A Viking's CV, and a proverb about a naked woman

We’re deep into writing the sixth and final instalment in the Viking Ventures series. The working title is Kingmaker. I think it’s a great title, don’t you?

As I was writing a particular scene recently, it struck me how far we’ve come since the first book, Viking. Both the authors and the characters. But in that moment I was thinking specifically about Ulv. Do you remember him from the first time you read about him? Has he developed in the way you thought he would?

If you’ve read a few of the books you’ll know him as a humble diplomat, in most situations at least. We’ve seen that he can be pushed too far, but at heart I think of him as someone who likes peace and quiet, and who wants nobody to get hurt. He rarely brags about his own accomplishments.

But in this particular scene, he feels forced to set the record straight.

When I wrote it I was a little surprised by all he has been through. His Viking CV, if you like. And strangely, I also felt proud. Here’s the snippet. Not a bad CV, is it?

Ulv took a breath. This was not something he usually did, but necessity teaches a naked woman to spin, as Father used to say.

‘Yes, Kjetil called me whelp. What he didn’t tell you was that I bested him in an einvigi when I was barely fifteen winters. Or that I was in Dublin, fighting side by side with Ragnar Lothbrok and Vass the Berserker at the same age. I was first inside the walls when we took the monastery at Kells, held by the Irish king’s forces. I was a scout under Ragnar when we prepared to attack Paris with forty ships. And I was first over the wall in Paris beside the wolfpelt Geir Galne.’ He held Bård’s gaze. ‘So yes, I know something about battles. And I’m telling you, your shieldbrothers are about to lose this one. You are the only reserve.’

That proverb, by the way — necessity teaches a naked woman to spin — is one of my favourites. In Norwegian: Nød lærer naken kvinne å spinne. It has a few cousins in other languages. The English equivalent is probably “necessity is the mother of invention”, which frankly lacks a certain something. The Germans say Not kennt kein Gebot, necessity knows no law. The Italians have la necessità aguzza l’ingegno, necessity sharpens the mind. None of them are quite as vivid as the Norwegian version, if you ask me.

It’s the kind of small thing that makes writing in this world such a pleasure: a saying passed from a father to a son, carrying a whole way of meeting the world inside a single sour, funny image. Ulv has lived that proverb more than most.