- Paperback : 167 pages
- ISBN-13 : 979-8550581858
- Dimensions : 5 x 0.42 x 8 inches
- Publisher : Independently published (October 20, 2020)
- Language: : English
The term ‘Viking’ is derived from the Old Norse ‘vík’, a bay, and means ‘one who haunts a bay, creek or fjord.’
In the 9th and 10th centuries it came to be used more and more for those fearless seafaring warriors who left their homes in Scandinavia to organize raids, pillaging the coastal villages of most European countries. In fact, their talents for plundering and ravaging made these Scandinavian coast-dwellers famous and feared by the medieval Latin chroniclers in the monasteries, that had so often felt the devastating hands – and swords – of Viking raiders, or ‘Fog monsters’, as they were called.
No small wonder that, up until more recent times, we had a rather one-sided view of them. Until in 1913 ‘The Vikings’ by Allen Mawer was published.
The volume presents a historical account of Scandinavian civilisation during the Viking period, taking the term ‘Viking’ to refer to the wider culture from which the raiding parties emerged. The writer makes extensive use of the Historia Danica of Saxo Grammaticus, the Eddaïc Poems and the Skaldic Poems in rewriting the past of these heroic folks.
After reading this you will have a better and more objective understanding of the rich culture behind the word ‘Viking’. You might even come to understand and like them.