They Came on Viking Ships - Jackie French

Hekja (female)

Age: 13 at the start of the book, by the end she is 16.

Physical Attributes: Tall and skinny with long legs, which help her run extremely fast.

Other Attributes: Naturally gifted at singing.

Freydis (female)

AGE: 30+ (This is a estimation, but through reading book you realise she would have to be 30+)

BODY: Musclier and well built in comparision to Hekja.

ATTRIBUTES: Established diplomatic and great tactical skills.

EXTRA INFO: Freydis is trying not to be the stereotypical Viking woman. Instead of marrying a man, doing housework and tending after animals, she becomes a leader of a colony and leads men into battle.

They Came on Viking Ships is set around 1000AD. The story starts off with Hekja, a village girl, going along the beach finding shellfish. She is collecting them for the rest of her village. As she was collecting shellfish, the runt of the chief’s new little came running along the beach. As it’s running towards Hekja, a seagull flies down from the sky and ferociously pecks the dog in the eye and the leg. Hekja shoos away the seagull and takes the pup back to her hut. Her mother tells her to put it back on the beach to die, but Hekja is determined to keep it, and says she will look after it.

Three months later, Hekja is doing her usual jobs of collecting shellfish, milking cows, making cheese. The dog, which she has named Snarf, has grown large. His leg and eye have completely healed, and Hekja’s mother is glad Hekja kept Snarf. Later that day a raiding party of Viking ships appear on the horizon. They were blown off course, and they land and slaughter everyone in the village. Hekja watches as her mum is killed. She and Snarf try and run away, but are caught, and taken as slaves.

The Viking raiders sail back to Greenland. Once they get there, Hekja is made a thrall (slave) of Freydis, who is the daughter of Eric the Red. Hekja has to feed and move the cattle and sheep, hang the fish up to dry, milk the cows and make cheese and turn the grain into bread. Freydis notice’s that Hekja can run really fast, so she decides to make her a runner. Her and a fellow runner named Hikki run all along Greenland, spreading news and messages.

A few months later, Freydis decides to settle a colony in Newfoundland (North America, near southern Canada on the east coast). She sends Hekja and Hikki to run and ask the other villages if they would join her. Out of the many villages in Greenland (20+), only one accepts her invitation to make a colony in Newfoundland. His name is Finnbogi. They each take one ship, with Finnbogi only taking forty men, armour, weapons and cows/sheep, and Freydis taking forty men and ten women, armour, weapons and cows/sheep. They set sail, and land at Newfoundland 2 weeks later. Freydis and Finnbogi have a fight about where they should make the colony, so Finnbogi goes down the coast and settles. Freydis settles where they originally landed. Freydis’ colony quickly builds big long houses for everyone to sleep in, and to store food, and build fences to house the livestock. Freydis makes Hekja a free woman, because she has been such a good thrall.

Hekja and Hikki go running everywhere scouting the land. They stumble upon a skraeling village. It’s about 10 times bigger than the biggest village back in Greenland. The skraeling are a native North American tribe, with villages dotted all around Newfoundland. Freydis’ colony makes peace with the Skraeling’s, and trades them cheeses for furs. They trade in harmony for months, but then they all of a sudden stop coming to trade. A few days later, the Skraeling’s sail up the river and attack Freydis’s colony. The Viking’s drive them back, and they sail away in there canoe’s. Freydis learns that the reason the Skraeling’s attacked is because Finnbogi attacked the skraeling village and stole their woman as slaves.

Freydis is furious that Finnbogi has disturbed the peace and trading. She gathers her men, and attacks Finnbogi’s colony. She catches him by surprise, and kills all his men, including him. She hoped that if the Skraeling’s saw that Freydis was on their side, they wouldn’t attack, but she was wrong. The Skraeling’s come back and this time with much greater numbers, and slaughter everyone. Hekja, Snarf, Freydis, Hikki and everyone died trying to pursue peace.

They Came on Viking Ships, dealt with issues of love and friendship, loyalty and homesickness, freedom and bravery. The book is nearly completely historically correct, and the author Jackie French researched for years during writing the novel.   I highly recommend this book to readers who like adventure, romance and real-life history.  Anyone high school aged and up will enjoy this book immensely.