Human consumption of human flesh has fascinated people in all places and in every age, including the present. This book explores this persistent obsession by surveying the history and imaginative treatment of cannibalistic beings such as ogres, ghouls, the wendigo, and the aswang. Discussions of creatures that typically exist outside of or on the fringes of human society provide a foundation for considering human cannibals and notorious historical and contemporary incidents of cannibalism, including survival cannibalism and the atrocities serial killers commit. Each chapter summarizes the evolution of cannibals in art, literature, and film, amplifying the idea that cannibalism continues to have a visceral appeal for audiences. This study provides a thorough analysis of cannibalism fables and facts, but the early chapters on fantastic cannibalistic beings are particularly absorbing as are the introductory discussions of the age-old fear of being eaten and Tibetan and Zoroastrian corpse disposal practices. Generously illustrated, this book is clearly written and suitable for nonspecialists and scholarly audiences alike. It features excellent notes, and the production is tasteful, despite the unsavory topic. Highly recommended. ' I first read Eaters of the Dead in high school and didn’t know what to do with it. I sought it out primarily because it had a famous name attached to it and because many of my friends were gaga for its film adaptation, The 13th Warrior. (I hadn’t yet taken my plunge into early medieval northern Europe, a plunge I still haven’t come up from.) I got ahold of a copy with the movie tie-in cover and alternate title somewhere and started to read it. The Reveal: Ahmad gets a clear view of a Wendol without his bear skin and describes his features in detail. It's indisputably a Neanderthal. The book's epilogue includes various academic authorities arguing over whether Ahmad's description of the Wendol can be trusted. Michael Crichton is one of our most gifted popular novelists. A true son of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. . . . A master of plausible and frightening scenarios. . . . He is a connoisseur of catastrophe."-- Los Angeles Times

From book to screen, changes were made to the details of Eaters of the Dead, but not to the general tale. Ibn Fadlan is forced to accompany Buliwyf and participates in the battles against the wendol, and most of the best scenes are lifted straight from the book. What the film does is rejigger the sequence for dramatic purposes, and injects more personality into the characters. As mentioned earlier, ibn Fadlan becomes a more active participant, even solving some of the riddles about the wendol. In other words, typical movie adaptation stuff. Every culture has monsters that eat us, and every culture repels in horror when we eat ourselves. From Grendel to medieval Scottish cannibal Sawney Bean, and from the Ghuls of ancient Persia to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, tales of being consumed are both universal and universally terrifying. In this book, Kevin J. Wetmore Jr. explores the full range of monsters that eat the dead: ghouls, cannibals, wendigos, and other beings that feast on human flesh. Moving from myth through history to contemporary popular culture, Wetmore considers everything from ancient Greek myths of feeding humans to the gods, through sky burial in Tibet and Zoroastrianism, to actual cases of cannibalism in modern societies. By examining these seemingly inhuman acts, Eaters of the Dead reveals that those who consume corpses can teach us a great deal about human nature—and our deepest human fears. While Beowulf may have been written at any point between the 8th and 10th century, the earlier date is more generally agreed, and the story's Hrothgar is believed to have been a historical king in 6th century Denmark, much earlier than Ibn Fadlan. So much for the plot. If you’re just reading Eaters of the Dead for the story, you should finish it satisfied—it’s a real rip-snorting adventure tale, a classic quest full of exotic locales, strange customs, plenty of action, and a splash of horror. The angel of death has spoken,” my interpreter said. “The party of Buliwyf must be thirteen, and of these one must be no Northman, and so you shall be the thirteenth.”

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One of our most gifted popular novelists... Crichton's fecund imagination and considerable storytelling talent have brought pleasure to millions. A master."--"Los Angeles Times" The history diverges into a "What if" story when Ibn Fadlan is forced to join warrior Buliwyf and his company's quest to the north. Their mission? To protect the lands and defeat the deadly mist monsters. A behind the scenes feature runs about 30 minutes and covers a lot of ground, including Boll’s involvement in the dis

