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Wayne and I will be reading Egil's Saga in August. So join us in the Norse world for some adventure!

Thank you Carolien.

Planning to start this tomorrow. Tidying up one or two books left over from July.

I'll keep pen and paper near to try and keep track of character family trees. It's the one thing I learned earlier this year in reading The Saga of the Jomsvikings, there are many characters and most are described in family relationship to each other.

Carolien wrote: "Planning to start this tomorrow. Tidying up one or two books left over from July.

I'll keep pen and paper near to try and keep track of character family trees. It's the one thing I learned earlie..."

I will also start later today, if not tomorrow Carolien.

Hi Carolien, sorry for the silence thus far. I am three-quarters of the way through the book, and enjoying the histories. I can just imagine the stories that were told on winter nights, with blazing fires and ale-filled horns. In a book filled with murderous characters, I must admit Egil Skallagrimsson struck me as a particular heinous villain (even his father and brother ruled him uncontrollable when he was sober), but lately he has been growing on me.

I’m about 15% in and have a whole family tree to keep track of everyone. I love these sagas

I finished this in the early hours of the morning. Yes, it is quite tricky keeping track of the characters. My copy had a family tree, which gave some assistance.

Mine doesn't, so I had to make my own! Have you read any of these sagas before?

No, but I have The Story of Burnt Njalaka Njal's Saga on the horizon which also focus on the settling of Iceland. I have read The Bridal Wreath, which is not a saga, but gives great insight of the way people lived in the Nordic region.

The Bridal Wreath is still on my list for this year. And I loved The Long Ships.

What I like about them is that they are action orientated. Very few words are wasted to describe the scenery or character looks. It's all about what happens next.

Carolien wrote: "The Bridal Wreath is still on my list for this year. And I loved The Long Ships.

What I like about them is that they are action orientated. Very few words are wasted to describe the ..."

True. With regards to names, I did expect to encounter the dottir suffix more.

Good evening from a chilly Mossel Bay. Hope all is well over there? How far along are you now with the adventures of the Skallagrimssons?

About halfway. You have to admit that these guys would be a nightmare for modern HR in any organisation!

Yes, indeed. Where I am from they will be referred to as Jan Bos or Rowwe Jêks.

I'm reading The Stately Home Murder as one of my other reads at the moment. As suggested by the title a man is found dead in a stately home which in this case belongs to the Duke of Ornum (not Barsetshire in this case, another made up county Calleshire). In one of the pieces of information conveyed by the detectives it is mentioned that at one point everyone in what was now England was either an Earl or a churl which basically means free man. We find the same term used in at least the translations I have read so far of the sagas for general soldiers. I thought it was more of a soldier, but turns out it is just a man that is not a slave and does not hold a formal title.

I just checked, and churl does not appear once. I then checked the etymology of churlish and this is what I found among others:

"The History of Churlish Goes Back to Anglo-Saxon England

It is easy to understand how churlish has come to mean "vulgar," "surly," and "intractable"—if you know your English history. In Anglo-Saxon England, a churl, or ceorl, was a freeman of the lowest rank who owned and cultivated a small farm. He had certain rights and had upward mobility to rise to the rank of thane. After the Norman Conquest, however, many churls became serfs, a change in status that meant losing not just social mobility but geographical mobility as well. The lowest rungs of a social system often serve as inspiration for a language's pejoratives, and churl eventually came to be used as a term for a rude, ill-bred person." Interesting indeed.

My translation uses the form "carl" and it then looks pretty much as you describe above from the various contexts. Interesting how these words spread across the geographies.

Carolien wrote: "I'm reading The Stately Home Murder as one of my other reads at the moment. As suggested by the title a man is found dead in a stately home which in this case belongs to the Duke of..."

I must also make a start with the Inspector Sloane series. Catherine Aird was quite prolific, and should provide series material for quite a few challenges.

She's lovely, classic police procedurals.