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

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Dus ook al ging het lezen soms minder vlot, toch heb ik dit boek graag gelezen, en ben een stuk wijzer geworden. Interesting, more than a history, it a look a Norse/Viking society, how it ran, its mythology and worship practices, marriage customs - including polygamy and concubinage, how its economy functioned - slavery, agriculture and raiding, how it was governed etc. 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. The largest mead-hall known was 80 meters (260 feet) long, at Borg in the Lofoten Islands of arctic Norway. Which is not a knock against the book per se because but is a knock against the choice of audience they tried to target.

The stereotype of the Viking that we know from history books and popular media is here dismantled and presented anew by Mr. A wonderful read, with prose that flows like poetry in places and modern analogs that inspire creative thinking. This book provided a comprehensive and detailed account of Viking history that was both informative and engaging.Het derde deel ( Nieuwe Werelden, Nieuwe Staten) gaat over de stichting van de Vikingstaten in Engeland, IJsland, Groenland en Noord-Amerika, maar ook de reizen van en naar de Middellandse Zee tot aan Constantinopel aan toe. Dit boek maakt heel duidelijk dat ons clichébeeld van rovende en plunderende wildebeesten in hun drakenschepen geen recht doet aan de Noormannen en Vikingen. In the 800s, Vikings extorted 30,000 pounds of silver from France: one-seventh of the entire coinage of the century. Nor is he afraid to face up to the absences and random gaps in the source material (such as what their music sounded like), and the confusions and inconsistencies that come from dealing with human nature.

Hun omgang met de natuur, de Goden en elkaar is zoveel meer sophisticated dan je zou denken, voor ons in contradictie met het onderlinge geweld en de slaven die als menselijke offer gebracht worden. His vivid prose illuminates both the physical and the psychological dimensions of the early medieval north, while at the same time leaving space for uncertainty: the possibility of future discoveries and theories that will alter the picture yet again. Too many people want to misrepresent history for their own ends and sadly the Vikings can be used by those with their own agendas. Yo buscaba una historia de la presencia y expansión de los vikingos, que sabía habían llegado desde Norteamérica hasta Rusia y más al este. Additionally, not a mistake of the author but certainly a mistake on the publishers behalf to label this history.As a truly modern skald he has given his work a soul, which is rare for nonfiction, and this ability is what separates him from the rest who had endeavoured such an adventure into the Viking world. Besides being exhaustive, this book is aggressively objective in a manner that I fast grew to appreciate. This equates to approximately 14 percent of the entire monetary output of the Frankish empire—for a century—evaporated in the payment of extortion demands that produced no tangible positive gain, and, in many cases, failed to appease the Vikings anyway. If I was trying to read the Swedish, Norse, Arabic, and Germanic phrases that are throughout the text, I would have been completely lost, and missed out on the beauty of the languages as they're meant to be spoken. It is evident from the tone and tenor of his writing that his primary interest is in making you aware of the facts; he doesn't make the same amount of effort with the storytelling aspects of his writing.

In Children of Ash and Elm, he seemed to be trying to balance a dry academic tone and a more conversational, accessible style. These are based not just on past scholarship but also on the many recent finds, new ways of interpreting them, and on the very many discussions within and outside of academia.

The final publication will include a 16 page color insert, maps, chapter notes, references, and index. This made for a variety of options within Viking society, on how to live and interact with ones communities. For a modern Icelander, reading the Old Norse of the sagas has about the same level of difficulty as Shakespearean prose for an English speaker.

However, believe it or not, there is an LGBTQI+ agenda interspersed throughout the book that is very frustrating to have to get through. The Viking Age — from 750 to 1050 — saw an unprecedented expansion of the Scandinavian peoples into the wider world. The descriptions were so vivid and thorough that I had no problem picturing everything from their ships to their jewelry to their funeral rituals - even though that last was probably one I could have done without picturing, because OMG THE RAPEY SLAUGHTER FESTIVAL was a LOT just to send someone to the afterlife. He just focuses on presenting the Viking’s story as has been told to us in the present by the existing historical and archaeological evidence that has been left behind, and it is neither the story of mere crude seagoing brutes nor anyone that should be put upon any pedestal.If the data from the Continental written sources is combined, the protection money paid to the Vikings during the ninth century totalled about thirty thousand pounds' weight of silver, most of it in cash: a sum equivalent to seven million silver pennies over a period when the estimated total output of the Frankish mints was in the region of fifty million coins.