Two Ravens

Bjarni Hoskuldsson grows up on an Icelandic farm committed to the old gods while Christianity is changing the customs and loyalties around him. Conflict with his violent father and his attraction to his stepmother make remaining at home impossible. He leaves Iceland in search of wealth and reputation, carrying a pagan understanding of honour into lands where Scandinavian settlers and Christian rulers now share an uneasy political world.

Bjarni’s travels take him through Britain during the reign of William Rufus, where service, feud and desire repeatedly expose the limits of the heroic identity he has chosen. Experience abroad does not free him from the family relationships that shaped him, and his eventual return to Iceland forces a final reckoning with his father and with the future of the farm. The novel draws on saga traditions while examining the personal cost of preserving old values in a society undergoing religious change.