Nationwide bestselling creator of the award-winning novel “The Witch’s Coronary heart” (2021), Genevieve Gornichec, delivers one other subversive reimagining of Norse mythology in her new novel “The Weaver and The Witch Queen” ($27) — publishing from Ace (an imprint of Penguin Random Home) on July 25, 2023.
Like Madeline Miller’s “Circe” and Neil Gaiman’s “Norse Mythology,” Gornichec’s novels breathe new life into the extra obscure characters of fable and historical past. “The Wall Avenue Journal”‘s Tom Shippey wrote that Gornichec’s debut, “The Witch’s Coronary heart,” “subverts the mythology from inside, knowledgeably and provokingly,” detailing the story of a banished witch who fell in love with the trickster god Loki.
In “The Weaver and the Witch Queen,” Gornichec crafts one other sweeping, feminist story, this time exploring the highly effective bonds of sisterhood — each by blood relation and by sworn blood oath — by a putting new tackle the story of the Viking Queen Gunnhild, Mom of Kings.
This excerpt from “The Weaver and the Witch Queen” introduces us to Gunnhild when she was nonetheless only a baby, lengthy earlier than establishing her legacy as Viking Queen.
A horn sounded throughout the water in two brief bursts.
Upon listening to it, Gunnhild Ozurardottir dropped her spindle and distaff and ran, ignoring the admonishments of the opposite serving ladies sitting beneath the awning, the place they’d been spinning all afternoon. They’d scold her later, however she cared little.
Her buddies had been about to reach. And at such occasions, she discovered it onerous to care about the rest.
Gunnhild rounded the nook of the longhouse and sprinted up the hill, making for her father’s watchman on the jap facet of the island. He was stationed on a small platform overlooking the water and all the time had a blowing horn available.
“One ship!” he referred to as over his shoulder on the different males milling about, not even noticing as Gunnhild hiked up her costume and scrambled up the platform’s brief ladder. “It is Ketil’s!”
Earlier than he may protest, Gunnhild grabbed the horn off its peg and blew it twice. Under, she may hear dissatisfied noises coming from the youngsters on the ship, and he or she grinned.
“Oi!” the person mentioned, snatching the horn. “That is just for emergencies!”
“This is an emergency,” Gunnhild replied with gravity. She pointed to a darkish form within the water. “As quickly as they cross that huge rock within the bay, they blow the horn. And if I do not reply earlier than they dock, I owe them a trinket. Two blasts for good day, three for goodbye.”
“Aren’t you a little bit outdated for video games, woman?” He hung the horn again the place it belonged with an air of reverence.
“Not once I know I can win,” Gunnhild mentioned, nonetheless grinning. She descended the ladder and ran for the shore, leaving the watchman shaking his head.
As she received nearer, she may see Ketil and his son, Vestein, and his males tying up their rowboat on the rickety picket dock, which might quickly be full. Three others disembarked: Ketil’s spouse, Freydis, and their daughters, Oddny and Signy, whom Gunnhild virtually tackled in a hug as she ran as much as them. After sighing and shifting the bedroll in her arms, Signy rummaged in her rucksack and handed over a single glass bead, which Gunnhild snatched up with an air of triumph and stuffed into the pouch at her belt.
At twelve years outdated, Gunnhild was precisely between the sisters in age—Signy a yr older, Oddny a yr youthful—and the women hardly ever received to see one another besides at gatherings like this, which made the day even sweeter.
“You are too quick,” Signy complained as Gunnhild threw an arm round every of her buddies and herded them up the hill towards her father’s corridor.
“Or possibly you are not quick sufficient,” Gunnhild mentioned, “as a result of once I go to you I nonetheless all the time win. I’ve a set to show it.”
Oddny, the youthful of the 2 sisters, sniffed and picked at one of many furs rolled up in her bedroll, skinny shoulders hunched, her normal pinched expression trying much more so than normal. “It could assist if Signy ever paid consideration as a substitute of daydreaming on a regular basis.”
“Hush, you. I concentrate,” Signy mentioned frivolously, tossing considered one of her chestnut-colored braids over her shoulder. Her inexperienced eyes had been, as all the time, brimming with mischief. Gunnhild all the time appreciated that about her: whether or not it was stealing oatcakes from the cookhouse or pulling a well-timed prank on the farmhands, Signy was all the time up for a little bit enjoyable, the place Oddny was extra more likely to sit again and provides them a disapproving look from whichever of her chores she was dutifully performing. Oddny wasn’t a lot enjoyable, however at the least she by no means tattled on them.
As they entered the longhouse, Gunnhild noticed that preparations had been properly underway to obtain the völva, the sensible lady who would quickly be visiting. A small, sq. platform had been raised on the far finish of the corridor, close to her father’s excessive seat, for the witch to make use of as she carried out the ritual to see into the opposite world and reveal the long run. It sat slightly below the picket statues of the gods Odin, Thor, and Frey which loomed from the jutting lintel above the doorway to the antechamber the place Gunnhild’s household slept.
Gunnhild had by no means seen her father’s corridor trying fairly like this: buzzing with exercise, the air charged with pleasure. It felt like a much-needed rainstorm was about to blow by.
Picture Supply: Courtesy of Ace Publishing
