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|title=Thunder God

|author=Paul Watkins

|date=May 2005

|isbn=0571217982

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Long ago, in the days when Christianity began to overtake Northern Europe, there lived a young boy who had been struck by lightning and so marked by the old gods as special. Because of this, his destiny was priesthood. His future was to be the one who protected and preserved not only the old ways, but also his people and his village. His task was to make that connection with the natural world, and with the old gods, and to bring that spirituality to his people that he could keep them safe. But before he could begin his training and fulfil this promise, raiders came to his village by the northern sea. They killed and they maimed, they looted and they burned, they destroyed. And when one man saw the black hammer pendant about Hakkon's neck and recognised it as a special mark, the token of his destiny, he took Hakkon with him as captive, together with Tostig, his teacher.