Mother Of Kings: Conclusion

Any solid biographical novel shows us the central character as young, then aging, old and dying. Poul Anderson does this with Gunnhild, the Witch-Queen, in Mother Of Kings (New York, 2003). Surprisingly (I thought), the Afterword informs us that, although Gunnhild "...really lived...":

"There is no good evidence...that she practiced witchcraft." (p. 593)

- so what this novel presents is not the historical but the legendary Gunnhild, just as Shakespeare presents not the historical but the legendary Macbeth.

Appropriately, Anderson's historical fiction trilogy, The Last Viking, indeed refers not only to the historical Macbeth, who was contemporary with the events of the trilogy, but also to the remembered Gunnhild although again we are shown how she was remembered rather than how she would really have been.

Heroic fantasies end with heroic victories whereas this novel, historically accurate apart from the fantasy element of the heroine's clairvoyance, ends with most of Gunnhild's sons dead and the two survivors failing to regain their kingdom because that is what happened. The concluding chapters are definitely doom-laden.

My next Anderson project is to read for the first time the third volume of The Last Viking Trilogy, which also ends in heroic failure, but there are a couple of other things to be done first.