The gripping beast

Ursula Kenning succumbs to an irresistible urge to kick the orderly ants' nest of her responsible bureaucratic life. Alienated from her colleagues, she embarks on an impassioned quest back through her father's life and her own heritage. With her novelist friend Celeste as companion, she travels to Norway, then to Orkney, her accidental birthplace, and on to Cumbria, home of her ancestors.

Her Anglo-Norse heritage, like the gripping beast of Viking art, proves to have a tenacious vitality for Ursula as she explores the mythic landscapes and sacred sites of the old gods. Restored by the energies of the past and her quickening interest in Robert Applethwaite, she finds life opening to her again among the fells and valleys of the Cumbrian Lake District.