Eadric the Grasper: Sons of Mercia: 1

Product Information

If you had been paying attention,” hissed Eadric through gritted teeth, “you would have heard me explain that I chose this route of great necessity! After peace was made between Cnut and Edmund, Eadric was allowed to remain earl, however after a year Cnut had Eadric killed at London during the Christmas festivities in 1017.

Based on real people and events, this debut novel follows Lale Sokolov, a young Slovakian Jew sent to Auschwitz in 1942.

The fighting continued for hours, the sound of shield walls thundering could be heard in the next village. History suggests that Eadric was retained by Aethelred to perform the more distasteful tasks of rule, one of which was the murder in 1006 of a nobleman, Ealdorman Aelfhelm. seems to have been accompanied from the mid-990s onwards by one or more of his sons (not including Ælfric).

Hard to see how one man could alter a battle so later storytellers have said that he must have been in league with Cnut. In May Melus of Bari began a rebellion, he hired Rainulf Drengot and a band of Norman pilgrims and exiles as to aid in his rebellion. Sweyn died early the following year however and while Sweyn’s supporters declared his son Canute king, the royal counsel in the south of England asked Aethelred back. Up to that time, Edmund had won a couple of bloody battles against Canute, but at Assandun, Eadric is said to have cut off the head of a man who looked like the king and held it up, throwing the army into confusion and turning the battle against the English. Sweyn known as Tiugeskaeg, or Forkbeard due to his long, cleft beard, landed in England in 1013, intending to make himself King.The horses had little choice but to skid to a walk or trample some human beings, so they cast clouds of bitter dust into the air and snorted with dismay. She also manages to raise, if not really explore, some trickier issues—the guilt of those Jews, like the tattooist, who survived by doing the Nazis’ bidding, in a sense betraying their fellow Jews; and the complicity of those non-Jews, like the Slovaks in Lale’s hometown, who failed to come to the aid of their beleaguered countrymen. I would have voted for William the Conqueror for his torture of people who criticized him, his slaughter and starving 100,000 English in the north of England and for his breach of many promises.