The Settlers, An Axe of Iron Novel: Volume 1 - Softcover

Hunsinger, J A

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0980160103 ISBN 13: 9780980160109

Publisher: Vinland Publishing, 2013

Synopsis

THE SETTLERS is a tale about a medieval people whose lives are surprisingly like ours. They have the same basic desires for happiness, love, food, and shelter that has dominated the thoughts of generations of cultures the world over. Eirik the Red established Eiriksfjord in 986 and later Lysufjord, four hundred miles to the north. Just 22-years later, new settlers from the homelands found all the best land already occupied, the fragile Arctic environment strained by too many people and animals on too little arable land. THE SETTLERS is the first novel of a continuing character-driven story of a company of men, women, and children whose wanderlust and yearning for adventure cause them to leave the two established settlements on Greenland and sail west, to the unexplored land later to be referred to as Vinland. Under the capable leadership of Halfdan Ingolfsson and his lieutenant, Gudbjartur Einarsson, 315 adventuresome souls set sail from Greenland in the spring of 1008, bound for the unexplored continent across the western ocean. See the saga unfold, in this first book of the AXE OF IRON series, through the eyes of the characters as each day brings a continuation of the toil, love, hardship, and danger that they come to expect in this unforgiving new land.

About this title

Product Description:

A tale of survival, strife, love, and the quest for a new home in the face of hostile opposition.

Synopsis:

This is a tale of survival, strife, love, and the quest for a new home in the face of hostile opposition. Conditions of manifest destiny propel a large contingent of Norse Greenlanders from relative security into an odyssey of exploration and settlement out over the unknown waters of the North Atlantic, to a North America of one thousand years ago, to a land they called Vinland. The chieftain, Halfdan Ingolfsson and his second-in-command, Gudbjartur Einarsson, spend a winter gathering 315 men, women, and children from the two Norse settlements on the south-western coast of Greenland. Early in the spring of A.D. 1008, the company sets sail aboard six large cargo ships. Five days into the voyage, in the strait between Helluland and Markland, present day Hudson Strait, a gale holds the flotilla in its grip for four long and arduous days.Halfdan decides to seek shelter in a protected bay, so they can rest, repair the storm damage, and replenish food stores lost in the storm. During the following weeks, the settlers reap a harvest of fish and game that is the best in living memory. When hunters discover a sheltered fjord, Halfdan orders a move.

Tornit hunters from far to the north venture south to hunt, and the Northmen strike up a friendship with them. The Tornit tell the newcomers much about the local area and describe coastal waters far to the south. It is this thought-provoking insight into the geography of this new land and the dawning realisation that the storm god, Njord, seems to have led his people to this place, that cause Halfdan to revise his thinking and propose a new plan to Gudbjartur and the council of ship's captains: sail south before choosing where to build their settlement.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vinland Publishing
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0980160103
• ISBN 13: 9780980160109
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 400