BLADE HONER is a novel series that tells the fictional story of the historical woman who, aged between 45 and 55, was buried together with an older woman in a magnificent ship filled with cultic items at the mound of Oseberg in Vestfold, Norway, in 834 A.D. The burial is the most splendid and rich burial ever found from the Viking Age, and it has been suggested that the women were priestesses or in some way connected to a religious cult. The two women were the contemporaries of Charlemagne, Empress Irene and Harun al-Rashid. They were also contemporaries of the historical person behind the legendary Ragnarr Lódbrok, now famous for being described in the TV-series “Vikings”, and of Halfdan Svarti, the last Ynglinga king in Vestfold, and father of the man who was to unite the many tribes of Norway; Harald Hárfagri.

After reading a thesis by Gunhild Røthe, my mentor at the University of Oslo back in 2003-2004, on the Oseberg burial in 834 A.D. and its many similarities to a ship burial decribed ninety years later by Ibn Fadlan, witnessed by himself in 921 A.D. when he came as an ambassador of the Caliphate and had the opportunity to observe the strange customs of Rus Vikings, I decided to restore the early Rus Vikings to cultural memory by concentrating the first four books in the series on their culture and way of life.

In BLADE HONER, the Oseberg priestess-to-be is called Thordís the Thunder priestess, descended from an ancient lineage of Thunder priests in Gautland (Götaland, Sweden). It is a lineage that traces its origin to the “Age of the Stone Temples” – the Megalithic era in Scandinavia with passage graves, dolmens and other Megalithic monuments, mostly found in Denmark and southern Sweden (Götaland).