Read Beyond the Northlands: Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas

Beyond the Northlands: Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas

Eleanor Barraclough

4.9/5 (23566 ratings)

Description: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 archaeological finds, rune-stones, medieval world maps, encyclopedic 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.We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Beyond the Northlands: Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas. To get started finding Beyond the Northlands: Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

Pages: 320

Format: PDF, EPUB & Kindle Edition

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Release: 2016

ISBN: 0191004480

Description: 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 archaeological finds, rune-stones, medieval world maps, encyclopedic 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.We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Beyond the Northlands: Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas. To get started finding Beyond the Northlands: Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

Special Offer | $0.00

Special Offer! | $0.00

Beyond the Northlands: Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas

Beyond the Northlands: Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas

More Books

Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age

Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age

Study Guide: Embers of the Hands by Eleanor Barraclough (SuperSummary)

Study Guide: Embers of the Hands by Eleanor Barraclough (SuperSummary)

El oro de los vikingos: Historias ocultas de la era vikinga (Spanish Edition)

El oro de los vikingos: Historias ocultas de la era vikinga (Spanish Edition)

Imagining the Supernatural North

Imagining the Supernatural North

Im Schein von Gold und Feuer: Die verborgene Welt der Wikinger (German Edition)

Im Schein von Gold und Feuer: Die verborgene Welt der Wikinger (German Edition)