Sea Sagas of the North

There are shadows on the northern seas. Fish cities have shrunk to hamlets, old ports have been levelled and harbours are full of warming water, yet there's barely a single ship. An Arctic author asks, how do you say goodbye to a glacier? A burnished skipper, four score years of staring at horizons, leans across the table and says, you know, we were more tolerant in those days, when we sailed and steamed and brought home stories. More storms are gathering. The book's three central themes are living with environmental change around the North Sea and the Atlantic; story-telling through history in these lands; reconnecting with nature and our ancient heritages so as to live well and responsibly. Sea Sagas of the North interweaves prose chapters and alliterative sagas. Each chapter tells of travels across shores, seas and islands. These are heroic crossings in warming waters. Each saga tells of tales and times from across the ages. This is the territory of sagas, the Norse and Anglo-Saxon gods of old, and the mythic era of Viking expansion by clinkered longships.