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George MacKay Brown
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Vinland Kindle Edition

by George Mackay Brown (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 70 ratings
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In his fourth novel, George Mackay Brown takes us to an Orkney torn between its Viking past and its Christian future.

Set in the early 11th Century, it tells the story of Ranald Sigmundson, who turns his back on a successful life of political intrigues and battles to design a ship to take him on a journey even greater than the first great voyage of his life, the one to Vinland.

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  1. Print length
    256 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    John Murray
  5. Publication date
    March 27, 2014
  6. File size
    2016 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

George Mackay Brown was born in Stromness, Orkney (the 'Hamnavoe' of his stories and poems), in 1921. He was at Newbattle Abbey College while Edwin Muir was Warden. He read English at Edinburgh University and afterward did postgraduate work on Gerard Manley Hopkins. He became a Catholic in 1961. He died in Orkney in 1996.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00IA9RCSQ
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ John Murray (March 27, 2014)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 27, 2014
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2016 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 70 ratings

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George MacKay Brown

George MacKay Brown

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Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
70 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

C. Moruza
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful
Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2023
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It reminds me, of course, of Sigrid Undset, coming from somewhat the same neck of the woods. It also reminds me that we are not “humanity,” but a collection of individuals, each as precious in God’s sight as it we were His only child.
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Stuart W. Mirsky
4.0 out of 5 stars A Different Sort of Saga
Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2007
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There was a time when saga novels (based on the old Norse literature, in some fashion or other) were hard to come by. I can remember combing the bookstores for them. Yes, there was E. R. Eddison's STYRBIORN THE STRONG and H. Rider Haggard's ERIC BRIGHTEYES. And, if you were lucky, you also found the little known but truly wonderful tale of Harold and William and their struggle for the throne of England in 1066: THE GOLDEN WARRIOR by Hope Muntz. But there wasn't much else besides. Eventually I stumbled on Cecelia Holland's TWO RAVENS (on a remainders table) and Jane Smiley's THE GREENLANDERS, but it was always tough going looking for novels like this. (I wrote my own saga type novel in 1996, partly in answer to what I had come to think was a dearth of interest in the saga world and its literary traditions because of this.)

But lately vikings are all the rage. Cecelia Holland has given us her own three-book series about the Gaelic and Norse world, taking us to all the well-known areas of viking history including the North American coast. And Bernard Cornwell has given us a series of three, as well, dealing with the Danish invasions of England and the valiant defense mounted by King Alfred of Wessex (who would come to be called the Great by those who succeeded him). Irish travel writer Tim Severin has given us his own trilogy about a certain Thorkel (mentioned briefly in Erik the Red's Saga as an illegitimate son of Leif Eriksson) who starts out as a youngster in Greenland and eventually goes nearly everywhere and meets nearly everyone who's anyone in the viking world of his day. And then there are some older and forgotten works like Margaret Elphinstone's THE SEA ROAD, about Gudrid, Leif Eriksson's sister-in-law, and Joan Felicia Henriksen's ASTRID: A VIKING SAGA about the mother of the future King Olaf Trygvesson, one of the heroic Norwegian kings of saga legend. These can still be found if you look hard enough. But there are plenty more new ones, too. I can no longer count them all on two hands. But that's a good thing for those of us who love the Norse thing.

VINLAND, by Scottish writer George MacKay Brown, is in this tradition. Written in the early nineties, I was yet unaware of it in the days when I was actively searching out saga-based fiction in every used and new bookstore I could find. But now I've gotten hold of, and read, it.

It's a moving, poetic tale, written in a way that evokes the old saga literature from which it is sprung. Tracing the life of Ranald Sigmundson, an Orkney farmer, from his boyhood, when he is taken to sea by a fierce father against his will (and rebelliously finds his way to the North American coast -- Vinland in the old sagas -- on Leif Eriksson's ship) until old age and hermit-like seclusion on his Orkney farm, this is, in a very real sense, an anti-saga.

Relying on the saga tone and many of its conventions, Brown's story of Ranald is not one of action, as is so often found in the original sagas, but of contemplation in the shadow of the great events and violent men recalled primarily in the Orkneyinga Saga, that violent Icelandic tale of the strivings of the Orkney earls and Norwegian kings for primacy over the islands immediately north of the Scottish coast. Ranald Sigmundson eventually finds himself with Leif and his crew in Vinland, in the midst of a violent clash with local natives and later lives for a year or so in the Norse colony of Greenland, a guest of Leif and his family. Homesick and worried about his mother and grandfather, Ranald takes ship back east on a Norwegian bound trading vessel and, in Norway, finds himself a surprise guest of the Norwegian King Olaf Trygvesson. There he is treated to a bird's eye view of the royal court and tastes its delights. King Olaf, it seems, enjoys his company, enhancing Ranald's reputation who, though still but a boy, goes on to take over management of the merchant vessel he has booked passage on, as he works his way back to his family home in the Orkneys.

