Wow! Just looked at the link you provided. Reminds me of some of the DK/Usborne kid's books on historical periods where they use photographs of costumed reenactors as illustrations.
I remember Alfred Duggan wrote a YA (teens & adults-level) book about everyday life in England a couple of decades after the Norman Conquest (thus, late 11th-century), with chapters on individuals from different ethnic groups, strata of society and occupations (Norman knight, Saxon farmer, urban shopkeeper, monastery novice, etc.). Not many illustrations, of course, but probably a relatively close cultural analogue to feudal kingdoms on Harn. (I think I remember seeing in the introduction to CGI's Harnworld book that Norman England was roughly the base cultural level they were aiming for with Harn.) I'll check Amazon.com & eBay to see if I can get the title of that Alfred Duggan book.

The Alfred Duggan book I remembered is "Growing Up with the Norman Conquest;" published in the mid-1960s, out of print, but available on eBay. A similar book by him on "Growing Up in the Thirteenth Century" is available used on both eBay and Amazon.com.

A few people have already recommended Richard Kluger's The Sheriff of Nottingham, but since it looks like it hasn't been mentioned for a number of years, I am going to recommend it again for those who may not have seen it.
If you are looking for a good picture of the many aspects of shire management and politics in medieval England (early 13th century), you'll find it here. Looking for more ways to tax your player characters? You'll find it here, whether they are commoners or nobles. Lots of good info on church & state relationships, too. I cannot recommend this one enough. As historical fiction novels go, this is light on action but heavy on historical detail, which I found fascinating.

There are a lot of used copies (hard and soft-cover) available through Amazon for next to nothing.

Don't know if it has been mentioned, but Bernard Cornwell's Lord of the North trilogy and subsequent fourth book Sword Song, great books for those who are using an Ivinian setting. It is set in Saxon England at the time of Alfred the Great. I would highly recommend.

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For what it's worth, that's the way I see it

It is probably a premature statement, but the grimness and political intrigue of "The Blade itself" quite captures me while I am reading and if grimness and intrigue isn't harnic, what is?
Really: an honest, dirty, gritty and rather sarcastic book, if one can judge that from the first 90 pages. Certainly worth a try for all those who were bored with the conventional fantasy stuff in the last couple of years.

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"The purpose of the game is to entertain the players and the GM. The rest is just semantics."
-by Munin from the forum-

I just saw one of those Bernard Cornwell books set at the time of Alfred the Great on a $3.99 bargain-book table at Barnes & Noble today. I almost got it, but went with an Italian copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorceror's Stone instead (harder to find in a U.S. bookstore). I'm on vacation this week, though, and expect to visit several bookstores (and at least 1 library book sale), so perhaps I can still find that Bernard Cornwall series during the week.

I am just reading the second book (the pale horseman) of bernard cornwells "the saxon stories" and must say it is very entertaining and the atmosphere ist nearby my imagination of hârn.

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everybodyTHINKShimselfSOwellSUPPLIEDwithCOMMONsenseTHATevenTHOSEmostDIFFICULTto PLEASEneverDESIREmoreOFitTHANtheyALREADYhave. RENEdescartes.

Another comic / graphic novel / bande dessinée:

Thorgal

A great fantasy comic, the serie, with more than 30 albums, is in print since 1980, the next album will be published this year. Original on french and one of the bestselling comics, it is translated into several languages, including german, finnish, swedish and english (the new english edition partly cencored, sorry).

Overview of the french edition including extracts

Thorgal on german and english

For our scandinavian friends: Thorgal is published in the Phantom magazine.

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Michael - visit Tales of Chybisa.com.

Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.

I am suprised no one appears to have mentioned the Mathew Bartholomew novels by Susana Gregory. These are murder mysteries set in a early medieval university town, during and after the black death. They have great information on town life, the roles of merchantylers, the interplay of colleges (which could just as easily be guilds or the Shek-Pvar chantries). They are also a cracking good read (and for once the sluth isn't omniprescent).

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··<SableFox>··
AKA Jonathan M Davidson

I think I might have borrowed one of the Mathew Bartholomew mysteries from the library once, and it was pretty decent, actually. I'll have to see if the library has any more of them sometime -- the setting is a later period than the Brother Cadfael books (the series I'd probably been looking for earlier), but I remember it gave a good feel for urban life in 14th-century medieval England.

> set in a early medieval university town <

I probably should have said an 'early university in a medieval town'. I have to admit to bias, since I spent the last 11 years working in Cambridge on a university owned high tech park, but I do think that Matthew Bartholomew are far more gritty and believable than the Brother Cadfael book which always seemed a bit "rose tinted glasses" to me (not that that stopped me from reading and greatly enjoying them all)

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··<SableFox>··
AKA Jonathan M Davidson

You may be right; it's just that the Brother Cadfael books are better known because of the PBS Mystery! TV adaptations of several Brother Cadfael stories.

I do not want to appear sniffy, but surely that is the ITV adaptions of Cadfael?

(Although I cannot be sure PBS did not contribute some cash?, I heartily suspect they merely bought the rights to the show post fact).

I cannot believe I am standing up for the commercial whore 'let's get another reality talent show' ITV.......but credit where I suspect credit is due...

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

Again, you may be right -- but U.S. viewers would have seen it on PBS, and may not have noticed the ITV connection if they weren't paying close attention to the opening credits of each episode (as I obviously didn't, since it wasn't a detail that I recalled this long after viewing them last).

Umm, clearly. To describe something to a domestic audience it is a useful indicator to refrerence the local distributer....for example I could say Channel 4's Friends or BBC's Cagney and Lacey (For those who like their drama, like cadfael, from the dark and distant past ).

However, I would not call the Harnforum domestic......

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

Agreed again -- but please have mercy on an ignorant Yank like myself!

