Joan Schweighardt: Gudrun's Tapestry
Book Club Discussion

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Joan Schweighardt

Why did you become interested in the story of Attila the Hun's downfall? What kind of research did you have to do in order to create your characters?

Many moons ago I became interested in a collection of Germanic legends that were carried by the Vikings to Iceland and existed there as part of the Icelandic oral tradition for hundreds of years. Sometime in the 13th century, these legends were recorded and ultimately made their way into a book called the POETIC EDDA. Because they sat around for so long before being recorded, the stories are fragmented. Moreover, Icelandic myths that had nothing to do with the original Germanic material found their way into the mix. Nevertheless, the legends really fascinated me. They are stories about love and jealousy and loyalty and grudges and ambition…the very same stuff that makes the world go round today. So my initial interest was not with Attila the Hun (I've never been big on warlords) but with the legends themselves. However, his name does pop up in some of the legends, in crazy ways that don't make a lot of sense and seem out of context. So I went to the history books and I found enough information there to convince myself that the Germanic tribes mentioned in the legends did in fact have direct contact with Attila the Hun.

The Huns and Germanic tribes didn't do their own writing during the period I was interested in, from about 440 to 452 A.D. All of what we know about them comes from Roman historians, who of course were writing. So the material available for research was fairly limited, which was not a bad thing in my case as I am too impatient to spend years and years researching. Basically, I read everything I could find on the history of the Germanic and Hun tribes at that time, and then I extracted the legends that most interested me from the POETIC EDDA and I more or less overlaid the legendary material onto the chronicles. Where there were gaps, I relied on my imagination. I like to think that I tapped into some universal force that guided me to imagine what actually happened; in other words, I like to think my version is more or less true.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Joan Schweighardt

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Joan Schweighardt

Gudrun, as Ildico, is quite possibly one of the strongest, most cunning, most intelligent female heroines I've read in this genre. The fact that she changed from meek sister into this powerful woman can be attributed to Brunhild's presence in her life, in my opinion. Would Gudrun have changed into this awesome woman otherwise? Would she have been better off if Brunhild had never entered her quiet life? In the end, did Sigurd truly love Gudrun?

Gudrun suffers enormous losses before she goes through the transformation that enables her to journey to the City of Attila (using the name of Ildico as part of her disguise). I think it is human nature to either become much stronger or much weaker as a result of terrible events in one's life. Gudrun makes the decision to remake herself rather than see her will perish altogether. Part of what changes her is the process of creating the tapestry that she is instructed to work on during her convalescence; she is told to depict her own history through her embroidery. She begins with what she knows of her ancestors and their struggles as they made their way south over time. Thinking about what they suffered through begins to give her some perspective, and some sense of community.

This tension between the desires of the ego and needs of the larger community is very interesting to me. It is one of the themes that I was attracted to when I first read the Icelandic material. I knew I wanted to highlight it in my book.

From an egocentric point of view, Gudrun would have been better off if she had never met Brunhild, who was indeed the catalyst for all the painful events that followed. But if she had never suffered through those events, she never would have become the strong woman you describe in your question. Ancient Roman historians agree that Attila died after marrying a Germanic woman named Ildico. If it is true that the historical Ildico was in fact Gudrun in disguise, then Gudrun really made some waves before all was said and done.

Yes, I think Sigurd truly loved Gudrun; but I think he loved fame and power too. The irony is that he had the potential to become a very great man; but his desire for celebrity ultimately outweighed his desire to do the right thing.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Joan Schweighardt

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Joan Schweighardt

Hagen was my favorite secondary character. He seemed to really care for his sister, and feel remorse for her pain although he never showed it physically. Would you consider him a "good man" of his time and people?

Of Gudrun's three brothers, Gunner and Hagen and Guthorm, Gunner is certainly most "a man of his times." Like many leaders who live surrounded by ongoing threats, he is suspicious of everyone. He is also greedy and ambitious. And he is superstitious. He is a hard man. Hagen, on the other hand, has a soft side. He is the one who notices when Gudrun is suffering, even though as first she tells no one; he is the one who understands when Guthorm tries to run away from the "blood brothers" ceremony. He is the one who can put aside his emotions and negotiate rationally with the Romans. Yet, when push comes to shove, he allows Gunner to have the final word too much of the time. As for Guthorm, he is what we would today call developmentally disabled. In those times, among those people, anyone who could be identified at birth as being disabled or sickly was left out in the elements to die. But Guthorm (my fictional Guthorm, I should say) was allowed to live because he was one of the first to be born after the Hun attacks and the death of so many Burundian people. His innocence and vulnerability serve as a solid counterpoint to the bloodshed and violence in the story.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Joan Schweighardt

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Joan Schweighardt

Did Brunhild meet Sigurd in the way that Gudrun describes it at the beginning, as he was wandering down the mountain, or did she meet him how he described, in the savagely attacked wagon ring? It seems to me of great significance whether or not Sigurd's affair began while bringing Brunhild back to Gunner versus of their own volition in the mountain.

The story that Gudrun tells Edeco in the beginning of the book about how Brunhild met Sigurd is based on what she knows of Brunhild's history; Brunhild is her model for the character (Ildico) she presents herself as in order to get to Attila. It's part of her disguise. How Sigurd and Brunhild really met would be closer to the story that Sigurd tells Gunner. Of course, Sigurd only knows Brunhild's version of what was going on before he found her.

I think we can assume, however, that there was no sword between Sigurd and Brunhild when they slept in the cave on the way back to Gunner and Hagen's place. Not only is Brunhild beautiful and very strong (as compared to the then-meek Gudrun), but she proclaims herself to be a valkyria, a kind of witch woman who knows how to work magic. Most modern readers would not find this credible, but that is beside the point. Sigurd finds it credible. Sigurd, who is so intent on attaining fame, wealth and power, believes he has met his match in Brunhild—at least initially.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Joan Schweighardt

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Joan Schweighardt

Writing as a tool for the elite fascinated me. Although Gudrun's people mostly did not write, they managed to tell their stories through song and, of course, their tapestries. Gudrun is also fascinated by this, and wants to learn more. Why is she unsatisfied with her people's traditions?

You can imagine living at that time as a member of a Germanic tribe with no means of communication other than word of mouth. If something really exciting happens in your village, something you'd like a lot of people to know about, you can set it to verse, and if you have a halfway decent voice, you can sing it when travelers come to visit…and then hope that the travelers will bother to tell other people they come into contact with. But imagine learning that there are other tribes out there in the world, particularly among the Romans, who have a way of communicating that is somewhat permanent, that doesn't require word of mouth. The Romans could record their dreams, what they paid in taxes, what laws they thought people should follow...And in an emergency, such as news about an imminent attack, they could send a messenger on horseback with a sealed envelope to the person they thought most likely to come to their aid. I don't think Gudrun was dissatisfied with her people's traditions; I think she was simply able to see the potential for writing to be the best way to tell a story, and she had one she was wanting to tell.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Joan Schweighardt

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Joan Schweighardt

What happened to Edeco?

I modeled my Edeco on the historical Edeco, who was one of Attila's men. Most historians believe that Odoacer, the first Barbarian king of Italy following the fall of the Roman Empire, was the son of the very same Edeco who served Attila. Odoacer is still a child when we meet him in the City of Attila, but he stands out from the other kids he is playing with, foreshadowing the man he will become.

I have no idea what the historical Edeco did after the fall of the Hun empire, but I imagine that my fictional Edeco would have spent his time preparing his sons for war with the Romans.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Joan Schweighardt

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Joan Schweighardt

Can you tell us anything about your current writing projects?

I recently finished a memoir and now I am working on a novel, the working title of which is Art Thief, though I'll probably change it as there are a couple of books showing up on Amazon with similar titles. The memoir is kind of hard for me to talk about (though I will for purposes of publicity once I have a publisher; I have an agent reading it now), but I can tell you about the novel. It is about a rather awkward and shy woman who retreats from life after her boyfriend leaves her and her parents die back-to-back while she is still in college. She takes a job as a caretaker for a wealthy old man and even lives on his property, in a small adobe casita. She doesn't make much money, but she has the old man, whose company she thoroughly enjoys, and her dogs, and gorgeous views of the surrounding mountains…. She is basically a very content recluse. Like most people who are living a satisfying life, she doesn't invest a lot of time thinking about what she might do if her circumstances change. So when the old man dies suddenly, and his daughter all but throws her off the property, she is forced to reinvent herself—and quickly.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Joan Schweighardt