder available)
PLEASE:
LEAVE A REVIEW
FOR YOUR FAVOURITE AUTHORS ON AMAZON!
Just a 4 or 5 star rating and a brief
"I thoroughly enjoyed this book!" will make such a difference!
THANK YOU!
