March 9, 2009: Riverside Presbyterian Church, Cocao Beach, Florida. Slideshow and lecture at 6:30 p.m. Refreshments afterward. For more information, contact Fred Robinson at Riverside Presbyterian Church: (321) 799-8181.

April 2, 2009: Interview at 10 a.m. on "Focus 580 with David Inge," WILL-AM 580, University of Illinois Public Media.

Podcasts

Vermont Public Radio. Interview with Neal Charnoff, October 24, 2007.
"500 years before Christopher Columbus, a Viking woman landed in the New World, where she twice tried to establish a colony. This chapter in Viking history comes to light in a new book by Vermont author Nancy Marie Brown. The Far Traveler tells the story of Gudrid, an Icelandic woman whose travels took her to Greenland, Rome and North America. Until recently, Gudrid's adventures have been the subject of myth and legend, only briefly mentioned in the Viking sagas. In The Far Traveler, Brown draws on her research in science, history, and archeology to present an illuminating account of Gudrid's travels, and Viking life in the year 1000. VPR's Neal Charnoff spoke with Nancy Marie Brown of East Burke."

http://www.vpr.net/news_detail/77902/

Cornell University. Reading in the Carl A. Kroch Library, November 20, 2007.
"In The Far Traveler, Nancy Marie Brown employs her remarkable narrative skill to reconstruct the life of the Icelandic Gudrid, who gave birth to the first known European child in North America 1000 years ago and later, widowed, went on pilgrimage to Rome before retiring to a contemplative life in northern Iceland. The book also weaves archaeology, economics, ecology, and saga literature into an engaging tapestry of the Norse world in which women, no less than men, could be important and sometimes unusual characters. The reading is sponsored by the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, which is the home of Cornell's renowned Fiske Icelandic Collection."

http://www.cornell.edu/video/details.cfm?vidID=134&display=player¶m=far%20traveler

Interviews

Medievalists.net. An on-line interview by Peter Konieczny, published February 28, 2009.
"Nancy Marie Brown's latest book, The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Women, has earned great reviews and much interest. Now available in a paperback edition, it tells the story of the Norse exploration to the New World through Gudrid the Far-Traveler, an 11th century Icelandic explorer. We were able to ask the author, Nancy Marie Brown, a few questions about her book."

http://www.medievalists.net/2009/02/28/interview-with-nancy-marie-brown

Vermont Magazine. Excerpts from an interview by D. R. Boardman published in the January/February 2008 issue.

Q. How does a Penn State grad with degrees in writing and literature end up in the middle of the North Atlantic, digging through a pile of mud and rocks?

A. For about 25 years I led a double life. I worked as a science writer for a university magazine, learning an enormous variety of things, and I studied the medieval Icelandic sagas, which were a major influence on Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. I spent my vacations in Iceland, learning the language and riding Icelandic horses, the subject of my first book, A Good Horse Has No Color.

One day Penn State anthropologist Paul Durrenberger told me about his latest research: "We discovered a Viking Age longhouse on the farm of Glaumbaer in northern Iceland."

I said, "You mean where Gudrid the Far-Traveler lived?"

It was not the answer of a science writer. Through Paul, I arranged to volunteer at Glaumbaer--and write a book about it. With the discovery of this house, Gudrid's story provided the perfect combination of science and sagas.

Q. Is it fair to say that Viking women like your heroine, Gudrid, were the first real feminists?

A. Viking culture didn't classify people as feminine or masculine. They were either strong or weak, winners or losers--or somewhere in between. Women in the Icelandic sagas were praised for being brave, quick-thinking, and tough, just like the men. Given their society, they had to be. The Vikings raided in summer, after the lambing and before the hay was cut. While the men were away, the women ran the farms: shearing the sheep, spinning the wool, weaving the cloth, making butter and cheese, preserving meat for the winter, bargaining with the foreign traders who came selling iron and grain. They hired and fired servants, educated the children, took care of the old folks, and pretty much got used to having things their own way.

Q.. You've done some extensive research into sagas--are we still creating those today? Why are they important to a society?

A. A saga is a story based on a historical person or event, but with the gaps filled in and details added to make it entertaining and instructive. We are, of course, creating sagas today. We call them history or historical novels, documentary or docu-dramas, depending on how truthful their creators believe they are being. Yet historians have to piece together a world from very little material. Filmmakers have to recreate what they could never have seen. Having written a memoir, I can attest to how difficult it is to make sense of your own acts and intentions, not to mention those of the people around you. The fact that some recent memoirs have been exposed as frauds and some docu-dramas are believed to be true underscores how permeable the border is between fiction and non-fiction. The medieval Icelanders did not worry about it: "saga" means "something that is said."

Saga writers are "time-binders," tying the past to the present. They are social critics and teachers of values. One of the wonderful things about traveling in Iceland is stopping by a farmhouse and swapping thousand-year-old tales with the farmers. Even city kids know who Egil's Beer was named after (a Viking warrior and poet) and why Icelandair has planes named for Gudrid the Far-Traveler, her husband, and their son. These shared stories allow for unlimited name-dropping and in-jokes--what a clique or tribe uses to identify its members and exclude outsiders. Yet the Icelandic sagas are also tied to the landscape. A friend of mine says, "Everywhere you go in Iceland, you're standing on a story." The people who live nearby will tell it to you, inadvertently passing down a thousand-year-old set of values, among which is the image of the adventurous, independent woman.