“Does this fiend-dog have a name?” asked Dunstan.
“Some call him Old Skukka, but whether it was one beast or there were many of his kind I did not learn.”
“It would be an ill omen to encounter such a foul creature. I am glad there are none of his kin in our lands.”
“I know of other creatures too, some I have seen with my own eyes.”
680 AD. The Dark Ages in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, a time and place of new beliefs, where dragons and giants are held to be as real as eagles and wolves, and the old ways and the old gods have not been forgotten.
When a wounded thegn close to death arrives at the monastery by the mound on the hill, Dunstan the novice’s world is turned on its head. Under the guidance of blind Ecgferth he must gather the plants known to cure and learn the charms to be sung if his wort-cunning is to save the man.
As the spear-companion Wulfgar slowly recovers, he tells Dunstan about the many strange creatures that inhabit this Earth. Together they set to hunt a monstrous shape-shifting black dog known as the barghest, but since it can’t be harmed by iron they must first find an ancient bronze sword made in the days of Weland the Smith to slay it.
Liber Monstrorum is available from Amazon as well as other online retailers.
Mark Weaver 