Plot summary
Eyvind is a young Viking man who wishes to be a Wolfskin (a berserker warrior of Thor) like his brother. Somerled, a quiet boy of the same age, befriends Eyvind and binds him to loyalty with a blood oath.
In the Old Norse written corpus, berserkers were warriors who purportedly fought in a trance-like fury, a characteristic which later gave rise to the modern English word "berserk." Berserkers are attested to in numerous Old Norse sources, with their name literally rendered as "bear-coats", along with úlfhéðnar ("wolf-coats").
In Germanic mythology, Thor is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, the protection of mankind and also hallowing and fertility. Besides Old Norse Þórr, extensions of the god occur in Old English as Þunor and in Old High German as Donar. All forms of the deity stem from a Common Germanic *Þunraz.
After becoming a Wolfskin, Eyvind voyages to the Isles of Light with Somerled, his brother Eirek, Somerled's brother Ulf (the leader of the expedition), and many others. The Vikings quickly establish a peace treaty with the native island folk, and build a settlement.
Then Ulf is murdered sadistically, suspended by ropes from a cliff's edge to die of exposure, leaving his position to Somerled - who immediately breaks the treaty. He sends out the Wolfskins to destroy the small army mustered by the natives in retaliation. Eyvind, seeing that the army is composed of the very young and the very old, suffers a breakdown brought on by the moral crisis.
The native princess and priestess, Nessa, finds him and cares for him, healing his wounds and coldness of spirit. Alone in a hidden cave, with only an old priestess for company, the two young people fall in love.
But Eyvind is soon faced with another crisis: he must face Somerled with newfound proof that the current ruler killed his own brother.
In the Viking hall, Eyvind's accusations are smothered with violence, and he is imprisoned, despite the efforts of his few remaining friends to help him.
Finally, Nessa creates and brings to the hall a harp made out of Ulf's bones, with Ulf's voice (magically restored) as the final voice of truth that cannot be ignored.
Somerled is banished from the Isles, bound by an oath to Eyvind to live as long as possible, and Eyvind stays in the Isles.
The Kingdom of the Isles comprised the Hebrides, the islands of the Firth of Clyde and the Isle of Man from the 9th to the 13th centuries AD. The islands were known to the Norse as the Suðreyjar, or "Southern Isles" as distinct from the Norðreyjar or Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland. In Scottish Gaelic, the kingdom is known as Rìoghachd nan Eilean. The historical record is incomplete, and the kingdom was not a continuous entity throughout the entire period. The islands concerned are sometimes referred to as the Kingdom of Mann and the Isles, although only some of the later rulers claimed that title. At times the rulers were independent of external control, although for much of the period they had overlords in Norway, Ireland, England, Scotland or Orkney. At times there also appear to have been competing claims for all or parts of the territory. The islands involved have a total land area of over 8,300 square kilometres (3,205 sq mi) and extend for more than 500 kilometres (310 mi) from north to south.
The Lord of the Isles is a title of Scottish nobility with historical roots that go back beyond the Kingdom of Scotland. It emerged from a series of hybrid Viking/Gaelic rulers of the west coast and islands of Scotland in the Middle Ages, who wielded sea-power with fleets of galleys (birlinns). Although they were, at times, nominal vassals of the Kings of Norway, Ireland, or Scotland, the island chiefs remained functionally independent for many centuries. Their territory included the Hebrides, Knoydart, Ardnamurchan, and the Kintyre peninsula. At their height they were the greatest landowners and most powerful lords in Britain after the Kings of England and Scotland.
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The Crovan dynasty, from the late 11th century to the mid 13th century, was the ruling family of an insular kingdom known variously in secondary sources as the Kingdom of Mann, the Kingdom of the Isles, and the Kingdom of Mann and the Isles. The eponymous founder of the dynasty was Godred Crovan, who appeared from obscurity in the late 11th century, before his takeover of the Isle of Man and Dublin. The dynasty was of Gaelic-Scandinavian origin, possibly descending from a branch of the Uí Ímair, a dominant kindred in the Irish Sea region which first appears on record in the late 9th century.
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