The Ice and Fire series is set in my re-imaginings of an alternative Viking-age Iceland, with dragons (and a few other things going on too). So yes, this is potentially not a ‘normal’ inspiration for fantasy writers, but I’ve always been drawn to fantasy books that heavily rely on a historical setting (and very rarely a true medieval one, (although the PERN novels of Anne McCaffrey do perhaps fall into that category)).
What drew me to this time and place was the stunning bravery of men and women who decided to risk it all and start afresh in an entirely new ‘land’ to the one they called their home. It’s always been said that Iceland was settled because those living in Norway didn’t wish to fall under the sway of ‘a’ king, and a king they were going to get in the final years of the 800s. While this is somewhat contested now, back then (last century when I first had theidea) this enthralled me.
Iceland, when it was settled, is said to have been empty apart from one of two religious figures living at the extreme of the known world. Can you imagine being the first to step foot on that landscape? It must have been magical. But that wasn’t the only inspiring element. Those first settlers also undertook a number of endeavours that are unique. They wrote the Landnámabók (the book of Settlements) – a book detailing the land claimed by those settlers, and in that way recorded their history (astonishing).
The Landnámabók begins, ‘In his book On Times the Venerable Priest Bede mentions an island called Thule, said in other books to lie six days’ sailing to the north of Britain. He says there’s neither daylight there in winter, nor darkness when the day is at its longest in the summer.’ (from the translation by H Pálsson and Paul Edwards.) Can you imagine setting sail for 6 days and not really knowing what you’ll find at the end of the journey.
These settlers also vowed to have no one king and to rule largely through consensus (amazing). And they decided to live in an environment that was harsher than they were used to, even coming from Norway.
And so, I set my characters in an idea of what this might have been, adopting the customs, the ideas, the way they might have lived, but in an entirely fantastical world (unless, of course, there were dragons in Viking age Iceland). I do not profess that everything is accurate (it isn’t), it couldn’t be, but the beautiful, deadly landscape; the bravery of those men and women all inspired me to create the setting for the world of Ice and Fire.
