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No cover image. Read preview. Excerpt The word saga means 'a saw', 'something said', something recorded in words, and hence by easy extension a prose story or narrative. Read preview Overview. Glyde; M. Common types of primary sources include works of literature, historical documents, original philosophical writings, and religious texts. The Continuing Sagas of James A. We use cookies to deliver a better user experience and to show you ads based on your interests. By using our website, you agree to the use of cookies as described in our Privacy Policy. During this time, we have made some of our learning resources freely accessible. Our distribution centers are open and orders can be placed online. Do be advised that shipments may be delayed due to extra safety precautions implemented at our centers and delays with local shipping carriers. Request Examination Copy. About the Series: For over years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Academic Skip to main content. Search Start Search. Choose your country or region Close. How Much Viking Lore Is True?

He urges Eirik to come with and, although riding down to the ship Eirik has a fall, he goes nonetheless opposite of Greenland Saga. Confusingly, they go to stay with another man named Thorstein and his wife Sigrid and disease strikes. And Thorstein Eiriksson dies. Then sits up and asks to speak to his wife, and delivers a Christian homily, saying Greenlanders must stop pagan burial practices and bury bodies in a churchyard — you can hear the true sermony voice of medieval Christianity. All the bodies are buried in the church in Eiriksfjord. With two ships they sail from Iceland to Greenland making land at Brattahlid, and Eirik generously offers to put them up. The Yule feast becomes a wedding feast. But, fascinatingly, they nearly all starve, unprepared and unable to live off the land. Thorhall goes mad and is found after three days talking to himself. Thorhall takes nine men and sails north, after reciting some pagan poems. They are washed off-course as far as Ireland where they are caught and enslaved. It is paradise. After a while nine coracles approach, the short threatening natives get out and observe them, then go their way. They return a few weeks later in warlike mood and there is a fight. Karlsefni and his men turn and run but Freydis, an illegitimate daughter of Eirik, picks up the sword of one of the dead and turns on the natives and, extracting a breast from her shift, beats it with the flat of the sword. This frightens the natives so much that they turn and flee! They pack up and sail back north, past a headland packed with deer where the main party camp and Karlsefni sails north and wet, vainly searching for Thorhall. They pursue him north catching sight of the Land of the One-Legged! They sail back north past Markland where they capture some natives and convert them to Christianity, before arriving back in Greenland with Eirik. Bjarni is goaded by a young sailor until he gives up his place for him. Do these sagas exist solely because the Christian bishops, or their descendants, commissioned these stories about their ancestors to be written down? A one-legged creature? A sea of worms? Do be advised that shipments may be delayed due to extra safety precautions implemented at our centers and delays with local shipping carriers. Request Examination Copy. About the Series: For over years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Academic Skip to main content. Peer Gynt: A Dramatic Poem. Eirik the Red and Other Icelandic Sagas. The Poetic Edda 2nd edition. Gender, Violence, and the Past in Edda and Saga. Note The price listed on this page is the recommended retail price for Japan. Search Items. Eirik the Red and Other Icelandic Sagas by Unknown

Choose your country or region Close. Dear Customer, As a global organization, we, like many others, recognize the significant threat posed by the coronavirus. Please contact our Customer Service Team if you have any questions. Overview Description. Also of Interest. Lucian C. Alchemist in Literature Theodore Ziolkowski. Selected Poetry Alexander Pope. Unacknowledged Legislators Roger Pearson. Frankenstein Mary Shelley. Renaissance Suppliants Leah Whittington. Lizzie : Was red hair considered weird? Zoe : I guess so. I mean, I guess it was just like, it was notable. Anyway, so she asked, so the woman comes in uninvited, and she asks Gudrid, what is your name? And then she says to the woman, "what is your name? Lizzie : Ooh. Zoe : And that at that moment, the men stopped trading and they start attacking each other, and the woman disappears. Lizzie : Spooky. But she didn't look like the first Gudrid. Yeah, so about this woman, may as well go into it now. So she's believed by scholars to be a fetch, which is a spirit that takes the form of an exact double of a living person and regarded as an omen of death. Lizzie : Oh, like a doppelganger? Zoe : Yeah, exactly like a doppelganger. However, obviously, there's some limits to that, as in the spirit is clearly not an exact double of Gudrid and does not foretell her imminent death. So it's unclear what she's actually meant to represent. My belief is that she's just some creepy omen that like things are about to go sour for the natives, between the natives and the Greenlanders. Lizzie : Well she's