The master of Norwegian prose, Roy Jacobsen, having tried many professions, made his debut in 1982 with a collection of short stories. Since then, juggling themes and changing genres from book to book, he has won more than a dozen literary awards, including an elite award given by a national jury of critics. By making the hero of the novel "The Cold" Thorgest Thorhallason from the ancient sagas, Jacobsen himself created a kind of saga. Torgest was not born like everyone else. He hardly grows, but he is gifted with an extraordinary imagination, can predict the future and carve wood with amazing skill. At the age of thirteen, little Torgest managed to avenge the murder of his father, but now mortal danger loomed over him. So the boy has to flee from his native Iceland to Norway, and then to England. Disappointment and betrayal, love and separation will not prevent him, the son of a simple farmer, from becoming a scientist, skald and adviser to Earl Eirik himself.