supercheesegirl

Full title: The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman. This was a really interesting look at the life of a Viking woman. Brown reads the Icelandic sagas and other primary source texts, but she also visits the sites where Gudrid supposedly lived, goes on an archaeological dig, and learns to spin wool and built a longship. The historical information on Gudrid's pilgrimage to Rome is sketchy, and so Brown's speculations on that are limited and on rather shaky ground, but everything else is beautifully researched and well done. Brown's enthusiastic obsession with her topic shines through!