When the Raven Flies

Plot

The story begins with a Viking raid on an Irish village. A young boy watches his parents die, and though the raiders' leader, Thord, orders the child killed, the boy is somehow spared. His sister is taken captive.

Twenty years pass. The boy, now a man, journeys to Iceland. He has no name; the people he meets call him Gestur, which means "guest" in the local tongue, though it is also a common given name. His goal is twofold: to find his sister and to exact revenge on the raiders who destroyed his family.

Two of the original Viking raiders now live in Iceland, having fled Norway and King Harald Fairhair. Gestur works coldly behind the scenes, pitting their rival gangs against each other. He stays hidden, only showing himself to Erik, Thord's foster brother, and through his killings. He murders several of Thord's men and frames Erik's gang for the deaths.

Thord becomes convinced that Erik is plotting against him with King Harald and lying about the existence of a mysterious stranger. Thord's younger brother fuels this suspicion, though he is secretly the one scheming to seize power. Eventually, Thord attacks Erik and his men, slaughtering them all.

Gestur then learns a devastating truth: Thord is married to his now-grown sister, and they have a young son named Einar. Gestur reveals himself to her, but she remains a Christian, as their father raised them, and refuses to help him kill Thord. Thord himself is a devout Norse pagan. Gestur secretly tampers with Thord's altar, making it appear that the gods demand Einar as a sacrifice.

Desperate to save her son, Gestur's sister betrays him, telling Thord who manipulated the altar. Thord captures Gestur and tortures him brutally, but Gestur never reveals his identity. Overcome with guilt, the sister frees him, and the badly wounded Gestur escapes to Erik's grave.

Thord decides to turn Gestur's trick back on him. He secretly prays to Odin, planning a fake sacrifice ceremony to lure Gestur out to save Einar. In the middle of the ritual, Gestur appears, wrapped in Erik's funeral shroud. Thord fires arrows at him, but they fail to kill him.

Thord's followers, believing Gestur is Erik's vengeful ghost, flee in terror. In truth, Gestur wears armor beneath his cloak. He closes the distance, reveals his true identity to Thord and his brother, and kills them both.

Production

Hrafn Gunnlaugsson and Bo Jonsson set out to create a Viking film that broke from Hollywood’s portrayal of the era. Their first idea was to adapt Gerpla, a novel by Nobel laureate Halldór Laxness. Laxness agreed to sell the rights but warned them against it. He felt his book was a reaction to the saga tradition, and a film adaptation would need a Viking film genre—one he didn’t think existed.

After trying to write a screenplay, Gunnlaugsson and Jonsson came to agree with Laxness. They turned instead to the research and concept art they had already gathered, building an original story. Gunnlaugsson took inspiration from Sergio Leone’s films and wove in elements from several Icelandic sagas.

For costumes, they hired Karl Júlíusson, who ran a leather shop in Reykjavík; this was his first movie. Danish composer Hans-Erik Philip wrote the score, influenced by Ennio Morricone’s work. The main theme was Sigvaldi Kaldalóns’s Á Sprengisandi. Most of the filming took place in southern Iceland, at locations including Kleifarvatn, Reynisdrangar, and the areas around Skogar and Vík í Mýrdal.