Forgotten Stories
of
Fantastic Sword-fighters:
Andrew J. Offutt’s
Cormac Mac Art (Part 1 of 6)

by Andy Beau

Andrew J. Offutt (1934–) wrote a number of fantasy and science fiction tales in the 1970s–‘80s. He was also one of the writers during the 1970s who chose to chronicle the further exploits of some of Robert E. Howard’s battling adventurers. In addition to a few Conan novels at that time, he also wrote six novels of Howard’s Irish/Gaelic adventurer, Cormac Mac Art. The book reviewed here, Sword Of The Gael (1975), is the first in Offutt’s series. Chronologically, it takes place in about 490 A.D. and follows Howard’s original tales collected in Tigers of the Sea by the same publisher, Zebra Books.

Since Vikings didn’t actually exist as such until about 700 A.D., Offutt’s references to “Vikings” might be more of a literary license. His Scandinavian sea-raiders swear by Odin, speak of Valhalla, wear horned and winged helmets (actual Vikings didn’t wear this type of fancy headgear, contrary to popular myth), and sail Viking-style longships. Maybe these could be considered proto-Vikings, which still conveys the Viking mystic into the story.

As this book begins, dark-haired, grey-eyed Cormac has been exiled from Erin (Ireland) for some twelve years now for being forced to kill a man during a peaceful triennial gathering of the Gaelic clans when he was a young man. He has joined a group of Danish Vikings, led by a red-bearded, horn-helmeted, axe-bearing giant of a man named Wulfhere Hausakliufr, or “Skullsplitter” to his crew. They are caught in a fierce storm at sea that is tearing their ship apart. Wulfhere is struggling to keep from being thrown overboard by the gale:

The hugest of those desperate seafarers held fast the jagged stump of the ruined mast. To his great swordbelt clung one of his men; to his knotty calf in its soaked leggings hung another, fearful of being swept off the ridge of the world. The huge man gripped the mast as though it was his beloved. He it was who bellowed out to Father Odin and his son The Thunderer, for they had escaped the dread whirlpool off these nameless little isles of unpredictable elements only to fall prey to this demon-shrieking gale.

They eventually become shipwrecked on an unknown island just south of Britain, where they discover an unusual castle. Cormac has dreams that this castle is a remnant from the ancient days of King Kull (another Howard character). After rescuing a Gaelic prince and princess being held in the castle by Vikings from Norge and their sorcerous Nordic Druid, only Cormac and Wulfhere are left alive of their original crew. The royal pair explains that their elder brother, a ruler in one of Erin’s kingdoms, had paid the Norse Vikings to kidnap and dispose of them because he held the unfounded belief that they would try to usurp his throne. Cormac and Wulfhere sail the royal pair back to Erin. Upon reaching Erin’s coast, Wulfhere leaves the three Gaels to continue their journey inland and sails off by himself. The three travel across Erin in disguise because the prince and princess don’t want to be known for who they are until they can speak with the High-king himself about their kidnapping. Cormac needs to hide his own identity because his exile was upon pain of death if he were ever to return. He also plans on pleading his case before the High-king and have his unjust exile revoked.

In one of their overnight stays while traveling across Erin, they sleep at the homestead of a farmer and his family. They are all attacked in the middle of the night by a thirteen-man group of Picts, who encircle the farmer’s house. Cormac, rushing from the barn where he and the prince were sleeping, charges them.

[The Picts] whirled from their encirclement to meet the man who ran upon them like a flying shadow. His Viking-won shield was up and ready to tip this way or that, and his sword was carried well out to his right side, streaking through the night like a flying ribbon of cloth-of-silver…. The terrible cries continued to rend the air. There was added now the grunts and gurgle and gasp and cry of fighting men, accompanied by the ring and skirl of steel on steel—and its chunking sound as it found flesh, or brittle cracks when it bit to bone-depth. Cormac had gained the door of the house, and in his wake lay three bloody Picts.

With the help of the farmer and his son, the three Gaels subdue the invading Picts. Cormac and the royals continue their trek across Erin, evading suspicious inquiries from townsmen to rulers about their true identity. They arrive at Tara, the capital of Erin, in time for the current triennial countrywide festival, the same type from which Cormac was first exiled.

One of the main events is the battle of the champions from each kingdom in Erin. The battlers were to fight in one-on-one, single-elimination contests using wooden swords. Cormac is tricked into representing a king friendly to him in this contest. However, three people, a Gaelic Druid, the winner from previous contests, and another king, all conspire to defeat and even kill Cormac; going so far as having the Druid enchant Cormac during a special contest where metal weapons are secretly used. Cormac needs to survive and win this special battle in order to press his plea for the removal of his old judgment of exile. If he doesn’t succeed in having his judgment overturned, he then has to try to escape Erin with a sentence of death hanging over his head and all the armies of Erin after him!

Offutt uses the technique of having the characters from Erin, including Cormac, speak in sentences constructed in the stereotypical Irish format. Such as: “It’s in your debt I remain now, Cormac Mac Art” and “And even yourself took toll among them?” This certainly conveys a feeling of being in Ireland with the three travelers, without having to read this tale in Gaelic.

The first half of the book is chock-full of a god-cursed storm, an unknown isle, an ancient castle, Vikings battling Vikings, supernatural and primordial creatures conjured up by a Norse Druid, and a tentacled creature from the sea! After Cormac and the royal pair are landed back in Erin, their travels across the country involve a couple of fights with Picts and highwaymen and some episodes of trying to conceal their true identity until the proper time at the Tara gathering. Much slower paced than the first half. Towards the end of the book, the battle of champions and the ensuing conspiracy to kill Cormac again raise the excitement level of the story to its conclusion.

This novel of fifth-century “Viking” and Gaelic adventurers could be considered a combination of swashbuckler and sword-and-sorcery, and readers of both types of adventures should enjoy it.

I will review the rest of Offutt’s Cormac Mac Art series in the future.

This book can be found on ABEbooks.com and other used book web sites for a few dollars.