| Vaskilintu | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Kaari Utrio |
| Country | Finland |
| Language | Finnish |
| Subject(s) | Middle Age, love |
| Genre(s) | Historical fiction |
| Publisher | Tammi |
| Publication date | 1992 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback, pocket book) |
| Pages | 753 pp |
| ISBN | 951-31-0051-0 |
| OCLC Number | 30475882 |
| LC Classification | MLCM 94/13602 (P) |
| Followed by | Tuulihaukka |
Vaskilintu (Finnish: Brassbird, or The Copper Bird) is a historical novel by Finnish author Kaari Utrio.
There exists an English translation of the book.
Plot summary: A Finnish girl, Terhen, gets mingled with royalty of Sweden, and follows in a retinue to the Court of Novgorod, where the eldest sister of the Swedish king is married with ruler of that country. An accident makes a mix-up how Terhen is replaced to the role of the Novgorodian queen's youngest sister. Years pass, and the ruler of Novgorod allows a Greek nobleman, envoy from the Emperor of Constantinople, to marry the young lady, whose Greek name gets to be despoina Theodora Hyperborea.
All the time, the young Finnish woman has odd experiences when he meets Finno-Ugric tribes, such as Muroma and Magyar in her travels. In Constantinople, Theodora (a rising imperial lady-in-waiting) has two sons, a boy Georgios to her Skleros husband, and another boy, Juvalos ('Olaf'), with her Varangian swain Eirik. The widowed Theodora is sent to steward her childhood friend, Anna Jaroslavna, throughout Europe to her marriage with king Henry I of France. In France, Theodora marries secondly, a rough Norman knight, sire of a manor. Her teenage son, the Greek count Juvalos flees the vile stepfather. The Queen of France assigns the again-widowed Theodora to steward the Anglo-Saxon royal couple, Edward the Exile and Agatha, to the court of Edward the Confessor in England. After some vicissitudes, Theodora's old paramour Eirik meets her in England, they finally decide to tie the knot. They move to Finland, to live in the old home region of Theodora.
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