cool. Zoe : But yeah, it's a very fun, but it's very creepy, like the woman going like Gudrid. And I'm like, ooh. Very fun. Zoe : So. And during that winter, Gudrid gives birth to her son Snorri, who is the first European child born in the New World, according to the saga. And so that's like, a big deal. And in the spring, they returned to Greenland. So she's the fourth child of Erik the Red and his only daughter. And so all her brothers have made their journeys to Vinland. Or they've tried to in the case of Thorstein, so she decides she wants to go as well. And so she gets permission from her brother Leif to rent his houses there that he's built. And so they both agree to bring only 30 men aboard each ship individually so no one has an advantage over the other. But Freydis sneaks five men on separately in secret. Zoe : So they sail to Vinland, and Helgi and Finnbogi land, before Freydis' ship does, and they start to move into Leif's house. And then she lands and finds out she gets really angry and orders for them to move out of their things and build their own longhouse. Which like, semi-understandable, like she's paying rent. So like. Lizzie : It's her brother's house. Zoe : It's her brother's house like, yeah. So throughout the winter, there's various small disputes between the parties. It's not great. They don't have a friendly relationship. So eventually, one morning Freydis wakes up early to speak to the brothers. But Finnbogi is the only one awake. So she just speaks with him. And he says he dislikes the tension between their parties and hopes to resolve them. And so Freydis agrees, she offers a trade. She says she wants to leave Vinland. And so they should give her their ship. Since it's larger, and it would be better for transporting men and goods. And so that's like a big ask. Lizzie : Ships were a big deal. Zoe : Yeah, ships are a big deal, you know? And so like, and like, it's your way out of here. So like, it's a big thing to ask someone that but to her surprise, she did not expect this Finnbogi, agrees. So they make their deal and Freydis returns to her sleeping husband who's also named Thormald. Not her brother, a different guy. But her cold wet feet awaken him. So he's awake, and she tells him a different version of the events. Basically, she tells them that she asked Helgi and Finnbogi for the ship, but they refused and hit her. Lizzie : Wow. Zoe : And so Since she's been—. Lizzie : Why'd she do that? Zoe : That's a good question, isn't it? So she's been disrespected, she demands that her husband take revenge on the men or else she will divorce him. So basically, in Iceland, like, and I'll talk more about this, you have nothing like it's it's hard to farm, it's hard to have land, the land that you do have kind of sucks. So all you have is your honor. Lizzie : That makes sense. Zoe : So basically, everything that happens in Icelandic sagas, to some extent is about preserving your honor. So she's basically like, and since she's like been dishonored. You know, it's the husband's job to like, restore her honor and restore his honor, to an extent. And so she like basically bullies him into taking revenge on the man or else she divorces him which is allowed. And it just is like shameful and annoying, and he doesn't want that. Zoe : So he relents to her pressure and gathers all their men to attack while Helgi and Finnbogi's men are sleeping, and so they attack them and tie them up. And then Freydis makes her husband and his men kill all the men. All of Helgi and Finnbogi's men. Lizzie : Okay, I can't really imagine why, but. Zoe : Then they stop and they're only five women left, and the men are like, we're not gonna kill this woman. So you know what Freydis says? Lizzie : Oh, no, what did she say? Zoe : She says, "hand me an axe". Lizzie : [gasps] Wow! She's cool, but also what's she doing? Zoe : And then she kills the five women herself. Lizzie : She's pretty badass. Lizzie : If a little misguided. So then they they return home and make sure that all the men are well compensated so they won't tell anyone what happened. Because this is like, obviously a big thing. Zoe : Eventually Leif finds out about like, he kind of torture some people. And he's like, upset, but he doesn't punish Freydis. But he predicts that their descendants will not get on well in this world, quote. So like,. Lizzie : Okay,. Zoe : Why does Freydis do this? Honestly, there's not really motivation for it. She just kind of does it. Um, like, we can talk more in like analysis of like, why they would have done this. Um, I kinda want to talk about the second story before. Zoe : So back to Gudrid real quick. Eventually, he dies and Gudrid is widowed for a third time. So she converts to Christianity, goes on a pilgrimage to Rome. And while she's away Snorri builds a church, which fulfills the prophecy that her children are going to be blessed. And when she returned, she lives in the church as a nun and a hermit and her descendants, they tell us, goes down like the list of her descendants. And they're like all bishops. Zoe : And that's the end of her story. Lizzie : Well, kind of nice. Lizzie : Her family's blessed forever. And again, like another thing that's really important in Icelandic sagas is family. So, um, first of all, Leif saying that Freydis' descendants will not get on well, in this world is a big deal. Like, to say