But once home, Ranald abandons the sea and the trading life to find a place for himself as a farmer. But for a brief venture to support his liege lord, Earl Sigurd of Orkney, at the Battle of Clontarf (which saw the final defeat of the viking alliance against the native Irish), Ranald never leaves his home islands again. His is a life of withdrawal from the great events of his day because he is revolted by the greed and violence that seem to drive the great men. As Earl Sigurd's remaining sons strive for rule over Orkney, Ranald withdraws more and more from the political disputes that characterize his native land. He grows old as Sigurd's youngest son eventually consolidates his power through bloodshed and ruthlessness, leaving the dead and broken in his wake.

In the end, Ranald is drawn to the monks who have settled on the islands and the contemplative life they represent, becoming their patron and friend and separating himself from the family he has raised to farm the land after him. Pining all his years for the life of the sea he has abandoned, and for a vision of Vinland which has become idealized in his own mind, Ranald eventually is drawn to a deeper vision of that mysterious western land, seeing it as a place beyond human life itself, a metaphor for the peace and salvation that is only attainable, he believes, through the promise of faith.

Although superficially about vikings and such, this book is really something more. There are battles in it but one never really sees or feels them, even in the midst of them, as Ranald cleaves his way through the enemy host at Clontarf, slashing blindly with his sword like all the others, killing men without even realizing what he is about.

There are some jarring moments, too. For instance, in his interview with King Olaf, Ranald is asked by the king if the Vinland natives live in such and such a way and Ranald affirms that they do. Yet, the saga literature tells us Leif's was the first voyage to Vinland and that Leif never went back. According to Brown's tale, neither did Ranald. But on that one voyage their contact with the native "Skraelings" was limited to a few coastal meetings and attacks. They never got to the Skraeling villages so Ranald couldn't have confirmed what the king asks him about. In fact, the king couldn't have known enough about the matter to have asked him those questions since the later voyages, which were to have more extensive contacts with the Skraelings, hadn't even taken place yet!

King Olaf, too, is something of a problem in this tale. He is, of course, Olaf Trygvesson who ruled in Norway from about 995 to 1000, a very short stint. Yet Brown continuously refers to the king of Norway as "Olaf" throughout the years. In fact there was a later and more famous Christianizing King Olaf, dubbed Olaf the Saint by posterity and known in his lifetime as Olaf the Stout, but Brown makes no real differentiation (except for a brief comment much later on telling us he is speaking of a different King Olaf). Brown, indeed, leaves us with the sense that Olaf is a single king for most of this time though the two Olafs were very different in their appearance, their comportment and their actions. And he gives us no sense of the intervening years between the two.

Brown also tells us about villages in Greenland and Iceland though there is no evidence from the sagas or from archaeology that the Norse lived in villages in these places at this time. In fact, they seem to have lived in scattered, isolated farms, coming together for periodic gatherings to deal with legal and other societal issues, but otherwise living in separate farming settlements, albeit some quite large, with many inhabitants to maintain them.

Along with certain modernisms, I found these issues a bit off-putting since they didn't jibe with what I know of the era and made me think Brown was a bit sloppy and overly loose with his narrative. But, on balance, they did not diminish the tale for me by much. I found this story of Ranald Sigmundson's aging, and his quest for life's meaning, moving and compelling, perhaps because I am not so young as I once was myself.

If you're looking for a fast paced, action packed viking tale, this is not the one. But if you want to read about a man's inner quest against a background of worldly concerns which retains the feel of the old Norse sagas, you'll find that sort of tale here.

SWM

P.S. If you really love the sagas and the novels derived from them as I do, I'd recommend another recent entry by Canadian author Jeff Janoda. It's called SAGA: A NOVEL OF MEDIEVAL ICELAND, an unfortunately clumsy title for what is truly a wonderful novel about a small community of settlers in the early days of the Icelandic "republic"!

