|
42de27f
|
But fate, as Merlin always taught us, is inexorable. Life is a jest of the Gods, Merlin liked to claim, and there is no justice. You must learn to laugh, he once told me, or else you'll just weep yourself to death.
|
|
religion
life
weep
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
49b6388
|
Destiny is all, Ravn liked to tell me, destiny is everything. He would even say it in English, "Wyrd bio ful araed."
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
df0b6ba
|
I do understand that you can look into someone's eyes," I heard myself saying, "and suddenly know that life will be impossible without them. Know that their voice can make your heart miss a beat and that their company is all your happiness can ever desire and that their absence will leave your soul alone, bereft and lost."
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
98ce5cf
|
Every day is ordinary, until it isn't.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
a6c0f97
|
We all suffer from dreams.
|
|
suffering
false-hope
illusions
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
2eba7e5
|
The preachers tell us that pride is a great sin, but the preachers are wrong. Pride makes a man, it drives him, it is the shield wall around his reputation... Men die, they said, but reputation does not die.
|
|
shield-wall
reputation
pride
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
b7ea944
|
The bards sing of love, they celebrate slaughter, they extol kings and flatter queens, but were I a poet I would write in praise of friendship.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
aed2669
|
King Edmund of East Anglia is now remembered as a saint, as one of those blessed souls who live forever in the shadow of God. Or so the priests tell me. In heaven, they say, the saints occupy a privileged place, living on the high platform of God's great hall where they spend their time singing God's praises. Forever. Just singing. Beocca always told me that it would be an ecstatic existence, but to me it seems very dull. The Danes reckon t..
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
b31393b
|
A leader leads," Ragnar said, "and you can't ask men to risk death if you're not willing to risk it yourself."
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
0252347
|
But when you have order, you don't need Gods. When everything is well ordered and disciplined then nothing is unexpected. If you understand everything,' I said carefully, 'then there's no room left for magic. It's only when you're lost and frightened and in the dark that you call on the Gods, and they like us to call on them. It makes them feel powerful, and that's why they like us to live in chaos.
|
|
gods
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
2a6e20f
|
I am no Christian. These days it does no good to confess that, for the bishops and abbots have too much influence and it is easier to pretend to a faith than to fight angry ideas. I was raised a Christian, but at ten years old, when I was taken into Ragnar's family, I discovered the old Saxon gods who were also the gods of the Danes and of the Norsemen, and their worship has always made more sense to me than bowing down to a god who belongs..
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
d0db983
|
Fate is inexorable.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
02ec023
|
Wyrd bid ful araed. Fate is inexorable.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
3684f4a
|
Love is a dangerous thing. It comes in disguise to change our life... Lust is the deceiver. Lust wrenches our lives until nothing matters except the one we think we love, and under that deceptive spell we kill for them, give all for them, and then, when we have what we have wanted, we discover that it is all an illusion and nothing is there. Lust is a voyage to nowhere, to an empty land, but some men just love such voyages and never care ab..
|
|
love
lust
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
6111b91
|
There are seasons of our lives when nothing seems to be happening, when no smoke betrays a burned town or homestead and few tears are shed for the newly dead. I have learned not to trust those times, because if the world is at peace then it means someone is planning war.
|
|
war
peace
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
ad85744
|
Only a fool wants war, but once a war starts then it cannot be fought half-heartedly. It cannot even be fought with regret, but must be waged with a savage joy in defeating the enemy, and it is that savage joy that inspires our bards to write their greatest songs about love and war.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
2548849
|
What happens to you, Uhtred, is what you make happen. You will grow, you will learn the sword, you will learn the way of the shield wall, you will learn the oar, you will give honor to the gods, and then you will use what you have learned to make your life good or bad.
|
|
life
vikings
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
4f96f8e
|
Life is simple," I said. "Ale, women, sword, and reputation. Nothing else matters."
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
13df62b
|
There is such joy in chaos. Stow all the world's evils behind a door and tell men that they must never, ever, open the door, and it will be opened because there is pure joy in destruction.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
7c1dc3b
|
We are all lonely and all seek a hand to hold in the darkness. It is not the harp, but the hand that plays it.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
b20e356
|
Laughter in battle. That was what Ragnar had taught me, to take joy from the fight.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
d2c79e0
|
Why do we fight?" he asked. "Because we were born."
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
7ed6809
|
Five things make a man happy," I told him, "a good ship, a good sword, a good hound, a good horse, and a woman." "Not a good woman?" Finan asked, amused. "They're all good," I said, "except when they're not, and then they're better than good."
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
e071d6f
|
Did you become a Christian in your nunnery?' I asked her. 'Of course not.' she said scornfully. 'They didn't mind?' 'I gave them silver.' 'Then they didn't mind.' I said. 'I don't think any Dane is a real Christian.' she told me. 'Not even your brother?' 'We have many gods,' she said, 'and the Christian god is just another one. I'm sure that's what Guthred thinks. What's the Christian god's name? A nun did tell me, but I've forgotten.' 'Jeh..