that, because your descendants are kind of like all you have to keep your name on. Um, like, also, if you think about, like, at this point, they are pagans. So they are believing in the stories of like Hel and Valhalla. And I mean, they're kind of assuming they're gonna go to Hel. Lizzie : And half of them are called Thor. Oh, yeah. Like, they're all that's just that they're all called Thor. It's really ridiculous. Lizzie : [laughs] Yeah. Zoe : And so, um, she, yeah, so they kind of all believe they're going to hell at this point. So like, they don't really have anything to look forward to. They just kind of hope their descendants like are honorable, and like, are honorable to them. And so like family honor is like a huge thing. So if your family is not honorable, like you could lose a huge sort of source of honor and again, like honor is everything. And so on the flip side, like Gudrid's descendents becoming like, super holy, like a bishop and her herself becoming like a nun and like going to Rome and everything is like big. And like, definitely like her becoming like blessed. And again, if you remember that the sagas are being written like after the conversion of Christianity and probably written by Christians. Lizzie : Yeah,. Zoe : There's that influence there. Lizzie : But I can see that foil thing going on there. Zoe : Yeah, for sure. So it describes Erik the Red's banishment from Iceland, his founding of Greenland, his son, Leif Erikson's preaching of Christianity and accidental discovery of Vinland, as well as several subsequent voyages to Vinland. But we're not really here to talk about that. We're here to talk about the women. So this saga introduces, starts with a different woman that we're going to talk about, and I'm going to talk about more about her later for sure, in different episodes. And so her name is Aud, the deep minded. Lizzie : That's nice, nice nickname. Which means she's really smart, basically. So, in general, she's a very important matriarch and a founding settler of Iceland. So she's featured in multiple different sagas and mentioned and also like referenced in many sagas. But her story is told in the first chapter of Erik the Red's saga. Basically, she's the daughter of a Norwegian military leader who has traveled to Ireland. And she, when she travels to Ireland, she marries Olaf the White who is the self-named king of Dublin. So she lives there with him and bore him a son named Thorstein the Red. Lizzie : I love all the like "the" names. Lizzie : It's really fun. And then eventually, Olaf is killed in battle. And since it's no longer safe for her in Ireland, she takes takes her son and travels to the Hebrides, which are, like outside of Scotland, and there, Thorstein the Red becomes a great king who rules more than half of Scotland. But eventually, he also dies. So Aud sails to Iceland and claims ownership to a great deal of land there and becomes like one of the first prominent settlers like basically one of the founding families of Iceland. Dun dun dun. Lizzie : Ah! Lizzie : Everything's connected. Zoe : Yeah, so yeah, she's also like, so she's believed to be like the first person who brought Christianity to Iceland. And yeah, so she brought Gudrid's grandfather. So flash forward to the future. We get to know more about her life before she meets Leif. So she's the daughter of a man named Thorbjorn. I don't really know. I think it just depends on the saga. Either way, Gudrid, it's her. And he's the son of a former slave. And so due to his insecurities about his status, he refuses to let Gudrid marry the son of another former slave named Einar. And he's also having some financial issues and eventually he has to move and they decide to move to Greenland. And they want to find Erik the Red and his family. So they stay with a man named Thorkell, who is a pagan. So basically, there's no shipwreck in this story. They go to Greenland of their own accord. Zoe : So one day, um, it's in the middle of a famine in Greenland, which like feels like it would be like all the time in Greenland, but I guess it was especially bad. Lizzie : I would think so. So anyway, a prophetess named Thorbjorg comes one day, and she's dressed very elegantly and she wants to deliver some prophecies. At the request of Thorkell, the guy that they're staying with. She's a priestess of Freya. Zoe : So she's doing some rituals. And eventually she needs some help from someone who knows werid songs or word songs and she needs a woman for the ritual. So Gudrid ends up volunteering. She's learned some of the songs from her foster mother in Iceland. And also she's the only woman in the house who knows the songs. So originally, she's reluctant because she's Christian. But she's convinced when they tell her she's helping the people present and therefore not betraying her faith. So by compromising her Christian faith at the request of her pagan hosts, she's rewarded for her open mindedness by a positive prophecy by the prophetess, Thorbjorg basically she says that Greenland's famine will not last, she will remarry and move to Iceland and her offspring will have bright futures. And after this, did, she, and Thorbjorn set sail and end up running into Erik the Red who gives them land and buildings, so so they're kind of also —. Lizzie : Why did he do that? Zoe : I think he just like likes them. Zoe : I can't, I'm sorry I can't