Beyond The Northlands

Author : Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0191004480
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.83/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Beyond the Northlands written by Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-10-20 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the dying days of the eighth century, the Vikings erupted onto the international stage with brutal raids and slaughter. The medieval Norsemen may be best remembered as monk murderers and village pillagers, but this is far from the whole story. Throughout the Middle Ages, long-ships transported hairy northern voyagers far and wide, where they not only raided but also traded, explored and settled new lands, encountered unfamiliar races, and embarked on pilgrimages and crusades. The Norsemen travelled to all corners of the medieval world and beyond; north to the wastelands of arctic Scandinavia, south to the politically turbulent heartlands of medieval Christendom, west across the wild seas to Greenland and the fringes of the North American continent, and east down the Russian waterways trading silver, skins, and slaves. Beyond the Northlands explores this world through the stories that the Vikings told about themselves in their sagas. But the depiction of the Viking world in the Old Norse-Icelandic sagas goes far beyond historical facts. What emerges from these tales is a mixture of realism and fantasy, quasi-historical adventures, and exotic wonder-tales that rocket far beyond the horizon of reality. On the crackling brown pages of saga manuscripts, trolls, dragons, and outlandish tribes jostle for position with explorers, traders, and kings. To explore the sagas and the world that produced them, Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough now takes her own trip through the dramatic landscapes that they describe. Along the way, she illuminates the rich but often confusing saga accounts with a range of other evidence: archaeological finds, rune-stones, medieval world maps, encyclopaedic manuscripts, and texts from as far away as Byzantium and Baghdad. As her journey across the Old Norse world shows, by situating the sagas against the revealing background of this other evidence, we can begin at least to understand just how the world was experienced, remembered, and imagined by this unique culture from the outermost edge of Europe so many centuries ago.

Author : Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198701241
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.48/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Beyond the Northlands written by Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The medieval Norsemen may be best remembered as monk murderers and village pillagers, but this is far from the whole story. Throughout the Middle Ages, longships transported hairy northern voyagers far and wide, where they not only raided but also traded, explored, and settled new lands, encountered unfamiliar races, and embarked on pilgrimages and crusades. To explore the sagas and the world that produced them, Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough now takes her own trip through the dramatic landscapes that they describe.

Author : Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0191004472
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.76/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Beyond the Northlands written by Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-10-13 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the dying days of the eighth century, the Vikings erupted onto the international stage with brutal raids and slaughter. The medieval Norsemen may be best remembered as monk murderers and village pillagers, but this is far from the whole story. Throughout the Middle Ages, long-ships transported hairy northern voyagers far and wide, where they not only raided but also traded, explored and settled new lands, encountered unfamiliar races, and embarked on pilgrimages and crusades. The Norsemen travelled to all corners of the medieval world and beyond; north to the wastelands of arctic Scandinavia, south to the politically turbulent heartlands of medieval Christendom, west across the wild seas to Greenland and the fringes of the North American continent, and east down the Russian waterways trading silver, skins, and slaves. Beyond the Northlands explores this world through the stories that the Vikings told about themselves in their sagas. But the depiction of the Viking world in the Old Norse-Icelandic sagas goes far beyond historical facts. What emerges from these tales is a mixture of realism and fantasy, quasi-historical adventures, and exotic wonder-tales that rocket far beyond the horizon of reality. On the crackling brown pages of saga manuscripts, trolls, dragons, and outlandish tribes jostle for position with explorers, traders, and kings. To explore the sagas and the world that produced them, Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough now takes her own trip through the dramatic landscapes that they describe. Along the way, she illuminates the rich but often confusing saga accounts with a range of other evidence: archaeological finds, rune-stones, medieval world maps, encyclopaedic manuscripts, and texts from as far away as Byzantium and Baghdad. As her journey across the Old Norse world shows, by situating the sagas against the revealing background of this other evidence, we can begin at least to understand just how the world was experienced, remembered, and imagined by this unique culture from the outermost edge of Europe so many centuries ago.

Author : Rosalind Kerven
Publisher : Chartwell Books
ISBN 13 : 0785835555
Total Pages : 370 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Viking Myths and Sagas written by Rosalind Kerven and published by Chartwell Books. This book was released on 2017-09-15 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written in consultation with leading academics.

Author : Josie Litton
Publisher : Bantam
ISBN 13 : 0307483134
Total Pages : 402 pages
Book Rating : 4.33/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Come Back to Me written by Josie Litton and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2009-07-22 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After centuries of conflict, a peace treaty has finally been drawn between the warring Saxons and Norse — largely due to the wisdom and bravery of the legendary Viking leader Wolf Hakonson and the noble warrior Lord Hawk. Hawk and Wolf each married women from warring clans to unite the Saxons and Norse. But for all its blessings, the promise of peace will remain fragile — unless it can be sealed forever by a third and final marriage between these two proud clans.... Come Back to Me The most feared Viking to come out of the Northlands in a generation or more, Dragon Hakonson, brother to Lord Wolf and friend to Lord Hawk, hopes to steal a few days away by himself before entering into an arranged marriage with a Saxon bride. But instead of tranquillity, Dragon finds intrigue and passion when he has a chance encounter with a beguiling beauty disguised in boy’s garb. It is clear that the fiery-haired, fiercely willed Rycca is running away from something ... or someone. Dragon is determined to uncover Rycca’s reasons for escape and see her safely to her destination. Yet rather than surrender herself to Dragon’s care, Rycca dares to defy him, disarm him, and even enchant him. For Rycca has a secret gift that Dragon cannot see. Stalked by the tragic past, struggling to fulfill the promise of peace, only when it is too late does Dragon discover the truth: that the temptress who has stolen his heart is none other than the woman destined to become his reluctant bride....

