A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR\n'As brilliant a history of the Vikings as one could possibly hope to read' Tom Holland\nThe 'Viking Age' is traditionally held to begin in June 793 when Scandinavian raiders attacked the monastery of Lindisfarne in Northumbria, and to end in September 1066, when King Harald Hardrada of Norway died leading the charge against the English line at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. This book, the most wide-ranging and comprehensive assessment of the current state of our knowledge, takes a refreshingly different view. It shows that the Viking expansion began generations before the Lindisfarne raid, and traces Scandinavian history back centuries further to see how these people came to be who they were.\nThe narrative ranges across the whole of the Viking diaspora, from Vinland on the eastern American seaboard to Constantinople and Uzbekistan, with contacts as far away as China. Based on the latest archaeology, it explores the complex origins of the Viking phenomenon and traces the seismic shifts in Scandinavian society that resulted from an economy geared to maritime war. Some of its most striking discoveries include the central role of slavery in Viking life and trade, and the previously unsuspected pirate communities and family migrations that were part of the Viking 'armies' - not least in England.\nEspecially, Neil Price takes us inside the Norse mind and spirit-world, and across their borders of identity and gender, to reveal startlingly different Vikings to the barbarian marauders of stereotype. He cuts through centuries of received wisdom to try to see the Vikings as they saw themselves - descendants of the first human couple, the Children of Ash and Elm. Healso reminds us of the simultaneous familiarity and strangeness of the past, of how much we cannot know, alongside the discoveries that change the landscape of our understanding. This is an eye-opening and surprisingly moving book.

The Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings

History

Price, Neil

Europe

Penguin

Children of Ash and Elm

Allen Lane.

The Vikings (Peoples of the Ancient World)

The Vikings provides a concise but comprehensive introduction to the complex world of the early medieval Scandinavians. In the space of less than 300 years from the late eighth to the late eleventh centuries CE, people from what are now Norway, Sweden and Denmark left their homelands in unprecedented numbers to travel across the then-known world. Over the last half-century archaeology and its related disciplines have radically altered our understanding of this period, and beyond the stereotypical Viking raider we can now perceive a cosmopolitan mix of traders and warriors, craftsworkers and poets, explorers and colonists. Over the course of the Viking Age, their small-scale rural, tribal societies gradually became urbanised monarchies firmly emplaced on the stage of literate, Christian Europe. In the process they transformed the cultures of the North, created the modern Nordic nation states and left a far-flung diaspora with legacies that still resonate today.   This volume explores the society and economy, identity and world-views of the Scandinavian peoples, and their unique religious beliefs that are still of enduring interest a millennium later. The Viking expansion is discussed in detail, including analyses of its origin and consequences for a vast area stretching from the Asian steppe to North America, culminating in the long-term reshaping of Scandinavia itself. Written by one of the leading experts in the period, this book presents students with an unrivalled guide through this widely studied and fascinating subject, revealing the Vikings as a sophisticated civilisation of fundamental importance for the later course of European history.

Raffield, Ben

Ancient Civilizations

Routledge

The Vikings provides a concise but comprehensive introduction to the complex world of the early medieval Scandinavians. In the space of less than 300 years from the late eighth to the late eleventh centuries CE, people from what are now Norway, Sweden and Denmark left their homelands in unprecedented numbers to travel across the then-known world. Over the last half-century archaeology and its related disciplines have radically altered our understanding of this period, and beyond the stereotypical Viking raider we can now perceive a cosmopolitan mix of traders and warriors, craftsworkers and poets, explorers and colonists. Over the course of the Viking Age, their small-scale rural, tribal societies gradually became urbanised monarchies firmly emplaced on the stage of literate, Christian Europe. In the process they transformed the cultures of the North, created the modern Nordic nation states and left a far-flung diaspora with legacies that still resonate today. This volume explores the society and economy, identity and world-views of the Scandinavian peoples, and their unique religious beliefs that are still of enduring interest a millennium later. The Viking expansion is discussed in detail, including analyses of its origin and consequences for a vast area stretching from the Asian steppe to North America, culminating in the long-term reshaping of Scandinavia itself. Written by one of the leading experts in the period, this book presents students with an unrivalled guide through this widely studied and fascinating subject, revealing the Vikings as a sophisticated civilisation of fundamental importance for the later course of European history.

