The Thrall's Tale [Mass Market Paperback]

Judith Lindbergh (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 26, 2006

The mesmerizing chronicle of three tenth-century Viking women whose lives are inextricably bound by fate

The Thrall’s Tale is a masterpiece of historical fiction that follows Katla, a slave, her daughter Bibrau, and their mistress Thorbjorg, a prophetess of the Norse god Odin, as they navigate the stormy waters of love, revenge, faith, and deception in the Viking Age settlements of tenth–century Greenland. Lindbergh’s lyrical prose captures the tenuousness of lives led on the edge of the known world, the pain of loyalties shattered by Christian conversion, and the deepest desires hidden in the human heart. A book that has appeal for readers of fantasy and romance as well as historical and literary fiction, The Thrall’s Tale is an absorbing cultural saga researched and written over ten years as Lindbergh immersed herself in the literature, artifacts, and landscape of her characters’ lives and world.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Lindbergh's epic debut novel chronicles the early Viking colonies in Greenland through the eyes of the embattled female denizens. Katla, the titular thrall born to a Christian Irishwoman enslaved in a Viking raid, emigrates with her master from Iceland to Greenland in A.D. 985. Katla's rosary sets her apart from the pagan Norse, and her beauty brings the unwelcome attention of her master's eldest son, Torvard. After he violently rapes her, she is bought and nursed back to health by the compassionate seeress Thorbjorg and eventually gives birth to a daughter, Bibrau. The three women alternately narrate the tale: Thorbjorg teaches Bibrau her mystic Norse wisdom even as she foresees the end of her way of life; Katla longs for her gentle lover Ossur and the chance to practice her Christian faith; and Bibrau, despised by her mother and mute from birth, becomes obsessed with revenge, turning Thorbjorg's wisdom against her. The final third of the book charts the conversion of the Norse colonies to Christianity, as well as the unfolding tragedies of the characters' lives. Lindbergh's language is occasionally overwrought, but her well-researched and emotional evocations of characters in a time of religious and social upheaval are dramatic and entertaining.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Katla is a thrall, or slave, in pre-Christian Iceland. Her mother is an Irish Christian captured and beloved by her Viking owner. After her mother's death, Katla follows her master to Greenland. There she is violently raped by her owner's son, who leaves her scarred and pregnant. As an act of protection, she is sold to Thorbjorg, a pagan seer. When Katla rejects her baby, Thorbjorg takes the baby, Bibrau, as her apprentice. Bibrau becomes both powerful and vengeful, and when Leif Eriksson brings Christians to Greenland, Bibrau is part of a tragic culture clash. This somewhat melodramatic novel, told in alternating viewpoints, runs a little long. The Christian-pagan clash and mystical feminism have echoes of The Mists of Avalon, but the lack of a familiar background, landscape, or characters may make it intimidating for those not already interested in the time period. Marta Segal
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 450 pages
• Publisher: Plume (December 26, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452288177
• ISBN-13: 978-0452288171
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,425,304 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I am the author of The Thrall's Tale, a novel about three women in the first Viking Age settlement in Greenland in A.D. 985 (Viking 2006, paperback soon from Plume). I came to writing after nearly a decade pursuing a career in dance and theater. My work has been published in magazines and journals, including Archaeology Magazine and in connection with the Smithsonian exhibit Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good read, January 19, 2006

By 

Marilyn Dalrymple "MaLing" (Lancaster, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Thrall's Tale (Hardcover)

