Medieval historian Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough traveled extensively while compiling Beyond the Northlands: Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas, and it's evident in the way her evocative prose plunges into the mythologies of ancient landscapes and bygone cultures.
On the Norwegian coast, dusk "melts into night" as the wind moans. In Greenland, Arctic foxes leave "insubstantial, wispy tracks." In setting such bleak and haunting scenes, Barraclough produces an intoxicating fusion of travelogue, history and saga. Beyond the Northlands is neatly divided into four thematic sections that follow medieval Norse migrations north, west, east and south. What emerges is a surprisingly complex portrait of Viking culture.
To be sure, Barraclough pays plenty of attention to notorious Viking bawdiness and barbarity, relishing the brutal details of kingdom sieges and battles and pillaging. But belying this stereotype is Barraclough's careful uncovering of Norse culture and influence in places not typically associated with Vikings, including the steppe country of Russia and the hot, dry and comparatively exotic Middle East. Delineating the intersection of southern Christendom and northern paganism, she adeptly reveals a warrior mythic culture with deeply human traits, a culture slowly integrating into larger societies.
Beyond the Northlands beautifully explores those "liminal" spaces where "identities, loyalties, and even realities are all mutable." In the wild vicissitudes of Viking folklore, Barraclough locates the universal human need to tell stories as a way to bridge gaps in knowledge. Bridging many gaps, Beyond the Northlands is a magnificent contribution to the understanding of a fierce and poetic people. --Scott Neuffer, freelance journalist and fiction author