Salt, Bronze, and Iron: A novel of the Hallstatt Iron Age

Hidden within the old hero myths are tales of men who sweated and stank, fought and blasphemed. They died entombed in the epic tales or forgotten in the mists of antiquity. Hall, a foundling raised by Celts high in the Alps, seeks his fortune and the mystery of his birth in the land of the Etruscans, in the cluster of hilltop villages that would someday be called Rome, in the Greece of legend when the heroes of the classical age were still remembered as men. He is an ironsmith, a singer of songs and tales, a warrior, a soldier, a lover, and for a brief while...a king.His name is Hall, which means Salt. In his own words: "Hall. In the Celt language, that meant "Salt." It is a good name. "No man can survive without salt," say my battle-companions, thinking the old pun fresh each time someone thinks of it. Indeed, it is true. Salt is traded the length of Mother Danu, the great River, carried over high passes to sunny southern lands and north to the plains of ever-snow. Salt is a gift of earth and sea; perhaps thus my name has given me my affinity for the darkness in the Earth, and for oceans--those gleaming expanses that mark the stages of my long journeying, "Salt travels farthest," folk say, referring to the trade. And indeed, I've traveled farther than any man I have known."