Nancy Marie Brown
Author
Language
English
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Description
Five hundred years before Columbus, a Viking woman named Gudrid sailed past the edge of the known world. She landed in the New World and lived there for three years, giving birth to a baby before sailing home. Or so the Icelandic sagas say. Even after archaeologists found a Viking longhouse in Newfoundland, few believed that the details of Gudrid's story were true. Then, in 2001, a team of scientists discovered what may have been this pioneering woman's...
Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Formats
Description
In exploring how Icelanders interact with nature-and their idea that elves live among us-Nancy Marie Brown shows us how altering our perceptions of the environment can be a crucial first step toward saving it.
Icelanders believe in elves.
Why does that make you laugh?, asks Nancy Marie Brown in this wonderfully quirky exploration of our interaction with nature. Looking for answers in history, science, religion, and art-from ancient times to today-Brown...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
In the early 1800's, on a Hebridean beach in Scotland, the sea exposed an ancient treasure cache: 93 chessmen carved from walrus ivory. Norse netsuke, each face individual, each full of quirks, the Lewis Chessmen are probably the most famous chess pieces in the world. Who carved them? Where? Brown explores these mysteries by connecting medieval Icelandic sagas with modern archaeology, art history, forensics, and the history of board games.
Author
Publisher
St. Martin's Press
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Description
"In the tradition of Stacy Schiff's Cleopatra, Brown lays to rest the hoary myth that Viking society was ruled by men and celebrates the dramatic lives of female Viking warriors. In 2017, DNA tests revealed to the collective shock of many scholars that a Viking warrior in a high-status grave in Birka, Sweden was actually a woman. The Real Valkyrie weaves together archaeology, history, and literature to imagine her life and times, showing that Viking...
Author
Language
English
Description
Icelanders believe in elves. Why does that make you laugh?, asks Nancy Marie Brown, in this wonderfully quirky exploration of our interaction with nature. Looking for answers in history, science, religion, and art-from ancient times to today-Brown finds that each discipline defines what is real and unreal, natural and supernatural, demonstrated and theoretical, alive and inert. Each has its own way of perceiving and valuing the world around us. And...
6) The abacus and the cross: the story of the Pope who brought the light of science to the Dark Ages
Author
Publisher
Basic Books
Pub. Date
c2010
Language
English
Description
Traces the achievements of medieval Pope Sylvester II, revealing his lesser-known role in promoting scientific awareness throughout turn-of-the-first-millennium Catholicism and his introduction of Arabic numerals to Europe.
Author
Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan
Pub. Date
2012
Language
English
Description
"Much like Greek and Roman mythology, Norse myths are read, reread, and treasured. Famous storytellers such as JRR Tolkien and Neil Gaiman have drawn their inspiration from the long-haired, mead-drinking, marauding and pillaging Vikings. The author who gave us Nordic mythology is a twelfth-century Icelandic chieftain by the name of Snorri Sturluson. Like Homer, Snorri was a bard, writing down and embellishing the folklore and pagan legends of medieval...