The Hammer of Greatness: Life of the Oseberg priestess (783-834 AD) by Maria KvilhaugMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
A tale that starts off with a dream by a sacred healer who lives close to the river with her people. The village is a place of freedom and peace. It is a place where women are respected and thing are rather matrilineal with the men following after the ways of the women. Much different from the Viking era world were men hold sway over everything. Perun or Thor the Thundergod is central to this story even if he is not actually present. The dream eventually come true. A wounded Norseman name Thorbjorn comes to a village wounded, he arrive at the Thunder Gods shrine. There he is met by the healer who marries him eventually and thy have two kids together. The healer had a child from before and her name is Zivah. Thorbjorn or Thunderbear as he is called has lived a life of disaster and has seen his whole family wiped out by a paranoid and power hungry king of Svears. Thorbjorn after leaving his village goes from one disaster to another on board a Viking ship where he is circled by multiple enemies an wounded badly. That I how he gets to the village. The two children they have together are Thordis and Thorowolf.
After the birth of Thordis the relationship between Thorbjorn and Zivah starts to deteriorate. Zivah was once meant to follow in her mothers footsteps and be a healer uut when Thorbjorn midwifes his daughter into birth Zivah is angry because she was supposed to do that. So she hates her family breaks the hart of many young men while fantasizing about marrying a rich prince. Her flirtations with bad people get her into some danger as her younger sister looks out for her and Thorbjorn must kill rogue Viking to protect her.
Life changes when one day the Viking Rus invade their village and wipe out the inhabitants. Zivah survives and is almost violated on many occasions. Her mother dies protecting her . Thorbjorn dies in battle. Thorwolf died years earlier in a drowning accident. Zivah is relegated to the status of a concubine while Thordis gets recognition as a Thunder Priestess in the making. Life will change for both girls as they realize their destinies as blade honers. Blade honers make men strive to be better than they are at present. Zivah adapts to being a slave in the Rus Viking compound.
The strong point of this book despite it being a rather good story that is very entertaining to read but the author is very knowledgeable about Norse life back in Viking time and she has done her research. Think she has PHD in Ancient History of that period. She does not glorify the Viking like lots of authors are tending to do. They were a rough group of slaver and raiders yet they did have a code of honor. But they could be very mean and very nice in comparison. The slavers take the girls through the slave markets of Khazaria and Arnulf the Viking leader tls about life in Baghdad and there is some meaty discussion on religion. An excellent book and very informative.
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