The cartography of the Fire Born series
I’ve heard a few mutterings from readers who would like to have more maps in my Viking novels and are disappointed when they only occasionally appear (such as in Book 2 The Saxon Wolf). So this is some good news for them. King of the North (Fire Born 4), which will be published in September 2023, will have a glorious map in its pages, once again provided by my ever-generous brother John Brodie Donald.
The action begins in Gavle, a small town in the extreme north (top of the map), and swiftly moves south to the great pagan temple at Uppsala. Then there is an interlude over in Rogaland, in what is now Norway, but which then was a western, edge-of-the-known-world frontier populated by pirates (“vikings” in my books) and pioneering outcasts from the Dane-Mark (modern-day Denmark) and Svealand (Sweden). There are several scenes set in the royal hall at Viby, on the Jutland peninsula, and the great battle at the end of the book (see below), based on the real battle of Brávellir, takes place on the border between Svealand and Ostergotland, below a wooded ridge called the Kolmarden, near the town of Norrkoping.
As you can see, it is a perfect place for a battle, flat ground with the flanks protected on both sides by water, at the junction of two countries. It reminds me a bit of the Cockpit of Europe, which I have blogged about before, and the Dance Floor of Ares in Greece, which was the site of many ancient battles.
I hope you will enjoy King of the North (Fire Born 4), when it is published in September, all the more as a result of the maps, and if you missed the map in The Saxon Wolf, here it is again now.
I apologise that I could not rustle up a map for The Loki Sword (Fire Born 3) but here is a very rough sketch that I used when I was plotting the heroes’ journey.
And this is a proper map of the Amber Road, which I also used to write that book.
King of the North (Fire Born 4) is available to pre-order (and I wish you would!) from Amazon; if you haven’t read any of these excellent books, start with The Last Berserker (Fire Born 1) available here.
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