Across the sea with vikings
Novelist Barbara Henderson recalls how a visit to Lewis and its famous chessmen sparked an idea for her latest children’s adventure
Istood in front of the small display cabinet and stared into the queen’s eyes. Behind me, strangers’ steps echoed in the corridors of Lews Castle. Still, I could not pull away from the chess figure in the glass case before me. The truth was, I felt a connection.
Though it was hard to put my finger on the reason why, I saw my own face reflected in the thoughtful stare of the intricately carved figure and felt the centuries fall away. Whose hand had crafted this figure, one of Scotland’s best-known treasure hoard? Who had wielded this queen in play? Who chose to bury it, and 92 other chessmen like it, on a remote beach in the Outer Hebrides? How did the famous hoard get to Scotland, if the sets originated in Norway’s Trondheim, as experts suggest? "Can we move on, Mum?"
"Not yet. You go ahead."
I was only vaguely aware of the rest of my family moving on into the next exhibition room in Stornoway’s Museum nan Eilean. I reached for my phone to take pictures and began to ask questions.
As a writer questions are my lifeblood – not just the who, where, how and why, but particularly the what-ifs. I often find my imagination fired up by the past in unexpected ways, but all manner of what-ifs started crowding into my mind almost immediately. Why did this chance encounter with some medieval Norse chess pieces affect me so profoundly?
I couldn’t offer an answer. All I knew was that I was hooked. The next month I contrived a reason to travel to Edinburgh, to see more of the figures at the National Museum of Scotland. It was a very different kind of trip, in terms of intensity at least. Once more I traced my way along museum corridors to the distant past, but by then I knew that I was going to write about these chessmen, Scotland’s most recognisable archaeological treasure. The darkened room and the hushed tones seemed a million miles away from the airy museum of Stornoway’s Lews Castle, but the figures were the same: staring, intricate, awe-inspiring signposts to Scotland’s Viking past. I had come prepared – and I left with my notebook full of scribbles, staggering under the weight of a reassuringly expensive academic volume about the latest research on the figures. Archaeologists seemed to take the view that the most likely place of origin was Trondheim in Norway, with Iceland an outside contender. There were any number of guesses of how the chess pieces could have come to the Hebrides, but they were skilfully carved from walrus ivory and whale’s teeth, most likely between 1150-1200 AD.
I set to work. What else was going on at that time? The Crusades, the emergence of the Gaelic leader Somerled, the events of Orkneyinga Saga …
And bingo! – a newly established Archdiocese in Trondheim, with responsibility for Orkney and the Hebrides. A journey south for the newly appointed Archbishop seemed a plausible plot, and what better gift to impress local leaders than some sets of beautifully carved chessmen? Now I had the basic premise for my children’s novel. My hero would be a boy hailing from Lewis, now a slave to the Vikings who captured him. Due to his knowledge of Gaelic, he would accompany the travelling party, but no-one suspects that the boy has a
Why did this encounter with the Norse chess pieces affect me so profoundly?
plan of his own: a plan for thieving, and for freedom.
My story spark had burst into lively flame. But could these Norse longships sail from Norway to Lewis in one? Realising that the travellers would certainly stop off somewhere on route to the Western Isles, I hurriedly squeezed in a research trip to Orkney, seeing Orphir’s Earl’s Bu and other locations of my book for myself. It was a particularly stormy weekend, perfect for the brooding atmosphere I was hoping to evoke in my book. I was almost ready to write. And then?
Then the world ground to a halt. Covid felt like a creative crashlanding. Who could think of writing in a pandemic? There were more important things to worry about, like shopping for elderly neighbours and supervising home school. For a little while, like everyone else, I abandoned myself to the communal obsession with the virus.
All this was unchartered territory. Working from home alongside my husband, with three teens studying remotely had its challenges. Almost reluctantly, I began to carve out time for adventure. In the kitchen, the soup may be bubbling, but in my study, I was rowing my way out of a whirlpool. My step-count was limited to walking up and down the stairs, but in between, I was sailing the seas and battling berserkers.
I am not alone. Whether reading or writing, many of us have sought out other worlds for solace in recent times. The penny dropped: What we as writers do, I realised, was important. It was OK to write children’s adventure stories, even in the midst of a serious pandemic. In fact, it was essential.
I lost myself in the world of Kylan, the titular Chessmen Thief. It was time to let the subconscious story sprites take control and let go. And then something happened which I had not expected.
It should have been obvious! They are chess pieces, for goodness sake! I had written about half of the book, I am ashamed to say, before the game of chess as a plot device occurred to me – and my own childhood memories ambushed me more powerfully than I can say.
My father died eight years ago, on my birthday. If anyone was to ask me what pastimes I associate with him, I’d say ‘watching sport, and chess.’ He was an able player, competing at club and regional level. Of course, playing chess with his youngest daughter presented no challenge to him at all – if he condescended to play me at all, he’d do so while watching football or skiing – but he saw a beauty in the game which, until now, had eluded me. With every new chapter of The Chessmen Thief, I tapped into those memories and grasped that I did love the game – not because of my aptitude for it, but because of my love for him. Somewhere between the beginning and the end, my book became more than a story – it became a tribute. My young hero would learn to play chess like a champ, I resolved. In fact, in the final climax of the book, I’d make him play chess for his life. Isn’t it fitting that my hero discovers a father figure in the last chapter?
And perhaps, alongside the story sprites of my imagination, my own father was watching over my shoulder.
Grief. Worry. Uncertainty. There is healing in stories, and resilience. Take it from me.
The Chessmen Thief by Barbara Henderson (Cranachan Publishing, £7.99) is on sale now