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Travel Light 4 - Micklegard
Numerous authors have dealt with the interactions between northerners (especially Vikings) and Micklegard (Byzantium) - for example I just finished reading Henry Treece's Viking trilogy in which the main character spends time there. Why the fascination with this? (and with the chain of river portages north from there back to Scandinavia). Is it just the contrast in cultures forced to meet and work together but with such different assumptions about life and society?
Comments
Michael Chabon’s Gentlemen of the Road also does, though in that case the main characters are not Vikings, but Franks, if I recall. I’m not convinced there’s a fascination with the subject (more a fascination with dragons, I would say, or even bears, or the Brits in India), but I can see why it might be interesting to people as basically the most exotic extension of Norse culture and a way to mash up two different ‘memes’ for lack of a better word - the north and the orient.