Synopsis: Farm boys Ottar and Ketil join a Viking ship. As blood-brothers, they have sworn to protect each other, but life among the Vikings tests their friendship to the limit. If they cannot stand strong together, their bodies may be left on the battlefield to feast the wolves.
Review: Ottar and Ketil leave Shetland to join the Vikings in Northumbria, impelled by Ottar's fantasies of heroism and riches. A third son on a poorer farm than the one Ketil will inherit, short in stature and of mixed race (Norse / Pictish), Ottar has more to prove, but Ketil loyally goes along with him. It is a long time before they see any fighting – instead they are bullied into slavish chores. Ketil's resistance to such treatment causes him to be adopted by a better leader, opening a rift between Ketil and his blood-brother Ottar. Ketil remains the focus as he shows his loyalty to Ottar in a raid on a Saxon monastery, his skill as a tactician, and his horror at the treatment of the captives. Continued Saxon resistance means that Ketil or Ottar could end up dead on the battlefield, ‘feasting the wolf'.
Susan Price presents a convincing and unglamorous picture of Viking life, a mixture of drudgery and ferocity, with a macho ethos in which the ultimate put-down is for a free man to be compared with a woman or a slave. Feasting the Wolf maintains the thematic prominence of twinning from Elfgift and Elfking, but perhaps is not as revisionist as those earlier novels - though brutal Viking practices are repulsive to Ketil, ultimately he fully embraces frenzied fighting. Ketil and Ottar's responses to bullying may resonate with readers, as may the testing of the bond between two young men with different backgrounds, attitudes and aspirations. Dramatic as the story is, it is probably this delineation of a friendship that is most compelling.
Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 13 x 2 cm
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