remember. Lizzie : That's fine. Zoe : And then later, yes, yeah. He's just like, nice. I mean, he's trying to he's trying to make the settlement on Greenland work like he's really trying to make it work. Lizzie : That's good on him. So Gudrid eventually marries Erik's son Thorstein, after his voyage of Vinland, which is successful. So that's different. So, um, yeah, so this time Thorstein is her first husband, not her second husband. Um, and they move on to his land, which he shares with another guy named Thorstein. And the guy's wife seems like. Lizzie : That's like four Thorsteins. Zoe : Yeah, I'm sorry. Um, yeah. Anyway, so again, disease sweeps across Greenland and Thorstein Erikson and Sigrid both die. But after they're dead when their bodies are laid out for funerary preparations. Thorstein speaks to Gudrid, but this time he says something different. He asks, instead of giving her a prophecy, which he already has, he asks her to bury his body in the churchyard and to give all their possessions to the church. Lizzie : Huh. Well, that's Yeah, basically all of Erik the Red's saga is just like, not subtle Christian propaganda. Like literally all of it. It's great. Anyway, so after that Gudrid moves in with her father, Erik the Red, who is still alive at this point in the saga and the other saga, I think he's dead at this point. So anyway, two later two ships of 40 Icelandic men arrive in Greenland and Eric welcomes them. So on that ship is a man named Thorfinn Karlsefni. And he helps,. Lizzie : Ah. Zoe : Yes, he helps Erik prepare the Jol feast or the Yule feast and then asks for Gudrid's hand in marriage, and Erik accepts. And after that, the newlyweds set out with three ships to settle the New World. And then well, they're there. Lizzie : He has a great name. Snorri, by the way, means troublemaker, which I love. Lizzie : That's great. Anyway, so now, what about Freydis? So she is the daughter of Erik the Red again. And she came along with Gudrid and Thorfinn to explore Vinland. And also in the story, she's the illegitimate daughter of Erik the Red. And she's also pregnant at the time. Zoe : So the settlement of the new world is rough. There's conflicts between Christian and pagan settlers. And with natives, which are not depicted well in this story, I mean, they're not really depicted well in the Greenlander's saga either, but they're like extra not depicted well in this story. So they're able to trade successfully with them for a bit, but suddenly, relationships sour and the Vikings attacked aren't routed easily so they're running away. But Freydis saves the day. Ooh, while they're running from the natives, while she's pregnant. She turns around, she stops, she exposes her breasts, and she slaps her sword against it while yelling. Lizzie : What is she saying? Zoe : And the sight of this freaks the natives out so much that they all run away, and the Vikings are able to escape and leave Vinland. So that's Freydis saves the day, doesn't murder anyone in this saga. And that's what she does. Lizzie : Well, good for her. Zoe : And then yeah, so back to Gudrid, she returns to Iceland with Thorfinn, meets the in-laws and Thorfinn's mother in law actually objects to the marriage at first, cuz she doesn't have any dowry, she's been married before. And she's the granddaughter of a slave. But eventually, Gudrid wins are over. And then again, the end of the saga follows her descendants' lives, sees how Gudrid becomes like a nun. And she's the great grandmother of three bishops. And that's again, the end. So those are our two stories. Lizzie : They're great. So again, very similar, but also very different. Lizzie : Yeah, Gudrid's stories, generally quite, true. Each version is similar. Lizzie : But Freydis Zoe : Yeah, it's totally different. So the comparisons, so they're both of them, Gudrid and Freydis have power, but they choose to do different things with it. So Gudrid tends to give up the power that she has to the men in her life. So she lets Leif decide whether or not she should marry Thorfinn even though he's willing to let her choose herself, and then again, that happens in Erik the Red's Saga, except instead it's Erik the Red who she lets decide who she's going to if she's going to marry,. Lizzie : So it's like her decision to let him decide. Zoe : Yeah, so that—. Lizzie : Is that common or? Zoe : Yeah, it actually happens a good deal in Icelandic sagas, sagas of Icelanders, um, and basically. Lizzie : You won't necessarily like, you have to go through a, man or your father, you know? So like, they're basically like, Oh, you decide and she's like, oh, but like, I want to do whatever you want. And they're like, Well, I think you should marry him and she's like, okay, and that's sort of how it goes. And that's what happens a lot. Um, Meanwhile, Freydis holds onto her power and wields it over men, husbands, Helgi Finnbogi, and leads to the tragedies. So the deaths of all Helgi and Finnbogi's men and the women and she even commit sins that men would never dream to commit, which is killing defenseless women. So the message seems to be that a woman—. Lizzie : Well, you could say that she was like more equal to them. Zoe : That's true. But in the end,. Lizzie : I mean it's still bad, but like, they're on a more equal standing ground. So kind of makes a little more sense. So like, the question is, like, is this positive?

