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Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings
The Viking Age - between 750 and 1050 - saw an unprecedented expansion of the Scandinavian peoples. As traders and raiders, explorers and colonists, they reshaped the world between eastern North America and the Asian steppe. For a millennium, though, their history has largely been filtered through the writings of their victims. 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, their art and culture. From Björn Ironside, who led an expedition to sack Rome, to Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir, the most travelled woman in the world, Price shows us the real Vikings, not the caricatures they have become in popular culture and history.
656 pages, Hardcover
First published August 25, 2020
2551 people are currently reading
28008 people want to read
About the author
Neil Price
24 books271 followersNeil Price is an English archaeologist specialising in the study of Viking Age Scandinavia and the archaeology of shamanism. He is currently a professor in the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History at Uppsala University, Sweden.
Born in south-west London, Price went on to gain a BA in Archaeology at the University of London, before writing his first book, The Vikings in Brittany, which was published in 1989. He undertook his doctoral research from 1988 through to 1992 at the University of York, before moving to Sweden, where he completed his PhD at the University of Uppsala in 2002. In 2001, he edited an anthology entitled The Archaeology of Shamanism for Routledge, and the following year published and defended his doctoral thesis, The Viking Way. The Viking Way would be critically appraised as one of the most important studies of the Viking Age and pre-Christian religion by other archaeologists like Matthew Townend and Martin Carver.
Born in south-west London, Price went on to gain a BA in Archaeology at the University of London, before writing his first book, The Vikings in Brittany, which was published in 1989. He undertook his doctoral research from 1988 through to 1992 at the University of York, before moving to Sweden, where he completed his PhD at the University of Uppsala in 2002. In 2001, he edited an anthology entitled The Archaeology of Shamanism for Routledge, and the following year published and defended his doctoral thesis, The Viking Way. The Viking Way would be critically appraised as one of the most important studies of the Viking Age and pre-Christian religion by other archaeologists like Matthew Townend and Martin Carver.
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August 1, 2020
Neil Price is a Distinguished Professor of Archaeology at the University of Uppsala and his other books include “The Archaeology of Shamanism” (which has been on my to-read list for a couple of years now) and “The Viking Way: Magic and Mind in Late Iron Age Scandinavia”, which I found about shortly before I started reading “Childrens of Ash and Elm”, and sounds like a must-have title too.
“Children of Ash and Elm” is separated into three parts.
The first one is dealing with the years preceding the Viking age (750-1050), the so-called Migration period, full of turbulent events like the fall of the Western Roman Empire, several eruptions of supervolcanoes and etc, and its focus is to show the reader how a pre-Viking-age person in Scandinavia probably viewed the world and his/her place in it. This included a really deep dwell into mythology and religion which I enjoyed enormously.
The second part deals with, like Price put it, what brings “Viking” in the Viking age - raids, economy, trade and all aspects of the so-called Viking diaspora.
The third, and last, part focuses on the colonies of the Vikings and their lasting influence over Europe, Asia and even North America.
Neil Price has written a really important book, not only because of his approach to these peoples he writes about, and his focus on their worldview and the underlying causes of their cultural and economical development (and not exclusively on their raids and wars), but especially because he doesn't separate the theatre of action into Western and Eastern (as most authors do), thus showing that it was the same group of people that laid the foundations of Russia, and populated Iceland and Greenland.
The author never lost his professionalism and not once condemned or praised the actions of a historic peoples, something which is bafflingly rare and it shouldn't be. A fascination with certain people should not lead to romanticization of their acts.
Instead he has created a very believable depiction, the Vikings, as Price views them, are cosmopolitical, creative and opportunistic people, who believed in a certain reality of the world that needed blood sacrifices and raids.
What is one thing the author is very good at, is asking questions, or creating new interpretations, of archaeological situations and material culture, for example I was really captivated by his idea of funerals as drama, the sacrificed animals, humans, the notable dead and all his/her belongings - all characters or set pieces.
I have always been amazed at how much an archaeological situation can tell us, for example, a Vikings burial holds the tales of a saga. Be it a single Buddha statue found in the Helgo treasure or a runic monument left by a woman, who went to travel to Jerusalem, material culture can tell so many stories if we are there to listen. And Price listens. And I thank him for this.
Price is also very familiar with the textual sources, as if by heart, and he keeps analyzing them throughout the book, thus introducing much more context for often overlooked aspects of Viking life.
