A graphic novel by V. Fleckenstein
– Cover used on Kickstarter campaign
To read my review of the first half of this story, please CLICK HERE
Note: For the purposes of my review, I used a digital copy of the soon to be released “Collected Edition” of the entire story. When my psychical edition of this comes in, I plan to do another quick addendum-styled review of it.
One of my new favorite ways to enjoy pop culture works based on my Norse Pagan religious beliefs has been my foray into graphic novels and comics in that vein. Yes, there have been Marvel’s Thor comics for decades, but they are hardly representative of anything resembling actual Norse Pagan stories. I have quite enjoyed finding books that take the source material of ancient Germanic folklore and religion seriously. So far, one of my favorites has been a self-published horror/action book called The Wife of Freyr by V. Fleckenstein. Chapter 1 was released on Amazon last year and Chapter 2 appears to be exclusive to Kickstarter at the moment. A Facebook group for the author’s projects can be found HERE as well.
PLOT: AD 970. Gunnar Thangbrand, eager missionary of the Danish king Harald Bluetooth rages on the coasts of Norway. His goal is to convert the pagan Norwegians to Christianity, to make them faithful citizens of the Danish Empire. But the Norwegians resist bitterly and fight back the Danes. Gunnar, the only survivor of the danish mission, flees from the vengeful Norwegians to the east. To Sweden, Where the Prayers of the bloody Fertility God Yngvi-Freyr are living.
Kickstarter description
The author has billed this story as “The Wicker Man (1973) and Midsommar(2019) meets Vikings (2013)” which is pretty accurate considering the theme of “folk horror” that this chapter excels at. For those, not familiar with the term, folk horror usually casts Christians into the role of a wide-eyed innocent person that comes in contact with some of of Pagan or “Satanic” cult. I found a pretty solid definition of the “genre” from an Australian TV website of all places:
Folk horror generally – but not always – deals with rural, often British settings where the scares come not from an intrusive outsider, but the revelation that the location itself, stripped of its benign daytime face, holds horrors, often tied to pagan religions, witchcraft, ancient curses and what have you.
SBS.com
This is flipped on it’s head in The Wife of Freyr – Chapter 2 – Freyja’s Revenge in a way since the “horror” is actually a lot the protagonists own cultural biases. The very things he sees as “evil” are pretty benign, his own action however are the true evil of the story, a point that comes back to haunt him later on.
Gunnar Thangbrand has successfully escaped the Norwegians hunting for his head, and is traveling with the Freyr cult that he infiltrated in chapter one. He has decided to take the mantle of Freyr himself, using it as a cover to hopefully get to the next port on his journey and create just that much more distance between freedom and his own execution.
The problem is, Gunnar has become far too comfortable in his new life. Partaking in the lifestyle of a God, he is presented with endless food, drink, and sex – something that makes him lazy, fat, and perpetually drunk. Gunnar snaps out of it, and returns to his old ways, but things don’t go exactly as planned as he tries to rid Sweden of the Pagans once more. I’ll avoid more spoilers, I’ll just say that the comeuppance I was hoping for in the first chapter is exquisite.
One of the strong points of Chapter two is easily the many depictions of Pagan rituals that we see the Swedish Cult of Freyr engage in. There are instances where we see things done in repetitions of nine, an ancient holy number, as well as sacrifices of both man and beast. With a lot of our ancient Pagan heritage in shambles due to a millennium of Christian destruction, seeing plausible rights and rituals is always a treat for me. I particularly enjoyed a point in the book when Gunnar posing as Freyr weds the priestess Freyja. She takes a ceremonial place as the human embodiment of the giantess Gerðr (Freyr’s wife) and rekindles their marriage once again in human form.
These rituals are, of course, horrific to Gunnar as he has been largely sheltered from his own heritage by a Christian upbringing. For every horse that is slaughtered, he drinks more and more to hide his mind from having to cope with beliefs that are not his own. Normally he’d destroy such people and practices, but he is forced to be VERY uncomfortable and it starts to unravel his mind. This shows shades of how many Pagans see Christians today, especially when Gunnar shows his true colors. Freyja poses a few very important questions to Gunnar: How can a man serving a supposed God of love be so cruel and hateful? And considering how many bad things have befallen Gunnar, how is his God not a god of losers? Ultimately, she settles on him being a hypocrite.
Mr. Fleckenstein once again does a great job building suspense in his story with his art, we see a mix of some great battle scenes, horror scenes, and scenes of pure titillation starring Freyja, The Priestess. As with the first book, there are sex scenes in this chapter, but they do not cross into the vulgar side of things that some books like this tend to go into. their purpose is not to be “porn”, but to show the practices of this Freyr Cult and how society worked in these times. Think how similar scenes are presented in Game of Thrones, as an example. That said, this book is definitely not for children as it contained language and imagery most parents would find objectionable.
All in all, I really enjoyed The Wife of Freyr – Chapter 2 – Freyja’s Revenge, It is a solid conclusion to this adaptation of the famous story, and is a very entertaining read. For me, chapter 2 was the superior half, everything that the author got right in part one was elevated in part two. Characters are fleshed out, backstories are told, and justice is served. Perhaps my only quibble were a few typos here and there in the script, but for the most part these were not distracting nor did they ruin the book itself. I would recommend trying to get a copy of the collected edition if you can if/when it is available outside of Kickstarter, the entire story is just under 70 pages and well worth it.