Lyrically written and showing great care with research and historical detail, The Thrall's Tale is an engaging and challenging read. Much of the language is unfamiliar to modern times, but it isn't hard to figure out the words' meanings when put into context with the writing on the pages. The language adds to the authenticity of the story immensely.
Set in 895 A.D. in Greenland, each chapter in the 450-page novel is written from the viewpoints of each of three protagonists, Katla, Thorbjorg and Bibrau.
Katla, a beautiful slave, or thrall, is raped. The tenderhearted seeress, Thorbjorg, cares for Katla during her pregnancy and also cares for and raises Katla's daughter, Bibrau. Bibrau is born mute, and is hated by her mother and soon becomes to be seen by others as either an evil curse or a changeling. She quickly learns to twist the Norse wisdom and mysticism Thorbjorg teaches her to cause tragedy for all around.
The novel covers the introduction of Christianity to a pagan shores, which adds yet another layer of intrigue and drama to the story. The introduction of Christianity brings some hope of a better future for Katla, who has always worn, but hidden her mother's rosary. Katla's life has not all been painful and difficult, however, she has the love of Ossur, a man who treats her with gentleness, and now the promise of a God who forgives trespasses and tells of hope.
This isn't a book you will sit down and finish in one reading. There is much to follow, the language is one most are not used to, and the detailed history, heritage and mythology of the Vikings can be a little difficult to follow, although these elements are what add depth and drama to the story.
Author Judith Lindbergh worked on The Thrall's Tale for ten years and her previous work, including a project in connection with the Smithsonian's exhibition of Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga, allowed her to add great detail and many facts to the novel.
There are maps in the front of the book of the Austerbygd or East Settlement of Greenland, A.D. 1000. This brings the location of all that is happening to life. Historical Notes in the back of the book tell the meanings of the history, mythology and the-story-behind-the-story of The Thrall's Tale.
The characters are strong, and real. Katla touched my heart, Birbau mystified me and several of the characters repulsed me (they were supposed to). The scenes are filled with sensorial details, making me very glad I live in this day and age, but these smells, textures, sights and sounds place the reader right in the scene with the characters.
If you enjoy history, are of Scandinavian descent, you will have a special interest in this novel. Or, if you just want to read an enthralling book, The Thrall's Tale is definitely for you.

<Reviewer>Marilyn Dalrymple

23 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "I warn- the future can't be bought or begged or stole!", January 19, 2006

By 

Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Thrall's Tale (Hardcover)

The Thrall's Tale is eerily atmospheric, submerged in the 9th century, where pagan gods have not yet clashed with Christian and a great outpouring of the Norse sail from Iceland to Greenland in hopes of a more fertile and sustaining environment. Tragedy both great and small is enacted against the canvas of history and the intimacy of a seer's hearth, as three women, Thorbjorg the Seeress, Katla the thrall and Katla's daughter, the voiceless Bibrau, engage in a battle for daily survival in a world of rapidly diminishing options. Theirs is a harsh existence; at the mercy of nature's bounty or lack of, the women worn by drudgery, Thorbjorg casts runes and offers homage to a ravenous Odin, the one-eyed pagan god.

Katla is a slave, a thrall, her beauty of little use in this harsh landscape, save to spark a small passion for a freeman that can never be: "No woman who is a thrall should dare to dream." Even her limited future is brutally altered by a sudden violence that leaves her stunned and despairing. Given into Thorbjorg's care, Katla remains separate, still a slave, but afforded succor as she labors a child into life. She sees her daughter, Bibrau, as evil and hateful, a tool of the dark side sent to torment her broken spirit. Bibrau feels her mother's disdain, soothed by the care of their mistress, but in her rage, the child grows bold, barely tempered by Thorbjorg, who gradually intuits her mistake in teaching the girl too much too quickly: "Each day she slips further from me, bewitched with her own beguilings, led by a bare, misguiding hand." Yet Bibrau learns, a dark hatred growing in her heart and a burning need to know the secrets that feed her power and her mischief; Katla can find no place in her heart for Bibrau: "Oh, this daughter- born out of my body, yet not of me or any of my mother- this child is a blood-let beast, just as her sire!"

The plague twins descend upon Thorbjorg's dwelling, a wide swath of death in their wake. Bibrau cares for the sick, delighting in the illness of two new Christian slaves, weaving her spells in the guise of solace, revenge sweet as is the silent torture of her mother, now deprived of her Christian friends. With naught but intuition, desperate for comfort, Katla clings to a few remembered phrases from her mother's holy lexicon: "Kyrie Eleison... Sancte Domine", a string of rosary beads clutched out of sight in her pocket. In Katla's entreaties of the white Christ, the seer senses the coming clash of religions. Beset by frightening visions, Thorbjorg offers gruesome sacrifices to Odin in hopes of deterring the future, "a newborn pig, a half-formed goat, a full-grown pregnant ewe". All are blighted by ignorance, superstition bred through fear. Meanwhile, Bibrau watches and learns, feeding on malevolence, drawing strength from vile incantations meant to cause mischief, or better, tragedy for Katla: "Love for her? Nay! What is love but simply useful?"

