Anonymous (19)

“He named the country he had discovered Greenland, for he said that people would be much more tempted to go there if it had an attractive name.”

Eirik the Red was exiled from Iceland in the 10th century after skirmishes with neighbors and being declared an outlaw, and he founded the colony in Greenland. Bjarni Herjolfsson was blown off course on his way to Greenland in 985 or 986 and sighted unknown lands. Eirik’s son, Leif the Lucky, made an expedition to this new land and named it Vinland after the grapes that grew there. Later Leif’s brother-in-law, Thorfinn Karlsefni, created a settlement there, probably in the New England area of Canada. In the 1960s archaeological evidence of Norse settlement from about 1000 was found at L'anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, by Dr Helge Ingstad, former governor of Greenland, and his archaeologist wife, Ann Stine Ingstad.

The settlement in Greenland died out after about five hundred years due to increasingly cold weather in the 14th Century, the return of the Inuits to the south, and the annexing of Greenland and Iceland by Norway. This reduced Greenland’s independence and created a financial burden on a resource poor country. The Americas were rediscovered by Columbus in 1492. It is uncertain whether he knew of its location from the Vikings.

This was a short and engaging book which after an introduction explaining the background gives the translation of two Norse stories: the Grœnlendinga Saga written in about 1190, and Eirik’s Saga, written around 70 years later. The sagas focus on the personalities of the adventurers and their deeds, and also the qualities of the land explored. They were intended to be educational about history and geographical locations as well as providing entertainment. The sagas tell us of the Viking explorers, and we are also presented stories of the women, the remarkable Gudrid, and the scheming and vicious Freydis. I thoroughly enjoyed the Vinland Sagas and found them to be very accessible, simple and surprisingly readable.


The Viking Voyages… (mais)

This little book has provided rather more pleasure than expected. These two Viking Romances were written around 1300 and are both easy reading, albeit sometimes a tad confusing with so many unfamiliar names! The back cover paints a picture better than I possible can: "Unlike the Icelandic sagas with their firm grasp of realism and their moral imperative, these two Viking romances feature, gods, heroes, trolls, kings and warriors, and are rich in imaginative power, Blending a range of influences from folklore, mythology, heroic tales and legends, they set out to amuse rather than inform, and as well as depicting the traditional Viking raider in his longboat, they also transport the reader to an imaginary world beyond history or geography. [These stories] appear in "Seven Viking Romances", which is published in Penguin Classics."

Tfere's a lot of blood and guts and surpringisnly graphic descriptions of sexual intercourse on a few occasions. I suppose this plays into the traditional idea of Viking rape and pillage ...… (mais)

This was great! Sometimes the old Icelandic sagas can be a bit dry with all the pedigrees and various relationships.

I don't know how much the translator helped, but there were some seriously badass action scenes in this saga - heroes sliding on ice, catching spears and throwing them back, limbs flying everywhere. I wonder if it also counts as one of the earliest courtroom dramas, because legal intrigue is what we get in between the episodes of violence.

Characters' personalities and motives are typically understated as usual in such sagas. However you get intriguing glimpses of their natures, such as with Skarp-Hedin's enigmatic smiles.

Definitely one of my favourites of the genre, with action, intrigue, and drama in spades.… (mais)