The Far Traveler - Nancy Marie Brown (30 page)

RECOMMENDED READING

Two scholarly conferences—one in Iceland and one in Newfoundland—and an exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., celebrated the thousand-year anniversary of the discovery of Vinland. The exhibition catalog, which is beautifully illustrated, is the best place to start to learn more about Gudrid and her times; the conference proceedings assume some prior knowledge of the subject matter.

Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga,
edited by William Fitzhugh and Elisabeth I. Ward (Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000). See also
http://www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/,
where you can learn to play
hneftafl.

Approaches to Vinland: a conference on the written and archaeological sources for the Norse settlements in the North-Atlantic region and exploration of America,
edited by Andrew Wawn and Thórunn Sigurðardóttir (Reykjavík: Sigurðar Nordal Institute, 2001).

Vinland Revisited: The Norse World at the Turn of the First Millennium. Selected Papers from the Viking Millennium International Symposium, 15–24 September 2000, Newfoundland and Labrador,
edited by Shannon Lewis-Simpson (St. John’s, Newfoundland: Historic Sites Association of Newfoundland and Labrador, 2003).

To learn more about the sagas, I recommend Gísli Sigurðsson’s
The Medieval Icelandic Saga and Oral Tradition
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004). Gisli notes that Gudrid acquired the nickname
viðförla
—variously translated as “the Far-Traveler,” “the Wide-Traveled,” or “the Far-Farer”—long after the Middle Ages. He has not been able to trace the first appearance of her nickname.

MEDIEVAL TEXTS

The Saga of the Greenlanders (Grænlendingasaga)
and
The Saga of Eirik the Red (Eiríkssaga rauða)
have been translated many times. The most recent are by Keneva Kunz in
Sagas of Icelanders: a selection
(2000) and Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Pálsson in
The Vinland Sagas
(1965). Excerpts in this book, along with all of the epigraphs and most selections from other medieval texts (except as listed below), are my own translations.

[>]
:
Wood-Leg’s lament from
Grettir’s Saga,
trans. Ole Crumlin-Pedersen in “The Sporting Element in Viking Ships and Other Early Boats,”
Sailing and Science,
ed. Gisela Sjøgaard (1999)

[>]
:
sailing directions from
Hauksbók,
trans. Judith Jesch in
A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture,
ed. Rory McTurk (2005)

[>]
:
the wave rune poem from
The Saga of the Volsungs,
trans. Jesse Byock (1990)

[>]
:
the story of Grettir’s Bath from
Grettir’s Saga,
trans. Denton Fox and Hermann Palsson (1974)

[>]
,
[>]
, and
[>]
:
excerpts from Adam of Bremen’s
History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen,
trans. Francis J. Tschan (1959)

[>]
:
the destruction of Lindisfarne from
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
trans. Gwyn Jones,
History of the Vikings
(1968)

[>]
:
the attack on Constantinople from
The Works of Luidprand of Cremona,
trans. F. A. Wright (1930)

[>]
:
Simeon of Durham’s account of the attack at Tynemouth, trans. David M. Wilson, ed.,
From Viking to Crusader
(1992)

[>]
:
Dudo of Normandy (excerpts), trans. Else Roesdahl in
The Vikings
(1991)

[>]
:
the story of Unn the Deep-Minded from
Landnámabók (The Book of Settlements
),
trans. Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards (1972)

[>]
:
the
hafgerðing
from
The King’s Mirror (Konungs Skuggsjá),
trans. Laurence Marcellus Larson (1917)

[>]
:
Greenland traveler’s verse, “I see death in a dread place,” from
The Book of Settlements,
trans. Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards (1972)

[>]
,
[>]
:
advice to a merchant from
The King’s Mirror (Konungs Skuggsjá),
trans. Laurence Marcellus Larson (1917)

[>]
:
description of the monks from Richer’s
Histoire de France,
trans. Richard Erdoes,
A.D. 1000: Living on the Brink of Apocalypse
(1988)

[>]
:
description of the mass from “The Story of Thorvald the Far-Traveler,” trans. Einar Ó. Sveinsson,
Age of the Sturlungs
(1953)

[>]
:
the blessing of the ale from Snorri Sturluson’s
Heimskringla,
trans. Thomas DuBois in
Nordic Religions in the Viking Age
(1999)

[>]
:
verses from “Words of the High One”
(Hávamál),
trans. W. H. Auden and Paul B. Taylor in
Norse Poems: Edda Sæmundur, selections
(1981)

