Warriors of the Storm Quotes

“Wyrd bið ful āræd. Fate is inexorable.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“It is not difficult to be a lord, a jarl, or even a king, but it is difficult to be a leader.
Most men want to follow, and what they demand of their leader is prosperity. We are the ring-givers, the gold-givers. We give land, we give silver, we give slaves, but that alone is not enough. They must be led. Leave men standing or sitting for days at a time and they get bored, and bored men make trouble. They must be surprised and challenged, given tasks they think beyond their abilities. And they must fear. A leader who is not feared will cease to rule, but fear is not enough. They must love too. When a man has been led into the shield wall, when an enemy is roaring defiance, when the blades are clashing on shields, when the soil is about to be soaked in blood, when the ravens circle in wait for the offal of men, then a man who loves his leader will fight better than a man who merely fears him. At that moment we are brothers, we fight for each other, and a man must know that his leader will sacrifice his own life to save any one of his men.
I learned all that from Ragnar, a man who led with joy in his soul, though he was feared too. His great enemy, Kjartan, knew only how to lead by fear, and Ragnall was the same. Men who lead by fear might become great kings and might rule lands so great that no man knows their boundaries, but they can be beaten too, beaten by men who fight as brothers.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“He sounded pathetic and he knew it, but he had been driven to this humiliation by love. A woman can do that. They have power. We might all say that the oath to our lord is the strong oath that guides our lives, the oath that binds us and rules all the other oaths, but few men would not abandon every oath under the sun for a woman. I have broken oaths. I am not proud of that, but almost every oath I broke was for a woman.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“Oh the madness of battle! We fear it, we celebrate it, the poets sing of it, and when it fills the blood like fire it is a real madness. It is joy! All the terror is swept away, a man feels he could live for ever, he sees the enemy retreating, knows he himself is invincible, that even the gods would shrink from his blade and his bloodied shield. And I was still keening that mad song, the battle song of slaughter, the sound that blotted out the screams of dying men and the crying of the wounded. It is fear, of course, that feeds the battle madness, the release of fear into savagery. You win in the shield wall by being more savage than your enemy, by turning his savagery back into fear.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“Play with the devil," Finan said, "and you get burned.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“A humble god! You might as well have a toothless wolf! The gods are the gods, ruling thunder and commanding storms, they are the lords of night and day, of fire and ice, the givers of disaster and of triumph. To this day I do not understand why folk become Christians unless it’s simply that the other gods enjoy a joke. I have often suspected that Loki, the trickster god, invented Christianity because it has his wicked stench all over it. I can imagine the gods sitting in Asgard one night, all of them bored and probably drunk, and Loki amuses them with a typical piece of his nonsense, "Let’s invent a carpenter," he suggests, "and tell the fools that he was the son of the only god, that he died and came back to life, that he cured blindness with lumps of clay, and that he walked on water!" Who would believe that nonsense? But the trouble with Loki is that he always takes his jests too far.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“I was Uhtred, Lord of Bebbanburg, in my war-glory. The arm rings of fallen enemies glinted on my forearms, my shield was newly painted with the snarling wolf’s head of my house, while another wolf, this one of silver, crouched on the crest of my polished helmet. My mail was tight, polished with sand, my sword belt and scabbard and bridle and saddle were studded with silver, there was a gold chain at my neck, my boots were panelled with silver, my drawn sword was grey with the whorls of its making running from the hilt to its hungry tip. I was the lord of war mounted on a great black horse, and together we would make panic.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“My son smiled. “You taught me well, Father.”
“What did I teach you?”
“That a spear-point in a prisoner’s liver is a very persuasive thing.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“I will never understand Christians. I have seen men and women whip themselves till their backs were nothing but strips of flesh hanging from exposed ribs, watched pilgrims limp on bleeding broken feet to worship the tooth of the whale that swallowed Jonah, and seen a man hammer nails through his own feet. What god wants such nonsense? And why prefer a god who wants you to torture yourself instead of worshipping Eostre who wants you to take a girl into the woods and make babies?”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“Thirty paces, twenty, and you can see the eyes of the men who will try to kill you, and see the spear-blades, and the instinct is to stop, to straighten the shields. We cringe from battle, fear claws at us, time seems to stop, there is silence though a thousand men shout, and at that moment, when terror savages the heart like a trapped beast, you must hurl yourself into the horror.
Because the enemy feels the same.
And you have come to kill him. You are the beast from his nightmares.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“That is why battles of the shield wall are slow to start. Men have to nerve themselves for the horror.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“Ragnall Ivarson. I had never met him, but I knew him. I knew his reputation. No man sailed a ship better, no man fought more fiercely, no man was held in more fear. He was a savage, a pirate, a wild king of nowhere.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“I was angry. I wanted blood in the dawn.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“Men who lead by fear might become great kings and might rule lands so great that no man knows their boundaries, but they can be beaten, too, beaten by men who fight as brothers.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“There’s a time for caution,’ I said, ‘and a time to just kill the bastards.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“An archbishop is important to the Christians, he knows more sorcery than ordinary priests, even more than the bishops, and he has more authority. I have met several archbishops over the years and there was not one of them I would trust to run a market stall selling carrots.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“An enemy sees his attackers laughing? It is better than all the insults. A man who laughs as he goes into battle is a man who has confidence, and a man with confidence is terrifying to an enemy. “For the whore!” I shouted.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“You’re a Christian?"
"Of course!"
"You believe in miracles?" I asked, and he nodded. "Then you’d better fetch your five loaves and two fishes," I went on, "and pray that your wretched god provides the rest.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“And Eoferwic, I thought, was where my story had all begun. Where my father had died. Where I had become the Lord of Bebbanburg. Where I had met Ragnar and learned of the ancient gods.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“I would hear him screaming, I would watch him bleed, I would tear his flesh piece by piece before I would worry about Æthelflaed. This was family. This was revenge.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“Tell Ragnall,” I told him, “that the Saxons of Mercia are coming. Tell him that his dead will number in the thousands. Tell him that his own death is just days away. Tell him that promise comes from Uhtred of Bebbanburg.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“How anyone could endure three or four hours of chanting monks and ranting priests was beyond my understanding, just as it was beyond my understanding to know why bishops needed thrones. They would be demanding crowns next.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“You do know what happens at Easter!” Ceolnoth demanded sternly.
“Of course I know,” I said, “we make babies.”
“That is the most ridiculous...” Ceolberht began to protest, then went silent when his brother glared at him.
“It’s my favourite feast,” I continued happily. “Easter is baby-making day!”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“Defend what’s left. You can have fifty men.”
“Fifty! That’s not enough...”
“Forty,” I snarled, “and if you lose the fort I’ll cut your kidneys out and eat them.”
We were at war.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“Choose your battles,” I snarled at Æthelstan. “That space between your ears was given so that you can think! If you just charge whenever you see an enemy you’ll earn yourself an early grave.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“Haesten.
If this world ever contained one worthless, treacherous slime-coated piece of human dung then it was Haesten.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“Are you going home?’ I asked him. ‘Home?’ He was puzzled by my question. ’To Ireland,’ I said. I looked at the circlet, ‘King Finan.’ He smiled. ‘I am home, lord.”
― bernard cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“He drew his seax instead and nodded to Sihtric who still guarded Brida. ‘Let her stand.’

