Synopsis: Vikings visit one thousand years ago. They sacrifice a local to Odin, and are killed by a war party. pp75-8

While I enjoyed the earlier chapters, this interlude seemed kind of pointless.

However, it's entirely possible that I'll have to read the entire book before I understand how the pieces fit together.

There are several messages from this interlude. European invasion of the Americas has been happening for longer than generally recognised, but the early efforts failed and were forgotten, destroyed without trace. This is an early example of Europeans bringing their God to America and imagining it could triumph but quickly finding themselves overwhelmed by local circumstances. It also raises the theme of human sacrifice through crucifixion as a way to propitiate an angry god, a ritual which now seems merely cruel and pointless, but in those days was understood as giving back to the creator something precious in recognition of the power of the God. Christianity has formalised this myth of human sacrifice with the story of Jesus on the cross.