If you’ve read A Tale of Scorched Ash and Elm, or been a part of the ARC team for Child of Ash Heir of Fire, you’ve noticed a pattern. Midwinter arrives, the fire gets built, and at some point a horse bites the dust. When someone asks about this, they typically have the look of …
Elves in Norse Myth vs. Leifthasir: Álfar, Dark Elves, Seidr, and Viking Fantasy Worldbuilding Norse elves were not tiny fairies or Tolkien-style forest immortals. They were shining, powerful, ambiguous beings tied to gods, ancestors, fertility, death, and the land. In Leifthasir, those mythic roots become a living people shaped by Seidr, divine abandonment, war, exile, …
The Viking Age gives us a complicated picture of women warriors: legendary shield-maidens, rare archaeological evidence, and legal systems that discouraged women from taking up masculine roles. In Leifthasir, that tension becomes the foundation for a fantasy world where women can fight—but never without consequence. Were There Women Warriors in the Viking Age? The idea …
The Viking world did not think about sexuality the way modern readers do. Despite popular media depicting the ancient Norse as an egalitarian wonderland of acceptance and diversity, the truth is that history doesn’t match that picture. When I began writing A Tale of Scorched Ash and Elm I knew I had to choose the …