Beyond the Northlands: Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas

by Eleanor Barraclough

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, encyclopaedic 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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Medieval, Historical, Medieval History, European History, Mythology

344 pages, Paperback

Published December 11, 2018

About the author

Dr Eleanor Barraclough is a historian, broadcaster and author. Her latest book is EMBERS OF THE HANDS: HIDDEN HISTORIES OF THE VIKING AGE. It was shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize, longlisted for the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction, chosen as a Times History Book of the Year, and selected as a New York Times Editor's Choice.

Eleanor is a BBC New Generation Thinker (although quite an old one now). She has made BBC documentaries on everything from apocalypses to zombies. She has jammed with viking musicians, cast spells with forest witches, and bathed in a frozen lake in search of immortality. She was once knighted with a walrus penis bone in Arctic Norway and inducted into the Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society.

In her academic life, Eleanor is Reader in Public History at Bath Spa University. She previously held positions at the universities of Oxford and Durham, and studied at the University of Cambridge. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of History, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

You can find her on Instagram @eleanorbarraclough

Reviews

[Gill · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars/ 10 out of 10

I was interested in reading this book, because I have recently been reading some Icelandic sagas.

I recommend this book wholeheartedly. Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough has written a fascinating book concerning the Sagas and how they link in with other background evidence. This book opens with one of the most interesting section of Acknowledgments that I have read for a long time. The photos and referencing are both excellent, and the included maps are useful.

The book is extremely well structured, both between and within chapters.
For example, in Chapter 6 'Westward Ho!', Barraclough starts with a very clear exposition of the geography, history, archaeology and ecology of Greenland. Later she turns to the Vinland Sagas, and links these to the factual information about Greenland. Other chapters are arranged in a similar fashion.

I thought this book was a very interesting and informative read. Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough can be well pleased with the volume that she has produced.

Thank you to Oxford University Press and to NetGalley for an ARC.

[Joanne Harris]

After judging a prize for first novels, I'm detoxing via non-fiction, and there's no better way to do it than with this excellent, erudite, yet light-hearted glimpse into Norse culture, exploration and the melding of story and history. Filled with interesting facts, pop culture references and quirky asides, this is an immensely appealing, accessible resource, whatever your level of knowledge.

[Sotiris Karaiskos · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book about the most important part of Vikings' history: their long journeys to the most remote areas, which we know through their recordings in the Norse Sagas. Through these recordings, we understand what caused them to take such risks, the difficulties they encountered, and the different ways they made them see the world. The author takes these stories, combines them with other historical facts and in a simple and comprehensible way gives us a short chronicle of this side of history. Of course this small size means that this is not a complete picture and this simplicity is manifested several times with a light tone that makes this book fun but sometimes it seemed annoying to me. Surely, however, this is an interesting book that contains many important details.

[Fran · Rating 5 out of 5]

The beginning of the Viking Age started AD 793. The Northmen were pagan pirates who plundered, pillaged and murdered monks or sold them into slavery. Legend has it that Great Heathen Armies led by Bjorn Ironside and Sigurd Snake in the Eye overtook Northumbria. Did this actually occur?

Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough takes us on a meticulously researched and detailed Norse journey. We learn some Old Norse words such as egg, husband and guest. The Viking DNA Project sampling the y-chromosome in males from Britain and Norway has found a commonality indicating that the area was settled by the Normans in the Middle Ages. Fascinating stuff!

Vikings are portrayed as ruthless. Vikings, however, traded with locals, explored and settled Greenland and Iceland. Different types of sagas emerged. Sagas, an oral history were told and retold. The sagas were based on fact, fiction and embellishment. The storyteller might misremember some sequences and replace others. Most sagas were recorded anonymously since the scribe only put pen to parchment recounting the tales told. This is a sampling of what can be gleaned from Beyond The Northlands, a book for lovers of Medieval Times. An excellent read.

Thank you Oxford University Press and Net galley for the opportunity to read and review Beyond The Northlands.

[Shane Findlay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read/studied many Viking Age novels/books/texts/etc inside and outside of academia. Although this wonderful account was not the most informative, it definitely was the book , I feel, that was the best written. So far. Just my opinion. Was a pleasure to read. Thank you, Eleanor! 5+⭐️

[Sasha]

Gill recommends this nonfiction book about the context of the Viking sagas. Sounds great!

