BOOKS by NANCY MARIE BROWN

Inspired by the god of Wednesday: Wanderer and storyteller, half-blind, with a wonderful horse.

Looking for the Hidden Folk:
How Iceland's Elves Can Save the Earth

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 each discipline defines and redefines what is real and unreal, natural and supernatural, demonstrated and theoretical, alive and inert. Each has its own way of perceiving and valuing (or not) the world around us. And each admits to its own sort of elf.

Illuminated by her own encounters with Iceland's Otherworld—in ancient lava fields, on a holy mountain, beside a glacier and 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 species unless we humans change course. Iceland suggests a different way of thinking about the Earth, one that offers hope. Icelanders believe in elves, and you should too.

"Nancy Marie Brown's Looking for the Hidden Folk is a charming and serious study of the role elves play in Icelandic culture... In Brown's impassioned, informative love letter to Iceland, the cultural historian explores the country's relationship to its lore, in the process making a persuasive case for wonder."— The New York Times Editor's Choice

"Even confirmed skeptics are likely to come away from this deeply mined literary, sociological and philosophical excavation of Iceland’s heritage with a new appreciation of the place the huldufólk occupy in the country's identity, and of the role that similar spirits once served for ordinary people across the globe."—The New York Times Book Review

"Haunting and enticing. The author's descriptions of the countryside are staggering — not just the images she conjures but the reactions they inspire in her. Ultimately, Brown seems to want to use Looking for the Hidden Folk to shake readers out of their comfort zones, encouraging us to slough off the protective layers of skepticism we have about the world. If we're open to it, we might catch a glimpse of something magical." —Seven Days

"Brown delights in the fact that, in Icelandic, the word for home is the same as that for world: heima. An impish literary handbook, Looking for the Hidden Folk takes Iceland as a model of how to treat the whole world as a precious, awe-inspiring home."—Foreword Reviews

"Brown quickly dispenses with the question of whether elves are real or not and asks us instead to consider what we mean when we say something is real? ... her resulting book is a quirky and fascinating exploration, even a 'mischievous guide,' that helps animate the Icelandic landscape and inspire its protection." —Hakai Magazine

"Brown is a science writer and articulates the geology, ecology and archaeology that inform Iceland’s stories. But she also argues that there are other ways of seeing the world, and if we want to better protect our planet, we ought to be paying attention to them." —The Nature Conservancy's "Cool Green Science"

"A fascinating inquiry into the Icelandic belief in elves. This compelling and highly readable book offers a thought-provoking examination of the nature of belief itself, drawing compelling conclusions among humans, storytelling, and the environment."—Bookpage, starred review

"Brown's Looking for the Hidden Folk ... occupies a nice middle ground between the scholarly and the popular. She takes elves seriously as a cultural belief, and knows how to tell a story about them and their role in the history and lives of Icelanders."—Iceland Review

"Wherever readers stand on the elf question, they'll come away with a new appreciation for Iceland and its mysteries." ― Booklist

Published by Pegasus Books - October 2022 - 328 pp.
hardcover: ISBN 978-1639362288
paperback: ‎ ISBN 978-1639365746
ebook: ASIN B09RX4ZYKK
audiobook: ASIN B0BTFJNFMP

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The Real Valkyrie: The Hidden History of Viking Warrior Women

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 imagine her life and times, showing that Viking women had more power and agency than historians have imagined.

Brown uses science to link the Birka warrior, whom she names Hervor, to Viking trading towns and to their great trade route east to Byzantium and beyond. She imagines her life intersecting with larger than life but real women, including Queen Gunnhild Mother-of-Kings, the Viking leader known as The Red Girl, and vengeful Queen Olga of Kyiv. Hervor’s short, dramatic life shows that much of what we have taken for 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, law, saga, poetry, and myth carry weapons. These women brag, “As heroes we were widely known—with keen spears we cut blood from bone.” In this compelling narrative Brown brings the world of those valkyries and shield-maids to vivid life.