<div> <div> <div>The definitive history of the Vikings -- from arts and culture to politics and cosmology -- by a distinguished archaeologist with decades of expertise</div> <div> </div> <div> <div>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.</div> <div> </div> <div>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.</div> </div> </div> <div> </div> <div> </div> </div>

Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings

Basic Books

On the Edge: The Love-Hate World of the Borderline Personality

Medical Books

Pia Pr

A “thrilling” (Wall Street Journal) history of the Vikings by a pre-eminent scholar The Viking Age saw an unprecedented expansion of the Scandinavian peoples into the 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 writers, Victorian imperialists, Nazis, and more. 
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, and beliefs to the lands and peoples they encountered. From Eirík Bloodaxe, who fought his way to a kingdom, to Gudríd Thorbjarnardóttir, the most traveled woman in the world, Children of Ash and Elm is a remarkable history of the Vikings and their time.

Magic, sorcery and witchcraft are among the most common themes of the great medieval Icelandic sagas and poems, the problematic yet vital sources that provide our primary textual evidence for the Viking Age that they claim to describe. Yet despite the consistency of this picture, surprisingly little archaeological or historical research has been done to explore what this may really have meant to the men and women of the time. This book examines the evidence for Old Norse sorcery, looking at its meaning and function, practice and practitioners, and the complicated constructions of gender and sexual identity with which these were underpinned. Combining strong elements of eroticism and aggression, sorcery appears as a fundamental domain of women's power, linking them with the gods, the dead and the future. Their battle spells and combat rituals complement the men's physical acts of fighting, in a supernatural empowerment of the Viking way of life. What emerges is a fundamentally new image of the world in which the Vikings understood themselves to move, in which magic and its implications permeated every aspect of a society permanently geared for war. In this fully revised and expanded second edition, Neil Price takes us with him on a tour through the sights and sounds of this undiscovered country, meeting its human and otherworldly inhabitants, including the Sámi with whom the Norse partly shared this mental landscape. On the way we explore Viking notions of the mind and soul, the fluidity of the boundaries that they drew between humans and animals, and the immense variety of their spiritual beliefs. We find magic in the Vikings' bedrooms and on their battlefields, and we meet the sorcerers themselves through their remarkable burials and the tools of their trade. Combining archaeology, history and literary scholarship with extensive studies of Germanic and circumpolar religion, this multi-award-winning book shows us the Vikings as we have never seen them before. Table of Contents List of figures and tables Abbreviations Preface and acknowledgements to the first edition Preface and acknowledgements to the second edition A note on language A note on seid 1. Different Vikings? Towards a cognitive archaeology of the later Iron Age A beginning at Birka Textual archaeology and the Iron Age The Vikings in (pre)history The materiality of text Annaliste archaeology and a historical anthropology of the Vikings The Other and the Odd? Conflict in the archaeology of cognition Others without Othering Indigenous archaeologies and the Vikings An archaeology of the Viking mind? 2. Problems and paradigms in the study of Old Norse sorcery Entering the mythology Research perspectives on Scandinavian pre-Christian religion Philology and comparative theology Gods and monsters, worship and superstition Religion and belief The invisible population The shape of Old Norse religion The double world: seiðr and the problem of Old Norse ‘magic’ The other magics: galdr, gandr and ‘Óðinnic sorcery’ Seiðr in the sources Skaldic poetry Eddic poetry The sagas of the kings The sagas of Icelanders (the ‘family sagas’) The fornaldarsögur (‘sagas of ancient times’, ‘heroic sagas’) The Bishop’s sagas (Biskupasögur) The early medieval Scandinavian law codes Non-Scandinavian sources Seiðr in research 3. Seiðr Óðinn Óðinn the sorcerer Óðinn’s names Freyja and the magic of the Vanir Seiðr and Old Norse cosmology The performers Witches, seeresses and wise women Women and the witch-ride Men and magic The assistants Towards a terminology of Nordic sorcerers The performers in death? The performance Ritual architecture and space The clothing of sorcery Masks, veils and head-coverings Drums, tub-lids and shields Staffs and wands Staffs from archaeological contexts Narcotics and intoxicants Charms Songs and chants The problem of trance and ecstasy Engendering seiðr Ergi, níð and witchcraft Sexual performance and eroticism in seiðr Seiðr and the concept of the soul Helping spirits in seiðr The domestic sphere of seiðr Divination and revealing the hidden Hunting and weather magic The role of the healer Seiðr contextualised 4. Noaidevuohta Seiðr and the Sámi Sámi-Norse relations in the Viking Age Sámi religion and the Drum-Time The world of the gods Spirits and Rulers in the Sámi cognitive landscape Names, souls and sacrifice Noaidevuohta and the noaidi Rydving’s terminology of noaidevuohta Specialist noaidi Diviners, sorcerers and other magic-workers The sights and sounds of trance ‘Invisible power’ and secret sorcery Women and noaidevuohta Sources for female sorcery Assistants and jojker-choirs Women, ritual and drum magic Female diviners and healers in Sámi society Animals and the natural world The female noaidi? The rituals of noaidevuohta The role of jojk The material culture of noaidevuohta An early medieval noaidi? The man from Vivallen Sexuality and eroticism in noaidevuohta Offense and defence in noaidevuohta The functions of noaidevuohta The ethnicity of religious context in Viking-Age Scandinavia 5. Circumpolar religion and the question of Old Norse shamanism The circumpolar cultures and the invention of shamanism The shamanic encounter The earlyethnographies: shamanic research in Russia and beyond Shamanism in anthropological perspective The shamanic world-view The World Pillar: shamanism and circumpolar cosmology The ensouled world The shamanic vocation Gender and sexual identity Eroticism and sexual performance Aggressive sorcery for offence and defence Shamanism in Scandinavia From the art of the hunters to the age of bronze Seiðr before the Vikings? Landscapes of the mind The eight-legged horse Tricksters and trickery Seiðr and circumpolar shamanism Two analogies on the functions of the seiðr-staff The shamanic motivation Towards a shamanic world-view of the Viking Age 6. The supernatural empowerment of aggression Seiðr and the world of war Valkyrjur, skaldmeyjar and hjálmvitr Female warriors in reality The valkyrjur in context The names of the valkyrjur The valkyrjur in battle-kennings Supernatural agency in battle Beings of destruction Óðinn and the Wild Hunt The projection of destruction Battle magic Sorcery for warriors Sorcery for sorcerers Seiðr and battlefield resurrection Seiðr and the shifting of shape Berserkir and ulfheðnar The battlefield of animals Ritual disguise and shamanic armies Ecstasy, psychic dislocation and the dynamics of mass violence Homeric lyssa and holy rage Predators and prey in the legitimate war Weaving war, grinding battle: Darraðarljóð and Grottas˛ongr in context The ‘weapon dancers’ 7. The Viking way A reality in stories The invisible battlefield Material magic Viking women, Viking men 8. Magic and mind Receptions and reactions Cracks in the ice of Norse ‘religion’ Walking into the seiðr: contested interpretations of Viking-Age magic Questioning Norse ‘shamanism’ Staffs and spinning Queering magic? The social world of war The Viking mind: a conclusion References Primary sources, including translations Pre-nineteenth-century sources for the early Sámi and Siberian cultures Secondary sources Sources in archive Index