Author : Leifur Eiricksson
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 0141991550
Total Pages : 144 pages
Book Rating : 4.59/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Vinland Sagas written by Leifur Eiricksson and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2019-05-23 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Saga of the Greenlanders and Eirik the Red’s Saga contain the first ever descriptions of North America, a bountiful land of grapes and vines, discovered by Vikings five centuries before Christopher Columbus. Written down in the early thirteenth century, they recount the Icelandic settlement of Greenland by Eirik the Red, the chance discovery by seafaring adventurers of a mysterious new land, and Eirik’s son Leif the Lucky’s perilous voyages to explore it. Wrecked by storms, stricken by disease and plagued by navigational mishaps, some survived the North Atlantic to pass down this compelling tale of the first Europeans to talk with, trade with, and war with the Native Americans.

Author : Jon Sprunk
Publisher : Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
ISBN 13 : 1625673841
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.48/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Shadow’s Lure written by Jon Sprunk and published by Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.. This book was released on 2018-10-12 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Shadow Saga continues with in this “fun, fast, action-packed novel” of magic, mystery, and monstrous evil (Elitist Book Reviews). After helping his lover Josephine lay claim to the throne of Nimea, the assassin Caim has ventured north to the land that has haunted his dreams—cold, unforgiving Eregoth. He departs seeking answers to his parents’ murder and hoping that this knowledge will explain his ability to bend the shadows to his will. In searching for his past, Caim wanders into war. But Eregoth is threatened by a power more terrifying than any army—the witch Sybelle, Queen of the Dark. If given the chance, her aims at destruction would not cease at Eregoth but storm through Nimea where Josey struggles to secure her reign. With nothing more than a force of ragtag warriors at his side, Caim knows that standing against Sybelle’s onslaught may be suicide. But as a son of the Shadow, he has no choice but to fight. Even if every life he takes brings him closer to the blackness that would claim him body and soul...

Author : Tom Shippey
Publisher : Reaktion Books
ISBN 13 : 1780239505
Total Pages : 571 pages
Book Rating : 4.07/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Laughing Shall I Die written by Tom Shippey and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 571 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Laughing Shall I Die explores the Viking fascination with scenes of heroic death. The literature of the Vikings is dominated by famous last stands, famous last words, death songs, and defiant gestures, all presented with grim humor. Much of this mindset is markedly alien to modern sentiment, and academics have accordingly shunned it. And yet, it is this same worldview that has always powered the popular public image of the Vikings—with their berserkers, valkyries, and cults of Valhalla and Ragnarok—and has also been surprisingly corroborated by archaeological discoveries such as the Ridgeway massacre site in Dorset. Was it this mindset that powered the sudden eruption of the Vikings onto the European scene? Was it a belief in heroic death that made them so lastingly successful against so many bellicose opponents? Weighing the evidence of sagas and poems against the accounts of the Vikings’ victims, Tom Shippey considers these questions as he plumbs the complexities of Viking psychology. Along the way, he recounts many of the great bravura scenes of Old Norse literature, including the Fall of the House of the Skjoldungs, the clash between the two great longships Ironbeard and Long Serpent, and the death of Thormod the skald. One of the most exciting books on Vikings for a generation, Laughing Shall I Die presents Vikings for what they were: not peaceful explorers and traders, but warriors, marauders, and storytellers.

Author : Jón Karl Helgason
Publisher : Reaktion Books
ISBN 13 : 1780237731
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.32/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Echoes of Valhalla written by Jón Karl Helgason and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2017-06-15 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tolkien’s wizard Gandalf, Wagner’s Valkyrie Brünnhilde, Marvel’s superhero the Mighty Thor, the warrior heading for Valhalla in Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song,” and Donald Crisp’s portrayal of Leif Eriksson in the classic film The Viking—these are just a few examples of how Icelandic medieval literature has shaped human imagination during the past 150 years. Echoes of Valhalla is a unique look at modern adaptations of the Icelandic eddas (poems of Norse mythology) and sagas (ancient prose accounts of Viking history, voyages, and battles) across an astonishing breadth of art forms. Jón Karl Helgason looks at comic books, plays, travel books, music, and films in order to explore the reincarnations of a range of legendary characters, from the Nordic gods Thor and Odin to the saga characters Hallgerd Long-legs, Gunnar of Hlidarendi, and Leif the Lucky. Roaming the globe, Helgason unearths echoes of Nordic lore in Scandinavia, Britain, America, Germany, Italy, and Japan. He examines the comic work of Jack Kirby and cartoon work of Peter Madsen; reads the plays of Henrik Ibsen and Gordon Bottomley; engages thought travelogues by Frederick Metcalfe and Poul Vad; listens to the music of Richard Wagner, Edward Elgar, and the metal band Manowar; and watches films by directors such as Roy William Neill and Richard Fleischer, outlining the presence of the eddas and sagas in these nineteenth- and twentieth-century works. Altogether, Echoes of Valhalla tells the remarkable story of how disparate, age-old poetry and prose originally recorded in remote areas of medieval Iceland have come to be a part of our shared cultural experience today—how Nordic gods and saga heroes have survived and how their colorful cast of characters and adventures they went on are as vibrant as ever.

Author : Laura Williams McCaffrey
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN 13 : 9780618614899
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.93/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Water Shaper written by Laura Williams McCaffrey and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2006 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This mesmerizing fantasy features two narrators--an outcast princess and a rebellious storyteller---set in a convincing and beautifully realized world featuring elements of Celtic folklore.