[Fiona · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read some excellent books on Vikings, Iceland and Greenland. I had been looking out for one on the sagas and this seemed to tick the box. There is no doubt that Barraclough has produced a well researched, well structured, and well illustrated book. I couldn't get to grips with the chatty, informal writing however. Honestly, I just found it irritating, e.g. "Meet Thorolf, the Richard Branson of the saga world" feels like dumbing down to me. I tried to read it by skimming out those bits but there's too much of this extraneous and, I think, unnecessary material. Condensed, I believe I could have enjoyed this book. In its current format, I didn't. The cynic in me says that she wrote it in the hope that it will become a tv documentary series. It may well do and I would definitely watch it.

The highlight for me was the quote from The Times, 16/04/14, at the beginning: "A longboat full of Vikings, promoting the new British Museum exhibition, was seen sailing past the Palace of Westminster yesterday. Famously uncivilised, destructive and rapacious, with an almost insatiable appetite for rough sex and heavy drinking, the MPs nonetheless looked up for a bit to admire the vessel."

Thanks to NetGalley and University of Oxford Press for an ARC.

[Jera Em · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book does a really good job of introducing the Vikings. I feel like I have a much better grasp of what they did as a people (I had no idea they traded all the way out in the Middle East!) and of their sagas, which comprise the bulk of this book. It turns out that most of what we know of the Vikings is from these sagas and extrapolating from archaeological sites, which I found very interesting. "Viking" is also a somewhat misleading term; it encompasses several related cultures who went on vikings. Essentially, excursions to other lands that may or may not have involved pillaging (but often did). I really enjoyed reading this and look forward to reading more by the author--she had a good tone throughout the book and it was very well researched--and more about the Vikings in general!

[Darrin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I knew nothing about the Old Norse Sagas prior to reading this book, or perhaps I should say, I only knew as much as I had gleaned from the pages of the Lord of the Rings which I have read and re-read ten or more times...

I have had little interest in Vikings. I knew of them...I learned what I learned in school...but, unlike a host of other historical peoples and cultures, the Norse and their history has not been something that has caught my attention.

I am a bit of an armchair archaeologist, however, and recently there have been a number of discoveries in northern Europe and recently here on the coast of North America, which have spurred me to learn more.

Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough's book is really well done and she managed to do what all good books do, in my opinion...made me want to learn more. I was particularly interested in the chapters regarding the Rus and the Varangian Guard in Constantinople.

I want to thank @Oxford University Press and the author for selecting me as a winner in this giveaway. Beyond the Northlands is a very good book and I am happy to add it to my shelf.

[Lanko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty surprising with plenty of facts I guess most people don't know about Vikings and the North in general.

The book is divided into five parts: An introduction to Vikings and then, curiously, directions. North, West, East and South.
It does have tons of reports, studies and documents that Vikings (or people from the Northlands) were all over the world, from further north to Jerusalem, to Africa to the Byzantine Empire.

Also some curious stories and characters and plenty of references to other sagas, manuscripts and translations of other works, which are always handy in case you are doing research.

I received this from Netgalley. It's also a work produced in Oxford.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating look at Vikings. Barraclough does a great job of sifting away the pop culture around Vikings to find not only the more accurate history, but also their own mythology and imagination about their world. The structure of the book, organized around the four directions on the compass, helps keep the information from getting cluttered or confusing. The writing is fresh and energetic, and even if it sometimes gets a little too casual, it's still a great way to learn a lot. A lot of "popular" history prefers to keep its research in the background - bonus points if you aren't an academic yourself. Barraclough is an academic, and she foregrounds the scholarship and research she's done, which makes the easy reading experience that much more impressive, and the final product that much more rewarding. Plus, the sagas are totally bonkers - as the book points out, the summaries can be a lot more fun to read than the actual sagas, but this book is full of excellent summaries, and they're super fun!

