sentences:  The novel was nominated for the British Fantasy Award in 1973.The novel is a retelling of the story of the legendary 6th century Danish king Hrolf Kraki, pulling together and reconciling narrative strands from such diverse traditional sources as the Danish historical chronicle "Chronicon Lethrense", Saxo Grammaticus's "Gesta Danorum", Icelandic sagas "Hrólfs saga kraka", the "Skjöldunga saga" and the "Ynglinga saga", Norse mythological poems "Skáldskaparmál" and "Gróttasöngr", and Anglo-Saxon poems "Beowulf" and "Widsith".The story is presented as if related by a female story-teller in an Anglo-Saxon court, the author feeling it would have been about that time that the legend would have reached its fullest development, and such a teller would have been least likely to abbreviate it.