R- "Wodan's Children" (v,x,b)
I was first introduced to Diana Paxson through her short stories in the Thieves' World setting, a 12-book shared-world series edited by Robert Lynn Asprin and Lynn Abbey. Since then, I have come across a few other works by her: the Wodan's Children trilogy, and a couple of articles in SCA publications.
Diana Paxson is probably best known for two things: her work as a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, and her historical fantasy novels. For both her fictional and nonfictional pursuits, Paxson has done extensive research on early European history, culture and religion. Of her novels, I have only read Wodan's Children, but that trilogy shows her careful attention to details, both in her historical research and in the psychology of her characters. She takes historical and legendary characters and imbues them with very complex, believable, and human values, motivations, and flaws. Magic and gods are active in her worlds, but their purpose is to underscore the real conflicts, rather than substitute for them.
The Wodan's Children trilogy is a retelling of the story of Sigfrid and Brunahild. Much of the basic plot will be familiar to those who know either Wagner's "ring" operas or the original sagas (the Volsungasaga and Nibelungelied), but Paxson has grounded the story in a very carefully reconstructed fifth-century Europe. The conflicts between cultures and religions during that period is as much a part of the trilogy as the heroes of the sagas.
Book 1,The Wolf and the Raven (1994), tells the story of the early lives of Sigfrid and Brunahild. Sigfrid is the last of the Wolsungs, a family of heroes who were slain in large part because normal men feared their power as shapeshifting berserkers. Brunahild is the niece of Attila the Hun, and at a young age begins her training with the Walkyriun, priestesses of the war-god Wodan. The meeting of Sigfrid and Brunahild, and the binding of their fates together, provides the seeds of the central conflict of the trilogy.
Some important characters from Book 1 become even more central to the story in The Dragons of the Rhine (1995): Gundohar, king of the Burgunds (the dragons of the title); his mother Grimahild; his sister Gudrun; and his half-brother Hagano. Sigfrid, a newly-proven war hero, is given a love potion by Grimahild so that he will marry Gudrun and serve the Burgunds. Disguised as his new king, Sigfrid defeats Brunahild in combat and makes her Gundohar's bride. The power and nature of Wyrd (destiny) is explored as the web of deceptions and treachery created by the characters' choices plays itself out.
The third book, The Lord of Horses (1996), continues where Wagner left off but where the sagas have much more to say. Sigfrid and Brunahild are no more, but those responsible for their deaths still live, and they must eventually face the final consequences of their own Wyrds. To cement an alliance with the Huns, Gundohar marries his widowed sister Gudrun to Attila. The deeds of Gundohar and Attila are presented in a complex counterpoint as they seek to fulfill their ambitions for their people and to understand what their fates hold. Meanwhile, Gudrun must come to terms with both kings and their worlds.
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Last Updated: June 20, 1999
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