[Linda Harkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this slowly and carefully due to extensive footnotes, and it was NOT easy reading. The author informs us that the Norse sagas were actually written many years after the events but NOT in Norway; rather, they were written in Iceland. Intrepid explorers, the Vikings sailed not only to Iceland, Greenland, the British Isles, and Canada, but also to Russia. There they launched pilgrimages to Rome and Jerusalem and even served in the Varangian Guard for the emperor in the "Big City" that we know today as Istanbul. The author places less emphasis on the Vikings as plunderers and more on their abilities as adventurers and traders.

[Kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating study of just how far traveled the Nordic people were in all directions - with surprising traces of them left behind in far flung places such as Canada, Turkey, Russia, Egypt.

A light, chatty tone that, in not taking the subject matter to seriously, reminds the reader just how relatablely human these people were.

[Ian McKinley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this overview of Norse exploration. Much of the information comes from sifting through the Icelandic sagas, but there are impressions of Scandanavians as written by Caliphate diplomats based out of Baghdad, accounts written by daughters of Byzantine emperors, as well as English court scribes.

sagas

[Alex Sarll]

In Britain we generally hear about the Northmen as they appeared to terrified churchmen of the Dark Ages, albeit with that perspective often filtered through the further distortions of later romancers. Barraclough's project here is to give us the Norse as they appeared to themselves - diving into their sagas, seeing how they match up with external evidence, and asking what we can learn from the discrepancies. And yes, sometimes it's just the obvious - if you take a #ladsontour account that hasn't even the limited anchoring in reality which Instagram &c oblige, and then it gets passed on for decades or centuries before anyone writes it down, you're going to get a degree of exaggeration. On the other hand, there are other sagas - generally the ones heading for Iceland or Greenland - which are sufficiently detailed and accurate that you can still use them to navigate the sites today. And of course, while we now tend to think of 'the Vikings' as a homogeneous mass, a) they weren't even 'the Vikings' - Viking being something you did rather than something you were and b) depending how you draw the lines, they were knocking around for centuries, centuries which encompassed all manner of changes (though as we learn here, even the gradual conversion to christianity seems seldom to have amounted to much past a slight change of the excuse for why you were killing the other guy and nicking his stuff). And over that time, the sagas - often a polyphonic form at least as much as an authored one - evolve and twist, both within a given saga and across the form as a whole. There's a particularly interesting section on this as regards Greenland, where as Norse habitation retreats what was once depicted in detail, and as a place normal people live, increasingly gets sketchier, more folkloric, gradually devolving into a vague and ominous haunt of monsters.

Alternately - and the book is divided by compass quadrants - you can travel south and east, where you really don't want to trust the sagas too far for navigation, never mind the information about dog-headed men and the like. Rome was very much a plot token kind of place to the christian Norse, somewhere to tick off rather than describe in detail. Not like Constantinople or, as they called it, Miklagard - the Big City. A place which was described lovingly and ridiculously - if the streets weren't quite paved with gold, it's along those lines. And where, which for obvious reasons gratified me, the Norse referred to the Byzantine Emperors by the Caesar-style generic name Kirialex - Lord Alex. But wherever you go, there you are, and particularly in describing it to the rubes back home, you can only reach for a limited and familiar set of similes. Hence the wonderfully bathetic quotation from a saga in which the mightiest city of the age is described in terms of structural comparisons to a northern walled farmstead.

And then there's the North, because even the Northmen still look to the North and wonder about the strange and dangerous folk up there. Their relationship with the weird and witchy folk we would now call the Sami is treated in particular detail, and there are hints of the process where, just as some think Britain's own little folk are a distorted memory of marginalised predecessor races, so the same might have made the Sami into the sagas' trolls. But if so, they were perhaps only one tributary of a more complicated myth-weaving, and Barraclough doesn't overstress the parallels. Indeed, her writing is generally pitched pretty well, aside from the slightly annoying tendency to describe all the sagas' undead manifestations (and they are many and various) with the catch-all 'zombie', despite their generally having more agency than that description quite fits. Still, for every one of her modern references that doesn't quite work (the 'booty call' joke in particular occasioned a bit of a sigh) there are two or three that land, and she's especially funny on the mediaeval bestiaries in which the pictures somehow excel even the daftness of the critters' descriptions. And then beyond the wider lineaments there are the curious little details - who knew that there were Europeans in Greenland before the Inuit moved in*, say? And while I was dimly aware that Harald Hardrada had been as far as Byzantium before he ended up dead in Yorkshire, I had been quite unaware that with Edward III, the line of Harold Godwinson regained the English throne.

