Der Heilige Brendan lebte im 5. und 6. Jahrhundert auf der irischen Halbinsel Dingle, heute County Kerry. Brendans Reisebericht "Navigatio Sancti Brendani" über seine achtjährige Reise an Bord eines offenen Curragh könnte eine Besiedlung Amerikas durch irische Mönche vermuten lassen. Tim Severin ...
Lo stile narrativo di questo libro non mi ha fatto impazzire e purtroppo non mi ha permesso di godermi appieno la storia, che in sé trovo interessante e ricca di alcuni personaggi particolarmente significativi – Thrand ed Eochaid per esempio – e spesso mi sembrava di avere in mano un libro infini...
He counted eighteen of them in the ten minutes it took him to walk from one end of the town to the other. They ranged from The Feathers, a grimy-looking alehouse close by the fish market, to the new-built Three Mariners where he turned back, realising that he had reached the town limits. Retracin...
He was lying face down on sand, head cradled in the crook of his elbow, and a voice above him said insistently, ‘I wish to speak with you, mynheer.’ He turned his head sideways and blearily opened his eyes. In the half-darkness he could make out the glow of a camp fire and thought briefly it was ...
By the time Brendan reached the New World, that circle of friends and supporters had grown even larger. So one of the most gratifying results of Brendan’s Atlantic achievement is that her success can be offered as a partial repayment to those people who did so much for her and the project as a wh...
‘She’s well, though we don’t see much of her now. Either she’s at her father’s place in Northampton or she travels overseas as Knut’s representative.’ At that point a trumpet sounded. The felag was called to attend to a meeting in the great hall and Kjartan turned to go. ‘I hope we’ll have the ch...
The day was scorchingly hot under the bowl of a cloudless pale blue sky, and there was no breeze. The still air carried the chirping and clicking and buzzing of a myriad of unseen insects as well as the distant sound of the sea receding behind them as they walked. Everything that met the eye was ...
The vessel pitched and rolled, and every time a wave crashed on deck above me the water dripped down through the deck planks. In the whirling darkness I dry-retched until I wished I would die. The wali had warned that the voyage would be uncomfortable but he had understate...
In front of the town a dozen or so feluccas and caiques lay at anchor in the roadstead, their decks deserted. The foreshore too was empty except for the rowing boats abandoned by the sailors who had fled their vessels the moment that St Gerassimus had appeared over the horizon. The arrival of the...
His war band was to be sworn in as a unit of the Varangians-without-the-walls and receive regular army pay and accommodation. Harald himself was to select twenty of his best men and report aboard a warship loading stores and materials in the harbour of Bucephalon. A copy of his orders had been se...