My story has been too complicated. Working through the reasons that Ódinn/Gyrdir/Gunnlaugr needs for the the story to work out, it actually is much simpler that you might think.
- What does Gunnlaugr want?
- He has been cast-out of his world by the &Thorn;urs and the alfar
- He must find a way to cross the bridge – the Bifrost – and to destroy Yggsdrasil, the tree of live
- To do this he needs the assistance of a descendent Solveig to allow him through
- Eleanor, Ben and Hanna Katla are the descendents – he picks Eleanor
- To gain her trust, he saves her when she is lost (he also gets her lost to save her from it)
- She is a writer, and a poet. He feeds her the mead of inspiration from the vessel Óð-rœrir…
- …and gives her the belief of her power to cross into the world of the þurs.
- He makes up something for her to steal, and then bring to him in the mountains.
Charles Ancell and the Thermo-Tunnel is a side plot – a scientific reason for the changes in the world. They are mistakingly inter-twined.
Now I just have to make the alterations to my 100,000 word manuscript! 😉
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In other, sadder news, Magnus Magnusson has died. I was never a particular fan of Mastermind, mainly I should imagine because it just compelled in me just how bad I am at having facts and general knowledge ‘on tap’. But he did have such a wonderful voice. I was thinking over Christmas actually (because Andy listens to a lot of audiobooks) that Magnus Magnusson would probably be top of the list for doing the audiobook of my story.
I did discover though that I did get one thing right though, if you take the Magnus’ daughter Sally Magnusson as an example, for the British children of an Icelandic man, they do follow the father’s second name British-style rather than the slightly more confusing Icelandic naming convention. I am therefore okay in having my two sibling protagonists being Eleanor and Ben Ármannsson.
Is Magnus’ wife Icelandic by birth, too? Magnus, I believed, only lived in Iceland until he was a year old!
I noticed in the birth announcements in our local paper the other day that a woman with the surname Popova had given her son the surname Popov.
What would Sally be if she’d been born in Iceland – Sally Magnusdottir??
I don’t know about Magnus’ wife – but perhaps not. Nor is Guðni Ármannson’s wife either… 😉
In Iceland, the child takes the father’s first name, and then appends son or dóttir to it. So Magnus Magnusson is literally Magnus son of Magnus. Therefore, had Sally been Icelandic she would have been Sally Magnusdóttir but where the Magnus in her name refers to her dad’s first name not the second.
If your children were Icelandic then they would Josef Allaistairsson and Jane Allaistairdóttir.
This is why the Reykjavik phone book is listed by first name not second, and why houses have litte plaques outside the door saying who lives in the house!! 😉