The Ice-Shirt: Volume One of Seven Dreams: A Book of North American LandscapesA majestic fictional evocation of the Norse arrival in the New World, from the National Book Award-winning author of Europe Central The time is the tenth century A.D. The newcomers are a proud and bloody-minded people whose kings once changed themselves into wolves. The Norse have advanced as implacably as a glacier from Iceland to the wastes of Greenland and from there to the place they call "Vinland the Good." The natives are a bronze-skinned race who have not yet discovered iron and still see themselves as part of nature. As William T. Vollmann tells the converging stories of these two peoples--and of the Norsewomen Freydis and Gudrid, whose venomous rivalry brings frost into paradise--he creates a tour-de-force of speculative history, a vivid amalgam of Icelandic saga, Inuit creation myth, and contemporary travel writing that yields a new an utterly original vision of our continent and its past. |
From inside the book
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Page 67
... Harald Fairhair were my friend , ” and he burst into tears again , so that Thjodhild grew quite vexed . - " Stop it , ” she said . “ All of us admire King Harald for his luck , but he used it evilly , to strip other Kings of their ...
... Harald Fairhair were my friend , ” and he burst into tears again , so that Thjodhild grew quite vexed . - " Stop it , ” she said . “ All of us admire King Harald for his luck , but he used it evilly , to strip other Kings of their ...
Page 364
... Harald Fairhair to conquer all Norway . King Hakon the Good Son of King Harald Fairhair . Expelled his half - brother King Eric Bloody - Axe from the throne ( AD 934 ? ) and ruled until he was killed by Bloody - Axe's sons ( 961 ...
... Harald Fairhair to conquer all Norway . King Hakon the Good Son of King Harald Fairhair . Expelled his half - brother King Eric Bloody - Axe from the throne ( AD 934 ? ) and ruled until he was killed by Bloody - Axe's sons ( 961 ...
Page 367
... Harald Fairhair . Probably bore a special grudge against Queen Gunhild , because she sought to destroy him when he ... Harald Goldbeard's Daughter Wife of Halfdan the Black ; mother of King Harald Fairhair . Ragnhild the Mighty One of ...
... Harald Fairhair . Probably bore a special grudge against Queen Gunhild , because she sought to destroy him when he ... Harald Goldbeard's Daughter Wife of Halfdan the Black ; mother of King Harald Fairhair . Ragnhild the Mighty One of ...
Other editions - View all
The Ice-Shirt: Volume One of Seven Dreams: A Book of North American Landscapes William T. Vollmann No preview available - 1993 |
The Ice-Shirt: Volume One of Seven Dreams: A Book of North American Landscapes William T. Vollmann No preview available - 1993 |
Common terms and phrases
AMORTORTAK Baffin Island Bear-Kings Bear-Shirt became bench-boards birds Bjarni BLACK HANDS Bloody-Axe blue Blue-Shirt called Christian clouds cold cried dark dead dream Eirik the Red Elder Brother eyes face father fell fjord Flateyjarbók Freydis Freydis's gold grass green Greenland grey Gudrid Gunhild hair Halfdan Halfdan the Black Harald Fairhair Haukadale head Heimskringla Helgi and Finnbogi husband Ice-Shirt Iceland Ingjald Inuit Inuktitut Island Jötunheim Karlsefni killed King Olaf KLUSKAP knew land laughed Leif Leif's lived looked married Micmac mountains never night Norse Norway ODIN Queen river rocks round rushed Saga sailed seemed ship shirt shoulders Sigrid Sigrid the Haughty Skofte Skrælings smiled Snorri Snorri Sturlusson snow sometimes stone stood stream Svipdag Thjodhild Thorbjorn Thorgest Thorgunna Thorstein Thorvard thought thralls took trees trolls Vinland walked wife wind Wineland woman Yggdrasil Younger Brother