The House of the Wolfings: A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse

Before Tolkien, there was Morris. Published in 1889, The House of the Wolfings is the forgotten ancestor of modern fantasy, the first novel to build an imaginary world and fill it with the supernatural. Here are the seeds of everything that followed. The Wolfings dwell in the Mid-mark, a wild land of forest and river, living close to the earth and the old ways. When Roman legions come marching to conquer them, the Wolfings must decide: submit or stand and fight. Thiodolf, their greatest warrior, leads them to war against an enemy whose weapons and discipline seem unstoppable. But the Hall-Sun, a woman touched by magic, sees a different outcome written in the folds of fate. What unfolds is not merely a tale of battle, but a meditation on what it means to be free, to choose one's own death, to face doom with open eyes. The prose moves with the cadence of saga, and verse breaks through like the choruses of ancient song.