Poul Anderson's Mother Of Kings (New York, 2003), Book Five, Chapter XI, p. 448 gives us two more Thor- names, not included in the Dramatis Personae, which does inform us, on p. 599, that:
"Minor or incidental characters are omitted."
In Iceland, Thord the Bull fosters Olaf Hoskuldarson and Thorbjorn marries Olaf's mother.
I cannot bring myself to care whether the Eirikssons retain their kingships in Norway. However, the text of the novel is encyclopedic. We learn about tenth century Northern Europe while gaining an over-arching impression of the seasons turning while men scheme and fight.
We see mythology in the melting pot in the creative mind of Gunnhild who wonders:
"Could the heathen be right? They would have been willing enough to set Christ in Aasgard and offer to him as they did to the rest. Might he be akin to the gods but bent on their overthrow - another Loki?"
- Book Five, Chapter IX, p. 439.
If history had gone differently, then mythology and theology would also have gone differently, as Anderson shows in "Star of the Sea."
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