Poul Anderson 23 min read

On a storm-lashed longship in the freezing northern night, the seasick minstrel Cappen Varra, no warrior, but quick of wit and song, faces perils that call for courage of a very different kind.

Poul Anderson's 1957 story is a rollicking sword-and-sorcery fantasy. Vivid, witty, superbly told. Read it for a gem of heroic fantasy, a charming, cowardly bard whose cleverness and lute outmatch brute force, in a lively, atmospheric tale that helped shape the wry, resourceful rogue of later sword-and-sorcery.

In its time

Published in 1957, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

23 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).