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If it was I can't say it makes for terribly interesting literature. The latter stories in this collection were more interesting by far. This collection tells the tales of the mortal men of Iceland and the surrounding areas showing how the culture and communities of the time valued their ancestry and their honour above all is. The sagas are a engrossing collection of blood-feuds, chivarly, honour and revenge and, once you get past all the similar sounding names and the same characters coming up in a few different places, they are surprisingly readable. These sagas also deal with the discovery of America by the Icelandic people This collection tells the tales of the mortal men of Iceland and the surrounding areas showing how the culture and communities of the time valued their ancestry and their honour above all is. These sagas also deal with the discovery of America by the Icelandic people and of the introduction of Christianity and how this changed the culture and religion of the Icelandic communities. Overall an interesting and engrossing collection that is well translated and accessible to any reader whether they have a previous knowledge of the Icelandic culture or not Jun 04, Billy Roper rated it it was amazing. Yes, it's 'Eirik', not 'Eric', or close enough, in modern English. I wrote about him in my "Glome's Saga" book, one of the more memorable Viking era characters and a great pitch-man. Want new settlers to come to a place, sight unseen? Call it "Greenland", even if it isn't, so much. Of course his son Leif, considered lucky, helped popularize the re-discovery an exploration of Vinland. His daughter might have been the toughest of the bunch, though, and the meanest. Apr 16, Douglas rated it liked it. Wonderfully entertaining View 1 comment. Never met an Icelandic saga i didn't like and this is no exception. Entertaining and enlightening to the culture of the time. May 19, Larry Shackley rated it liked it. Read this as a follow-up to a video course on great discoveries. Jul 21, Clare Walker rated it liked it Shelves: abandoned. All right, I couldnt be bothered finishing it when I left norway. Its ok. Might pick it up again one day when Im in the region. Aug 13, Claire Martin rated it it was amazing. Brilliant insight into human nature I will reread this book. Dec 14, Heather Forensky rated it it was amazing. I like learning more about some vikings. Erik is one of them. Oct 08, Rebecca rated it liked it Shelves: classics. A collection of sagas covering roughly the tenth and eleventh centuries, written down in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, these stories range from an account of the Norse discovery of North America to the various feuds that are said to have taken place between different families. The later sagas also cover the conversion of the Icelandic and Norse peoples to Christianity although this is given little more than a brief mention. Tales have inevitably been exaggerated in the telling - what A collection of sagas covering roughly the tenth and eleventh centuries, written down in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, these stories range from an account of the Norse discovery of North America to the various feuds that are said to have taken place between different families. Tales have inevitably been exaggerated in the telling - what may have started off as historical accounts have been embellished with the sort of monsters and magic that have inspired the works of later writers. Fans of fantasy writers such as Tolkien will clearly be able to see parallels - such as the man cursed to spend half his time as a bear. I found it difficult at times to keep up with the family trees and who was related to whom - some of the names are very similar and while it may have been interesting for the story-tellers and writers and their audiences to explain everyone's lineage in great detail, it's headache-inducing for a modern reader. Again, while it shows us what people's priorities and attitudes were in the 10thth centuries, it's frustrating for a modern reader to keep coming across the same cliched depictions - I'm sure they must have already been cliches years ago. This one was a bit hard to follow because I'm not super familiar with the history of the Vikings. Most of it involves them setting up homesteads in these various places, and dealing with social drama. It mentions Erik and his Dad started his campaign because his dad got convicted of murder, and this other guy followed him to Greenland because he couldn't get married to the girl he liked, because his own This one was a bit hard to follow because I'm not super familiar with the history of the Vikings. It mentions Erik and his Dad started his campaign because his dad got convicted of murder, and this other guy followed him to Greenland because he couldn't get married to the girl he liked, because his own dad was freed slave. No wonder these guys were so gutzy, the probably felt like they had nothing to lose! My favorite bits were when some of their wives converted to Christianity and were hesitant to involve themselves in heathen activities; and their husbands would be all miffed. Notes: There's a lot of name dropping Like: "So-in-so, the son of this-other-person, who