His style of writing is really enjoyable, for a book of 600+ pages it never felt dry or boring even for a moment, in fact his sentences were quite poetic at times, and I really appreciate that. 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.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read such an excellent example of a non-fiction history book, it was a pleasure.
“Children of Ash and Elm” is separated into three parts.
The first one is dealing with the years preceding the Viking age (750-1050), the so-called Migration period, full of turbulent events like the fall of the Western Roman Empire, several eruptions of supervolcanoes and etc, and its focus is to show the reader how a pre-Viking-age person in Scandinavia probably viewed the world and his/her place in it. This included a really deep dwell into mythology and religion which I enjoyed enormously.
The second part deals with, like Price put it, what brings “Viking” in the Viking age - raids, economy, trade and all aspects of the so-called Viking diaspora.
The third, and last, part focuses on the colonies of the Vikings and their lasting influence over Europe, Asia and even North America.
Neil Price has written a really important book, not only because of his approach to these peoples he writes about, and his focus on their worldview and the underlying causes of their cultural and economical development (and not exclusively on their raids and wars), but especially because he doesn't separate the theatre of action into Western and Eastern (as most authors do), thus showing that it was the same group of people that laid the foundations of Russia, and populated Iceland and Greenland.
The author never lost his professionalism and not once condemned or praised the actions of a historic peoples, something which is bafflingly rare and it shouldn't be. A fascination with certain people should not lead to romanticization of their acts.
Instead he has created a very believable depiction, the Vikings, as Price views them, are cosmopolitical, creative and opportunistic people, who believed in a certain reality of the world that needed blood sacrifices and raids.
What is one thing the author is very good at, is asking questions, or creating new interpretations, of archaeological situations and material culture, for example I was really captivated by his idea of funerals as drama, the sacrificed animals, humans, the notable dead and all his/her belongings - all characters or set pieces.
I have always been amazed at how much an archaeological situation can tell us, for example, a Vikings burial holds the tales of a saga. Be it a single Buddha statue found in the Helgo treasure or a runic monument left by a woman, who went to travel to Jerusalem, material culture can tell so many stories if we are there to listen. And Price listens. And I thank him for this.
Price is also very familiar with the textual sources, as if by heart, and he keeps analyzing them throughout the book, thus introducing much more context for often overlooked aspects of Viking life.
His style of writing is really enjoyable, for a book of 600+ pages it never felt dry or boring even for a moment, in fact his sentences were quite poetic at times, and I really appreciate that. 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.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read such an excellent example of a non-fiction history book, it was a pleasure.
January 5, 2021
Only very rarely does a book earn a one star review from me. This one did, and when I say it earned it I mean it. It isn't that Neil Price doesn't know his stuff. He does. He's clearly an expert in the field. But he doesn't write a history here, by any accurate measurement. He writes a sociological dissertation egregiously slanted with 21st century academic liberal bias. The problem here is not that it is an academic work, for I can accept that and even appreciate it for the most part. Nor is the problem that he is a liberal academic. I've read hundreds of works of history and biography authored by liberal academics. It is that he so blatantly and horrifically brings those biases into what is represented as a highly accurate placing of the Vikings into their own culture and time.
We see this primarily in two ways. First, we see it in his constant belittling of Christianity. I do not mean here that he quotes Vikings or sagas that belittle Christianity. I mean he belittles Christianity. He does it in big ways and small ways. He does it from one end of the book to the other. He does it fairly and unfairly. He is just everlastingly at it. There is no neutrality in him in relation to Christianity, a position that is intellectually barren at best and underhandedly evil at worst. To add insult to injury, he soft pedals the blatantly wretched aspects of Viking culture, minimizing them. It jumps out at you from every chapter. Second, we see it in his pathetic excuse of a chapter on gender. Gender? Really? Somehow, by the time he is done, the Vikings are a sterling example of gender bending pioneerism. I read fifty books a year. I didn't read a worse chapter than this in any of those books last year. It screams, "I'm an American academic liberal idiot."
See? One star well deserved. And I could care less what the consensus of all the others reading it is. His research, his scholarship, and his lifetime of pursuit of information on the Viking era is wasted by his own monstrous bias.