[>]
: Old Norse Homily Book
(excerpts), trans. Anders Hultgård in
Old Norse and Finnish Religions and Cultic Place-Names,
ed. Tore Ahlbäck (1990)

The standard dictionary of Old Norse is
The Icelandic-English Dictionary,
Second Edition, by Richard Cleasby, Gudbrand Vigfusson, and Sir William Craigie (1957; rpt. 1969), known as Cleasby-Vigfusson. The translators of
skörungur
are: George Dasent (1861, 1866); W. C. Green (1893); Sir Edmund Head (1866); Eiríkr Magnússon & William Morris (1892–1901); F. York Powell (1896); Muriel Press (1899); W. G. Collingwood & J. Stefánsson (1901); Reeves, Beamish, & Anderson (1901); G. H. Hight (1914); Magnus Magnusson & Hermann Pálsson (1960s); Denton Fox & Hermann Pálsson (1970s); Jenny Jochens (1995); Keneva Kunz (1990s); Anthony Faulkes (2001); Bo Almquist (2001); and Eric V. Youngquist (2002).

ICELANDIC SAGAS AND HISTORY

Uno von Troil, who accompanied Sir Joseph Banks to Iceland in 1772, argued that the sagas were just as trustworthy as Tacitus or Livy. Von Troil wrote in Swedish; I used the Icelandic translation of his letters,
Bréf frá Íslandi,
by Haraldur Sigurðsson (1961). As mentioned above, the best introduction to the sagas is Gísli Sigurðsson’s
The Medieval Icelandic Saga and Oral Tradition
(2004).

The recognized expert on the Vinland Sagas is Ólafur Halldórsson. See his “Lost Tales of Gudrídr” in
Sagnaskemmtun: Studies in honour of Hermann Pálsson,
ed. Rudolf Simek, Jónas Kristjánsson, and Hans Bekker-Nielsen (1986); his entry in
Approaches to Vínland;
and, for readers of Icelandic,
Grænland í miðaldaritum
(1978).

Good discussions of women in saga times can be found in:
Carol Clover, “Regardless of Sex,”
Speculum
68 (1993)

Judith Jesch,
Women in the Viking Age
(1991)

Jenny Jochens,
Women in Old Norse Society
(1995)

Preben Meulengracht Sorensen,
The Unmanly Man
(1983) Other sources in English include:

Rasmus B. Anderson, ed.
The Flatey Book and Recently Discovered Vatican Manuscripts Concerning America as Early as the Tenth Century
(1908)

Lois Bragg,
Oedipus Borealis: The Aberrant Body in Old Icelandic Myth and Saga
(2004)

Thomas Bredsdorff,
Chaos and Love: The Philosophy of the Icelandic Family Saga
(2001)

Jesse L. Byock,
Medieval Iceland
(1988)

————,
Viking Age Iceland
(2001)

W. A. Craigie,
The Icelandic Sagas
(1913)

Paul Durrenberger,
The Dynamics of Medieval Iceland
(1992)

Stefán Einarsson,
A History of Icelandic Literature
(1957)

Bruce Gelsinger,
Icelandic Enterprise
(1981)

Guðrún Ása Grímsdóttir,
The Arnamagnaean Institute Manuscript Exhibition
(1992)

Gunnar Karlsson,
The History of Iceland
(2000)

Magnus Magnusson,
Iceland Saga
(1987)

Rory McTurk, ed.
A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture
(2005)

William Ian Miller,
Bloodtaking and Peacemaking
(1990)

Vésteinn Ólason,
Dialogues with the Viking Age
(1998)

Páll Ólafsson,
Iceland the Enchanted
(1995)

William Pencak,
The Conflict of Law and Justice in the Icelandic Sagas
(1995)

Margaret Clunies Ross, ed.
Old Icelandic Literature and Society
(2000)

Jón Viðar Sigurðsson,
Chieftains and Power in the Icelandic Commonwealth
(1999)

M. I. Steblin-Kamenskij,
The Saga Mind
(1973)

Einar Ó. Sveinsson,
Age of the Sturlungs
(1953)

SHIPS AND SAILING

Arne Emil Christensen and Ole Crumlin-Pedersen have long been the recognized experts on Viking-ship technology. In addition to their articles in the collections recommended above, see Christensen’s “Viking Age Boatbuilding Tools” and “Viking Age Rigging, A Survey of Sources and Theories” in
The Archaeology of Medieval Ships and Harbours in Northern Europe
(1979); and “Boats and Boatbuilding in Western Norway and the Islands” in
The Northern and Western Isles in the Viking World
, ed. Alexander Fenton and Hermann Palsson (1984). Ole Crumlin-Pedersen and Olaf Olsen describe the retrieval of the Skuldelev ships in
Acta Archaeologica
38 (1967). See also “Viking Shipbuilding and Seamanship” in the
Proceedings of the Eighth Viking Congress
(1981) and “The Sporting Element in Viking Ships and Other Early Boats,”
Sailing and Science,
ed. Gisela Sjøgaard (1999).

