The archaeological record, in Scandinavia at least, shows the result was that large areas of land previously supporting agriculture returned to forestland. This in turn probably triggered a reduction in population. In the area around Uppsala in particular, the majority of villages were abandoned in favour of drastically fewer new settlements set on higher ground, away from rising waters. The collapse must have been sudden and severe. Famine was rife, in turn leading to extreme social unrest and violence. As if this wasn’t bad enough, the Dust Veil may also have triggered the outbreak of the Plague of Justinian, which wiped out huge numbers of people in southeastern Europe and may have spread as far north as Scandinavia.
The mid-sixth century also saw a large increase in the number of sacrificial gold hoards deposited across the region. It’s easy to imagine that such extreme circumstances might force beleaguered Scandinavians to part with their precious gold in large quantities, in an attempt to appease the gods they believed had brought this devastation upon them.
Whatever the exact explanations, the tumultuous events of the mid-sixth century appear to have left a deep scar on the psyche of the Scandinavian peoples, reflected in the stories they would go on to tell, and preserved in the details of poems like the ‘Völuspá’ and stories like ‘Gylfaginning’.
Out of all of this, the central conceit of A Mighty Dawn arose.
Suppose that amid all the terror and confusion of this meteorological disaster and the resulting social upheaval, a group of people formed a kind of doomsday cult;
Suppose that, in order to escape the disastrous effects of a dying sun, and perhaps interpreting this phenomenon as a signal of the final doom of the gods and the destruction of the world as they knew it, they went underground;
Suppose that there they stayed, surviving at least, but evolving into an increasingly dehumanised community of earth-dwellers – the Nefelung. . .
Of course, my own flights of fancy – that these folk were lured underground under the influence of some kind of demon – spirals these suppositions into the realm of pure fantasy. Archaeologists are unlikely to turn up the remains of one of the shadowy Vandrung, however wide or deep they dig.
On the other hand, I’m tempted to say it’s not as far-fetched as it first might seem. A cursory look at the doomsday cults of more recent times – Waco, Jonestown, Uganda or the Penza Region in Russia – shows that, whether you believe in the existence of demons or not, the inspiration of evil is as much a part of reality as it is of a fictional novel like this one.
The trick, I suppose, is how to overcome it.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There are three people without whom I never would have begun to write this book. Two of them would have no idea that this is the case.
I tumbled into the Old Norse world of gods and heroes through the portal of the Ring Cycle, Wagner’s series of (some might say interminable) operas. I began listening to these in 2003 at the recommendation of my friend, Richard McElroy, who assured me that, with a bit of perseverance, I would dis-cover in them something extraordinary. He was quite right. But through them, I discovered a whole lot more. So I have him to thank for introducing me to the material that forms the seedbed of this novel.
The seed fell much later, during a lecture in the spring of 2009, given by Michael Green, a wise old theologian at Oxford University. This seed would germinate and eventually grow into the narrative that will span the Mighty Dawn series. I’m sure Michael would recognize precisely nothing derivative from his lecture in this first book, but it is nevertheless the fact. For this, I am very grateful to him.
Special thanks, though, must go to Tilly Bagshawe, who met with me when my idea for an epic novel was little more than a pipedream. It was entirely thanks to her prompting that I came up first with a plot and then a proposal, after which there were enough positive noises from her agent in New York to convince me that it wasn’t an exercise in total futility to sit down and write the opening pages of A Mighty Dawn. That was in June 2012.
The years – just over three of them – between putting pen to paper and being taken on by an agent, were at times arduous and lonely. Stephen King’s analogy – that writing a first draft is something akin to rowing across the Atlantic in a tin bath – often felt very apt. Thanks to these people for giving me the encouragement and support I needed to keep paddling: Laura Halonen, Alex Story, Will van der Hart, Rick Buhrman, John O’Loghlen, and my sisters-in-law; and of course, extra special thanks to my beloved parents and my two brothers, Christian and Alexis. I’m particularly grateful to Christian who has read every draft I’ve written and has never ceased to take both the book and me seriously, even when I wasn’t sure that he should.
Will Francis of Janklow and Nesbitt provided further indispensable help. After wading through my thousand-page tome, he passed me on to Helen Francis, his sister. Helen’s editorial advice pointed the way out of my literary mire, enabling me to shape my behemoth of a first draft into something publishable. For that, my thanks to both.
I happened to be walking away from a coffee with Charlie Campbell, of Kingsford Campbell literary agency, when the idea that formed the missing piece of the puzzle at last popped into my head. Appropriately enough then, once I had rewritten the book yet again, it was Charlie who offered to take me on, in October 2015. My undying thanks to him and his partner, Julia Kingsford, for believing in A Mighty Dawn, for giving it a chance and for setting about finding it a home.
At my first meeting with Sara O’Keeffe, my wonderful editor at Corvus Atlantic, I was thrilled to discover that here was a person who understood my vision, both for this book and for the series to come. Since then, working together with her to ready A Mighty Dawn for publication has only reinforced my conviction that the book has found its true home. A thousand thanks to her and the rest of the team at Corvus for their creative input and tireless efforts towards delivering A Mighty Dawn to its readers.
A book like this requires a lot of research. Out of the many hundreds, if not thousands, of pages I have read, the work of two scholars in particular stands out. Neil Price’s fascinating book, The Viking Way, provided a brilliant understanding of the warrior ethic of the Old Norse peoples, and how this interlinks with magic, shamanism and their conception of the supernatural. Additionally, his combined research with Bo Gräslund, about the connection between the Scandinavian concept of the Ragnarök and the Dust Veil of AD 536, provided the grounding for the pivotal conceit of this book. I am indebted to them both.
When I started writing A Mighty Dawn, I was a bachelor, living alone in a small spider-infested cottage in Norfolk. About halfway through the process, I met and married Natasha, who has now become my inimitable ally in all things. Natasha possesses the most natural instinct for drama of anyone I know – a quality which I, as an author, have learned to appreciate deeply. She also has a finely tuned sensitivity to what does not work – otherwise known as “crap”. As a result, there is considerably less nonsense in this story than there would have been had I been left to my own devices. But more than this, she is a creative companion. Whatever I lack, she has in abundance. I cannot express enough my love and gratitude to her for the sacrifices she has made and is prepared to make for the sake of my creative dreams.
When we married, Natasha brought with her my step-daughter, Ella, who in turn insisted on adding a dog to our number. In September, we expect a daughter of our own. Thus, the writing of the rest of this series will be a far noisier experience than the solitary business of bringing this first novel to light.
I’m not complaining.
T.H.R.B.
July 2016
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Theodore Brun studied Dark Age archaeology at Cambridge, where he graduated with a BA in Archaeology and Anthropology and an MPhil in History. Professionally, Theodore qualified and worked as an arbitration lawyer, in London, Moscow, Paris and finally Hong Kong. In 2010, he quit his job in Hong Kong and cycled 10,000 miles across the whole of Asia and Europe t
o his home in Norfolk. Theodore is a third generation Viking immigrant – his Danish grandfather having settled in England in 1932. He is married and divides his time between London and Norfolk. A Mighty Dawn is his first novel.
First published in hardback in Great Britain in 2017 by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.
Copyright © Theodore Brun, 2017
The moral right of Theodore Brun to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Hardback ISBN: 978 1 78239 994 0
Trade paperback ISBN: 978 1 78239 995 7
E-book ISBN: 978 1 78239 996 4
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