*Though maybe let's hope that particular detail doesn't spread too widely, eh, given the use the new right might make of it as the habitable zone moves northwards.

(Netgalley ARC)

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book. Since I am of Swedish and German background it was great to learn about the history of the Vikings. well written, and interesting.

[Takumo-N · Rating 4 out of 5]

With breezy prose, revision of Sagas and archeology Eleanor talks about the history of the Scandinavians through their travels to the four cardinal points, what they actually encounter and could've seen and the reasons of their travels (money, fame, prestige) comparing it all with the fantasy of their folklore. She takes some of these travels through famous bodies of water, and even with a modern boat with engine and everything it is still a difficult trip, imagine 1200 years ago. It is very easy to read and goes by like a crystalline river.

But after the adventures are over, after the people are gone, after the boats, buildings, and bones have started to crumble into the ground, only the stories remain. The rest is silence.

[Sarah - All The Book Blog Names Are Taken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic read. There's so much here that I never knew about the Vikings - though this is a catch-all term. Full review to come.

++++++++++++++

I received a free copy of this digital ARC via NetGalley from Oxford University Press in exchange for an honest review.

I am way late to the party on this one, having received it in October of 2016. I got sidetracked by my own writing projects, but there's really no excuse. Nonetheless, I am so incredibly glad I finally got around to this one because it was, in short, fantastic. This review may be on the sparse side, as once I started reading I could hardly put the book down and as such, I only stopped maybe twice to make notes of items I wanted to include in my review.

I never realized how much I did not know about the Vikings, or Norsemen, or whatever other catch-all term can be used to describe the explorers, raiders, looters, etc. Perhaps because of my own singular focus on the history of the UK, and I never gave it much thought that they would travel to other lands as well, eventually assimilating much as they did in England as well.

I was unsure what to expect in terms of how much the book would simply be a translation of the Sagas. While I find them interesting, I am no really wanting to read them as a whole. I enjoy snippets, but I also like my history concrete and factual. The Sagas containing the other-worldly beings are not of much interest, despite my fascination with the Norse travelers. What I appreciated then, is that the author used both sets of information, the history that we do know, as well as how the Sagas portrayed events and travels. Often, weird creatures aside, the information lines up rather well, which was really cool to see. Kind of amazing too, considering that so many of the Sagas were written long after the fact. We get tons of background information in this text and it all meshes together so well, painting as complete a portrait as possible of the Norse warriors/travelers/etc. Seriously, I do not really even know what to call them. Excuse my laziness, but from here on out I will simply refer to them as Norsemen, despite the fact that it is not entirely accurate and also because there were of course Norse women too.

You can find the rest of my review on my blog at:

https://allthebookblognamesaretaken.b...

[booksofallkinds · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ever since my days of school I have always found the topic of Vikings fascinating, so when I got the opportunity to review this non-fiction book I was delighted, and BEYOND THE NORTHLANDS by Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough definitely does not disappoint. From geography to history, ecology to archaeology, this book opens up the sagas and Viking world for everyone to behold. You do not have to be a history buff to delight in this book - with a straightforward layout, and written in an informal style, this well-researched narrative is an easy and enjoyable read. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone who has an interest in the Vikings.

*I voluntarily reviewed this book from Netgalley.com

[Raven · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful reversal of many of the expected tropes of history books, "Beyond the Northlands" looks at the Vikings from within their own worldview, as they relate to their geographic neighbors and tell stories about those interactions. The author's breezy yet scholarly style seamlessly incorporates lightsaber fights and sea-spanning sagas, bringing into context who the dangerous people were, who the magic people, who the trading people. Far more fun than it had any right to be, I'll be keeping an eye out for other works from the same author.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a complete novice when it comes to Norse culture, and this book was a good introduction (beyond the mythology, at least, which I've read a few books on, plus the Thor movies, of course). Barraclough has a fun voice, with plenty of sassy asides and some pop culture references that kept me attached to her writing. I felt like I was almost more in a lecture hall with a funny, nerdy professor than reading a nonfiction account of old Norse sagas at times, and I appreciated that.