had a sister who was super awesome, did this certain thing". But really, that's just because I'm not familiar with history enough. These people are not made up; they actually lived and died, and left their mark on history. And its because of details like that, that we can corroborate a lot of other historical accounts: like the like the first European founding of America. I started listening to this on librivox, but the names were kind of So I started reading along with the audio and I think it's worth noting that different word or phrase translations can change the meaning of a sentence A LOT. I would like to read a more dramatized version of this story. It doesn't have to be Game of Thrones material, but something that gives more detail of how Thorvald, Erik, Leif and Co. Not the most interesting as a story, but it's our main source for Vinland. Leif Eriksson is a Christian evangelist in this saga, which is not usually mentioned when people talk about him. He is sent to convert the Norse pagans of Greenland, since this is the time when Scandinavian kingdoms were joining the Catholic Church for political convenience. Some pagan customs remain, like singing "Weird-songs", as this is a transition period. Encounters with the "Skraelings" Inuits? A woman named Freydis beats her breast with the sword of the fallen Thorbrand and scares them off for a while. The Norse abandon the colonization efforts after believing "there would be always war and terror overhanging them, from those who dwelt there before them". Some minor details can be interesting, such as the mention of playing backgammon during the winter. Like many sagas, this one has genealogies that you'll probably want to skim over, like the "begats" of the Bible. This was interesting as a historical document, which it is meant to be. It's just not very entertaining: lots of completely uninteresting genealogical info, and very deadpan narration of even the most inherently interesting events. The extreme racism of the vikings is worth noting - when they encounter North Americans they call them skraelingars meaning "inferior people", and in at least one instance kill a few isolated ones essentially just because they could eventually the vikings flee with This was interesting as a historical document, which it is meant to be. The extreme racism of the vikings is worth noting - when they encounter North Americans they call them skraelingars meaning "inferior people", and in at least one instance kill a few isolated ones essentially just because they could eventually the vikings flee with half of the locals chasing them - a most shocking development given their attitude I understand that this probably is just the kind of people the vikings were, but that makes it difficult to care much for the "heroes". In the end, I just didn't have a very good time reading this; the cover made me expect a fascinating tale of viking action, but it's a somewhat dry history of the viking discovery of "vinland", which could have been rendered much more interesting with copious annotations, complementary material, and perhaps a more liberal translation Alas we only get a few footnotes, usually telling the reader whether something happened in or in I don't care about that! I want to know about how they got a bunch of cows on their ships! So, this book has way too many names i cant prononce! Despite that, i just love sagas. They have some of that weird nordic magic about them. The story in itself is not that interesting, you could even say that its super repetitive with all that bible like eirikr son of snorri, son of that, son of this This book is great for anyone curious and or interested by viking history. If you are not, you will probably not like So, this book has way too many names i cant prononce! If you are not, you will probably not like it! But because I do, I had a great time learning about badass female warriors, old names given to my home country Canada and norse wedding customs, just to name a few! A few were a little hard for me to get through - they seemed more focused on telling confusing lineages of similarly named people only vaguely connected to the story. Almost biblical in those points. On the whole though, rollicking good times were had reading about the Scandahoovians and Icelanders - especially the ones telling of going to the new world hundred of years ahead of that other fellow who gets all the credit in popular culture. Dec 16, Robert Giambo rated it it was ok Shelves: mythology. In the end this was tough reading. It was interesting to see a whole bunch of old stories that basically had no supernatural or magical elements - just stories about real people. Of course, the real people were always fighting and killing each other. However, the stories at times were difficult to follow because there were just too many characters introduced as relations to the central characters. Jun 30, Paul rated it really liked it. Fascinating stuff, and particularly enjoyed reading the tales of Eirik the Red arriving in Greenland and the north west coast of America a millenium ago. In many of the stories people seem to travel between Sweden, England, Iceland, Ireland, Orkney Isles, etc at the drop of a hat, as you clearly do. Some other tales included here tend towards