The Scandinavian sagas have had an influence on some the early fantasy writers: William Morris, E. R. Eddison, and of course J. R. R. Tolkien.

I have had a copy of E. R. Eddison’s Styrbiorn the Strong lying around unread longer than I would like to admit. I have to get in the right frame of mind to read sagas.

Styrbiorn is the son of King Olaf of Sweden. Olaf held the kingship with his brother Eric. Olaf dies, Eric is king and raises Biorn.

“Because the lad was somewhat grim and stubborn of will and hasty and sudden of anger and very fierce and proud, even not in his tenderest youth, King Eric let lengthen his name and let call him Styrbiorn”

Styrbiorn is impatient to made king as a teenager. At Yule, Styrbiorn kills one of King Eric’s men in a fit of rage when mocked. King Eric decides he needs experience and wisdom and gives him some ships and crews.

Styrbiorn joins the Jomsvikings going various harrying around the shores of the Baltic. Along the way he meets the daughter of King Harold Bluetooth of Denmark. Styrbiorn returns to Sweden after some years away from home. He is almost to become king when he unwisely grabs at Sigrid who he liked in his youth. Sigrid had been taken as a wife by his uncel and she bore him a son.

Styrbiorn is banished. He pressures King Harold of Denmark into marrying his daughter to him. Styrbiorn mounts an expedition to take the throne with the Jomsvikings and a contingent of Danes with him. There is a bloody climax.

Of Viking novels, I like Frans Bengtsson’s The Long Ships and Poul Anderson’s Hrolf Kraki’s Saga better. Eddison’s faux-saga prose adds a distance between the reader and the story. Lin Carter liked it quite a bit. The University of Minnesota reprinted Styrbiorn the Strlong so it is easily available.