 Styrbiorn the Strong
Eric Brighteyes: The Works of H. Rider Haggard
The Golden Warrior, the Story of Harold and William
The Greenlanders
Two Ravens
Saga: A Novel Of Medieval Iceland
The King of Vinland's Saga
17 people found this helpful
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jeff gibbons
5.0 out of 5 stars A great literary expedition
Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2020
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The book is great. I found the first half to fly even with its epic scope. The second half is different but equally compelling - the tone shifts from Viking saga to a pastoral contemplation; a schism of responsibility to stay home versus an innate desire to explore; new found Christian faith tested against an old practicality that might is right.
We see two two different collisions in this saga: Viking & Skræling; Viking & Christianity - both are fantastic fodder for great stories.
This is the first book I've read by George Mackay Brown. His poetic-prose did not disappoint. I'm a big fan of Henry Treece's Viking books and found this to be similar in narrative style/structure but purposefully written for adults.
3 people found this helpful
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Simple tale, ancient
Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2018
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It is difficult to say why such simple, ancient story telling is so mesmerizing. The first few pages didn't seem to draw me in, yet did. I wanted to read the tale.
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Cartimand
4.0 out of 5 stars Simple saga full of profound wisdom
Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2001
I bought this book on a whim, expecting intrepid and swashbuckling escapism. What I discovered was something quite different, but no less enthralling for that and I feel that Vinland will surely leave a more lasting impression on every reader than most conventional historic adventures. George Mackay Brown has written a saga in the traditional scandinavian style. The usual characterisation and prosaic descriptions are kept to a minimum. The personae speak to us almost entirely through their deeds. The saga unfolds around the life of Ranald Sigmundson who, as a boy and young man is priviledged to have a surfeit of adventure, journeying with Leif Ericsson on his epic voyage to the New World, meeting with kings and fighting in history-changing battles. As maturity sets in, Ranald turns his back on such matters and, echoing Voltaire's "il faut cultiver notre jardin", settles down to life as a farmer. Ranald's increasingly reclusive and ascetic lifestyle is in stark contrast to the violent acts engendered by the ruthless power struggle of earls and kings around him. Like the eye of the hurricane, Ranald finds fulfillment through his lone meditations. Yet, in so doing, has Ranald chosen the coward's way out in running from worldly things, including distancing himself from his beloved family? This book will make you question your personal values, the path you have chosen through life and will make you face your own mortality. The elegiaic and poetic conclusion is deeply moving and will stay with the reader for a long time.
12 people found this helpful
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome
Reviewed in the United States on July 26, 2018
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Well worth the read, an interest exploration of life in 10th and 11th century. Brown’s writing is very poetic, with a strong sense of place.
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Richard Druitt
5.0 out of 5 stars An Orkney Saga
Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2014
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Written in the style of the old Norse sagas, George Mackay Brown paints a fully believable picture in a dream like, poetic prose, of the generations before St Magnus. If you are at all interested in the Orkneys, this is a book and an author for you.
3 people found this helpful
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Rowdy Geirsson
4.0 out of 5 stars Saga-inspired historic fiction
Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2023
Something of an overlooked Norse-inspired novel published in the 90s. It's a well-told tale, blending history and narrative elements of the Vinland Sagas and Orkneyinga Saga into an original story centered on the life story of Ranald Sigmundson, who escapes the cruelty of his father by stowing away on Leif Eriksson's ship on its way to Vinland. Unlike many of the novels to be released in the past two decades that focus on Norse history, this one is not an action/adventure or fantasy (though it does contain some elements of adventure, they aren't at the core of the book). It's pretty firmly grounded in the real [medieval] world. It's good, but if you're looking for something to read full of raiding and battles, this isn't that.
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Top reviews from other countries

The Keen Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars The life of Ranald of Orkney
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 9, 2013
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This is a wonderfully simple book; written in a lyrical poetical tone which reminded me of the saga writers; one that does not hold emotion so much in the words used, but in the way they are all put together. The sweeping vista of the story, and the characters that Ranald meets on the way hold the reader enthralled. The writing is reminiscent of that of the old sagas; a narrative, with little or no judgment on the motives or emotions of the characters; merely statements of fact, honour, and righteous behaviour is evinced by the Orcadian, Icelandic and other warriors and women.

This is a wonderful book, and one to be savoured, and enjoyed again and again when the mood takes you; perhaps on a winter's night, sitting by the fire, enjoying mulled wine and dreaming of ages gone by.
3 people found this helpful
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geodoc
5.0 out of 5 stars poetic
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 20, 2009
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There's no intricate plot here- so not much of a spoiler when I say this is an historical novel set around the time of Macbeth, in which the protagonist visits Vinland in his youth, returns to Orkney, gets married and grows old. But it's the sensitivity and the use of language that makes this really stand out. It's short and beautifully written and you won't want it to end.
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Colin
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 8, 2019
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If you have ever spent time on the northern shores or islands you will know the spirit which is so adeptly woven into this man’s work
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Docwaz
5.0 out of 5 stars Read it!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 26, 2019
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My favourite writer again did not disappoint. The subject matter was fascinating - Vikings in America!
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