We see this primarily in two ways. First, we see it in his constant belittling of Christianity. I do not mean here that he quotes Vikings or sagas that belittle Christianity. I mean he belittles Christianity. He does it in big ways and small ways. He does it from one end of the book to the other. He does it fairly and unfairly. He is just everlastingly at it. There is no neutrality in him in relation to Christianity, a position that is intellectually barren at best and underhandedly evil at worst. To add insult to injury, he soft pedals the blatantly wretched aspects of Viking culture, minimizing them. It jumps out at you from every chapter. Second, we see it in his pathetic excuse of a chapter on gender. Gender? Really? Somehow, by the time he is done, the Vikings are a sterling example of gender bending pioneerism. I read fifty books a year. I didn't read a worse chapter than this in any of those books last year. It screams, "I'm an American academic liberal idiot."
See? One star well deserved. And I could care less what the consensus of all the others reading it is. His research, his scholarship, and his lifetime of pursuit of information on the Viking era is wasted by his own monstrous bias.
July 6, 2024
Real Rating: 4.5* of five, rounded up
The Publisher Says: 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.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: Far broader in scope than The Wolf Age (reviewed here, this is the most compact (at under 650 pages) and the most comprehensive overview I've ever read of the "Viking Age" Norse as we here to their South call the multiple groups of Scandinavian traders, slavers, warriors, and rapists who burst the seams of their colossally cold homeland in search of new lands and lots of money. Spoiler alert: they got them.
(italics in the original)
There is so much to unpack in that passage...it's shockingly obvious that appeasement is seldom a worthwhile strategy, and is always an expensive one; the reputation of the Norse people as warriors was such that they merely needed to show up to be given boatloads of money to go away again; and the tribute in kind, not just the cash they brought home, kept the balance of hunger on the rightful owners of the land and food not the invaders. The Frankish kingdom, then, was more changed by its experience of Viking invasion than was even England, though both countries saw significant influxes of Norse population, arriving to make the country their home...with variable amounts of success. (See St. Brice's Massacre.)
That is all part of the middle, or "Viking" era that this volume is divided into. The first part of the text is called the "Migration" era. It is the time that saw huge cultural and climatic changes in Europe. There was pressure to find land to farm and patches of sea to exploit during this time, as well as the successor states to the Roman Empire arising and contending with each other for influence and territory. And ending the book is a kind of summation of the influence this phenomenally active and successful force in the world.
I was delighted to have the maps to help me interpret the movements and stations of Norse cultural expansion. I was also impressed wt the copiousness of the in-line illustrations. It is expensive to make a book this attractive and it's not a terribly pricey purchase at $35 for a hardcover. Basic Books has done a creditable job of this without making it a coffee-table book or a category-gift book.
Author Neil Price is a professional archaeologist. 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. I've excerpted one of the typical passages where he's clearly making the effort to show the reader how phenomenally effective the Vikings were at their chosen task of redistributing others' wealth back to themselves. It's a fact, presented factually, that conveys a gigantic emotive affect of the Viking warriors. It is laudably clear; it is admirably placed for effect within the text (you'll have to trust me on that one); but it doesn't rise as high into the rhetorical clouds as Author Tore's book does.
It is, as a gift item, a good value; as a gift received, a real pleasure on all levels. It's a hefty tome, though, so for your friends whose needs are more for thinner reads, the ebook is a dead cheap choice!
Either way anyone wanting an accessible, enjoyable, and thoroughgoing overview of the Vikings as historical actors is in luck this Yule.
The Publisher Says: 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.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: Far broader in scope than The Wolf Age (reviewed here, this is the most compact (at under 650 pages) and the most comprehensive overview I've ever read of the "Viking Age" Norse as we here to their South call the multiple groups of Scandinavian traders, slavers, warriors, and rapists who burst the seams of their colossally cold homeland in search of new lands and lots of money. Spoiler alert: they got them.
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. 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.
(italics in the original)
There is so much to unpack in that passage...it's shockingly obvious that appeasement is seldom a worthwhile strategy, and is always an expensive one; the reputation of the Norse people as warriors was such that they merely needed to show up to be given boatloads of money to go away again; and the tribute in kind, not just the cash they brought home, kept the balance of hunger on the rightful owners of the land and food not the invaders. The Frankish kingdom, then, was more changed by its experience of Viking invasion than was even England, though both countries saw significant influxes of Norse population, arriving to make the country their home...with variable amounts of success. (See St. Brice's Massacre.)
That is all part of the middle, or "Viking" era that this volume is divided into. The first part of the text is called the "Migration" era. It is the time that saw huge cultural and climatic changes in Europe. There was pressure to find land to farm and patches of sea to exploit during this time, as well as the successor states to the Roman Empire arising and contending with each other for influence and territory. And ending the book is a kind of summation of the influence this phenomenally active and successful force in the world.
