History of the Vikings and Norse Culture

History of the Vikings and Norse Culture
Author: Njord Kane
Publisher: Spangenhelm Publishing
Total Pages: 599
Release: 2019-09-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 1943066310

The story of the Norse begins with the first ancient tribes during the early Nordic Stone Age. There originated the Nordic Ax Culture when primitive Norsemen create their first stone battle axes. An incredible evolution of an innovative and progressive culture that groomed legendary warriors whose voices still roar out today. Take a journey into the Age of Viking Expansion where Ragnar Lothbrok, Rollo, Erik the Red, and many other famous Vikings take you on a ride into the very Halls of Valhalla. Learn about Norse culture, marriage customs, baby naming ceremonies, and the sacrificial blóts used in spiritual and religious observances. Explore legendary Norse such as the Jómsvíkings, Varangian, and Rus'. The Vikings played ball and board games and had their own form of martial arts called Glima. Explore knowledge and technology specific to a culture that was shaped by a people who were able to reach great distances across seas beyond their homelands. A battle ferocious people who were unmatched by their opponents. There's a whole new world of understanding about the ancient vikings has been opened up by new archaeological discoveries and studies. New findings that lead to new questions about the Jötnar, often called frost giants. There were many shared technologies between the Ancient Norse, the Inuit and other Native American aborigines. Viking explorers have long interacted and traded with many people and cultures afar. Were ancient Norse already in contact with early Native Americans? See for yourself with new information about the Norse that was once lost in time.

The Age of the Vikings

The Age of the Vikings
Author: Anders Winroth
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 327
Release: 2014-09-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 1400851904

A major reassessment of the vikings and their legacy The Vikings maintain their grip on our imagination, but their image is too often distorted by myth. It is true that they pillaged, looted, and enslaved. But they also settled peacefully and traveled far from their homelands in swift and sturdy ships to explore. The Age of the Vikings tells the full story of this exciting period in history. Drawing on a wealth of written, visual, and archaeological evidence, Anders Winroth captures the innovation and pure daring of the Vikings without glossing over their destructive heritage. He not only explains the Viking attacks, but also looks at Viking endeavors in commerce, politics, discovery, and colonization, and reveals how Viking arts, literature, and religious thought evolved in ways unequaled in the rest of Europe. The Age of the Vikings sheds new light on the complex society, culture, and legacy of these legendary seafarers.

A Brief History of the Vikings

A Brief History of the Vikings
Author: Jonathan Clements
Publisher: Robinson
Total Pages: 215
Release: 2013-02-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 1472107756

'From the Fury of the Northmen deliver us, O Lord.' Between the eighth and eleventh centuries, the Vikings surged from their Scandinavian homeland to trade, raid and invade along the coasts of Europe. Their influence and expeditions extended from Newfoundland to Baghdad, their battles were as far-flung as Africa and the Arctic. But were they great seafarers or desperate outcasts, noble heathens or oafish pirates, the last pagans or the first of the modern Europeans? This concise study puts medieval chronicles, Norse sagas and Muslim accounts alongside more recent research into ritual magic, genetic profiling and climatology. It includes biographical sketches of some of the most famous Vikings, from Erik Bloodaxe to Saint Olaf, and King Canute to Leif the Lucky. It explains why the Danish king Harald Bluetooth lent his name to a twenty-first century wireless technology; which future saint laughed as she buried foreign ambassadors alive; why so many Icelandic settlers had Irish names; and how the last Viking colony was destroyed by English raiders. Extending beyond the traditional 'Viking age' of most books, A Brief History of the Vikings places sudden Scandinavian population movement in a wider historical context. It presents a balanced appraisal of these infamous sea kings, explaining both their swift expansion and its supposed halt. Supposed because, ultimately, the Vikings didn't disappear: they turned into us.

The Viking Age

The Viking Age
Author: Angus A. Somerville
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 550
Release: 2019-11-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 148757049X

In this extensively revised third edition of The Viking Age: A Reader, Somerville and McDonald successfully bring the Vikings and their world to life for twenty-first-century students and instructors. The diversity of the Viking era is revealed through the remarkable range and variety of sources presented as well as the geographical and chronological coverage of the readings. The third edition has been reorganized into fifteen chapters. Many sources have been added, including material on gender and warrior women, and a completely new final chapter traces the continuing cultural influence of the Vikings to the present day. The use of visual material has been expanded, and updated maps illustrate historical developments throughout the Viking Age. The English translations of Norse texts, many of them new to this collection, are straightforward and easily accessible, while chapter introductions contextualize the readings.

Children of Ash and Elm

Children of Ash and Elm
Author: Neil Price
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 629
Release: 2020-08-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 0465096999

The definitive history of the Vikings -- from arts and culture to politics and cosmology -- by a distinguished archaeologist with decades of expertise The Viking Age -- from 750 to 1050 -- saw an unprecedented expansion of the Scandinavian peoples into the wider world. As traders and raiders, explorers and colonists, they ranged from eastern North America to the Asian steppe. But for centuries, the Vikings have been seen through the eyes of others, distorted to suit the tastes of medieval clerics and Elizabethan playwrights, Victorian imperialists, Nazis, and more. None of these appropriations capture the real Vikings, or the richness and sophistication of their culture. Based on the latest archaeological and textual evidence, Children of Ash and Elm tells the story of the Vikings on their own terms: their politics, their cosmology and religion, their material world. Known today for a stereotype of maritime violence, the Vikings exported new ideas, technologies, beliefs, and practices to the lands they discovered and the peoples they encountered, and in the process were themselves changed. From Eirík Bloodaxe, who fought his way to a kingdom, to Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir, the most traveled woman in the world, Children of Ash and Elm is the definitive history of the Vikings and their time.

