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Forest Child (Vikings of the New World Saga) (Volume 2)

By Heather Day Gilbert

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Author's Note: To be Read

I have wrestled with this novel for two years now, unsure how to faithfully bring Freydis' story to the page. I did not know what would have driven a grown woman to take the extreme actions Freydis, according to the sagas, took. There are parts of this story I did not want to write, did not want to even visualize, and yet I had to, to stay true to the Viking sagas, because Freydis was a real person. So was her husband, and her family. This is truly historical, biographical fiction.

When I finally began to write in earnest, as so often happens, the words began to come. The blanks began to be filled. Is everything in this story true? No. Just like God's Daughter, this novel aligns with the sagas as best it can, but I had to fill in the character backgrounds and motivations fictionally. In other words, the bones are solid, but I have fleshed out the rest, based on hints the sagas have given me...like the fact that Gudrid was drop-dead gorgeous and quite a catch (she had three husbands) or that Leif could be harsh, or that Freydis was...well, Freydis.

When I wrote God's Daughter, I spent hours checking and cross-checking the actual words I utilized, trying to stick mostly with nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs that had an Old Norse equivalent. Let it be known that with this story, although I am indeed cross-checking terminology, I have decided to err on the side of readability and flow, rather than rigorous faithfulness to the Old Norse. Here's why: I believe Vikings would have said something equivalent to "vomit," for instance, but that word itself might not have come into play until years later. However, you are probably reading this novel in English, and therefore, although I do try to primarily use Old Norse word equivalents, I am leaning more on words that you, as a reader, would recognize today, therefore giving myself a bit more play with the vocabulary. Yes, I have tried not to sound anachronistic, at least with objects that wouldn't have existed in the Norse world around AD 1000. I am trying not to throw you, the reader, out of the story altogether. But as you know, I prefer writing my historicals in first person, present tense, which is rare in historical novels. So we're already walking on the edge here. Why not just dive right in?

Also, when it comes to historicity, although I do my research, when something the sagas say contradicts the historical information available to me right now, I will most often err on the side of the sagas. Why? Because that is what this series is: a retelling of the Sagas of the Greenlanders. That is my guidebook, basically. Also because, time after time, I have seen things historians have initially poo-pooed about the sagas finally coming to light as being historically sound. Things like red-haired Skraelings in North America, for instance, or trees growing in Greenland around the time of the sagas.

Finally, there are violent scenes in this book. There is a scene that actually turned my stomach each time I read it. It is not a pleasant scene, but it is a necessary one. Freydis does not have a gentle story, because she was not a gentle woman. And as we know, times were different then, and just...Vikings. Although I have worked hard with the Vikings of the New World Saga to show the family-oriented, loving side of the Vikings, I would be completely disingenuous if I never showed the grittier, violent side. And, as much as I wanted to protect her from it as I wrote, Freydis had a violent story. I had to let her live it for us.

This book takes a long, hard look at themes like vengeance and murder. I have always liked The Count of Monte Cristo, yet even as we mentally cheer him on in his vengeful machinations to those who deserve it, at the same time, we lament with him at the lingering regret he inflicts on himself in the process. And though we might not like it, the truth is that there can be redemption for murderers, just like for any other sinners.

If you really want to understand what I have done with God's Daughter and Forest Child, I beg of you, read The Sagas of the Greenlanders (especially before reviewing this book harshly). Those who have read the sagas understand what I have done with these stories. Yes, there are some tweaks in my books so I can get the timelines or maps to match up. Yes, many of the Thor________ names have been changed so the readers can better follow the storyline (Ref's name, for instance). But the bottom line is that I wanted to bring the sagas to life for my generation—because I'm allegedly related to the characters in these stories (Thorvald Eiriksson), and you might be, as well.

I do hope you enjoy reading of this real Viking woman who sailed to North America and did things that would go down in history, both for good and for evil. And Freydis—you have walked with me for so long. I hope I got even half your story right.

-Heather

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