The Sea Road

The Sea Road by Margaret Elphinstone


My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was a wonderful indulgence as I've been recovering from a cold this week. With the wind howling outside, The Sea Road took me to medieval Iceland, the first settlement of Greenland and beyond... to North America.

This fascinating historical novel is the story of Gudrid of Iceland, daughter-in-law to the explorer Erik the Red, as she accompanies her countrymen to the newly discovered land of Vinland.

Gudrid of Iceland was the furthest travelled woman in the world during the Viking Age... and for a thousand years she has deserved a saga in her own right, says the back of the book.

I was happy to see the note in the front that the characters and events in the novel are based on accounts recorded in those times, around the year 1050. The discovery of a new world is riveting--all the more so for the real sense I got of how these people lived and where they had come from.

I think even more than by the exploration of a new land, I was most intrigued by the way of life in Iceland, this only the third generation of settlement on that island. The ghosts, plagues, witchcraft and long, dark winters with their stories and folktales were vividly portrayed through Gudrid's words.

Also interesting is the description of the meeting of human cultures when Icelanders and Native Americans encounter each other for the first time. Gudrid describes the natives as savages and skraelings, or demons or devils. The Icelanders were predisposed to fight and kill when encountering anything new or strange, and so you can guess what the outcome was. Violent conflict.

But because we experience these encounters through the eyes of the Icelandic witch (as Gudrid was), knowing their cultural assumptions and biases enables us (me anyway) to imagine a different encounter where violent suspicion and bloodshed are not the first resort.

This was the perfect time of year to read this book, with the encroaching darkness and cold, the time of witches and magic, of howling wind and wandering ghosts. I'd recommend it to anyone fascinated by stories of the Far North and of Viking exploration.

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