Friday, May 23, 2008

The far traveler by Nancy Marie Brown


Read more reviews at NoveList



Genre - Non Fiction


This book combines history, archaeology & the storytelling of the sagas to tell the story of Gudrid, an Icelandic Viking woman who sailed to Vinland – America - in the 11th century. Gudrid’s story is told in two of the Icelandic sagas, stories combining myth and history. They were written down 200 years after the Viking Age, but they represent the oral stories handed down since that time. In this book, Brown retells the sagas & also shows how archaeology has proven some of the stories to be true. The Vikings are known to have reached the coast of America hundreds of years before Columbus. Evidence has been found of a settlement there, founded by Eirik the Red. It was abandoned only a few years later, but stories of Vinland (Vine Land) were told in Greenland and Iceland long after. Gudrid was a great traveler. She went on a pilgrimage to Rome as well as traveling in Europe & America. The book tells the story of Gudrid by bringing in details of the lives of other Viking women known about from history & saga. It brings to life the harsh conditions of life in the far north, and the struggle for survival which led people to explore the outer limits of their world.

---- Reviewed by Lyn, Headquarters

No comments: