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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 was the land like that Thorvald and his men see to the west?

2. What men come with Aud to Iceland?

3. Who is Karlsefni?

4. What do Leif and his crew do when their ship becomes grounded at low tide near the shore of a new land?

5. After her time in Orkney, where does Aud go?

Short Essay Questions

1. What response does Bjarni receive when he shares his sighting of the new land?

2. Why is Bjarni away when his father emigrates to Greenland?

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

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

5. Describe the woman that Gudrid sees and the discourse between them.

6. What does the prophecy told to Gudrid tell her about her future?

7. Describe the events surrounding Thorstein's death.

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

9. What does Eirik do when he reaches Greenland? How long?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Several times in the sagas we see a prophecy delivered and taken seriously. Write an essay about the Viking tradition of prophecy.

Part 1. Were the Vikings, in general, a superstitious people? Give examples. What, other than prophecies, did they believe in?

Part 2. How seriously did the Vikings take prophecies?

Part 3. What were some of the common ways for Vikings to receive prophecies?

Part 4. What evidence of prophecies is there in the Vinland Sagas?

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay about women in Viking culture.

Part 1. How did the rights of viking women compare with the rights of women in other areas of Europe?

Part 2. What traditions surrounded the processes of marriage and divorce?

Part 3. What were the roles and responsibilities of women in a marriage and society?

Essay Topic 3

Do some outside research on the mystical creature referred to as a uniped, and write an essay about it.

Part 1. What is a uniped?

Part 2. Other than the Vinland Sagas, where are unipeds referred to them?

Part 3. What lore surrounds unipeds?

Part 4. Do you have an explanation about what unipeds might be? What other theories are out there about what this and other unipeds might be?

(see the answer keys)

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