The Far Traveler — Voyages of a Viking Woman

by Nancy Marie Brown; published in October 2007 by Harcourt in New York, New York; 320 pages; hardcover; $25.

Reviewed by Jennifer Hersey Cleveland

East Burke author Nancy Marie Brown has combined just about every discipline of academia in her riveting analysis of Icelandic sagas.  Specifically, Ms. Brown focuses on the life of an Icelandic woman who traveled farther than many of her male contemporaries — a woman named Gudrid.

Ms. Brown uses history, psychology, geography, geology, anthropology, archaeology, and astronomy to describe the way of life of Iceland’s people 1,000 years ago.  She writes in a conversational manner, and the reader feels as if she is walking along Iceland’s rugged and unforgiving coast with Ms. Brown and her fellow researchers, turning each stone in the hope of unearthing clues that show what life was like then.

Practicing archaeology in Iceland is not as easy as in other locales.  The word ransack comes from the Icelandic word rannsaka, which means “to research” or “to investigate.” As Ms. Brown describes it, “…as for digging on purpose in historical spots, the official position is that Iceland’s history is far safer left in the ground.”

The book opens at what was once called Glaumbaer, at the remains of Gudrid’s longhouse in northern Iceland, where the story ends after Gudrid’s seventh sea voyage, a pilgrimage to Rome after she converted to Christianity.

Gudrid only appears in two sagas, both describing a voyage across the Atlantic to Vinland — The Saga of Eirik the Red and The Saga of the Greenlanders.  In Ms. Brown’s research, she found that Gudrid was considered wise and beautiful, that she knew how to get along with strangers, and that she was a good singer.  Who better to represent the Vikings when they entered foreign lands?

“The two sagas also imply that the Vinland expedition itself was her idea….  And, unlike many saga women who expressed a desire to join their men a-voyaging, Gudrid was never left behind to mind the cows. Time and again, she got on that ship. Realizing this — that it was Gudrid who was the explorer, not just her husband — I knew that if I were to pick a saga role-model, Gudrid would be it,” Ms. Brown writes.

In the two sagas, two very different Gudrids are described, which is not uncommon in this type of storytelling.  For instance, one Gudrid is wealthy and happy; one is destitute and alone.

Ms. Brown acknowledges that scientists have had a hard time believing some details of the sagas (such as Leif Eiriksson discovering America 500 years before Columbus) while other details are too fanciful to be believed (such as the appearance of trolls, werewolves, and one-footed humanoids).

But, Ms. Brown argues, the saga writers were trying to entertain whilst maintaining history for future generations.  Every story became more grandiose than the truth, but elements of truth remain in the sagas.

“Saga-truth assumes that both Vinland tales are at bottom ‘accurate,’ based on stories passed down from generation to generation from Gudrid’s day to the 1200s,” Ms. Brown writes.

Women in the Iceland of long ago were an aggressive bunch who lived their lives as they wished and had much power in decision making, especially when it came to their sex lives.  When illegitimate children were born, men were punished for it rather than women and children.  Virginity was not highly prized, and women did not have to explain their reasons for choosing men other than their husbands.

“In fact, the ‘maiden in distress’ is notably missing in the Icelandic sagas,” Ms. Brown writes.

Anyone familiar with Viking sagas will note that the men were not exactly effeminate. They are remembered for their bravery and adventurous spirits and for their “frantic machismo,” as noted by Carol Clover, a scholar at the University of California at Berkeley.

Ms. Brown writes, “A Viking’s character was not either male or female, but lay on a spectrum ranging from strong to weak, aggressive to passive, powerful to powerless, winner or loser….”

Gudrid was described as a skörungur, meaning “bravehearted, high-spirited, remarkable, capable, bold, a winner, a survivor,” Ms. Brown writes.

One of the most captivating aspects of the book is how Ms. Brown identifies with Gudrid. “One a bright, breezy, warm July day like this one, Gudrid would have been raking hay to dry it…  You didn’t make hay while the sun shines in old Iceland; the grass cut more easily if it was wet.  You hauled it, wet, up from the meadows to the house on horseback.  Then, on a sunny day… you spread it in the fenced-in homefield and raked it until it was dry.  That was women’s work.  Gudrid would have gotten sunburned that day.”

A point that has bothered many a scientist is guessing at the modern-day location of Vinland. Researchers have surmised that Vinland is as far north as Greenland and as far south as Georgia, but two scientists have found much evidence to support their theory — that the part of Vinland visited by Leif Eiriksson is now L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland.  And butternuts found there suggest that the Vikings traveled as far south as New England.  Ms. Brown devotes an entire chapter to her analysis of the many theories.

Ms. Brown describes many aspects of Icelandic life — the construction of Viking ships (or the “swift greyhounds of the oceans,” as described by one writer); textile production, which was a major source of income for Icelandic families; setting a course for unknown lands, and in turn, being blown off course; the long process of cutting and drying turf to build the traditional longhouses; and love-making practices, such as a woman signaling her desire by picking lice from a man’s hair.  The Far Traveler also looks at farming, cheese-making, climate change, the advent of Christianity, and strandhögg, the practice of invading someone else’s land and stealing what you wish.

Readers may get bogged down by seemingly unpronounceable names, but they should continue on, for The Far Traveler is a remarkable story about a remarkable woman.