The Vikings

The Vikings
Author: Robert Ferguson
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 502
Release: 2009-11-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 1101151420

A comprehensive and thrilling history of the Vikings for fans of the History Channel series From Harald Bluetooth to Cnut the Great, the feared seamen and plunderers of the Viking Age ruled Norway, Sweden, and Denmark but roamed as far as Byzantium, Greenland, and America. Raiders and traders, settlers and craftsmen, the medieval Scandinavians who have become familiar to history as Vikings never lose their capacity to fascinate, from their ingeniously designed longboats to their stormy pantheon of Viking gods and goddesses, ruled by Odin in Valhalla. Robert Ferguson is a sure guide across what he calls "the treacherous marches which divide legend from fact in Viking Age history." His long familiarity with the literary culture of Scandinavia with its skaldic poetry is combined with the latest archaeological discoveries to reveal a sweeping picture of the Norsemen, one of history's most amazing civilizations. Impeccably researched and filled with compelling accounts and analyses of legendary Viking warriors and Norse mythology, The Vikings is an indispensable guide to medieval Scandinavia and is a wonderful companion to the History Channel series.

The Vikings and Their Age

The Vikings and Their Age
Author: Angus A. Somerville
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2013-03-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 1442605243

This book, the first in our Companions to Medieval Studies series, is a brief introduction to the history, culture, and religion of the Viking Age and provides an essential foundation for study of the period. The companion begins by defining the Viking Age and explores topics such as Viking society and religion. Viking biographies provide students with information on important figures in Viking lore such as Harald Bluetooth, Eirik the Red, Leif Eiriksson, and Gudrid Thorbjarnardaughter, a female Viking traveler. A compelling chapter entitled "How Do We Know About the Vikings?" and a case study on the wandering monks of St. Philibert introduce students to the process of historical inquiry. The book concludes with a discussion of the impact of the Vikings and their legacy. Pedagogical resources include a detailed chronology, study questions, a glossary, 4 maps, and 14 images. Text boxes provide information on outsider perceptions of the Vikings, a detailed account of a Viking raid, and a description of a chieftain's dwelling in Arctic Norway. This study also benefits from a multi-disciplinary approach including insights and evidence from such diverse disciplines as archaeology, philology, religion, linguistics, and genetics.

Sons of Vikings

Sons of Vikings
Author: Kurt Noer
Publisher:
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2018-11-27
Genre:
ISBN: 9781790425846

Sons of Vikings tells the story of the Viking Age (793-1066 A.D.) through the lives of extraordinary people. Each chapter is a biography of Ragnar Lothbrok, Ivar the Boneless, Bjorn Ironside, Rollo, Brian Boru, Erik the Red, Floki, Leif Erikson, Lagertha, Alfred, Rurik, Sviatoslav, William the Conqueror, and many other heroes and villains. It provides an understanding of this pivotal historical period in a way that facts and chronologies alone cannot. Sons of Vikings is meticulously researched from almost 100 sources but is also not afraid to challenge conventional beliefs and offer new perspectives. It is the perfect introduction for the casual fan of Vikings in television and popular culture but also offers a new take for the well-read history enthusiast. From myths, legends, sagas, and stories, to the most-recent archeology and DNA research, this book brings the Viking Age to life.

Women in the Viking Age

Women in the Viking Age
Author: Judith Jesch
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Total Pages: 250
Release: 1991
Genre: History
ISBN: 0851153607

Through runic inscriptions and behind the veil of myth, Jesch discovers the true story of viking women.

Norse America

Norse America
Author: Gordon Campbell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2021
Genre: History
ISBN: 0198861559

The story of the Vikings in North America as both fact and fiction, from the westward expansion of the Norse across the North Atlantic in the tenth and eleventh centuries to the myths and fabrications about their presence there that have developed in recent centuries. Tracking the saga of the Norse across the North Atlantic to America, Norse America sets the record straight about the idea that the Vikings 'discovered' America. The journey described is a continuum, with evidence-based history and archaeology at one end, and fake history and outright fraud at the other. In between there lies a huge expanse of uncertainty: sagas that may contain shards of truth, characters that may be partly historical, real archaeology that may be interpreted through the fictions of saga, and fragmentary evidence open to responsible and irresponsible interpretation. Norse America is a book that tells two stories. The first is the westward expansion of the Norse across the North Atlantic in the tenth and eleventh centuries, ending (but not culminating) in a fleeting and ill-documented presence on the shores of the North American mainland. The second is the appropriation and enhancement of the westward narrative by Canadians and Americans who want America to have had white North European origins, who therefore want the Vikings to have 'discovered' America, and who in the advancement of that thesis have been willing to twist and manufacture evidence in support of claims grounded in an ideology of racial superiority.