Rite of Passage

RITE OF PASSAGE begins in the year 998 when a Druid village is celebrating a betrothal and May Day. Vikings attack and take the young women to help populate new settlements in (what’s now) Newfoundland. They’re forced into an open longboat and transported to western Scotland. 16 year-old RHIANN, establishes herself as the women’s leader and is guided by her dead mother in the form of a sacred white bird.

But one Viking is different; KING RADHOF’s son GUNNARR. Rhiann discovers he’s a Christian but if the cruel pagan King finds out, Gunnarr will die.

The journey is fraught with hazards; some of the women resolve to make the best of it while others die. Storms, cold, cruelty and hunger bring the women closer together. Gunnarr and Rhiann form a bond, but she is betrothed to a Druid boy and Gunnarr is already married. Regardless, Rhiann is determined to return home.

In Iceland, the women relax, but when a Viking is murdered there’s retaliation. Two more longboats arrive with more women and Rhiann’s closest friends are split up. One longboat is destroyed in a storm off Greenland and Gunnarr and Rhiann grow closer.
In Newfoundland Radhof forces the two to marry but the wedding feast is tainted. Radhof attacks Rhiann and Gunnarr is forced to kill him, so they must flee.

RITE OF PASSAGE touches on Christian and Druid beliefs and during their journey Gunnarr and Rhiann fall deeply in love.
In one scene Rhiann nearly drowns. Rhiann: “Isn’t this funny? We’re married but we’re not married. We love each other but we’re not lovers and we’re paddling across an unnamed ocean to an unnamed land both looking like sea creatures.”

In Iceland Rhiann returns to a hot spring to bathe, but Gunnarr can no longer resist her. From then on they both struggle to deal with their inevitable parting.Rhiann travels south and Gunnarr returns to Denmark, only to find that his life would not be as he had envisaged.

He resolves to find Rhiann or join the monastery not far from where she lives.