Rhinegold

Proudly dedicated to both J. R. R. Tolkien and Richard Wagner, Rhinegold is a tour de force that will enthrall devotees of either master of magic, casting a fascinating new light on the stories they have told. What The Mists of Avalon did for Celtic culture, Rhinegold does magnificently for its Nordic counterpart. Sweeping the reader into the stark, sensuous, exuberant world of North European myth and saga, Rhinegold tells the story of two warrior lines whose destinies are interwoven throughout seven generations by the mighty god Wodan. The Saxon clan of the Walsings and the Burgundian Gebicungs are bound together not only by the wyrd of the gods but by the hoard of gold shimmering beneath the waters of the Rhine. The treasure will become the spark of bloodshed and the destroyer of dynasties. And it will bring the great hero Sigifrith fame and power as he slays the dragon Fadhmir to become its rightful owner...and bring him to his doom. Stephan Grundy's bold strokes paint a vast the Europe that lay north of Imperial Rome in its decline. A continent caught in change, as war bands harried its coast and stormed across its plains, tracing the whorls of fate written in runes on the misty borders of the otherworld. Its landscape is one of howling snows and golden summertide loves; of trollcraft and blood-oaths; of proud ships, roistering mead-halls, enchanted sunrises, werewolves, and dazzling valkyries. An epic of heroism and betrayal, mysticism and witchery, incest and tragedy, Rhinegold breathes life into an age of unequaled grandeur. A novel that brings intimacy and poignancy to the tumult of legend, it is a reading experience that will haunt one's imagination forever.