Originally published on Substack on Sep 15, 2025. The story is still coming, but slowly!
This story is bubbling away, slowly but surely. As a kind of introduction to it, I thought I’d introduce our principal characters. This story is set in the late 10th century AD, as Christianity is spreading throughout the Viking communities, and is centred around a main family and their closest neighbours.
Magnus Svensson is the chief of the fjord village of Fjellvik. Powerful but gentle, 45 years old, with thinning blonde hair and a slightly greying beard. His wife Gerta is 41, tall and blonde, a skilled shield maiden but in more peaceful times uses her skills as a baker to support the family and village. They have four children – 14-year-old twins Ylva (classic eldest daughter character, keeps her long blonde hair in pigtails, and is skilled at fishing) and Torben (light brown hair, an excellent hunter, growing into a solid young man), their firebrand sister Inga (13, with red hair and a temper to match, but a heart of gold) and the baby sister of the family, 11 year old Signe (blonde, loves caring for animals, always smiling).
Their closest friends and neighbours are Jurgen and Tala Bjornsson. Jurgen is the town blacksmith, 46, with greying-brown hair and a powerful build. He grew up with Magnus as children, but they were distant for a time. Tala grew up in the East, and was part of a trader family, who fell in love with Jurgen while he was exploring. She is 43, with dark hair and eyes, and is often called upon as the village healer, being skilled with herbs and natural medicines. Their three children are Gunnar, a short but athletic boy of 14; 12-year-old Kara, who’s very bright and growing up fast, and little Kareena, just 11 at the start of our tale, very cheerful and occasionally mischievous.
As part of my development of these characters, I pulled upon people I knew (but hopefully aren’t too recognisable), and used PicLumen’s image generation tools to help me visualise. I also used ChatGPT to help me put together a framework for the story, although of course the writing is mine. It’s amazing how useful some of the free AI tools can be these days, but of course the real magic comes in learning to use those tools to sculpt your art. They are only tools, and should be used as such.
This composite image depicts Magnus and Gerta on the shore of the fjord. It’s a place I’ve been to in my imagination many times.
