For the Want of Silver - Michael Wills

First published 2023. Bygone Age Press paperback, 2023, pp 240, c.66,000 words.

This novel is based on what very little is known about the Viking, Ulf of Borresta. Or as we are told, the Norseman: apparently ‘viking’ is an activity, and the Norsemen, as they called themselves, went ‘a viking’, i.e. on raids into other’s territory for plunder and rape.

This is an evocative account of what it must have been like to be a Norseman. Wills makes clear that for most of them, life was extremely tough. Farming so far north was a precarious business and it was made tougher by the predations of the local chiefs. The story starts with Ulf as a twelve-year-old living in a small farming community in what is now Sweden. He and a friend are taken to a local chieftain where they work as virtual slaves. As they grow up they are taught fighting skills, and dream of becoming rich with plunder. Eventually they do, and after a series of adventures are recruited into an army that intends to sail for England, to plunder, and ideally force the King to pay them off with ‘Danegeld’ – huge quantities of silver.

There are powerful descriptions of the horror of this type of warfare. The army wasn’t organised and controlled as the Roman army had been. It was a loose federation of warriors with a common aim, great fighting skills, but little discipline. It was also a time of long-held grudges that might be settled in the chaos of the battlefield or the risky voyages on open boats. The story also covers the problem that those who won the silver had of getting it home without every brigand and con-artist trying to relieve them of it – not something I had considered before.

Wills writing style is mostly rather pedestrian, e.g. ‘Gnir knew he had to keep his men happy.’ [p37]. There is rather too much telling us how things were rather than showing us through character and story. Perhaps the book is aimed at the Young Adult market. There is a rather perfunctory description of Ulf’s first voyage. It must have been very difficult staying dry, let alone warm, on such longships, and it must have been a very powerful, and probably very unpleasant and frightening experience, at least at first, for a young man who had never been to sea before, long before any storm arrives.

There is a problem with the pre-press of the book with extra line-breaks added inappropriately in a number of places.

There is a particularly evocative scene towards the end in a nunnery where human emotions are well described. There are also some well written passages that bring home the importance of close family and friends, despite sometimes awkward circumstances.

For someone who knows precious little about the people of this period, the book provides some interesting insights, wrapped up in an engaging tale.

Author’s own website: https://michaelwills.eu/

Amazon page of the book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Want-Silver-Inspired-story-Borresta/dp/1739858859/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2U9L5T57DC9YM&keywords=For+the+Want+of+Silver&qid=1707914485&s=books&sprefix=for+the+want+of+silver%2Cstripbooks%2C87&sr=1-1

Others’ reviews of the book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/157060638-for-the-want-of-silver?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_22