Edvin

“Nyet, I am not captain” the man said in a good attempt at Norse. He had a wide Slavic face, but oddly bright blond hair. He cast another look back then fixed his attention back on the burly mayor.

“I am Edvin, merchant from Novgorod, which you may know as Holmgard” he said, hand snaking out.

Background

Edvin was one of the first benefactors of the rewrite. Initially he was a minor character, watching the development of the story from the side lines, but now he is far more important to the plot than before. When Leif decides to find Vinland, as described by Bjarni, he needs to raise money to pay for the voyage, and Erik refuses to foot the full bill himself.

The solution appears in the form of a bedraggled and thoroughly soaked Edvin (On arrival to Greenland he is pushed overboard by one of his more boisterous comrades), he is a merchant from Russia, which at the time was being colonised by the Swedes. Several of the most famous Russian cities today were founded by the Vikings as part of their domination of the Russian river-based trade routes, the biggest of which are Novgorod (known at the time as Holmgard) and Kiev.

These trading towns have a history of bringing much wealth and producing crafty merchants, a heritage I wanted to bring alive in Edvin. By the time that the Vinland tales comes about, the golden age of the Vikings is coming to an end. No-one really knows why the Vikings disappeared from prominence, particularly considering their widespread influence and power at the time, however some historians attribute this to a cataclysmic civil war between the warrior and mercantile classes. The merchants had consolidated all the power which the warriors had fought so hard to build up, and over time the warriors had simply become obsolete, there being no powers to stand up against them. The warriors, refused to slip from existence and returned to doing what they did best – raiding. This time the targets were their own merchants.

I have tried to include this in the story as the personal conflicts between Edvin and the Frisian warrior, Rorik (the man who actually shoved him overboard).

Traits

Edvin is something of a hybrid of two different types of character. Firstly he has the natural cunning of a successful businessman. He has significant wealth and is savvy in which trade routes are profitable, however his choice of profession is not down to his love for money, it is instead his interest in exploration that drew him to it. At the time most merchants did not stay in one place and run a market, but rather they sailed with their goods from port to port, buying and selling whatever commodities that they could find. Some would settle into established trade routes, taking goods from towns where supply was high, to towns with a high demand.

However, there would always be those who simply travelled, stocking up in what they could and taking it to where they believed it would sell, relying as much on intuition as on sound business logic. These endeavours were high risk, but also high reward. For this kind of adventuring spirit, like Edvin, the lure of new and unexplored markets would be irresistible and so he signs a deal with Leif and joins him on this journey in the unknown.

Loves and hates

Edvin is interested in anything that is new and adventurous... even better if there is a potential for profit. Although he doesn’t hate the warrior classes, he dislikes their apparent disregard for anyone who doesn’t fight and raid like they do.