Five hundred years before Columbus, a Viking woman named Gudrid sailed past the edge of the known world. She landed in the New World and lived there for three years, giving birth to a baby before sailing home. Or so the Icelandic sagas say. Even after archaeologists found a Viking longhouse in Newfoundland, few believed that the details of Gudrid's story were true. Then, in 2001, a team of scientists discovered what may have been this pioneering woman's last house, buried under a hay field in Iceland, just where the sagas suggested it could be. Joining scientists with cutting-edge technology and the latest archaeological techniques, and tracing Gudrid's steps on land and in the sagas, author Brown reconstructs a life that spanned--and expanded--the bounds of the then-known world.--From publisher description.
Record details
ISBN:015101440X
ISBN:9780151014408
Physical Description:306 pages : map ; 24 cm. print
Includes bibliographical references (p. [279]-292) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:
Prologue: Gudrid the far-traveler -- At sea -- Ransacking the past -- A very stirring woman -- The terror from the North -- The land-taking -- Eirik the Red's green land -- Land of wine or walrus -- The house of the sagas -- The farm of merry noise -- From witch to nun.
Book
