The Shield Ring by Rosemary Sutcliff Find!
When I was in my first year at Grammar School in 1967, our form had to read Rosemary Sutcliff's version of Beowulf and it left a lasting impression. So it was a pleasant surprise to discover that among the many other books that she wrote, she wove a story around the Norsemen and women living in Buttermere in the North Western part of the Lake District shortly after the time of the Norman conquest.
The Shield Ring is a stirring tale of heroic courage, guile and cunning tinged with tragedy as the Norsemen defend their precious home against the encroaching Normans. It is a tale told through the eyes of children, who live a precarious life in such dangerous times. Set largely in the beautiful valley of Buttermere, the action spreads out around Cumbria as the Normans attack the Norsemen from all sides. Yet again we see the importance of the coastal settlements at places like Rafnglas (Ravenglass) and Workington for trade and communication, and the stategic significance of the passes, such as Midgate (Dunmail Raise) through the mountains.
The book wonderfully captures the desolation of the harsh winters and the golden days of plenty in the summer. You can almost see the ripple of waves on the Mere and hear the "lovely spiral of sound bubbling and rippling with delight" as the Curlew "skimmed low over the ground, then suddenly swerved upward, up and up, hung a moment poised on quivering wings".
In the author's note we learn that of all the people mentioned in the story, only Ranulf Le Meschin, (sometimes Norman lord of Carlisle), is likely to appear in any history book, but people like Frytha and Bjorn were real in local tradition if not in written history. Traces of them are present in local place names: Buttermere still bears the name of the Norse leader, Jarl Buthar, who made his stronghold there and Aikin's How still overlooks Keskadale and the low ground towards Derwentwater, marking the place where the Norse warrior Aikin the Beloved was laid to rest with his great sword Wave-flame in his hand and his faithful hound Garm at his feet. The very fact that the Domesday Book, that great Survey of England carried out under the instruction of William the Conqueror, stops short at the foot of the Cumberland fells and Lake Land is not mentoned in it, is evidence of the Norsemen's hard fought struggle to maintain their freedom, a fight which held the Normans at bay for 30 long years.
A wonderful story which readers of any age will enjoy!
24 September 2009 from Anne
Finds
- Grange-over-Sands: The Story of a Gentle Township
- The Silent Traveller: A Chinese Artist in Lakeland
- Red Ike
- Cumbrian Privies
- Ethel Fisher's West Cumbrian Dialect titles
- The Embalmer's Book of Recipes by Ann Lingard
- Nella Last's Peace
- Riding the Stang by Dawn Robertson
- Life on the Fell - a pictorial chronicle of a Lakeland community
- About Scout Scar
- William Wilberforce - A Summer Diary 1779
- Beatrix Potter - the unknown years
- Smoke over Shap by Margaret Potter
- Songs of a Cragsman by George Basterfield
- The Grasmere Dialect Plays
- The Grizedale Experience: Sculpture, Art & Theatre in a Lakeland Forest
- An Atlas of The English Lakes
- How Hall. Poetry and Memories. A Passion for Ennerdale by Tom Rawling
- Stumpy, Hero of the Lakes
- The High Places by A. Harry Griffin
- The Highest House in Wathendale
- Kendal by Roger Bingham
- Secrets and Legends of Old Westmorland
- Reminiscences of Wordsworth Among the Peasantry of Westmorland by Canon Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley
- Little Gods by Jacob Polley
- A Lakeland Summer
- Hunter of Harter Fell by Joseph E Chipperfield
- And Nobody Woke Up Dead
- An accessible paradise
- The Fleming Family novels and Graham Sutton
- Excursion to Loweswater. A Lakeland Visit 1865
- Writing on the Wall
- Beyond Scafell by Alan Robinson
- Rogue Herries by Hugh Walpole
- Kendal In The Nineteenth Century by A Wainwright
- In There Somewhere
- The Bondwomen by W G Collingwood
- "Ah'd Gaa Back Tomorra!"
- A Cumbrian Copper by Ray Huddart
- The Arsenic Labyrinth by Martin Edwards
- Old Will Stories by Dudley Hoys
- The Shield Ring by Rosemary Sutcliff
- T'Bacca Queen by Theodora Wilson Wilson
- Furness and the Industrial Revolution
- The Shadow of Black Combe
- The Painted Letters of Percy Kelly
- Ivver Sen
- Lakeland in the 1830s
- Wasdale Climbing Book By Michael Cocker
- Riding High by Barbara Sneyd
- Deborah in Langdale
- Early Recollections of Grange
- Hazard's Way by Roger Hubank
- Yan, Tan, Tethera
- Talk of the Town
- Capturing the Mountains
- Hope On, Hope Ever
- Mildred Edwards: Our City Our People 1889 - 1978 Memories
- Lakeland Limericks
- Surrounding loveliness
- Haweswater by Sarah Hall
- Coast to Coast by Jan Minshull
- Sunshine To The Sunless
- Geese, cattle wallopers and secret Irish paths
- Anarchists, Angels and wet Bank Holiday Mondays
- A more unconventional kind of find...?
- Skiddaw Summit by Kathleen Jones
- Thorstein of the Mere: A Saga of the Northmen in Lakeland
- Wednesday Early Closing
- Smoke Across The Fell
- The Sand Pilot of Morecambe Bay
- The Chronicles of Boggerthwaite
- Carrock Fell
- Feet in the Clouds
- Hercules and the Farmer's Wife
- Shepherd's Warning
- The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices
- I've been so busy reading I haven't had time to blog!
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