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The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman Hardcover – October 9, 2007

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Nancy Marie Brown (Author)
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Nancy Marie Brown (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars 53 customer reviews
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Harcourt; 1 edition (October 9, 2007)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 015101440X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0151014408
  • Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #813,876 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsRemarkable Perspective on the Norse World
By Patrick J. Stevens on October 15, 2007
Format: Hardcover
Nancy Marie Brown's The Far Traveler is a wonderfully intelligent and immediate narrative not only of the journeys of Gudrid, the Icelandic colonist of North America around the year 1000 who also made a pilgrimage to Rome, but also of the dangerous world and harsh climate she inhabited--and how her people, the Icelanders and Greenlanders, sustained their way of life in the North Atlantic environment.

With little known from the Icelandic sagas about the life of Gudrid, author Brown makes excellent use of a range of sources to reconstruct the Norse world, recounting along the way her own work as a volunteer archaeologist at Glaumbaer in Iceland, likely Gudrid's last home. Not to be forgotten among these sources of information are the experimental archaeologists who have built replicas of Viking ships and, as important, have reconstructed the techniques of women's work in the Norse world, so much of it based on the economically vital production of cloth from wool.

I highly recommend this engaging, fluently written, deeply researched book.

--Patrick J. Stevens, curator, Fiske Icelandic Collection, Cornell University Library
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5.0 out of 5 starsVivid Account of Viking Life
By Bruce Trinque VINE VOICE on September 23, 2007
Format: Hardcover
The far-traveling Viking woman of the title was Gudrid Thorbjarnardottir, once a sister-in-law of Leif Eirikson and reputedly the mother of the first European child born in North America. The little which is known specifically of Gudrid comes from two Icelandic sagas: "Eirik the red's Saga" and "The Greenlanders' Saga", but even those two sources disagree with one another about details of Gudrid's life. What we can be reasonably sure of is that Gudrid was born in Iceland, traveled to the new Norse Greenland colonies in about the year 1000, became a ward of Eirik the Red, and married his son, Thorstein, who soon died. Widowed, Gudrid then married the Icelandic merchant Thorfinn Karlsefni, apparently convinced Karlsefni to attempt colonization of the newly discovered Vinland, lived with her husband for three years in Vinland -- at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, it seems -- giving birth to a son, Snorri, then returned to Greenland and then back to Iceland, where Karlsefni died. In later life, Gudrid may have made a pilgrimage to Rome and returned to Iceland to die a nun.

With so few details of Gudrid's life certain, the greatest part of Nancy Marie Brown's book is devoted to exploring what we know of Viking life, especially in Iceland, and what we don't know, plus a first-hand account of Brown's experiences as a volunteer archaeologist at the site of what appears to be Gudrid's final home in Iceland. Along the way, the author discusses the nature of Icelandic sagas and the fine Viking arts of cheese-making and weaving. All this is done in an engaging manner that brings Gudrid (and modern Iceland) fully to life.

My only real criticism of the book is that it could have benefited from additional maps and from diagrams of the Norse ruins at L'Anse aux Meadows and of Gudrid's Icelandic farm at Glaumbaer.
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5.0 out of 5 starsA powerful book!
By Gisli Palsson on September 25, 2007
Format: Hardcover
A powerful book. The Far Traveler is a striking play with some of the concepts of the age that it relates. In saga time, divinatory practice was said to open up the past, revealing hidden information about people and their (wrong)doings. This book represents remote sensing in a dual sense; not only does it provide an illuminating account of high-tech archaeology and the ways in which it gazes beyond the surface layers of modern Icelandic farmland, also, and more importantly, it convincingly reconstructs a series of spectacular events from distant times and contexts. Thanks to Nancy Marie Brown's vivid imagination, detailed research, and, above all, skilful narration, the brave world of Gudrid finally gets the treatment it truly deserves. A moving and gripping account, in a language strangely reminiscent of the saga style. Gisli Palsson, author of Travelling Passions: The Hidden Life of Vilhjalmur Stefansson
Travelling Passions: Stefansson, the Arctic Explorer
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5.0 out of 5 starsFascinating, solid
By C. Ebeling on December 29, 2007
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
I am just a general reader who happens to enjoy well-written history. I've never read much at all about the Vikings but the NY Times review of THE FAR TRAVELER was enticing and I was not let down by its promise. Nancy Marie Brown has reached back to a place and people obscured by time, doing a decent job of erasing some of the fog and cold desolation that obscure the Dark Ages and Medieval Epoch in Iceland and Greenland. She also succeeds in revealing a lot about contemporary archaeological practice and thought.

Brown turns first to the Sagas, the 10th and 11th century tales of Vikings, for inspiration. Though embroidered, the Sagas, written down some generations later, are regarded as holding historical memories. Brown focuses on one woman who appears in both the Eirik the Red and Greenland Sagas as her guide, Gudrid, who traveled from Iceland to Greenland to Vinland, back to Iceland and remarkably, in later age, on a pilgrimage to Rome. Her son Snorri was very likely the first European child born on North American soil, circa 1005. Her personal story reveals much about religion, economics, gender relations, values, world view and other aspects of her culture. Born late in the 10th century AD, she witnessed the spread of Christianity and the fading of the violent marauding male economy as the domestic textile industry spun by women on the farm began to reposition Iceland in the world trade scene. Brown travels to all of the places Gudrid did, reads scholarship on her topic and participates in archaeological digs and recreation of weaving studios.

The digs at L'Anse Aux Meadows, Newfoundland, have been reported on before, but Brown brings a fresh fascination to them in the context of Gudrid's life.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsAnother rewarding read from Namcy Marie Brown

For readers pursuing Brown's engaging thinking about the Lewis Chessmen, this book offers more integrated background from study of the interrelated sagas and gives first hand... Read more

Published 26 days ago by Karen R. Pope
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Fascinating covering both the historical saga and the contemporary involvement of the author in archeology.

Published 4 months ago by Selden Hall
4.0 out of 5 starsthis is a very good read.

This book is both history and contemporary archaeology and excavation.
For those interested in Nordic history, the Icelandic Sagas, or the exploits of medieval women, this is... Read more

Published 4 months ago by Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsColorful and Rich Overview of the Viking Age

This is a fantastic and colorful, rich overview of the viking age, through the lens of Gudrid's life and the struggle to sift the fact from the fiction of the sagas. Read more

Published 5 months ago by Amalia T
3.0 out of 5 starsThree Stars

Too difficult to follow - not a page turner

Published 5 months ago by Ann-Marie Carlson
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Great condition

Published 10 months ago by Alise Kuhn
4.0 out of 5 starsthe book is in good condition.

I ordered a brand new book and when I received my order in the mail, the book was brand new except a few minor things. Read more

Published 11 months ago by Layla Bueling
2.0 out of 5 starsGudrid Who?

Although there are a few interesting stories and facts in this book, it is not well organized overall, and the internal organization of the chapters was precarious. Read more

Published 11 months ago by Kathleen
4.0 out of 5 starsGood Read

This wasn't exactly the book I thought it was going to be, but I learned a lot about the times that Gudrid lived in. Read more

Published 12 months ago by reader
5.0 out of 5 starsA must-have!

Nancy M. Brown does a wonderful job at bringing history to life through her very capable writing and story-telling ability. Read more

Published 13 months ago by Heather OBrien

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