A Viking Legend: The Descendants of Odin

This is a story of a legendary mythological family, a dynasty descended from the gods themselves. It has been told and retold over many centuries, kept alive in poems, stories, and songs that were memorized, chanted, and sung in the Old Norse tongue, the language of the Vikings of medieval Scandinavia.

As nomadic families travelled and migrated, they took their stories and poems with them, a strong link that connected them to their past, ancestors, and homelands. After these migrating families had settled and lived in Iceland for a few centuries, scribes documented their stories, putting quill to vellum and collecting them into books. Yet the different sources of the myths and legends have gaps, incomplete explanations, and missing pages.

A Viking Legend: The Descendants of Odin weaves together these gaps, combining information from many different sources into one book. Unknown characters are enhanced, mythological details are fleshed out, missing information is given an explanation, and a new and different ending occurs. Complemented by images of medieval carvings and classical illustrations, what has emerged is a mysterious and sometimes shocking story, featuring births and deaths, valkyries, tales of honour and love, betrayal and vengeance, battles on land and at sea, sorcery and magic, prophecies and curses, supernatural beings, a dragon, and so much more.

"Reflecting on my life, I realize I have written all my life, although never really classifying it as writing. Like right now, I am writing this form, although I would classify this as typing, it is still a form of writing. I have enjoyed writing and throughout the years and have sat and wrote poems and stories, either to relieve stress, or express some emotion that I was unable talk out. I realized writing for me is a form of therapy, along with doing art work. I have written some memoirs, and fantasy. I like fantasy, as fantasy can give a little reprieve from some of the harshness and cruelties of life.

While my children were in elementary schools, I volunteered on school boards and wrote articles for parental newsletters. I also have written articles for the Logberg Heimskringla, (an Icelandic Newsletter), the Icelandic Connection, (an Icelandic (now on-line) magazine), and for the Icelandic Roots Newsletter. I have been one of the Winnipeg writers featured in an anthology called Talespin, from the Winnipeg Heart Space Writing school, with Joanne Klassen.

I have written essays in University and have taken Academic Writing and Composition courses. When I began teaching Elementary Icelandic and Old Norse Mythology, I wrote numerous lesson plans and implemented them. The basis for, A Viking Legend: The Descendants of Odin, were my lesson plans. I gathered all the stories and put them together for my students for better understanding of the literature. The stories are classified as mythological because of the supernatural content in them.

I am now retired and seventy-four years of age. A Viking Legend:The Descendants of Odin is my first book. I have more books in me to write and hope that I can. I live in Winnipeg with my husband and have two adult sons and a granddaughter." - Ainsley Bloomer, author of A Viking Legend: The Decendants of Odin

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