title: The Fated Sky
author:  Henrietta Branford 
description: Grade 8 Up-An exciting historical adventure. After Ran is accused of causing her mother's death, she is selected as the sacrifice to Odin at the Allfather's yearly celebration. An attack of raiders led by her mother's suitor, Vigut, allows the blind musician Toki to rescue Ran, and the two flee Norway for Iceland to start a new life. Ran's fortunes improve for a while. She and Toki have two children and manage a farm, but fate again intervenes, and Vigut reappears, killing most of the people in their landlord's holding. Toki dies, along with most of the raiders, when a freak storm floods the area, but Ran and her children survive. Branford has written a dark, foreboding story full of ancient beliefs and fortuitously timed disasters. Offerings of meat and runes are made to Odin and Freya and floods arrive at just the right moment to save Ran from certain death. Ran tells the story of her past-interjecting observations about her present circumstances-in a straightforward manner. She speaks of the sadness of knowing her mother doesn't love her and describes the acts of violence committed by the raiders, but her voice lacks passion. Nevertheless, her story is compelling and offers readers a glimpse of what life may have been like for a Viking woman.<br /><i>Lisa Prolman, Greenfield Public Library, MA </i><br />Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  THE PIGTAIL OF HI WING HO
  
    
    
  I. HOW I OBTAINED IT  
    
  II. HOW I LOST IT  
    
  III. HOW I REGAINED IT  
    
  IV. HOW IT ALL ENDED
  
  
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  # THE PIGTAIL OF HI WING HO
  
  
  ### Sax Rohmer
  
  
  This page copyright © 2002 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com  
    
  
    * I. HOW I OBTAINED IT
  
  
  * II. HOW I LOST IT
  
  
  * III. HOW I REGAINED IT
  
  
  * IV. HOW IT ALL ENDED
  
  
  
  
      
  
  Produced by Alan Johns
  
  
  http://home.hiwaay.net/~ajohns/retro
  
  
  ##  THE PIGTAIL OF HI WING HO
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### I. HOW I OBTAINED IT
  
  
  Leaving the dock gates behind me I tramped through the steady
  
  
  drizzle, going parallel with the river and making for the Chinese
  
  
  quarter. The hour was about half-past eleven on one of those
  
  
  September nights when, in such a locality as this, a stifling quality
  
  
  seems to enter the atmosphere, rendering it all but unbreathable. A
  
  
  mist floated over the river, and it was difficult to say if the rain
  
  
  was still falling, indeed, or if 