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
9a7fdd1
|
All those separate people were a part of my life, strings strung on the frame of Uhtred, and though they were separate they affected one another and together they would make the music of my life.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
107d90e
|
I hated Alfred. He was a miserable, pious, tight-fisted king who distrusted me because I was no Christian, because I was a northerner, and because I had given him his kingdom back at Ethandun. And as reward he had given me Fifhaden. Bastard.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
7a7231d
|
If you can master me, that look seemed to say, then you can master whatever else this wicked world might bring. I can see her now, standing amidst her deerhounds that had the same thin, lean bodies, and the same long nose and the same huntess eyes as their mistress. Green eyes, she had, with a kind of cruelty deep inside them. It was not a soft face, any more that her body was soft. She was a woman of strong lines and high bones, and that m..
|
|
women
redhead
the-herione
guinevere
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
63195d0
|
How much of our earth has been wet by blood because of jealousy! And at the end of life, what does it all matter? We grow old and the young look at us and can never see that once we made a kingdom ring for love.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
c24ae70
|
He had always thought there was an answer to all life's mysteries in the stars, yet whenever he stared at them the answer slipped out of his grasp... But he had to think now, and he stared at the smoke-dimmed stars in the hope that they would help him, but all they did was go on shining.
|
|
stars
confusion
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
96fec84
|
If a man can't remember the laws," Ragnar said, "then he's got too many of them."
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
8091182
|
Only the gods tell him what to do, and you should beware of men who take their orders from the gods.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
7f74a90
|
Words are like breath," she said, "you say them and they're gone. But writing traps them."
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
6822ccb
|
You will not fight in the shield wall," my father said. "No, Father." "Only men can stand in the shield wall," he said, "but you will watch, you will learn, and you will discover that the most dangerous stroke is not the sword or ax that you can see, but the one you cannot see, the blade that comes beneath the shields to bite your ankles."
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
f7b3e97
|
You'll call me a damned Jew, a Christ murderer, a secret worshipper of pigs and a kidnapper of christian children." This was all said cheerfully. "How absurd! Who would want to kidnap children, Christian or otherwise? Vile things. The only mercy of children is that they grow up, as my son has but then, tragically, they beget more children. We do not learn life's lessons."
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
63ef315
|
Our ancestors," he went on after a while, "took this land. They took it and made it and held it. We do not give up what our ancestors gave us. They came across the sea and they fought here, and they built here and they're buried here. This is our land, mixed with our blood, strengthened with our bone. Ours!" He was angry, but he was often angry. He glowered at me, as if wondering whether I was strong enough to hold this land of Northumbria ..
|
|
patriotic
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
10771d1
|
Wyrd bio ful araed," I said. Fate is fate. It cannot be changed or cheated."
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
e92cdec
|
Madness ends sometimes. The Gods decree it, not man.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
1585108
|
Shit!" Evelgold added. "What?" Hook asked, alarmed. "I just stepped in some." "That's supposed to bring you luck," Hook said. "Then I'd better dance in the goddam stuff."
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
6921354
|
You're a bastard," I said. "Uhtred," he began, but could find nothing more to say. "You're a piece of weasel-shit," I said, "you're an earsling." "I'm a king," he said, trying to regain his dignity. "So you're a royal piece of weasel-shit. An earsling on a throne." --
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
4fce90e
|
I wondered why the gods no longer came to earth. It would make belief so much easier.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
9528fd2
|
The poets, when they speak of war, talk of the shield wall, they talk of the spears and arrows flying, of the blade beating on the shield, of the heroes who fall and the spoils of the victors, but I was to discover that war was really about food. About feeding men and horses. About finding food. The army that eats wins.
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
2ace90d
|
To hear the tales told at night-time hearths you would think we had made a whole new country in Britain, named it Camelot and peopled it with shining heroes, but the truth is that we simply ruled Dumnonia as best we could, we ruled it justly and we never called it Camelot. Camelot exists only in the poets' dreams, while in our Dumnonia, even in those good years, the harvests still failed, the plagues still ravaged us and wars were still fou..
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
0a3df61
|
Tell me how Gisela can be married to a man she's never met?' Aidan glanced across at Guthred as if expecting help from the king, but Guthred was still motionless, so Aidan had to confront me alone. 'I stood beside her in Lord AElfric's place,' he said, 'so in the eyes of the church she is married.' 'Did you hump her as well?' I demanded, and the priests and monks hissed their disapproval. 'Of course not.' Aidan said, offended. 'If no one's ..
|
|
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
5e23c1b
|
victory does not come to men who listen to their fears.
|
|
victory
|
Bernard Cornwell |