Funny / The Saxon Stories

The Last Kingdom

• Uhtred's snarking, which starts from an early age, as in The Last Kingdom, when Beocca finds Uhtred and Brida swimming naked together:
  Beocca: She's a girl, Uhtred!
  Uhtred: God is good.
• Leofric and Uhtred's friendship with the former always referring to the latter as an Earsling (something that drops from your arse)

The Pale Horseman

• After Uhtred barges into Mass to announce his victory and almost starts a fight with someone trying to steal his credit he is forced to apologise by wearing what he regards as a dress and praying for forgiveness to god before the entire army. To save him the embarrassment Aethelwold joins in and distracts everyone from Uhtred by screaming to the heavans that he is sorry for all the whores he has taken and days he spent drunk whilst repeatedly returning to the topic of the whore's tits
• Pretty much everything Father Pyrlig says.
• A piece of Black Comedy. In The Pale Horseman, Uhtred is cheerful. Alfred picks up on this.
  Alfred: Does that mean you've just killed somebody?
  • The answer is no, not directly.

Sword Song

• It is Aethelflaed's wedding. The town is packed. Uhtred and Gisela stay at a tavern/brothel that featured heavily in the earlier books in which Uhtred was often a client.
  Gisela: You never told me that the Two Cranes is a brothel.
  Uhtred: There are not many beds in Wintanceaster [Winchester] and not nearly enough for all the invited guests, so we were very lucky to find this room.
  Gisela: And they know you very well here, Uhtred.
  Uhtred: *defensively* It's a tavern as well.
• Not long before, Father Beocca tells Uhtred that the King wants to talk to him later. Uhtred is fine with this, but suggests that they talk the next day, on the grounds that he'll be drunk. Beocca complains that the King's time is limited and that Alfred wants to talk to him in the evening. Uhtred basically says, 'fine, but he'll have to talk to me drunk'.
• Father Pyrlig, upon Osferth being told to stay close to him in battle.
  Pyrlig: That's right stay close beside me like a lover
  Uhtred: You'll be behind him.
  Pyrlig: Forget what I said about lovers, more like a dog.

• When Ingulfrid asks about an unpleasant smell while at sea, Uhtred and Finan instantly blame it on each other even before finding out what smell she was talking about
• Uhtred's father claimed that trying to reason with a Scotsman is like trying to geld a wildcat with your teeth. Uhtred brings this up repeatedly.
• Uhtred looking at some old Roman mosaics and assuming that they must have had giant animals and other fantastical creatures in the days of Ancient Rome.
• In The Empty Throne, Uhtred confesses his sins to a priest, and that means all of them, including pissing in the holy water when he was a young boy. The priest's reaction is what truly sells it.
• Uhtred neatly out-gambitting the Machiavellian Lord Aethelhelm on the matter of the succession to the empty throne of Mercia and, eventually, of Wessex - Aethelhelm is the grandfather of Aelfweard, King Edward's firstborn son by his second marriage, while Uhtred is the guardian of Aethelstan, Edward's son by his first marriage, who Aethelhelm has been trying to have shoved aside, or even assassinated. Uhtred has a very strong claim to the throne of Mercia, being a cousin of the late ruler through his mother, as well as a renowned warrior and general, but Aethelhelm wants to prevent him from using his position to promote Aethelstan's claim at the expense of Aelfweard's. Uhtred, therefore, virtuously swears an oath to support Aelfweard's claim so long as he is Lord of Mercia, and Aethelhelm backs him... and Uhtred becomes Lord of Mercia... and immediately abdicates in favour of Aethelflaed, widow of the last Lord of Mercia, sometime lover of Uhtred, and fellow supporter of Aethelstan. Aethelhelm's reaction just sells it.
  You bastard.
• Uhtred's very deadpan narrative voice can lead to some darkly humorous moments, such as his description of the aftermath of a skirmish in Warriors Of The Storm:
  Uhtred's narration: We sat in silence. Geese flew above us, their wings beating the morning. A flurry of rain spat past. One of the corpses farted.
• The introduction of Father Cuthbert has to be read to be fully appreciated. Even Uthred, no great fan of the Church and Christianity in general, finds himself grinning and admitting Father Cuthbert is impossible to dislike.
• In one book Uhtred tells a Broad Strokes version of the temptations of Christ: essentially, a man in the story was offered all the kingdoms of the world and, in Uhtred's words, the idiot rejected it. What makes it hilarious is what Uhtred omits (that Satan told Christ to bow down to him in exchange) and that when faced with a similar choice (becoming a king of Wessex in tandem with several Viking warlords) he rejects it because it would make him essentially their client king, ruling on their sufferance; effectively forcing him to bow down to THEM. Yeah, pot? There's a kettle here that's just dying to meet you.^note Adding to the hilarity the story is revisited in The War Lord, recounted far more accurately and with Uhtred himself lampshading the similarity to his situation. Now, it might be a stretch to say that Mr. Cornwell occasionally frequents Tv Tropes but even so...
• Uhtred the Younger eventually reveals his father's Deadpan Snarker tendencies as he loosens up. When he's told that he does, in fact, look just like his father (who's right next to him), his response? "God help me then."