The Viking Way: Magic and Mind in Late Iron Age Scandinavia

Oxbow Books

Una historia brillante de los vikingos y su mundo. La época vikinga fue testigo de una expansión sin precedentes de los pueblos escandinavos. Comerciantes, piratas, exploradores y colonizadores vikingos viajaron desde América del Norte hasta las estepas asiáticas y navegaron por todos los mares. Pero, durante siglos, estos pueblos se nos han presentado a través de una óptica distorsionada para satisfacer los gustos de cronistas medievales, dramaturgos isabelinos, potencias imperialistas y muchos otros. En Vikingos: la historia definitiva de los pueblos del norte, el prestigioso historiador Neil Price presenta por primera vez un retrato fidedigno de los vikingos basado en las últimas investigaciones y descubrimientos arqueológicos. En un épico recorrido que abarca desde la caída del Imperio romano al siglo xii, Price rastrea el origen de los vikingos, nos descubre su cultura y cosmología, y explica qué los impulsó a lanzarse a los saqueos que los hicieron temidos en toda Europa. Price nos muestra a los vikingos tal y como ellos mismos se veían. En sus páginas cobra vida un pueblo totalmente distinto a nosotros, glorioso pero terrible, nacido del invierno, la guerra y el comercio, sangriento a la vez que exquisito. Vikingos es una historia monumental sobre uno de los periodos más fascinantes de la historia que cambió para siempre el rumbo del continente Europeo.

Vikingos: La historia definitiva de los pueblos del norte (Spanish Edition)

Ático de los Libros

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Books by Price, Neil

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The Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings

Children of Ash and Elm

The Vikings (Peoples of the Ancient World)

The Vikings (Peoples of the Ancient World)

Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings

On the Edge: The Love-Hate World of the Borderline Personality

Children of Ash and Elm

The Viking Way: Magic and Mind in Late Iron Age Scandinavia

Vikingos: La historia definitiva de los pueblos del norte (Spanish Edition)

Vikingos: La historia definitiva de los pueblos del norte (Spanish Edition)