...and forgive this paranoid european for cultural protectionism

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

Actually, Peter, it was Central television

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··<SableFox>··
AKA Jonathan M Davidson

I am reading "Birkebeinerens sønn" by Ola Onsrud

It is set in the civil war era of Norwegian history, which lasted from 1130 to 1217. During this period there were several interlocked conflicts of varying scale and intensity.
The background for these conflicts were the unclear Norwegian succession laws, social conditions and the struggle between Church and King. There were then two main parties, firstly known by varying names or no names at all, but finally condensed into parties of Bagler and Birkebeins.
Birkebeinerene, or the "Birkebeins was the rebels, lead by Øystein Møyla. They were mostly criminals and border men" The name has its origins in propaganda from the opposing party that the rebels were so poor that they made their shoes of birch bark
Øystein is killed, and the Birkebeiner party gets a new leader in 1177: Sverre Siggurdson. Under Sverre's leadership, the Birkebeiner movement was re-organized and pruned and the most criminal elements were brutally purged from the party.

In the book we follow Arne, his father Magnus and their men (and women) as they fight, intrigue and try to live in this turbulent time. As supporters of the Birkebeiner movement.

Sadly the book is not translated to english. Or published yet... I have been lucky, and has been asked to read it and comment on "my field of expertise ...

Ola is an historian, specializing in this period. He is also a western martial artist and a reenactor. I have jousted against him on one occasion. Though he is not a regular jouster.
The book suffers a bit because of Ola's extensive knowledge of the period, sword fighting , dress, armor and medieval life in general. He gets a bit to much into details, and seems to forget the plot.
Well not really a plot:
The book reads a bit like a Saga. And there is not one big plot line or mystery that needs to be solved. But a series of obstacles for the main characters. And their allies
I like the book so far, and look forward to the (unavoidable) heavy edited published book in the future. I think a lot of people on this forum would love the detail and information.
I find this post-viking period in Norway to be very Hârnic.

Steffen
(Sorry for posting about a unavailable book - so far...)

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"Ofnær nefi" kvað karl, var skotinn í auga."

(To close to the nose, he said, when he was shot in the eye)


www.stridshest.no

Hmmm . . . I studied Norwegian (mostly Bokmaal) in university -- perhaps I could try to find that Ola Onsrud book on eBay or Amazon.com?
I've read both English translations of Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter (actually, I also have that trilogy in the original Norwegian; just haven't read it all the way through in Norwegian yet). I also read her The Master of Hestviken tetralogy years ago (English translation of Olaf Audunsson i Hestviken); I'll have to find another copy and read it again.

Some quick research on the Internet didn't find any books by Ola Onsrud; however, I was reminded of where I'd heard of the Birkebeiners before. There's the commemorative races in both Norway and North America, of course, but there was also Henrik Ibsen's play The Pretenders (Kongs-Emnerne in Norwegian), in which one of several candidates for the Norwegian throne (Haakon Haakonson) is of the Birkebeiner faction, and his main rival is Earl Skule (Haakon's father-in-law). I've been fortunate enough to have read that in both English (from the university library) and Norwegian (my cousins in Sogn had a copy in their home (back when I visited them a few decades ago)). It's not one of Ibsen's best-known plays, but I found it to be pretty interesting -- and early 13th-century Norway does have a very Harnic feel!

Based on a book with Harnic flavour, this movie should be good: http://www.empireonline.com/news/feed.asp?NID=25326

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Well, an update on this[Spoilers ahead].




The series by Joe Abercrombie really caught me off-guard. That was the first fantasy story without a hero that deserves the name and without any significant plot-line, such as saving the world or other such BS. Most, if not all, characters in the books had at least one dark side, several of them had little else but dark sides, but all of them sported good reasons.
The lack of far-flung meta-plot and the grimness of fate in the books reminded me a lot about Harn, especially those political games Tuomo's staging: You're in the middle of something, you have to make decisions, mainly based on 'realpolitik' and everything looks rather desperate with many fools about, especially among the movers and shakers. Then, suddenly, everything ends. Right in the middle of things, not far from where you started... (I mean, the events continue, but not the story)
Then: The Arch-Magus (the first of the magi) who sets out on an epic journey with most of the main characters of the books turns out to be something of the arch-villain who is having his way with one of the most important realms in the setting. If that is not harnic (think The Council of Eleven), what else?

In summary: an astonishing read with interesting flamboyant characters, although sometimes testing on the suspension fo disbelief (but I may be over-critical here)

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"The purpose of the game is to entertain the players and the GM. The rest is just semantics."
-by Munin from the forum-

I agree with Stino's assesment, having finished Abercrombie's 3 books "The First Law" series over the summer. There are so many loose ends, IMO because by book 3, the writer knew he had a hit and could leave things open ended for "The Second Law" series (Spoilers: which I'm willing to bet will deal with the topic of the 2nd law just as this delt with the 1st). I had a few nitpicks about the series, (1) I would have like to seen a sort of map of the world & map of the union's capital city (2) some of the realpolitics seemed forced in that some characters who I thought would be a factor were silent Spoilers: like what about Gustav's wife?/ and the Grand Duke?.

Still a fun read. (Though no George RR Martin.)

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Okay, so I'm about 2 years too late to the party: Tolkien's "Children of Hurin" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_hurin) was a good read and like anything set in Middle Earth has a Harnic flavour. I had read The Hobbit, TLotR, The Silmarillion and Unfinished tales and some of the Lost Tales, but it was years ago and I had forgotten much of Turin's tale in this story so it was fairly new to me.

Has anyone else noticed that "The Tale of the Children" (Narn i Chîn Húrin) Narn in JRRT's language means 'tale' (or possibly 'lay' as in a song or ballad) and Narn is similar to Harn.

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