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Post by trescuinge on Mar 1, 2016 10:35:30 GMT -5
The end of 'Swords of the Northern Sea' is:
"What now, old wolf?" roared Wulfhere, dealing Cormac a buffet between the shoulders that would have felled a horse. "Where away? – it is for you to say."
"To the Isle of Swords, first, for a full crew," the Gael answered, his eyes alight. "Then –" he drank in deeply the crisp strong tang of the sea-wind – "then skoal for the Viking path again and the ends of the world."
I've googled around but haven't found a Danish 'Isle of Swords'. Does anyone know what island Howard meant? I assume it's Wulfhere's home.
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Post by paulmc on Mar 1, 2016 10:44:57 GMT -5
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Post by paulmc on Mar 1, 2016 10:50:09 GMT -5
Interesting that in Turlough's time, it was abandoned. But in Cormac's time, it was a place to recruit a crew. Dark Ages pirate hideaway?
(Assuming REH meant it to be the same isle and not just reuse of the name.)
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Post by trescuinge on Mar 1, 2016 16:01:43 GMT -5
Thanks Paul. I didn't think that it might be some haunt of Danish Vikings. I'll see if I can find it in the Hebrides.
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Post by deuce on Mar 2, 2016 10:21:53 GMT -5
Is the island of Helni/Slyne (in The Dark Man) meant to be Skye? Probably a daft question, but I thought I remembered someone mentioning that at one time. ...... It's very hard to nail down any of REH's Hebrides/Orkney isles. However, it could be fun trying to figure them out!  |
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Post by deuce on Mar 2, 2016 14:37:22 GMT -5
You beat me to it, Paul. I read both tales within a year of each other in junior high. Even then I loved to collate REH's yarns. I would definitely like to have the two be the same, but I'm not sure the evidence supports it. Just a page earlier, they say something like "As soon as the Danes hear we need men...", which implies they're heading to Dane-mark. The names of islands change a lot. Take for instance, Heligoland: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeligolandIt was once called "Forsetlund/Fositeslund": en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forseti#Frisian_Fosite So, the "Isle of Swords" could've been somewhere along the Danish coast and since renamed. My guess would be an island used as a "pirate hideaway" on the Danish west coast. We know Heligoland has shrunken greatly since the early Middle Ages. Perhaps the Isle of Swords simply became unliveable at some point and finally eroded away. |
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Post by trescuinge on Mar 2, 2016 15:34:05 GMT -5
I suspect that Deuce is right and Howard's Hebrides was not a place subject to mundane geography, but I'll give this a try anyway.
Except for size, Skye would be a good fit for Helni. Skye is actually larger than Mull. Rum might be better since it is only about 5 miles across.
There are 2 quotes we can use as clues.
"By the time he sighted Malin Head the weather had calmed wonderfully. There was still a heavy sea, but the gale had slackened to a sharp breeze that sent the little boat skipping along. Days and nights merged into each other; Turlogh drove eastward. Once he put into shore for fresh water and to snatch a few hours' sleep."
And:
"It is a long slant from Malin Head to Helni straight out across the foaming billows, as Turlogh took it. He was aiming for a small island that lay, with many other small islands, between Mull and the Hebrides. A modern seaman with charts and compass might have difficulty in finding it. Turlogh had neither. He sailed by instinct and through knowledge. He knew these seas as a man knows his house. He had sailed them as a raider and as an avenger, and once he had sailed them as a captive lashed to the deck of a Danish dragon ship. And he followed a red trail. Smoke drifting from headlands, floating pieces of wreckage, charred timbers showed that Thorfel was ravaging as he went. Turlogh growled in savage satisfaction; he was close behind the Viking, in spite of the long lead. For Thorfel was burning and pillaging the shores as he went, and Turlogh's course was like an arrow's.
He was still a long way from Helni when he sighted a small island slightly off his course. He knew it of old as one uninhabited, but there he could get fresh water. So he steered for it. The Isle of Swords it was called, no man knew why."
I think that Tim Severin could shed some light on these passages. In 1976 he sailed Brendan from Tory to Iona in about a day, then a day west to Tiree then north to the Minches the channel that runs between the Outer and the Inner Hebrides where they had smooth sailing.
A possible route for Turlogh is similar. He sailed to Iona, possibly delayed by easterly winds. There he rested in the ruins of the monastery and filled his small water container. Next he sailed for the Minches, again stopping to fill up on water and find The Dark Man at either Tiree or Coll. After reaching the main channel he sailed straight as an arrow for Helni.
Either Tiree or Coll could be Isle of the Swords. There is an Old Irish word, 'colg', that means a stabbing sword, but I can't think of any way that 'colg' could become 'coll'. Coll has sandy beaches and a population of 195 so it matches the description in 'The Dark Man' and could have supported a Viking base in the past.
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