Lindbergh has crafted a masterful novel, civilization caught in the implacable jaws of history, as pagan gods clash with a dawning Christianity. Through the eyes of Thorbjorg, Katla and Bibrau, the past meshes with the future as change settles upon the continent. Leif Eriksson, Eirik the Red and the great figures of the 9th and 10th centuries are mere players in a drama wrought of smaller lives, ones forgotten in the tread of time, a women's world of seers, thralls and discontented daughters, where hearth and home beget passion, despair and a heartbreaking revenge. Luan Gaines/ 2006.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE THRALL'S TALE is, well, enthralling, October 27, 2006

By 

Cassie W. (Ohio) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Thrall's Tale (Hardcover)

The thrall's name is Katla, and her tale takes readers back in time a thousand years to a world that is utterly lost and unrelentingly cruel. The year is 985 A.D. Eirik Raude--known in Viking lore as Eric the Red--is leading an expedition from Iceland to the unexplored territory of Greenland. But this is no story about a hero and his conquests; THE THRALL'S TALE is about the women, the silent shadows left out of the Norse sagas.

Katla is a thrall, a slave, the daughter of an Irishwoman who was captured by the Vikings when she was pregnant. Although being a thrall is the only life she's ever known, Katla clings to the vestiges of her mother, embracing the Irishwoman's Christian beliefs. Katla is beautiful, but that means nothing in her world--except that she's singled out for ridicule by her master's son, Torvard. But Katla was named for "the fire under the mountain," and when she refuses Torvard's advances, the results are cataclysmic: She is left hideously deformed, brutally raped, and pregnant.

Thorbjorg, a prophetess of one-eyed Norse god Odin, takes Katla in, offering her comfort and a home during her pregnancy. It is at Thorbjorg's homestead that Katla's daughter, Bibrau, is born. As soon as Katla lays eyes on her daughter, she is reminded of Bibrau's brutal conception, and she vows not to love the child resulting from that hideous union. Thorbjorg takes mute Bibrau under her wing, teaching the girl everything she knows of the old ways. But Bibrau is twisted, perverse, obsessed with revenge, inflicting her whims and her strange powers on whomever and whatever she pleases.

And then Christianity arrives in Greenland. For Katla, its arrival means salvation, a chance for happiness--a way out. For Thorbjorg, it means a slow decay of her pagan rituals and runes and gods. And for Bibrau, it means the opportunity to destroy her mother forever. THE THRALL'S TALE takes readers back in time to an almost eerie civilization so removed from our own, at a time when the old ways clashed with the new, when survival depended upon the will of the gods, and when dreams could be fulfilled or destroyed with a toss of the rune sticks.

Scholar Judith Lindberth spent ten years writing and researching THE THRALL'S TALE, and it shows in the finished product. As a matter of fact, this may be the most authentic-feeling historical novel I've ever read. Her prose reads like epic poetry and, although it took me a few chapters to get used to the antiquated language, I ultimately found Lindbergh's writing to be captivating, atmospheric, and pleasing to read. Her descriptions are thorough, the novel is organized brilliantly (espcially at the end), and her characters are rendered with remarkable sensitivity. Katla, Thorbjorg, and Bibrau narrate the story in equal parts, and their voices are distinct. Ultimately, though, this is Katla's story -- this is the thrall's tale.

Make no mistake, though: I wouldn't necessary call this novel a "pleasant" one to read. The narrative is unflinchingly violent in some instances; there are some disturbing scenes, and the story is a severe one throughout. The novel also requires the reader to pay close attention to detail, and it must be followed closely to be fully understood and appreciated. Nevertheless, THE THRALL'S TALE is worth reading: Lindbergh's decade of research has resulted in a novel that paints a thorough picture of a gritty, almost surreal lost world.

I would recommend reading the Historical Notes at the end of the novel first, especially if you're interested in learning which characters in the book are based on fact. I read the Historical Notes after I finished the THE THRALL'S TALE, and I wish I would have read them first. I think if I had, I would have appreciated more the amount of research that went into writing this book.

I'd definitely recommend THE THRALL'S TALE, especially for lovers of historical fiction. This lyrical, epic novel took me on a journey and inspired me to research its subject further--and any book that can do that is definitely one that's worth reading.