"A stirring reexamination of Viking history ... passionate and well-researched. ... Giving archaeology and history equal time with folklore, Brown makes a convincing case that Viking women played a prominent public role."—Kirkus Reviews

"Brown employs both hard science and her knowledge of Icelandic sagas for this sweeping view of the Viking Age, drawn from a focus on a single life."—The Wall Street Journal

St. Martin's Press - August 31, 2021 - 320 pp.
hardcover: ISBN 9781250200846
audiobook: ASIN B09MR412Y3
ebook: ASIN B08FZ8T4W7

Ivory Vikings: The Mystery of the Most Famous Chessmen in the World and the Woman Who Made Them

A richly imagined journey to the Viking world that created what the New York Times has called "the most important chess pieces in history."

Discovered in the 1830s on a remote Hebridean beach, the 93 Lewis chessmen are the best-known Scottish archaeological find of all time. At the Scottish National Museum and the British Museum, they are among the most frequently viewed and beloved objects. Songs, fantasies, thrillers, and films feature these quirky figurines: Harry played Wizard's Chess with them in Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone.

Drawing from medieval Icelandic sagas, modern archaeology, art history, forensics, and the history of board games, Ivory Vikings links the Lewis chessmen to the Vikings' luxury trade in walrus ivory and to a Norwegian king's fondness for wearing kilts. It presents a vivid history of the 400 years when Norsemen ruled the North Atlantic, and the sea road connected places we think of as culturally distinct: Norway and Scotland, Ireland and Iceland, Greenland and North America. Finally, Ivory Vikings brings from the shadows Margret the Adroit of Iceland, the talented 12th-century artist who carved the Lewis chessmen--maybe. "With a single chess set," notes Brown, "you can play an infinite number of games."

"Full of exciting detective work, along with absorbing excursions into the history of the Vikings, of chess in the Middle Ages, and of walrus ivory (known as 'arctic gold')."—The New Yorker

"This book is a delight for chess players, of course, but also for gamers of all sorts as well as anyone interested in the intricacies of the provenance of art and in endlessly fascinating minutiae--the strength and uses of walrus skin, how to carve walrus ivory, and so much more."—Booklist, Starred Review

St. Martin's Press - September 2015 - 256 pp.
hardcover: ISBN 978-1-13727-937-8
paper: ISBN 978-1-250-10859-3
ebook: ASIN B00TDRJ9GM
audiobook: ASIN B014W215BO

The Saga of Gudrid the Far-Traveler

"Father," Gudrid said, "when winter is over, my husband and I want to explore this Wine Land. Will you lend us your ship?"
The room fell dead quiet. She could feel the hush.
Her father put down his knife and looked at her, astonished. "One shipwreck is not enough?"

The quiet domestic life--spinning yarn, making cheese and skyr, collecting herbs for tea--might have been enough for other young women, but it was not enough for Gudrid. If Leif Eiriksson could sail west from Greenland and find a rich new land, why not Gudrid? What else lay beyond the western edge of the sea?

The medieval Icelandic sagas record the bare bones of Gudrid's story, but now Nancy Marie Brown, author of the nonfiction account The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman (2007), gives us the details in this fictional retelling of Gudrid's life. The Saga of Gudrid the Far-Traveler is an engaging portrait of an extraordinary young woman determined to make her own way in a world dominated by men, using her wits, her imagination, and her courage.

"Well-written, thoroughly researched, and adventure-filled, this story of a determined and very human young woman is timeless."—Kirkus Reviews

namelos - Spring 2015 - 204 pages - fiction - ages 12 and up
hardcover: ISBN 978-1608981892
paperback: ISBN 978-1608981908
ebook: ASIN B010W8LO1I

Song of the Vikings: Snorri and the Making of Norse Myths

Snorri Sturluson, the thirteenth-century Icelandic chieftain who gave us Odin, Loki, and Thor, was as unruly as the Norse gods he created. Much like Greek and Roman mythology, Norse myths are still with us. Famous storytellers from JRR Tolkien to Neil Gaiman have drawn their inspiration from tales of the long-haired, mead-drinking, marauding and pillaging Vikings. Their creator is a thirteenth-century Icelandic chieftain by the name of Snorri Sturluson. Like Homer, Snorri was a bard, collecting and embellishing the folklore and pagan legends of medieval Scandinavia. Unlike Homer, Snorri was a man of the world--a wily political power player. One of the richest men in Iceland, he came close to ruling it and even closer to betraying it. In Song of the Vikings, author Nancy Marie Brown brings Snorri Sturluson's story to life.