complicated family tree and wedding match stories. A Saga about Eirik and his family This was an interesting tale about the life that Eirik the Red had as well as some of his family members who journeyed to Ireland and beyond. There's a lot of names to remember which is interesting though fairly easy to understand. The page numbers are short but the content is not. Glad to have finally read this saga. Nov 12, J. Quite fascinating, from a time when bards and historians had not such a strong distinction drawn between them. It's out of copyright, so I downloaded the audio book for free legally! Mar 19, David R. The original tale of the Vinland colony. It's short and consumed with the relationship problems of Eirik and his extended family. Eventually there are tantalizing references to explorations in the New World. There remains considerable scholarly debate on just where Vinland was. Neither bad not good, it is simply a translation of a Norse saga. Glad I read it but wouldnt go around recommenced it unless the person is a major fan of vikings or interested in norse travels to Greenland and eastern North America. Jun 29, Brad rated it really liked it Shelves: epic. A fascinating contemporary account of the Norse in North America including tantalizing glimpses of the indigenous peoples encountered. There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Readers also enjoyed. Short Stories. The Vikings had "a long oral history going back centuries," says Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough. In TV series from Vikings to Game of Thrones , the icy wastes of the north provide the backdrop to dramatic, often violent, stories of kings and warriors, dragons and trolls. The source for many of these dramas is the Icelandic sagas. In her new book, Beyond the Northlands: Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas , historian Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough explores the world of the sagas, teasing fact from fiction to show that there was much more to the Norse peoples than rape and pillage. Find out whether the Vikings deserved their terrible reputation. Speaking from her home in Durham, England, she explains how the United States should really celebrate Leif the Lucky, not Columbus , why the Soviets hated the idea that Russia had been founded by the Vikings, and how the gruesome Viking torture known as the Blood Eagle may have been more poetic conceit than historical practice. Did Vikings make the modern world possible? The idea of the Vikings being the bad boys in the medieval world goes right back to the medieval world. The first big Viking raid took place around A. Remember the words of the prophets, from the north, evil breaks forth. When we say "Vikings," we think of any inhabitant of the medieval Nordic world. The people living in the Nordic world during the Viking age did raid and pillage. But there was much more to them than that. They were far travelers. They founded a colony in Greenland that lasted years and got all the way to the edge of North America. Greenland was settled from around [A. These same sagas are our main written accounts of how Norse Greenlanders, a generation after Erik the Red, set out from Greenland and reached the edge of North America. But until the s, the Vinland Sagas were our only source of information for these voyages. There are long houses but they seem to be more overwintering sites, where they could mend their ships, then carry on farther south. There were women on these voyages, too. In one saga, a woman is said to have had a child out there, making her the first European woman to give birth on the North American continent. Toward the end of the 19th century, there were lots of paintings showing big, romantic Norse coming across in their boats. There were fake rune stones dug up in a Minnesota field, fake weapons, and, of course, the famous Vinland Map forgery. The sagas were written in 13th-century Iceland and continued to be written and copied in manuscripts. They had a long oral history going back centuries. These are stories told and retold, passed down through the generations. The Viking is believed to have reached the Americas five centuries before Columbus. Trolls and dwarves have become familiar to us from Lord of The Rings. Dragons form an important story thread in Game of Thrones. They do crop up in the sagas but the sagas can also be pretty realistic. Not all sagas are filled with dragons and elves. But the interesting thing is that they were clearly seen as part of the Norse worldview. The idea of trolls lurking just outside, at the edge of your peripheral vision, is a common one. The far north has always had supernatural, even diabolical associations, stretching all the way back to the Bible. The farther north you go, the more inhospitable the landscape becomes. There are mountains and deep crevasses, strange rock formations. So it becomes easier to imagine in these inhuman parts of the world, that the only things that could live in them would themselves be inhuman, like trolls. One of the surprises in your book is that the Vikings also voyaged east— and overland—to what is now Russia. Tell us about these journeys —and why the Soviets downplayed the Viking connection.

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