Henry Treece

Henry Treece (22 December 1911 – 10 June 1966) was a British poet and writer who also worked as a teacher and editor. He wrote a range of works but is mostly remembered as a writer of children's historical novels.

Quotes

Viking's Dawn (1955)

• Perhaps those historians who say that the vikings sailed simply because the herring on which they fed had moved to other places are as near as anyone else in solving the problem. But what we do know without any doubt is that they did sail and, in sailing, created a great sea tradition which we British have inherited from them; for the blood of Aun and Harald and Thorkell runs in our veins too.
  • About this Book

• In our world, when we are used to big aircraft making their daily trips across the Atlantic, month in and month out, we perhaps forget those early pioneers who flew ten miles—and then no more. We admire those prairie schooners that passed over the wide spaces, from one side of America to the other; but do we ever give a thought to those wagons — small worlds of wood and canvas to their occupants, like our long ship — whose wheels and shafts lay, bleached like bones among the cactus in the cruel sunlight, after the Indians had fired them?
  • About this Book

• Life is never sure, Harald. Whichever way a man turns, he thinks he might have done better to take the other path.
  • Ch. 1 (Harald's father)

• The village on the fjord could do with a little gold, and some silks. It would not even object to a few pictures — provided, of course, that the artist had used real gold leaf in painting them!
  • Ch. 2

• Trust a horse before a hound, a hound before a lass — and a long ship before them all!
  • Ch. 2 (Master Bjorn)

• A viking is born, my son, and never escapes his destiny. As some men love horses and others love hunting wolves, so a viking loves ships, every plank and rope of them, and he is never happy unless he is riding the track of the whale, treading the path of the gannet.
  • Ch. 5 (Harald Sigurdson)

Viking's Sunset (1960)

• These berserks live in a closed world of conflict and brotherhood. It will be long before Knud Ulfson’s ears will be open to the voices of men, for he is in the battle-trance yet, and I doubt whether he could see his hand before his face. That is the way of berserks.
  • Ch. 18 (Grummoch)

• Thunder threatens but may not strike;
  Rain threatens but may blow over;
  Wolf snarls but may not bite;
  When Harald snarls, your life is over.
  • Ch. 20

• In England, in the south, there is a circle of great stones, about which men say the same thing. It was there before the Romans came, and it will be there when Odin decides to crumble the world in his two great hands. There are some such monuments which are meant to teach man that he is but a little thing, with a life hardly longer than that of a spring fly.
  • Ch. 21 (Harald)

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Henry Treece on Wikipedia