Dear Mr Cornwell,
Born in Norway and living in Sweden, I’m most thankful for your burying the myth of horned Viking helmets once and for all. May those absurd contraptions rest in peace (or on the heads of Scandinavian public hopefuls in sports arenas… ). However, where did this idea of the Northern tribes wearing such headwear come from in the first place? As far as I know, the Gaelic/Kelt/Germanic savages back then might have used them. Any comment?
My main question to you – after reading with much pleasure the first Alfred/Uthred novel – is how come the Romans, centuries before, built sturdy housing and bulwarks with bricks, stones and mortar, only to induce people – savage invaders or domestic inhabitants – to erect their abodes with fragile earth, wood that rot and forever moulding thatched roofs? Solid remains from the Roman era were there for anyone to learn from, so why did they not “catch on”?!
It’s not as if the Norsemen or Engelanders were blind and stupid – so what caused them NOT to adopt building methods they must clearly have been able to see with their own eyes and so learned the benefits from.
I’m growing a tiny bit when reading your stories, as it had not occurred to me before how much of my ancestors’ Nordic languages indeed was/is a basis for latterday, and perhaps still valid English.
Long live London or Vive Lundene (a lund = a place with a grove of trees)!
Please keep up the good works, or stop right now, and I may have time to read all of your books in my lifetime.
Very best regards,
Vivi Munthe, Malmö, Sweden