The voyage of the replica Gaia is chronicled by Judy Lomas,
The Viking Voyage
(1992); that of Snorri by Hodding Carter,
A Viking Voyage
(2000).

Other sources on Viking ships, navigation, timekeeping, and sailing in the North Atlantic include:

J. R. L. Anderson,
Vinland Voyage (1967)

Páll Bergþórsson,
The Wineland Millennium
(2000)

A. W. Brøgger and H. Shetelig,
Viking Ships: Their Ancestry and Evolution
(1951)

Stephen Bruneau,
Icebergs of Newfoundland and Labrador
(2004)

Birthe Clausen, ed.
Viking Voyages to North America
(1993)

Frederica DeLaguna,
Voyage to Greenland
(1977)

John R. Hale, “The Viking Longship,”
Scientific American
(February 1998)

Rockwell Kent,
N by E
(1930)

Sean McGrail, ed.
Sources and Techniques in Boat Archaeology
(1977)

Þorsteinn Vilhjálmsson, “Time and Travel in Old Norse Society,”
Disputatio
II (1997)

VIKINGS IN THE BRITISH ISLES

The area around Uig, Lewis, is claimed by the MacAulays, or in Gaelic, Clann Amhlaeibh; Amhlaeibh is the Norse name Olaf. Alfred P. Smythe argues that Unn the Deep-Minded’s husband, Olaf the White, king of Dublin (853 to 870), was the Olaf Geirstaðaálfr who ruled the Norwegian province of Westfold (871 to ca. 890), making him a good candidate to be the man buried in the Gokstad ship circa 900. See
Scandinavian Kings in the British Isles 850–880
(1977).

Gillian Fellows-Jensen explains the derivation of place-names in “Vikings in the British Isles,”
Acta Archaeologica
71 (2000): the -
by
ending is the Norse
býr
or
bær
(farm or settlement, as in Glaumbær), -
bister
and -
poll
are shortenings of
bólstaðir
(homestead), -
skill
and -
skaill
come from
skáli
(longhouse), Laimiseadar comes from
lambasætr
(lamb shieling), Lacsabhat is from
laxavatn
(salmon lake),
kirk
is Norse for church.

Other important sources for the Vikings in the British Isles are: James Graham-Campbell and Colleen Batey,
Vikings in Scotland: An Archaeological Survey
(1998; rpt. 2001)

Anna Ritchie,
Viking Scotland
(1993) For DNA evidence, see:

S. Goodacre, A. Helgason, et al., “Genetic evidence for a family-based Scandinavian settlement of Shetland and Orkney during the Viking periods,”
Heredity
(2005)

Agnar Helgason, et al., “mtDNA and the Origin of the Icelanders: Deciphering Signals of Recent Population History,”
American Journal of Human Genetics
66 (2000)

Agnar Helgason, et al., “Estimating Scandinavian and Gaelic Ancestry in the Male Settlers of Iceland,”
American Journal of Human Genetics
67 (2000)

THE VIKINGS IN GENERAL

Although it’s a little dated, I prefer Gwyn Jones’s
History of the Vikings
(1968; rev. 1984); he’s a good storyteller. Other sources I consulted include:

Bertil Almgren,
The Viking
(1966)

Holger Arbman,
The Vikings
(1961; rpt. 1965)

Eric Christiansen,
The Norsemen in the Viking Age
(2002)

Paul du Chaillu,
The Viking Age
(1890)

Peter Foote and David M. Wilson,
The Viking Achievement
(1970)

James Graham-Campbell, ed.
Cultural Atlas of the Viking World
(1994)

James Graham-Campbell and Dafydd Kidd,
The Vikings
(1980)

James E. Knirk, ed.
Proceedings of the Tenth Viking Congress, Larkollen, Norway, 1985
(1987)

Magnus Magnusson,
Vikings!
(1980)

Andras Mortensen and Símun V. Arge, eds.
Viking and Norse in the North Atlantic: Select Papers from the Proceedings of the Fourteenth Viking Congress
(2005)