High Kings and Vikings (Paperback)

It would be unkind to lump Tranter with his fellow Scot, the poetaster McGonagall; although an author who, straight-faced, can come up with a title such as the one that graces this novel has only himself to blame. It's true that some of Tranter's vast output can be mildly diverting, if you don't mind historical and literary tone-deafness. His characters, whatever their names and titles, are unfortunately always the same: a small cast of modern people with modern attitudes, transported back five or ten centuries and endowed with an irritating repertoire of cod Olde English. (What of this of Master Tranter? Gey gordon it is, and, and, not so ill, just, all agreeing ...) I recall in one of his books an embassy to the court of Henry VII taking offence at being called Scotch instead of Scots. This would have been meaningless much before the twentieth century. It's a kind of unhistorical political correctness. Scott and Burns both called themselves Scotch; and Scotsmen unaffected by genteel Edinburgh preciosity still do. Other times he makes a big thing about how the Scots were more salt-of-the-earth than the English because they didn't call their kings 'Majesty'. Neither did the English, until Henry VIII picked it up from the French.

I like historical novels. There are some good ones among the dross, and a few very good ones. The best you can say for this book is that it isn't one of the worst. If you really like it - if you think it's something more than a written-by-numbers Cook's tour of the Scottish Dark Ages - there's no more to be said. Actually, Tranter wrote only one historical novel: "Balefire", set in the sixteenth-century Borders. I remember liking that when I read it aged thirteen. All the rest is repetition. Meanwhile, novelists with real historical feeling and originality, like Robert Neill or Henry Treece (you might like them if you could read them), are long out of print.

Cormac (Thane of Glamis) and his love, Fenella (niece of the Mormaor of Angus) are the central characters, but famous present and future Scottish kings play a large role in the book as well: There is MacBeth (meaning Son of Life), who is the Mormaor of Moray and Ross at this point; Constantine (the noble High King, who is killed by a mormaor); and the memorable Malcolm the Destroyer (yet another High King of Scotland). There also is the half-Scottish, half-Norse Thorfinn Raven-Feeder, who is another fascinating character. Their battles and negotiations with each other, and with the norsemen and the Angles are interesting indeed.

I liked Tranter's accounts of the Viking raids, and the horrible consequences for the common people along the coasts of Scotland, as well as the capturing of their longships by Cormac and his men, and their use by the Scots against their various enemies. Some minor criticisms: I wished that Tranter had devised at least one storm for the Scots to go through in their new vessels, but there was nothing worse than some rain; there also was no mention of what happened to the longship that Ian the Wright of Usan, Scotland built; there was no mention of what happened to the Mormaor of Mar, after he supported the vanquished High King, Kenneth III, immediately after Kenneth's defeat (he apparently emerged later as a great supporter of the new High King, Malcolm).

All in all, however, I enjoyed this book very much, and look forward to reading more of Nigel Tranter's works.