[Brad Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books on Medieval Icelandic life and writing bar none. E.R. Barraclough writes with wit and scholarly precision, like a juggler on a unicycle, much snarlier than it looks. It still qualifies as fairly academic in tone, but achieves mass appeal in its voice and style. Barraclough pens beautiful lines, even moving lightly through thickets of linguistic, literary, and historical controversy. At one point, she takes up Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed for a whopping, writing on the topic of the withering away of the Norse Settlement in Greenland "As is often the way with historians the explanation du jour may say as much about current events as historical realities." She writes about many of the more obscure sagas, quoting often prurient or comic or pithy lines from her own translations.

Barraclough also demonstrates an outstanding sense of humor, for an academic or anyone. She writes about herself in the third person, detailing her own trips and experiences of traipsing around Greenlandic meadows as if she is a general person. She finds it expedient and amusing to reference contemporary pop culture such as the cartoon "Asterix and the Normans" and Urban Dictionary. She describes going Viking sort of like “a gap year for wealthy students” and Viking bands as “rugby squadish.” She does deep dives on medieval Saga manuscripts, but also points to what's written in the margins of these aged, calfkin parchments: "I feel I have been a long time alone in the scriptorium", "writing bores me," and "you do me wrong, Dori, you never give me enough fish." And all this in a book published by the Oxford University Press! What an achievement.

It's hard to shake the feeling that Barracloug was having as much fun writing this book are as you are reading it. The books is cleverly organized. Four central chapters take off from the cardinal directions, following Vikings as they voyage North, South, East, and West. Most of what we think we know of the Vikings comes from Western Europe's run-in with the heathen scourge of the North. But there's so much more. Barraclough takes us, through the sagas, skaldic poems, and other literature of Medieval Scandinavians, around the world, as those people traded, adventured, and ranged to the Siberian Coast, Russian rivers, Constantinople, Baghdad, and Newfoundland.

Barraclough's draws amazing connections across continents. She writes about why the Nazis messed up our ability to record and understand Russian history and its Scandinavian influences; how the Kievan Rus, a dynastic federation started by Scandinavians, lay siege to and sacked Constantinople and were then coopted into the Byzantine structure by bribery and honors; and how pagan Vikings became Christian and turned their the "desire for adventure, excitement, and a tidy profit" into a crusading zeal. The book is beautifully illustrated with pop culture iconography, old maps, and pieces of manuscripts. It will delight and educate and repay your time greatly.

[Alexandria · Rating 4 out of 5]

A topic as convoluted and far-reaching as Norse Sagas can be a dense read and this book was no exception. It was, however, a lot of fun to read. Barraclough includes enough primary reference material in the form of direct quotes and images that the reader feels closer to the topic than most history books manage to get us. And with something like the Norse Sagas requires a front-row seat. I was a little perplexed that she only covered post-conversion Norse history but I suppose it makes some form of sense when many of the voyages (many, but not all) beyond the Northlands occurred after the majority of the Norse people had converted if only nominally. It also doesn't help that most of the Sagas were written down by people with Christian religious influences, which led to editing and adaptations of the original tails to suit that purpose. Still entertaining!

I would love to see as an-depth a book written in Barraclough's wry and engaging style that focuses on the pre-conversion Norse population.

[Susan Marrier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough has written an eminently readable, entertaining, and informative book about the Norse from the 8th to the 12th centuries, and their travels from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark westward as far as North America, north to the Arctic, east into Russia and India, and south into the Middle East and Africa. Her research is based largely on the Icelandic sagas, which were written down as much as two centuries after the fact and a fascinating mixture of fact and imagination. She has supplemented her research with archeological evidence and writings from other cultures as well; but the narrative is never bookish; in fact, the characters are brought vividly to life, with all of their human foibles, strengths, and weaknesses. The landscapes also are vivid, almost with a life of their own; and Ms. Barraclough, obviously happily immersed in her subject, brings many touches of sometimes anachronistic humour. Highly recommended; you will know the Vikings and their world as never before.