Sihtric stepped away. Brida hesitated, then suddenly scrambled to her feet and lunged at Sigtryggr as if trying to snatch the seax from his hand, but he held her at arm’s length with contemptuous ease.

‘You would have blinded my daughter,’ he said bitterly.

‘I would have given her wisdom!’

Sigtryggr held her with his left hand and raised the seax with his right, but Stiorra intervened.

She touched his right arm. ‘She’s mine,’ she said.

Sigtryggr hesitated, then nodded. ‘She’s yours,’ he agreed.

‘Give her the sword,’ Stiorra said. She still held Wasp-Sting.

‘Give her the sword?’ Sigtryggr asked, frowning.

‘Give it to her,’ Stiorra commanded. ‘Let’s discover who the gods love. Uhtredsdottir or her.’

Sigtryggr held the seax hilt first to Brida. ‘Let’s see who the gods love,’ he agreed.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“Leave men standing or sitting for days at a time and they get bored, and bored men make trouble. They must be surprised and challenged, given tasks they think beyond their abilities. And they must fear. A leader who is not feared will cease to rule, but fear is not enough. They must love, too. When a man has been led into the shield wall, when an enemy is roaring defiance, when the blades are clashing on shields, when the soil is about to be soaked in blood, when the ravens circle in wait for the offal of men, then a man who loves his leader will fight better than a man who merely fears him. At”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“... we had come with the thunder and now left with the dawn.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm