The Lords of the North characters

Appears from the start

The dispossessed lord of Bebbanburg, now in his early twenties and hardened by the wars of Wessex. Having helped save Alfred's kingdom at Ethandun and received little thanks for it, he turns his back on the pious south and rides north to Northumbria, the land of his birth, to settle old scores: with his usurping uncle Aelfric, and above all with Kjartan, the man who burned and murdered the Dane who raised him. Proud, vengeful, and still caught between the Saxon and Danish worlds, he finds the north a tangle of weak kings and strong warlords.

Appears from the start

A young, likeable Dane whom Uhtred finds enslaved and helps to free, and who rises - improbably, with the backing of Saxon churchmen who see a useful Christian convert - to be proclaimed king in Northumbria. Charming, well-meaning, and easily led, Guthred wants to be loved more than he wants to be strong, and his gratitude to Uhtred wars with the harder counsel of priests and nobles who see the Northumbrian warrior as a pawn to be spent.

First appears in chapter 2

Guthred's dark-haired sister, quick-witted and unafraid, who catches Uhtred's eye almost at once. She sees through the intrigues around her brother's throne and wants no part of being traded in marriage for political advantage. Between her and Uhtred grows an attachment that the schemers around the Northumbrian court treat as an inconvenience to be disposed of.

Also known as Kjartan the Cruel

Appears from the start

The former shipmaster who burned Ragnar the Fearless alive in his hall and has since grown rich and feared. He now rules from Dunholm, a fortress on a great rock in a loop of a river, reckoned impregnable, from which he preys on travellers and defies the lords of the north. He holds Ragnar's daughter Thyra captive and lives under the shadow of the vengeance he knows the sons of Ragnar's household owe him.

Also known as Sven the One-Eyed

Appears from the start

Kjartan's son, one-eyed since Ragnar the Fearless maimed him in boyhood for assaulting Ragnar's daughter. Grown into a brutal raider under his father's protection at Dunholm, he shares Kjartan's cruelty without his cunning, and his old hatred of Uhtred - the boy who cost him his eye - is as fresh as ever.

Also known as Ragnar Ragnarson, Ragnar the Younger

Appears from the start

Uhtred's Danish foster brother, son of Ragnar the Fearless. He carries the same blood debt Uhtred does - their father's killer, Kjartan, still lives at Dunholm and holds Ragnar's sister Thyra prisoner. Held for a time as a hostage for Danish good behaviour in Wessex, he is bound to Uhtred by an upbringing shared and a vengeance owed.

First appears in chapter 6

A wiry Irish warrior whom Uhtred meets in the worst circumstances of his life, chained beside him at the oars of a slaver's ship. Quick, cheerful even in misery, and a superb fighter, Finan endures the shared ordeal with Uhtred and becomes his closest friend and most trusted companion, bound to him by the kind of loyalty that slavery's shared humiliations forge.

Appears from the start

Ragnar's sister and the daughter of Ragnar the Fearless, seized by Kjartan when he burned her father's hall and held at Dunholm for years. Her long captivity has left deep scars on her mind, and her fate is one of the sharpest edges of the blood debt Uhtred and Ragnar owe the master of Dunholm.

Appears from the start

A young nun and healer of Wessex who leaves the cloister and rides north in Uhtred's company. Torn between her vows and a life of action, she proves brave and steady through hardship, tends the hurt, and keeps faith with Uhtred through his worst years, holding his sword in trust when everything else is stripped from him.

Also known as Ivarr Ivarson

First appears in chapter 2

The most powerful of the Danish lords of Northumbria, of the fearsome line of the Lothbroks: a lean, wolfish warlord whose army makes and unmakes kings in the north. He tolerates Guthred's kingship only as long as it serves him, and behind his cold courtesy he is the real power any ruler of Northumbria must eventually face.