I was delighted to have the maps to help me interpret the movements and stations of Norse cultural expansion. I was also impressed wt the copiousness of the in-line illustrations. It is expensive to make a book this attractive and it's not a terribly pricey purchase at $35 for a hardcover. Basic Books has done a creditable job of this without making it a coffee-table book or a category-gift book.
Author Neil Price is a professional archaeologist. 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. I've excerpted one of the typical passages where he's clearly making the effort to show the reader how phenomenally effective the Vikings were at their chosen task of redistributing others' wealth back to themselves. It's a fact, presented factually, that conveys a gigantic emotive affect of the Viking warriors. It is laudably clear; it is admirably placed for effect within the text (you'll have to trust me on that one); but it doesn't rise as high into the rhetorical clouds as Author Tore's book does.
It is, as a gift item, a good value; as a gift received, a real pleasure on all levels. It's a hefty tome, though, so for your friends whose needs are more for thinner reads, the ebook is a dead cheap choice!
Either way anyone wanting an accessible, enjoyable, and thoroughgoing overview of the Vikings as historical actors is in luck this Yule.
July 7, 2021
Fantastic, authoritative and accessible text about the history of the vikings. Neil Price is excellent.
August 15, 2020
What an interesting book! I really had no idea about the socio-cultural impact the Vikings had throughout history and how they've influenced modern society. What a truly timeless and remarkable people.
I originally requested this book because I recently finished watching 3 seasons of the hit TV-show “Vikings” and was very intrigued by their culture and way of life and wanted to learn about their history. I was so lucky to stumble upon this ARC. Author Neil Price does an exemplary job in navigating the ways of the Vikings, their journeys and at times brutal conquests. He is able to do this in a way that is thought-provoking (tying them to modern culture) and engaging. He is so informative and descriptive that you can feel his hard work and passion on every single page. I can't imagine the amount of hard work and research that went into writing this book. He is thorough and his research is well supported. Although the Vikings are often described as “brutal” and “savage”, Price lets us see them for who they truly were- a people trying to survive, modernize and conquer (just like every other people throughout history). Reason for the 4 stars- at times I lost interest and wanted to skip through some sections (but I didn't!!!); however this is simply personal opinion.
Highly Recommend!
ARC received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
I originally requested this book because I recently finished watching 3 seasons of the hit TV-show “Vikings” and was very intrigued by their culture and way of life and wanted to learn about their history. I was so lucky to stumble upon this ARC. Author Neil Price does an exemplary job in navigating the ways of the Vikings, their journeys and at times brutal conquests. He is able to do this in a way that is thought-provoking (tying them to modern culture) and engaging. He is so informative and descriptive that you can feel his hard work and passion on every single page. I can't imagine the amount of hard work and research that went into writing this book. He is thorough and his research is well supported. Although the Vikings are often described as “brutal” and “savage”, Price lets us see them for who they truly were- a people trying to survive, modernize and conquer (just like every other people throughout history). Reason for the 4 stars- at times I lost interest and wanted to skip through some sections (but I didn't!!!); however this is simply personal opinion.
Highly Recommend!
ARC received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
July 14, 2023
This is a book about the Vikings. The author is an archaeologist. He has collected here all the latest research. There are lots of interesting tidbits, but he gets off track sometimes. I would have preferred better organization. He touches on topics briefly ant then returns to them again later. He weaves together history, science, religion, economics and politics. You name it, he covers it, albeit in a sort of unorganized fashion. He points out what we still do not know and that which needs to be further researched. Continually he tells us we think this, but it could in fact be wrong. He opens our eyes to other possibilities.
He says he is going to show us how Vikings viewed themselves. Nope, this he doesn’t do. It’s like he wants to give us something not done before. I say, don’t promise me something and then fail to deliver it. I wish he had spent more time discussing the four elements that supposedly determined how Vikings viewed themselves. The four components are only briefly mentioned. They are a person’s outer shell, that being their appearance, their personality and spirit, a person’s luck component and finally a feminine sense of family. This last component I don’t understand very well. The first two are simple. That a person has a luck component is a bit strange, and the fourth quality needs definitely further explanation.
Most of the prose is clear, but not all. Sometimes it seemed like the author wanted to be deep and elusive. These sections left me confused.
I do not recommend the audiobook read by Samuel Roukin. I’ve lived in Sweden for much of my life. Roukin’s pronunciation of Scandinavian words is completely off. I had to continually ask myself what he might be referring to. Most of the time I could guess, but not always! Simple words are mispronounced. This was extremely annoying. He even got French words wrong. One star for the narration. A narrator with some knowledge of Scandinavian words and places should have been chosen to read this book.
