The Shield Ring

Northern England, after the Norman Conquest. Frytha, orphaned when Norman violence destroys her home, finds refuge in a hidden valley where a Norse-descended community maintains its own shield ring. Bjorn, the harper’s foster son, grows up beside her while the valley prepares for the day Norman power reaches the fells.

The construction of a castle at Carlisle and the movement of troops north threaten the community’s secrecy. Bjorn enters the enemy camp as a harper to gather intelligence, while Frytha refuses to remain safely behind. The novel presents conquest from the viewpoint of a border society whose resistance depends as much on farming, memory and mutual obligation as on weapons, and whose survival may require accepting that independence cannot be preserved unchanged.