The Thrall's Tale

The Thrall’s Tale is Judith Lindbergh’s debut novel of historical fiction set in the times of Viking exploration in the late 10th century. Eirik Raude and his sons including Leif Eiriksson lead several small ships packed full of people and animals from bleak Iceland to a place “all flush and green”. But this is not another story of marauding Norse men out to pillage and plunder. On this journey and the subsequent settlement of Greenland, we follow three women: a young female slave, an old seeress, and the daughter of the slave who becomes the apprentice of the old seeress.


Lindbergh gives her characters an amazing depth and provides exceptional insight to their motivations and emotions even as they perform the most mundane chores and eke out an existence from such harsh conditions.


Still, every dawn I awake to sounds of the scraping out of stones, to the slicing of sod and the lashing of driftwood. Every day, Thorbjorg’s men mount the casing stones into sturdy walls, then stuff them with sod, thick and wide for warmth, then make a roof of grassy turf laid over driftwood beaming. Once full enclosed, the house is dank, with a meager hearth for warmth set upon the inner row. On either side, dirt-built benches tuck beneath the roof’s low eaves. On these we will sit, eat, sew, and sleep-and, fair, most likely die.


As these people struggle to settle this land and build lives for themselves, the old prophetess Thorbjorg foresees a coming of great change even as she feels the weakening of her master Odin.


Thorbjorg reflects on her ominous feelings:


What is to come. What lingers close. What these others all about me still cannot fathom. Yet ever it will come-as they to me, begging for some lean, uncertain tidings. I tell them what I may-what little well I can. But the murk is thick. My master’s voice has grown quite still.
…
And a scent-such a scent-strange and thick with the sweetness of a rotting. Such as I knew it once-upon a distant market-where? Well now I remember; and somewhat how that scent was termed-by foreign names, fitting crudely on the tongue. One was frankincense…another myrrh.


Christianity reaches out even to Greenland and as some are quick to embrace it, others deny it and stand fast to the old gods. Lindbergh presents a balanced and compassionate view of the Christian conversion and the dying of old myths.


The formal prose creates a sense of detachment that contributes to the feeling that Greenland and the Vikings are truly of another time and place. The ancient magic that pervades their world is palpable as Lindbergh skillfully includes the myths and gods of Old Norse. The novel’s language and its structure read like an epic poem of yore. It’s melodic and flowing with its own distinctive meter.


The author’s years of research is evident in the detail provided, the dialog and mannerisms of everyone from the lowliest thrall to the most arrogant son of a chieftain. The Thrall’s Tale is a compelling interpretation of the lives of three very different women whose fears and struggles and passions cross the boundaries of time and place.