To construct the world of Íseldur, Demi Winters draws extensively on Old Norse mythology and the seafaring culture of the Viking Age, reimagining these unique elements to reflect the novel’s broader focus on religious persecution, identity, and survival. The novel’s fictional pantheon closely mirrors that of the Norse gods, for Winters’s “Sunnvald,” the Sun God and king of the old gods, is intended to be a parallel to Odin, the “All-Father” and chief deity of the Norse Æsir. Similarly, the novel’s battle-god, Hábrók, wields a hammer that echoes Mjölnir, the famous weapon of the Norse thunder god, Thor. In addition to drawing from the colorful Norse gods, Winters also borrows from the Vikings’ rich visions of mythological beings, from elves and dwarves to land spirits. Winters transposes this belief system into Silla’s reverence for forest spirits, whose mischief she guards against by leaving offerings and marking trees, grounding her protagonist’s worldview in an animistic tradition that shapes both her survival instincts and her spiritual identity.

The imposition of Ursir worship on Íseldur’s population very loosely mirrors the historical Christianization of Scandinavia during the Viking Age. The Old Norse religion was officially replaced by Christianity sometime between 950 and 1100 CE, a transition driven largely by the increasing military power of Christian kings (Sundqvist, Olaf. “Twilight of the Gods. On the Disintegration and Demise of Old Norse Religion.” Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, 2020). In the novel, King Ivar Ironheart similarly enforces Ursir’s dominance through violence and state power, mandating public executions of those who practice the old faith. Silla’s family is therefore reduced to worshipping the old gods “behind closed doors” (13), a practice that directly echoes archaeological evidence from sites like Thumby-Bienebek, where Scandinavians concealed their pagan rites beneath outward shows of Christian observance.

References to the Viking Age of seafaring also permeates the novel’s world. The harbor at Reykfjord, for example, with its “forest of masts” and vessels bearing “dragons and snarling wolves” carved into their prows (61), evokes the iconic longships that enabled Norse expansion across the North Atlantic from the eighth through the 11th centuries. These clinker-built vessels, designed with shallow drafts for both open-sea voyages and coastal landings, were central to the Norse people’s multifaceted identity as traders, raiders, and explorers. The novel’s Urkan Sea Kings, who crossed the ocean to seize Íseldur’s throne, embody this maritime tradition, while the Road of Bones itself represents an overland counterpart to the perilous sea routes that connected Norse settlements. Winters signals this framework from the novel’s opening epigraph, which is drawn from the classic epic known as the Völsunga Saga: “Fear not death, for the hour of your doom is set, and none may escape it” (3). This fatalistic worldview, which is central to Norse culture, also shapes the novel’s narrative arc, for Silla must confront the inescapability of fate even as she forges her own path through a kingdom that would destroy her for who she is.