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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Aud have erected at Kross Hills?

2. What happens between Thorgest and Eirik when Eirik returns to Iceland?

3. What does Leif Eiriksson do with the news of the land sighted to the west?

4. Where does Eirik propose to go when he leaves Iceland?

5. Who is Thorvald?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the land that Thorvald and his men reported seeing all up and down the coast.

2. What does the saga of Gudrid's Ancestry tell us about Aud's faith and what she does to practice it?

3. Explain the entire affair of Eirik and the bench-boards.

4. What happens to Thorstein and his crew when they set sail for Vinland? Where do they end up spending the winter?

5. How long does Thorvald spend in Vinland, and what are his primary activities while he is there? Give details.

6. Describe how Eirik the Red felt about the possibility of joining Leif's exploration crew and why he did not.

7. Explain who Aud brings to Iceland with her, who they were, and what happened once they arrived in Iceland.

8. What kind of person is Freydis? Give examples.

9. Explain what happened to Aud's husband and son.

10. Describe the circumstances of Bjarni's discovery of new lands to the west.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The historical novel "The Thrall's Tale" takes place during the sagas. Read the novel and then analyze the novel's connections to the sagas.

Part 1. Introduce and summarize the novel.

Part 2. During which saga does the action of the novel take place? What events happen in both?

Part 3. Which characters from the novel are also characters from the sagas? Are they consistent with their portrayal in the sagas? Does the fiction created surrounding the characters seem likely or plausible? Why or why not?

Part 4. According to you, how well did the author of "The Thrall's Tale" weave her fiction into the sagas? What did she do well and what could she have done better?

Essay Topic 2

There are many characters that make a brief appearance in the sagas that merit more attention, for example, Aud the Deep-Minded. Choose a minor character in the sagas and do some further research about them. If there is little information about the person you choose, then write about two different characters.

Part 1. What character or character did you choose to learn more about? Why?

Part 2. Describe the person or persons and what they did.

Part 3. Why is this significant or meaningful? What impact did they have?

Essay Topic 3

What are the Icelandic Sagas?

Part 1. What are the Icelandic Sagas? When were they written and by whom?

Part 2. Why are the Icelandic Sagas important historically? What do we know from them?

Part 3. Summarize and analyze the content of the Vinland sagas.

(see the answer keys)

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