Land of Wooden Gods

by Jan Fridegard, Robert E Bjork (Translator)

Overview

Land of Wooden Gods is the first book in the Viking Slave Trilogy. An epic of warrior chieftains, their slaves, and their women, the trilogy tests belief in the Norse Gods Odin, Thor, and Frey and the sacrificial and sexual rituals of Old Scandinavia. Land of Wooden Gods begins a saga journey deep into the heart of the Viking Kingdom of the Swedes. Jan Fridegard is one of Sweden's foremost authors and his Viking Slave Trilogy is Sweden's great tale of the Viking Age. A magnificent new translation by Robert Bjork. For more information visit: www.juleswilliampress.com

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781953947109
Publisher:	Jules William Press
Publication date:	08/15/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	190
File size:	930 KB

About the Author

Robert E. Bjork is a professor of English at Arizona State University.

Table of Contents

The Viking Slave Trilogy

By Jan Fridegard

Translated from Swedish by Robert E. Bjork

 

The Viking Slave Trilogy (3 volumes)

Book 1, Land of Wooden Gods (Trägudars land)

Book 2, People of the Dawn (Gryningsfolket)

Book 3, Sacrificial Smoke (Offerrök)

For his translation of the Viking Slave Trilogy, Robert Bjork holds the coveted Translation Prize of the American-Scandinavian Foundation

Editorial Reviews

A diligent if lusterless interpretation of Viking history in the ninth century, this first volume of a trilogy by Swedish novelist Fridegard (1897-1968) eschews warrior glories and focuses on the thrall Holme and his rebellion against his oppressors. The chieftain of his settlement sentences all thrall babies to death, and although the servants pk learn to take this in stride, Holme and Ausi, whom Holme had raped and impregnated, flee the community pk with their offspring in tow. According to Bjork, Holme--the homeless boy who was found on an islet or ``holme'' and has grown up to be a master smith--embodies his author's proletarian and anarchist ideology, and eventually emerges as a noble revolutionary. As protagonists, Fridegard's archetypes are unfortunately one-dimensional. The taciturn, dour and brutal Holme (he saves one child but disfigures another and abandons a third in the forest) is inscrutable; and Ausi's embrace of Christianity is simplistic (``Everything had seemed so bright and joyous while the stranger was there; now, since he had brought light and then disappeared, it was even darker than before''). Even human sacrifice and ritual orgies are depicted in prose as wooden as the Norse idols. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly