I had a discussion with a friend about Grace O’Malley, and when this book popped up in a library search, I grabbed it. It’s from 2004, by Barbara Sjoholm. Or Wilson. Or something else.

I was excited with it came in, because I assumed it was going to be chock full of historic facts about women of the sea. Instead, it’s a travelogue, documenting her journey to look for these women. Ok, disappointing, but I can deal with that change. But it seems to me, she doesn’t really like where she is traveling, despite writing about her love of the places. It’s full of negative quips, comments about her fellow travelers and travel arrangements, even a quip about how so many Scandinavian women have the same name.

I loved her section about the women of fishing work, especially the ‘herring girls’, women who cut cold fish in 12-15 hour shifts. I did not like her dip into how unromantic that life was and how she’d rather be a captain. It was a bit of historical interest in a book I got for the history, pushed aside because no one wanted to be one of those girls. Twice.

I want to go look up Freydís Eiríksdóttir, who I hadn’t heard about, who was Leif Erickson’s sister, apparently. Her section was interesting, and I did like the contrast between her and Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir, who is more well known because her history was kept alive because of her ‘good Christian faith’, And that she doesn’t have a potential mass murder attached to her.

I also really liked the juxtaposition of the history records and historians saying, no women didn’t fish, contrasted with interviews with old women who were all ‘of course we fished! we had to!’

Overall, if you are looking for a history on seafaring women, don’t pick this up. If you are looking for an interesting travelogue on the seas around Scotland, don’t pick this up. Overall, remove this from your TBR pile, unless you want a book about trying on new last names.