[Bill Leach · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book takes a different approach to Norse history by following their travels as recorded in the sagas. The book is divided into travels in four directions.
- north: along the coast of Norway past Finnmark to the White Sea
- west: to Greenland and the coast of North America
- east: to Kievan Russia and the Volga
- south: to Constantinople and Jerusalem

Throughout, the record in the sagas is tested against other evidence, including historical records by other authors. The author adds much detail, giving a sense of the personalities of the persons who carried out the various explorations. Quotations are included to give a flavor of the times.

Barraclough writes with some dry humor, noting that "Few things were more embedded in the Norse DNA than the desire for adventure, excitement and a tidy profit".

This book is an especially readable account of the Viking's travels.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an entertaining pop history read, following Viking voyages from the far North, west to North America, east to Russia, Constantinople, and points further south. Barraclough traces her narrative through Old Norse sagas, and she clearly has a scholar's grasp of her material.

I found the chapters on the Arctic, Iceland, and Greenland fascinating; generally, as the narrative ventured farther from the Norse homelands, I found it more speculative and less tightly written. The light conversational style had grown a bit tired by that point as well. Every once in awhile, it reads more like a contemporary travelogue, which I found slightly distracting.

There are nice maps and images throughout, but these were difficult to view on my Kindle.

Thanks to Netgalley and OUP for this ARC.

[Carl · Rating 5 out of 5]

A geographically based scholarly (but eminently readable) guide to the Old Norse sagas. Barraclough, uses the sagas as a means to explore Medieval Nordic culture and its far reaching affects on the world, as well as how the far traveling Norse were affected themselves by their journeys.

Divided by the Cardinal points of a Compass (North, West, East South), Beyond guides the reader through a beautifully constructed reading of the sagas gleaning meaningful insights into the history of the Norse and medieval Europe from the more fantastical clashes with imaginary beasts.

Barraclough's writing style is easy and non academic filled with rich, often comedic asides. this is meant for a general curious reader who wants to know more about the Norse, their sagas and their place in the larger world.

An excellent voyage through the Viking world via the sagas the Norse wrote.

[Jake M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eleanor Barraclough's book is a rare, pitch-perfect approach to medieval history that doesn't claim to know all answers, blending speculation with established fact. Beyond the Northlands uses the Norse sagas as a conduit through which to analyze viking travels, north, south east and west. The text makes the reader consider three perspectives: what may have actually happened, how the sagas depicted these events through the centuries, and how historians consider both to analyze and deduce claims or evidence to reconstruct the world the vikings inhabited. The structure of the book is largely organized by the direction of travel, with some contextual chapters early on to orientate the reader. Barraclough gives a fun, playful and relatable analysis which works well considering that there are many factual blindspots in the Norse sagas and the wider medieval world. This is an accessible, original, entertaining and essential read for the causal and academic reader alike.

[Robin Braysher · Rating 5 out of 5]

To my mind this book is an adult 'Horrible History' - and I mean that as a compliment. Thoroughly researched and with all the Norse translations done by the author (!), it is erudite and academic but great fun and a pleasure to read. It's funny and - as a non-specialist reader- I find the modern allusions, comparisons and references helpful and, in many cases, really funny. It has certainly broadened my view of the 'Northmen', taking them way beyond the classic view of fierce men in horned helmets (no!) crashing ashore in dragon boats to loot and destroy English monasteries. This book sees them in North America, Russia, Byzantium as well as more likely locations, such as Greenland and Iceland. There is clearly so much more to the sagas than I ever imagined. And who doesn't like a troll? As long as it's safely in a story, of course!

[Jon Greenlander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very light and easy to read without having to resort to crackpot territory. This is by a scholar who knows how to write engagingly, so it’s always nice to see something about Norse exploration written for a wide audience that doesn’t go all Ancient Aliens.

I’d rather see people pick up this as an introduction to Norse Greenland and Vinland than turn to a non-specialist like Jared Diamond, or worse, a kook who thinks Norse explorers made it to Oklahoma or whatever. While this looks like it sold decently, it deserved a bigger audience than it got. It also gives a lot of attention to the wilder stories and myths that medieval sources tell about Greenland, which most academics don’t bother to recount, so that’s fun too.

Anyway, if you like this and want to get deeper into Norse Greenland or Vinland, pick up “The Frozen Echo” or the Penguin “Vinland Sagas” collection.