"Book of the Year ... rivetingly told."—Times Literary Supplement

Palgrave Macmillan - Fall 2012
hardcover: ISBN 978-0230338845
paperback: ISBN 978-1137278876
ebook: ASIN B008214WQW

The Abacus and the Cross: The Story of the Pope Who Brought the Light of Science to the Dark Ages

In the Year 1000, the earth wasn't flat. People weren't terrified that the world would end at the turn of the millennium. Christians didn't believe Muslims and Jews were their mortal enemies. The Church wasn't anti-science. The popular picture of the Dark Ages is wrong. In fact, science was central to the lives of monks, kings, and even popes a thousand years ago. The pope of the year 1000--Gerbert of Aurillac, known as Pope Sylvester II--was the leading mathematician and astronomer of his day.

A fascinating narrative of one remarkable math teacher, The Abacus and the Cross will captivate readers of history, science, and religion alike. As she reconstructs the strangely illuminated Europe of the Dark Ages, Nancy Marie Brown reminds us that the major conflicts in our world today--between Christianity and Islam, between religion and science--are products of our own age, not historical inevitabilities.

"A thoroughly engrossing account of the Dark Ages and one of its Popes, both far less dark than popular histories teach. ... A lively, eye-opening portrait of a sophisticated Europe whose intellectual leaders showed genuine interest in learning.—Kirkus, Starred Review

Basic Books - Winter 2010
hardcover: ISBN 978-0465009503
paperback: ISBN 978-0465031443
ebook: ASIN B0047T868S
audiobook: ASIN B004FHVZ7G

The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman

Five hundred years before Columbus, a Viking woman named Gudrid sailed off the edge of the known world. She landed in the New World and lived there for three years, giving birth to a baby before sailing home. Or so the Icelandic sagas say. Even after archaeologists found a Viking longhouse in Newfoundland, no one believed that the details of Gudrid's story were true. Then, in 2001, a team of scientists discovered what may have been this pioneering woman's last house, buried under a hay field in Iceland, just where the sagas suggested it could be.

Joining scientists experimenting with cutting-edge technology and the latest archaeological techniques, and tracing Gudrid's steps on land and in the sagas, Nancy Marie Brown reconstructs a life that spanned--and expanded--the bounds of the then-known world. She sheds new light on the society that gave rise to a woman even more extraordinary than legend has painted her ... and illuminates the reasons for its collapse.

"Brown pursues Gudrid out of admiration for a woman bold and wise. I eagerly pursued this book, which is as much about Brown's adventures as Gudrid's, for the very same reasons."—The New York Times Book Review, Editor’s Choice

Harcourt - Fall 2007
hardcover: ISBN 978-0151014408
paperback: ISBN 978-0156033978
ebook: ASIN B00A8NARH0
audiobook: ASIN B09YVMFD2Y

A Good Horse Has No Color: Searching Iceland for the Perfect Horse

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 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. 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.

"Breathtaking. ... Brown creates a saga of her own reinvention."—Canter

"A scholar of Icelandic sagas, Brown becomes enamored of the country's unique horses with their silken gait and fearless disposition. This journey across Iceland in search of her own perfect horse becomes a deep dive into a rare culture, and into her own motivations and limitations."—Geraldine Brooks, "6 Favorite Books for Those Who Love Horses," The Week (June 2022)

Stackpole Books - Fall 2001
hardcover: ISBN 978-0811707046
paperback: ISBN 978-1490525310
ebook: ASIN B004XJ7G6A