Tough Traveling: Northern Barbarians
The Thursday feature “Tough Traveling” is the brainchild of Nathan of Review Barn, who has come up with the excellent idea of making a new list each week based on the most common tropes in fantasy, as seen in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynn Jones. Nathan has invited anyone who is interested to come play along, so be sure to check out the first link for more information. Compulsive list-maker that I am, I’m very excited to take part!
This week’s tour topic is: Northern Barbarians
NORTHERN BARBARIANS dwell in the snowy part behind the northern MOUNTAIN range. They are very barbarous and tend to kill strangers on sight… It is not certain what their females do.
Ack, this one sounds easier than it is! Okay, let me think…
The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian by Robert E. Howard
Conan the Cimmerian or Conan the Barbarian, the fictional sword and sorcery hero is perhaps the quintessential northern barbarian, hailing from the rugged, mountainous wilderness of Cimmeria. Tall and powerful, the Cimmerians are a people forged by the very harsh conditions of their land. These books contain some awesome stories.
A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
Wildlings (or “The Free Folk”, as they call themselves) are perhaps a less conventional form of the Northern Barbarian, but they definitely fit the description, inhabiting the icy reaches and many of them prone to barbarous tendencies. Their population consists of a wide variety of many fractious tribes and village-dwellers, all living in the lands beyond the Wall and the northern border of the Seven Kingdoms.
The First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie
This trilogy introduces us to Logen Ninefingers and his people, a group of Northman fighters originating from beyond the mountains typically bordering what is considered The North and Angland. The North is a cold and harsh place, and the inhabitants are simply known as Northmen. Many of the details used to describe them bring to mind the Scandinavian vikings, and they are often seen as barbarians by outsiders.
The Grim Company by Luke Scull
Perhaps very similar to Abercrombie’s Northmen are the Northern Barbarian characters of Luke Scull’s The Grim Company. A point-of-view character, Brodar Kayne is the old grizzled veteran warrior formerly known as “The Sword of the North”, a legendary barbarian who travels with his loyal companion and friend Jerek the Wolf.
The BiblioSanctum 
I have The First Law and A Game of Thrones on mine too 😀
Am I the only person that hasn’t read any Conan? Lol.
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Probably not! But you should give them a look, basically not what the movies have made him out to be at all 🙂
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Well I’ve never seen any of the movies either, so that works out 😀 I bought the latest one, with Khal Drogo, but I made like ten minutes in and forgot about it after pausing to go do something or the other, lol. I’m not a TV guy.
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It’s okay, the new one wasn’t very good anyway – at least the Arnold ones had their hammy charm ^_^
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Wait. Arnold was Conan? I didn’t know that -.- I’d have made an effort to watch them sooner.
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Yes, the 1982 Conan the Barbarian stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, like when he was in his prime. And James Earl Jones! 😀
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I also haven’t read any Conan! It’s a perfect pick for this week!
I have the Luke Scull book – looking forward to No.2 in that series.
Lynn 😀
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I’m looking forward to Sword of the North as well! I saw it was supposed to be out this summer, but I guess it was pushed back. Sigh…
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Yeah, I came up the Wildlings too. I’m pretty sure there is a similar people group in the second book of Alison Croggon’s The Books of Pellinor series, but I cannot for the life of me remember what they’re called.
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Never read that, so I don’t know! But glad I’m not the only one who thought wildlings.
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I think Drew Karphyshyn’s barbarian was from up north as well (Children of Fire) and N.K. Jemisin’s The Killing Moon also had a bunch of them.
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I remember the guy from Children of Fire, the big dude that befriended one of the girls and became her lover. For the life of me I couldn’t remember his name, though!
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Sadly, I can’t remember much of that story now.
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I have never read any of Conan’s old adventures. I should work on that.
And I was so stuck on the whole ‘frozen north’ though that I didn’t think about including stuff from Jemisin. oops
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Yes, definitely try out some of the old Conan stories. I love that world.
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of course wouldn’t you know it’s all pretty much epic fantasy. Totally this must be an epic fantasy trope. Except maybe Conan – is that considered epic fantasy?
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They were more pulp – those old books were really made up of many separate stories about Conan and his adventures! It’s more sword and sorcery fantasy.
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Thanks for schooling me =)
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I was too tired/run down to get my list together this week. I had thought of Wildlings and the Northmen from Abercrombie’s books. I KNOW I have seen this in other books, I was just tired and couldn’t think of more. Glad to see you got those covered 🙂 I haven’t read your other choices.
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Yeah, this week’s was actually tougher than I thought. I got Abercrombie’s Northmen right away and really just ran with that archetype 😛
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Conan has to be number one, right? Glad we agree. 🙂
The others are all people I have to read more about. Thanks for pointing out some great books.
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Absolutely. He may be the original northern barbarian!
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YAy for barbarians from the north
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Glad to know I’m not the only one who struggled this week. I just stood looking blankly at my shelves for about ten minutes. Clearly this would be easier for me if I read some damn Abercrombie! Or any epic fantasy, really. Gotta get on that!
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