GUDRUN'S TAPESTRY

Joan Schweighardt

Beagle Bay Books 2003

PB 269

ISBN #0-9679591-3-6

History is full of legendary nasties.  Most everyone who hears certain names associates them with terrifying acts.  Attila the Hun is one of those names.  What exactly did he do to earn his lasting title?

One can tell Schweighardt did her research.  She weaves an extraordinary story based on real history and from a female character’s point of view.  Readers cannot help but care for the main character, Gudrun.  She wanted only the simple things in life, but faced incredible hardship.  Citizens of Attila knew her as Ildico.  Gudrun and her people went through huge losses due to the Huns.  If it cost her her life, Attila would pay.  Gudrun’s plan had to be solid though, and she strong, brave, and clever.

To carry out her plan, she’d to get close to him, but how? Things didn’t go as arranged and she became a captive.  Would Edeco, the talkative guard who frequented her hut, accept her story as to why she was there? He had to.  She must be the one to give Attila her special gift too.

“It’s a sword fashioned by the great Wodan himself back in the days when gods roamed the Earth as freely as people do now.”  Said Gudrun.  She didn’t tell Edeco the sword carried a cruse.

Gudrun remembered the events that brought her to Attila’s city.  Her life up to this point seemed only in preparation for this moment. 

Gudrun’s uncle was king of the Burgundians when the Romans crushed his effort to claim land.  Many Burgundians were slain along with the massacre at the hands of the Huns.  After her uncle’s murder, Gudrun’s father became king, although little hope remained.  Countless tears later, a new land was granted to them farther south by the Actuis. 

Little by little Gudrun’s people struggled to rise above their haggard situation.  Happiness was rare and precious.  For some, too much had been witnessed and lost.  Pleasure and joy died with their loved ones.

One day a man came by.  He changed Gudrun’s life and her view of it for forever.  Unfortunately, he had plans.  Sigrud loved Gudrun, but felt the need to pursue a dragon and obtain gold.  Could this decision change the course of their lives?  Sigrud’s journey included a dwarf, one of the last of his kind.

Gudrun longed for Sigurid, but the cursed sword lay wrapped waiting in cloth, sitting in a corner of her hut. 

Edeco’s visits, long conversations, and acts of kindness touched Gudrun.  He eased her loneliness and gave her a chain with a pearl on it.  This comforted her.  He was the enemy and yet Gudrun couldn’t help to begin caring for him. 

Youth was still on her side even though her heart felt old. Gudrun dealt with surmountable odds and struggled to make difficult decisions, yet one more lied in wait.

Gudrun reached deep to be brave and careful.  Every loss, every moment of her past, would be insignificant if she failed.  She wouldn’t allow this to happen.

Schweighardt’s story is based on the “Sigurth” and “Guthrun” lays, as they appear in the Poetic Edda, and on the history of the Germanic and Hun tribes during the rein of Attila the Hun.  It is historical fiction blended with a touch of magic and political intrigue all based around the Norse legend of the Hun.

This is Schweighardt’s forth book. Others include Virtual Silence, Island, and Homebodies.  Gudrun’s Tapestry was conceived after studying the Nordic mythology and after graduate school.  She is a freelance publicist and the president of Grey Core Press.

Whether readers are hungry for historical fiction or not, this book will satisfy.  They enter a world of suspenseful truth based on the brutality of one of history’s monsters – Attila the Hun.  The author weaves a first-person account with interesting characters, and then added a twist of magic and an intriguing and powerful mood.  An easy pleasure with excitement to be remembered. 

I thoroughly enjoyed Schweighardt’s story and am curious about her other novels.

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REAL HISTORY on Attila the Hun:

The Hun Kingdom was centered in modern day Hungry.  Attila embarked immediately upon a series of wars extending Hun rule from the Rhine across the north of the Black Sea as far as the Caspian Sea.  From that base he soon began a long series of saber rattling negotiations with the capitals of the Roman Empire at Constantinople in the East and Ravenna in the West.

By 432 the Huns were united under a single king, Rua.  When Rua died in 434, his brother Mundzuk’s sons Bleda and Attila inherited his huge empire.  Attila murdered Bleda in 445.  From that time on, Attila alone ruled the Hun Empire. 

The Huns arrived in south-eastern Europe around 370 AD. The Roman historian Ammianus described them as wild, hideous barbarians who ate raw meat and did everything on horseback.

Many experts believe the Huns were a Turkic people descended from the warlike Xiongnu (or Hsiung-nu) tribes that menaced China as early as the 5th century BC.

Christina Francine Whitcher