"'Dreams have come to me, nightmares. The same, over and over. I stumble lost, through a land gray, cold, bare. Everywhere lie dead bones, gnawed by trolls. In an endless wind, I hear a mockery, "You have forsaken the gods. So the gods have forsaken you." He shivered...'"
-Poul Anderson, Mother Of Kings (New York, 2003), Book Four, Chapter IX, p. 323.
Trolls gnaw dead bones in a cold land with an endless wind. A bleak if intriguing scene but can the Aesir do this? This question can be answered on two levels. No, because a more powerful god will replace them. No, because the premise of the novel is that historical events unfold as in our world even though there is some supernatural activity behind the scenes.
Men who have had this dream have also seen an unseasonal swallow. That informs the reader that the dreams have been sent not by the messenger of the gods but by the Witch-Queen Gunnhild. Her sendings are not prophetic warnings but cynical manipulations. She, though nominally Christian, incites the men to attack their Christian King - who has indeed tried to force them to forsake their gods. Whereas Sigurd Jarl strives to keep the peace, Gunnhild tries to foment strife.
She is learning from experience. Men who attack Christian churches do not suffer any more than could have been expected in any case. But nor do men who forsake the gods. Gunnhild favors a shamanism in which men unite with and act on nature without any recourse to gods. In this respect, at least, she anticipates scientific knowledge and practice.
When Gunnhild visits (in order to manipulate) a bishop, we of course read about the surrounding scenery before she enters his house. We look for three senses and find the second and third in the last sentence:
"Rooks fluttered black around the spire. Clouds drifted fleecy beneath the cool blue sky of late summer. A breeze scattered somewhat the racket and smells of the town." (p. 344)
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