ection>VIKING TERROR
To the great-great-grandchildren of Granny Smith
VIKING TERROR
Tom Henighan
Copyright © Tom Henighan, 2006
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Editor: Barry Jowett
Copy-Editor: Jennifer Gallant
Design: Katherine Wilson
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National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data
Henighan, Tom
Viking terror / Tom Henighan.
ISBN-10: 1-55002-605-4
ISBN-13: 978-1-55002-605-4
1. Vikings--Greenland--Juvenile fiction. 2. Eric, the Red, fl.
985--Juvenile fiction. 3. Vikings--Social life and customs--Juvenile
fiction. I. Title.
PS8565.E582V53 2006 jC813'.54 C2006-900521-4
1 2 3 4 5 09 08 07 06 05
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J. Kirk Howard, President
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Will you seek the icy north?
Are you steering by the sun?
Where you journey there is none
But a frozen Viking targe...
— Arthur Maquarie, “Rhapsody”
LIST OF CHARACTERS
Rigg Leifsson: The seventeen-year-old son of Leif Eriksson and Fianna.
Ari Bardasson: Rigg’s best friend, aged nineteen, an aspiring poet of Baltic ancestry.
Nara: A Tornit (Dorset-Inuit) girl from the north of Greenland, about the same age as Rigg.
Fianna: Rigg’s Irish mother, wife of Leif, originally his slave.
Tyrkir: Rigg’s teacher, a noted rune interpreter, originally a German slave of Erik’s.
Unn: A tomboyish and clever thirteen-year-old, Rigg’s friend from childhood.
Gudrid: Unn’s older sister, a noted beauty, married to Erik the Red’s favourite son, Thorstein.
Erik the Red: Great explorer, devoted pagan, and founder of the Greenland settlement, Leif’s father and Rigg’s grandfather.
Theodhild: Erik’s wife, a Christian convert.
Brandt: Erik’s estate manager.
Freydis: Erik’s only daughter, a noted sibyl, or prophetess, and reputed witch.
Thorvard: Freydis’s husband, a skinflint, dominated by his powerful wife.
Ottar the Moneyer: A drifter and spy who has settled in Greenland and is allied with Freydis and Erik.
Thorstein: Erik’s favourite son, husband of the beautiful Gudrid. He attempts to reach Vinland with Erik.
Death Watcher: A mysterious warrior who bears the mark of the coveted Helm of Awe.
Thorhall the Hunter: Close friend and travelling companion of Erik.
Rolf the Navigator: A mariner and farmer who sailed to Vinland with Leif. A trusted friend of Leif and Fianna.
Gardar Olafsson: A friend of Leif’s and a collector of animals.
Leif Eriksson: Rigg’s father, a Christian, and the famed discoverer of Vinland.
Various veterans of the voyages of Erik and Leif, and other Greenland settlers, also appear, including Bild the Blacksmith, Ragnar the Wary, Crow, Neri, Hedin, Pilgrim, Odd Arngrimsson, the Hawk, Owl, Ketil, Solve, and Einar of Einarsfiord.
A BRIEF HISTORICAL NOTE
The Rigg Viking books are set in the early eleventh century, and Viking Terror, the second of the series, takes place at the Ostri Bygd, or Eastern Settlement, as the Norse called it, located in Eriksfiord on the southwestern coast of Greenland, and also in the Nordsetur, the Norse hunting grounds some twelve hundred kilometres north. The Eastern Settlement was founded by Erik the Red around the year 985 CE (his farm estate, known as Brattalid, had the best land), and from there the Norse spread out to the northwest. Banished from Iceland some years earlier, Erik
