Getting Back on the Horse

The day before I was scheduled to begin two weeks of research in Norway for my new book The Real Valkyrie: The Hidden History of Viking Warrior Women, I fell off my horse.

My husband and I generally ride our Icelandic horses through the woods every day, often in the late afternoon after a successful day writing or taking notes for a book project. This time we had a friend with us on our third horse.

Two of the horses spooked and, the trail being narrow, bumped into each other. Through the strangest set of circumstances, my knee got caught under my friend’s saddle and, to disengage it, I swivelled sideways and took my foot out of my stirrup. I forgot that this combination of cues—a sudden shift of balance and a tap with the foot (or in this case the loose stirrup)—was the signal for the flying pace, the racing gait of the Icelandic horse.

My horse is a race horse (in her mind at least). She took off down the trail. The footing wasn’t great for racing. She skittered and bobbled. I couldn’t regain my balance. I lost the second stirrup and was hanging on for dear life, and, to make a long story short, we didn’t negotiate the 90-degree turn. She tripped and I flew off and smashed into the bank. She stopped and looked at me like, “What was that all about?”

I limped home and lay down for a while, making little of it. I ate dinner but, in the midst of enjoying my blueberry pie, threw up all over the dinner table—a clear sign of a concussion. My husband bundled me up and took me to the emergency room. Six hours later, having passed every test for a patient of high-speed trauma, I was released, with a stern recommendation to spend the next two weeks lying down in a darkened room (and, given the state of health insurance in the U.S., with an out-of-pocket bill for $4,500).

I said, “I’m flying to Norway tomorrow.” And I did. With a black eye, black-and-blue all down one side, and walking with a cane.

Fortunately, I had earlier arranged to take a young writer friend with me. Rather than being my research assistant, he stepped up to the job of baggage handler, driver, cook, and nurse, even convincing the bouncers at the gates to the Viking Metal Music Festival that the old lady with the black eye (me) needed to keep her walking stick, though sticks were forbidden on festival grounds. In my hand, it didn’t much look like a weapon.

Visiting the places I write about and taking part in reenactments when possible—sailing in a Viking ship or, as here, climbing Viking burial mounds and attending a performance based on Viking Age shamanism in a reconstructed Viking mead hall—are key to the kind of books I write. The best way to recreate the life of a historical character is to live it.

I imagine the real valkyrie who is the subject of my book fell off her horse a time or two as well, and it didn’t keep her from doing her job.

For more on my book The Real Valkyrie: The Hidden History of Viking Warrior Women, see the related posts on this blog (click here) or my page at Macmillan.com. Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org and I will earn a commission if you click through and purchase a book on their site.