The Farfarers ; Before the Norse by Mowat, Farley - 1998

Toronto: Key Porter Books Ltd.. Very Good+ in Near Fine dust jacket. 1998. First Edition; First Printing. Hardcover. 1550139894 . Gift notation on front free endpaper, otherwise near-fine. ; A bright, solid book, dustjacket in Mylar, unclipped.; Large 8vo 9" - 10" tall; 377 pages; "A veteran investigator of early European voyages to North America, Mowat (Westviking) has conjured up a vision of pre-Viking settlement by a people he calls the Albans. Originating in what is now Scotland, Mowat's Albans were displaced in stages between about 700 and 1000 A.D., first to Iceland and Greenland, and finally to the western coast of Newfoundland. The author sees the Albans as driven westward by two forces: the search for valuables such as sealskin and walrus tusk, and the remorseless pressure of Viking raiders. To support his thesis, Mowat presents what scant evidence exists-mainly, stone constructions, like tower beacons and foundations for shelters, which Mowat believes cannot be attributed to the Norse or to native inhabitants of Greenland or Atlantic Canada, and which resemble stonework found in the Orkney Islands. On this basis, Mowat accepts that the Albans existed and sets out to imagine what their migrations were like." .