标题: 《The Eaters of the Dead》作者： - Crichton_ Michael【EPUB】 [打印本页] 作者: zaq 时间: 2013-11-9 20:20 标题: 《The Eaters of the Dead》作者： - Crichton_ Michael【EPUB】 The Eaters of the Dead The Eaters of the Dead “Praise not the day until evening has come; a woman until she is burnt; a sword until it is tried; a maiden until she is married; ice until it has been crossed; beer until it has been drunk.” —VIKING PROVERB “Evil is of old date.” —ARAB PROVERB INTRODUCTION THE IBN FADLAN MANUSCRIPT REPRESENTS THE earliest known eyewitness account of Viking life and society. It is an extraordinary document, describing in vivid detail events which occurred more than a thousand years ago. The manuscript has not, of course, survived intact over that enormous span of time. It has a peculiar history of its own, and one no less remarkable than the text itself. PROVENANCE OF THE MANUSCRIPT In June, A.D. 921, the Caliph of Bagdad sent a member of his court, Ahmad Ibn Fadlan, as ambassador to the King of the Bulgars. Ibn Fadlan was gone three years on his journey and never actually accomplished his mission, for along the way he encountered a company of Norsemen and had many adventures among them. When he finally returned to Bagdad, Ibn Fadlan recorded his experiences in the form of an official report to the court. That original manuscript has long since disappeared, and to reconstruct it we must rely on partial fragments