This is a guest post from Richard:

THE SHIELD RING by Rosemary Sutcliff

“Here is an end to all talk of laying down of swords,” Jarl Buthar said, his head tipped up toward the ragged sky, and his great voice bit like a north-east wind. “The King’s Peace! If this be the King’s Peace, my brothers, better that we kill our women and bairns own-handed and stand forth to slay and be slain in the last pass. Nay, but it shall be the Northmen’s peace, and the Normans shall grovel on their bellies, whimpering for it, ere this day’s work be forgotten. By the Old Gods I swear it, by Thor’s Ring and Hammer, by the High Seat of Odin Himself, I swear it!”

THE SHIELD RING is set around the cusp of the 11 th and 12 th centuries. It
chronicles the struggle of the Norse settlers of Cumberland [the modern Lake District] to preserve their autonomy and independence from the Normans in the wake of the Harrying of the North.

The larger events are filtered through the experiences of a pair of star-crossed orphans. A Saxon girl called Frytha; adopted by the Norse when her family is wiped out in a Norman raid. And a Norse fosterling named Bjorn. Over the course of a dozen years or so the dramas of their respective coming of ages and rites of passage are played out against the backdrop of the bitter attritions of war. A war which ultimately culminates with the
Northmen’s winnowed war-band making a last stand in the bleak gulch of Rannardale.

First published in 1956 THE SHIELD RING is ostensibly a children’s book. Or YA in modern terminology. Its author, Rosemary Sutcliff (1920-1992), remains fêted as the foremost exponent of children’s history novels of the post war period.

Anyone reading THE SHIELD RING today will likely find themselves compelled to question whether Sutcliff ever saw herself in any such light. In concert with all her major works, THE SHIELD RING makes few concessions to any envisaged age group. It is utterly uncompromising in its presentation of the commonplace harshness of Middle Ages life.

She may not go into detail about the grisly ritual of the blood-eagle for example, but does not balk at referencing it on more than one occasion. Neither are its young characters spared the sight of tortured bodies lashed to spears.

If the many fights and battles are not as graphic in execution as the modern palate may be accustomed to, then this owes less to the protection of fragile dispositions than stylistic inclination. Sutcliff was too gifted a writer to need to wallow in descriptions of steaming viscera to achieve an impact. Her battles are largely rendered as surges of movement, washes of sound, and the play of light on mail and spearpoint. Like Jarl Buthar, surveying the carnage of the final battle from the heights of Rannardale Knotts, Sutcliff
favoured an elevated perspective.

That being said, she does not gloss over the sight of berserkers disembowelling horses. Which I venture to suggest is not an action one would be likely to encounter in any other “children’s book” of the period. And something likely to put a modern sensitivity reader into a tizzy.

Sutcliff’s major works, which I would classify as those produced mainly between 1954 and 1965, occupy a Goldilocks zone. Never patronising to the younger mind that must work to properly understand their richness. Yet no less rewarding to the mature reader who can appreciate their subtlety. And are equally thrilling from either perspective.

THE SHIELD RING is based on an oral tradition then extant in the Lake District. And one which remains so, one must presume. It is not founded in documented history. Yet is no less convincing because of that. Possibly because Sutcliff’s own taste for history was always of the minstrelly variety rather than the dry academic kind. And this tale, occupying a wyrd world, ostensibly Christian but still beholden to portents and omens, suits her
preference perfectly.

“What else should they [swans] be? Did ye not hear how they dipped low over Rannardale, circling the place where the Spear-Tempest will break? Seeking out the Place of Killing against the day that they come again to choose their slain?”

THE SHIELD RING is a book of many many virtues. And precious few faults. The unfortunate repetition of a convenient storm to aid the embattled Northmen in a fight being the most egregious.

The prose is simply sublime. The sense of time and place wonderfully evoked. And the dialogue reads convincingly archaic without ever being arch. Even accruing mythic overtones on occasion:
“This was a blade for giants and heroes, and the giants and heroes are all dead.”

As much to the good as all this is, it would count for very little without compelling characters to animate the narrative. And here again Sutcliff excels. Although content to paint most of the supporting cast with a broad brush, it is done with such skill that no one is reduced to a cipher. Each character stands out in some way. None more so than Aiken the
Beloved, with his devoted hound Garm always at his side.

Of the two protagonists, the moody Bjorn is the more compelling character study. Reflecting Sutcliff’s professed greater affinity and understanding of male struggles over female ones. The book was commenced with the intention of telling an adventure story from a female perspective, but this was largely abandoned as the character of Bjorn came to the
fore and Sutcliff’s innate sympathies asserted themselves.

Like many of her leading characters, Bjorn stands apart from his society. While this is most often attributable to some physical handicap that they are afflicted with; Marcus’s wounded leg in THE EAGLE OF THE NINTH for instance, or Drem’s withered arm in WARRIOR SCARLET [reflecting Sutcliff’s own lifelong struggle with the crippling effects of Still’s Disease]. Here the stigma is less overt.

Possessed of a fey streak inherited from a distant Welsh forebear, Bjorn is prone to introspection and brooding. He has a depth of feeling quite at odds with Norse stolidity and stoicism. And this conspires to leave him prone to anxiety and self-doubt.

Throughout the protracted conflict with the Normans, no one has ever betrayed the location of the Jarlstead to them. Bjorn becomes tormented by the fear that his own mettle will not pass scrutiny if put to such a test. Needless to say, circumstances deliver him the chance to find out.

THE SHIELD RING is more than just a good read. Arguably, it’s an essential one. At once both a paean and a coronach for culture, language, tradition, and heritage. And the importance of defending each of them from being obliterated by an alien deluge. For the true Shield Ring is not “barrier fells and the tottermoss between but something in the hearts of
men.”

In an age of mass migration, it is a message as apposite now as it ever was.