Spanning myth, history, and contemporary culture, a terrifying and illuminating excavation of the meaning of cannibalism. Off with His Head!: The Wendol steal the heads of those they kill, including some of Buliwyf's men. AMAZING NEWS: 11/26/23 (Turkey Left Overs Week) - Amazing Stories on Michael Bishop, November 12, 1945 – November 13, 2023 While the Northmen are gross enough (their morning wash water is shared, and for some reason everyone spits in it), they aren’t as disgustingly ungroomed as in the book. In “Eaters of the Dead,” we visit an almost otherworldly 10 th century; in “The 13 th Warrior” it feels closer to modern times.Crichton makes fun of his own “pedantic” footnotes in his author’s note, but – as always with Crichton – the details at the margins of the narrative enrich this adventure. He especially hits on something good after the story’s completion in the appendix, where he digs into a scientific explanation for the beastly but vaguely human wendol. In 1979, it was announced the movie version of the novel would be made by the newly formed Orion Pictures with Crichton as director. [6] This did not occur. El nombre wendol o Windon es muy antiguo, tan antiguo como cualquiera de los pueblos de las regiones del Norte, y quiere decir «la niebla negra». Para los nórdicos significa una niebla que trae consigo, bajo la protección de la noche, a unos demonios negros que asesinan y matan y comen la carne de los seres humanos. Son velludos y asquerosos al tacto y al olfato. Son feroces y astutos. No hablan lenguaje conocido por ningún hombre y sin embargo hablan entre ellos. Vienen con la niebla de la noche y desaparecen con el día, donde no hay nadie que ose seguirlos"

The DVD is presented in 2.35:1 aspect ratio with the option of 5.1 or 2.0 original Italian audio. The subtitles have been fantastically well translated into English, not that I'm an Italian speaker, but the swearwords have all been made typically British. 'Arse', rather than 'ass' is so much better. The picture is as clear as one would expect from digital, with the post-processing adding a grimy and gritty look to the colours. No Ending: The manuscript, and thus the book, ends just before Ahmad ibn Fadlan is about to embark on a new adventure, practically in the middle of- There are plenty of other examples of all of these things, but what I notice about many others is their often po-faced ideological didacticism. Witness the recent rash of deconstructive parallel novels about “marginalized voices” (i.e. minor characters) in famous stories. What sets Eaters of the Dead apart from so many of these is how much fun it is. Not only is it, again, a rip-snorting adventure, but it’s a fun send-up of scholarship, containing as it does an introduction, information on the provenance of Ibn Fadlan manuscripts, parodically pedantic footnotes (some of them much longer than the passages they seek to illuminate), explanations of variant readings, a bibliography, and an appendix on the “predictable debate” surrounding the wendol. Jazzing around Ibn Fadlan was actually Ahmed Ibn Fadlan (In Arabic: أحمد بن فضلان بن العباس بن راشد بن حماد Aḥmad ibn Faḍlān ibn al-ʿAbbās ibn Rāšid ibn Ḥammād, 921–22) and was sent out to report on the peoples of the areas in the far north of the Muslim consciousness, by the Abbasid Caliph, Al-Muqtadir. The report he compiled on his travels and observations of the Bulghars, Khazars and the Rus, is called The Risala. I have a Penguin Classics version which is a factual work based around his manuscripts - or copies and versions included in other works, because, as is frustratingly common, the original is now lost. I haven't read that yet, so I'm afraid I can't give you acomparison just yet.Lo mismo me la estoy cogiendo con papel de fumar. Empiezo este cuarto párrafo y aún no he hablado del libro en sí. Pero es que no me ensañaría así si el contenido del libro no fuera lo que es: una serie de lugares comunes que son el "a,b,c" de las historias de vikingos. Nada luce especialmente, en parte debido al estilo ramplón y aburrido del narrador, que cuenta toda la historia como quien escribe un albarán: dando fe de lo que vio, como fiel testimonio, sin adulterar sus vivencias con literatura. Crichton explica en su prologo -¡otra vez el maldito prologo!- esta elección tonal. Este es ante todo un documento histórico, escrito por un embajador a su soberano, en el que da cuenta de los usos, costumbres y políticas de sus vecinos norteños, con los que puede ser, o no, mantener relaciones comerciales fructíferas. Por eso el texto, pese a narrar una lucha contra una raza de hombres antediluvianos y caníbales, es así de soso: no es un cantar de gesta, sino una crónica. El problema de esta elección es que, si bien ganas en verosimilitud, sigue siendo un estilo igual de soso, aburrido, carente de épica y sentimiento, una enumeración de hechos descritos con la precisión de un contable. Ibn Fadlan is the protagonist through whom Michael Crichton tells the story. The original idea behind writing the book was to relate the story of Beowulf in such a way that it would be more acceptable to today’s readers. The manuscript of Ibn Fadlan was incorporated to suit this purpose.