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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Beleriphon" data-source="post: 6504441" data-attributes="member: 27847">Well, yes I know that its his take on Beowulf. My whole cloth comment is more towards the way its presented as an actual translation of a real man's tale. The footnotes and such go a long way to make it seem as though Chrichton had written it from notes he'd found and translated (or had translated) rather than making up the historical aspects entirely. He basically turned Grendel into lost group of homo neanderthalis, which has no basis in history and Bulwyf is of course not a real person.Yes, Ahmad ibn Fadlan was a real person. Yes, he really did meet Viking and the Rus people. Yes, he did travel all over Central and Eastern Europe. No, he didn't fight crazy neanderthals in Northern Europe with a bunch of Vikings. That being said, the real man's own accounts do actually include the ship burial and a back and forth where a Viking calls the Fadlan a weirdo for want to let the dead be eaten by worms rather than incinerated and let into paradise immediately. So, if anything I'd take Eaters of the Dead and The 13th Warrior as a fairly accurate view of how 10th century Vikings actually lived.Here's the quote I mentioned:</blockquote>