From the Mouth of the Whale

The year is 1635. Iceland is a world darkened by superstition, poverty, and cruelty. Men of science marvel over a unicorn's horn, poor folk worship the Virgin in secret, and both books and men are burned.

Jonas Palmason, a poet and self-taught healer, has been condemned to exile for heretical conduct, having fallen afoul of the local magistrate. Banished to a barren island, Palmason recalls his gift for curing "female maladies," his exorcism of a walking corpse on the remote Snjafjoll coast, the frenzied massacre of innocent Basque whalers at the hands of local villagers, and the deaths of three of his children.

Palmason's story echoes across centuries and cultures, an epic tale that makes us see the world anew.