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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 reinvent her life and times,
showing that Viking women had more power and agency than historians
have imagined. Nancy Marie Brown links the Birka warrior, whom she
names Hervor, to Viking trading towns and to their great trade
route east to Byzantium and beyond. She imagines Hervor's
adventures intersecting with larger-than-life but real women,
including Queen Gunnhild Mother-of-Kings, the Viking leader known
as the Red Girl, and Queen Olga of Kyiv. Hervor's short, dramatic
life shows that much of what we have taken as truth about women in
the Viking Age is based not on data but on nineteenth-century
Victorian biases. Rather than holding the household keys, Viking
women in history, the sagas, poetry and myth carry weapons. In this
compelling narrative, Brown brings the world of those valkyries and
shield-maids to vivid life.
*A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITOR'S CHOICE* "An impassioned,
informative love letter to Iceland." —New York Times Book Review
"This compelling and highly readable book offers a
thought-provoking examination of nature of belief itself"
—Bookpage, starred review 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 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
each discipline defines what an Icelander might call an elf.
Illuminated by her own encounters with Iceland’s Otherworld—in
ancient lava fields, on a holy mountain, beside a glacier or an
erupting volcano, crossing the cold desert at the island’s heart
on horseback—Looking for the Hidden Folk offers an intimate
conversation about how we look at and find value in nature. It
reveals how the words we use and the stories we tell shape the
world we see. It argues that our beliefs about the Earth will
preserve—or destroy it. Scientists name our time the
Anthropocene: the Human Age. Climate change will lead to the mass
extinction of numerous animal species unless we humans change our
course. Iceland suggests a different way of thinking about the
Earth, one that offers hope. Icelanders believe in elves— and you
should, too.
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. Harry played Wizard's Chess with them in Harry Potter and
the Sorcerer's Stone. Housed at the British Museum, they are among
its most visited and beloved objects. Questions abounded: Who
carved them? Where? Ivory Vikings explores these mysteries by
connecting medieval Icelandic sagas with modern archaeology, art
history, forensics, and the history of board games. In the process,
Ivory Vikings presents a vivid history of the 400 years when the
Vikings ruled the North Atlantic, and the sea-road connected
countries and islands we think of as far apart and culturally
distinct: Norway and Scotland, Ireland and Iceland, and Greenland
and North America. The story of the Lewis chessmen explains the
economic lure behind the Viking voyages to the west in the 800s and
900s. And finally, it brings from the shadows an extraordinarily
talented woman artist of the twelfth century: Margret the Adroit of
Iceland.
A good horse can make its rider "king for a while," according to
Icelandic poetry. But finding a good horse requires a keen and
practiced eye. One must see beyond the obvious
attributes--appearance, color, and size--to discern a horse's true
personality and temperament. Nancy Marie Brown puts her eye to the
test when she travels to Iceland to find the perfect Icelandic
horse she can bring home to her Pennsylvania farm and make her own.
She arrives in Iceland shaken by tragedy, uncertain of the
language, lacking confidence in her riding skills; but she's
determined to make her search a success. She finds inspiration in
the country's austere and majestic landscape, which is alive with
the ghosts of an adventure-filled past. In the glacier-carved
hinterland, she rides a variety of Icelandic horses--some spirited,
willful, even heroic; others docile, trusting, or tame. She also
meets an assortment of horse owners, who can be as independent as
the animals they breed. Evocative, clear-headed, and richly
described, this book is for anyone who has at some time in their
life searched for something perfect.
While European restaurants race to footnote menus, reassuring
concerned gourmands that no genetically modified ingredients were
used in the preparation of their food, starving populations around
the world eagerly await the next harvest of scientifically improved
crops. Mendel in the Kitchen provides a clear and balanced picture
of this tangled, tricky (and very timely) topic. Any farmer you
talk to could tell you that we've been playing with the genetic
makeup of our food for millennia, carefully coaxing nature to do
our bidding. The practice officially dates back to Gregor
Mendel-who was not a renowned scientist, but a 19th century
Augustinian monk. Mendel spent many hours toiling in his garden,
testing and cultivating more than 28,000 pea plants, selectively
determining very specific characteristics of the peas that were
produced, ultimately giving birth to the idea of heredity-and the
now very common practice of artificially modifying our food. But as
science takes the helm, steering common field practices into the
laboratory, the world is now keenly aware of how adept we have
become at tinkering with nature-which in turn has produced a
variety of questions. Are genetically modified foods really safe?
Will the foods ultimately make us sick, perhaps in ways we can't
even imagine? Isn't it genuinely dangerous to change the nature of
nature itself? Nina Fedoroff, a leading geneticist and recognized
expert in biotechnology, answers these questions, and more.
Addressing the fear and mistrust that is rapidly spreading,
Federoff and her co-author, science writer Nancy Brown, weave a
narrative rich in history, technology, and science to dispel myths
and misunderstandings. In the end, Fedoroff arues, plant
biotechnology can help us to become better stewards of the earth
while permitting us to feed ourselves and generations of children
to come. Indeed, this new approach to agriculture holds the promise
of being the most environmentally conservative way to increase our
food supply. Table of Contents Front Matter 1 Against the Ways of
Nature 2 The Wild and the Sown 3 The Power in the Earth 4 Genes and
Species 5 Tinkering with Evolution 6 Making a Chimera 7 The Product
or the Process 8 Is It Safe to Eat? 9 Poisoned Rats or Poisoned
Wells 10 The Butterfly and the Corn Borer 11 Pollen Has Always
Flown 12 The Organic Rule 13 Sustaining Agriculture 14 Sharing the
Fruits 15 Food for Thought Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index
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