The book has lots of interesting information that could have been condensed and better organized. You don’t get a feel for how the Vikings saw themselves. This should not have been promised.
He says he is going to show us how Vikings viewed themselves. Nope, this he doesn’t do. It’s like he wants to give us something not done before. I say, don’t promise me something and then fail to deliver it. I wish he had spent more time discussing the four elements that supposedly determined how Vikings viewed themselves. The four components are only briefly mentioned. They are a person’s outer shell, that being their appearance, their personality and spirit, a person’s luck component and finally a feminine sense of family. This last component I don’t understand very well. The first two are simple. That a person has a luck component is a bit strange, and the fourth quality needs definitely further explanation.
Most of the prose is clear, but not all. Sometimes it seemed like the author wanted to be deep and elusive. These sections left me confused.
I do not recommend the audiobook read by Samuel Roukin. I’ve lived in Sweden for much of my life. Roukin’s pronunciation of Scandinavian words is completely off. I had to continually ask myself what he might be referring to. Most of the time I could guess, but not always! Simple words are mispronounced. This was extremely annoying. He even got French words wrong. One star for the narration. A narrator with some knowledge of Scandinavian words and places should have been chosen to read this book.
The book has lots of interesting information that could have been condensed and better organized. You don’t get a feel for how the Vikings saw themselves. This should not have been promised.
October 16, 2021
This book was my "I have no idea what I'm in the mood for" listen. I have been struggling to find anything that I'm in the mood lately, and it really has been a rough time for me, reading-wise, for a while now. I am slowly... glacially slowly... getting back to reading I think. But I'm still struggling with the MEH. Enter this book. I really enjoy Norse mythology, and history, and anthropology, and so I had my mom snag it for me. She supports my not-available-via-the-library audiobooking needs via Audible that I don't want to pay for myself. She's a good mom. :D (Except when she judges me for the amount of "depressing" stuff I read. RUDE. lol)
Anyway, this was the last nonfiction book added to my Audible library, and it seemed as good as any to listen to, so I downloaded it and started it. And man, it was GOOD. This chonkster weighs in at 650+ pages, and on audio is 17 and a half hours long, and it was jam-packed with detail and research and brought Vikings to life in a way that I really enjoyed. I can't say that the Vikings were exactly NICE people - they were slavers and rapers and murderers, after all - but this book portrayed that honestly and critically, and added a lot of historical evidence and context for ways in which they were also very socially progressive and actually not racist. They were surprisingly open and accepting of people of other races and ethnicities. With Viking symbols and iconography having been coopted by white nationalists and racists and certain badly home-tattooed (I assume) insurrectionists, it was quite welcome to have that refuted in no uncertain terms by someone who ACTUALLY did his research.
Anyway, this book starts with the Norse creation myth, and ends with Ragnarok, and covered literally everything in between, from socio-political aspects to fashion to trade to how the Vikings shaped the world we live in to this day. Without them, without their piratical ways, their ruthlessness and greed and desire to roam and explore and exploit and most of all to leave their mark and be remembered, the world we live in would be a drastically different place today.
This book was super interesting and makes me want to do a genealogy map. I know I have family from this region, and I very much would love to know more about them. You know... without actually having to talk to my currently living family. Gross. (I'm kidding.... OR AM I??)
ANYWHO - I really enjoyed this. I especially enjoyed it on audio - hearing the language was a pure delight. 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. O_O Sheesh. But that's a mark of how good this book was - it was VIVID.
I'm sure that's not much of an endorsement to read this - but really, look past it. This book is so good and well-researched and thorough and portrays the Vikings as the real, human people they were - not some idealized vicious horde. They were that, but also so much more.
Anyway, this was the last nonfiction book added to my Audible library, and it seemed as good as any to listen to, so I downloaded it and started it. And man, it was GOOD. This chonkster weighs in at 650+ pages, and on audio is 17 and a half hours long, and it was jam-packed with detail and research and brought Vikings to life in a way that I really enjoyed. I can't say that the Vikings were exactly NICE people - they were slavers and rapers and murderers, after all - but this book portrayed that honestly and critically, and added a lot of historical evidence and context for ways in which they were also very socially progressive and actually not racist. They were surprisingly open and accepting of people of other races and ethnicities. With Viking symbols and iconography having been coopted by white nationalists and racists and certain badly home-tattooed (I assume) insurrectionists, it was quite welcome to have that refuted in no uncertain terms by someone who ACTUALLY did his research.
Anyway, this book starts with the Norse creation myth, and ends with Ragnarok, and covered literally everything in between, from socio-political aspects to fashion to trade to how the Vikings shaped the world we live in to this day. Without them, without their piratical ways, their ruthlessness and greed and desire to roam and explore and exploit and most of all to leave their mark and be remembered, the world we live in would be a drastically different place today.
This book was super interesting and makes me want to do a genealogy map. I know I have family from this region, and I very much would love to know more about them. You know... without actually having to talk to my currently living family. Gross. (I'm kidding.... OR AM I??)
ANYWHO - I really enjoyed this. I especially enjoyed it on audio - hearing the language was a pure delight. 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. O_O Sheesh. But that's a mark of how good this book was - it was VIVID.
I'm sure that's not much of an endorsement to read this - but really, look past it. This book is so good and well-researched and thorough and portrays the Vikings as the real, human people they were - not some idealized vicious horde. They were that, but also so much more.
September 7, 2021
I have no idea why I read these hundreds of pages about the Vikings. It was pretty interesting though. I particularly enjoyed reading about these peoples' cosmologies and the Vikings' explorations around the world (they got as far as now-Uzbekistan at some point!). My favourite chapter was the one on "dealing with the dead;" they did some super strange and fascinating things with the deceased (that I won't go into detail about here). I also appreciate how Price continuously subtweets Nazis and other white supremacists who misappropriate Viking history and Norse mythology and uphold the Vikings as "pure" bastions of whiteness. It is important to acknowledge that the Vikings (1) were culturally and racially diverse, and (2) ritually did terrible things that really nobody should aspire to. Overall, this is a good introduction to the Vikings and Scandanavia in the Middle Ages.
April 10, 2020
(Note: I received an advanced reader copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley)
Having just finished what is definitely the most thorough history on this topic that I have ever read, period, I look upon author Neil Price’s decision to subtitle Children of Ash and Elm as merely “A History of the Vikings” as a major understatement on his part. The reach of this work is exhaustive, covering everything from the social pressures that led to the first coastal raids to the surprising amount of gender fluidity that existed in Viking society. Every facet that is tackled is done so using the full combined weight of the existing archaeological and historical record, and as a result, I was able to finish every chapter feeling confident that no stone had been left unturned.
Besides being exhaustive, this book is aggressively objective in a manner that I fast grew to appreciate. Price specifically targets all the major stereotypes and misconceptions but does so in a way that neither glorifies nor denigrates. 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. It’s a story of a specific group that had their very own unique combination of complexities and contradictions, as all peoples do. And frankly, this story as is told by the evidence ends up being vastly more fascinating than any of the one-dimensional symbols that the Vikings have been pigeonholed into over the centuries.
Eventually, further research and archaeological finds will further build upon all that Price covers here, eventually making Children of Ash and Elm an incomplete overview. However, I don’t see this book being dethroned as arguably one of the best existing histories on the Vikings anytime in the foreseeable future. Its completeness feels unmatched for the time being.
Having just finished what is definitely the most thorough history on this topic that I have ever read, period, I look upon author Neil Price’s decision to subtitle Children of Ash and Elm as merely “A History of the Vikings” as a major understatement on his part. The reach of this work is exhaustive, covering everything from the social pressures that led to the first coastal raids to the surprising amount of gender fluidity that existed in Viking society. Every facet that is tackled is done so using the full combined weight of the existing archaeological and historical record, and as a result, I was able to finish every chapter feeling confident that no stone had been left unturned.
Besides being exhaustive, this book is aggressively objective in a manner that I fast grew to appreciate. Price specifically targets all the major stereotypes and misconceptions but does so in a way that neither glorifies nor denigrates. 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. It’s a story of a specific group that had their very own unique combination of complexities and contradictions, as all peoples do. And frankly, this story as is told by the evidence ends up being vastly more fascinating than any of the one-dimensional symbols that the Vikings have been pigeonholed into over the centuries.
Eventually, further research and archaeological finds will further build upon all that Price covers here, eventually making Children of Ash and Elm an incomplete overview. However, I don’t see this book being dethroned as arguably one of the best existing histories on the Vikings anytime in the foreseeable future. Its completeness feels unmatched for the time being.
March 3, 2021
Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings, Neil Price (professor of archeology, Uppsala [means "the high halls," evidence of which can still be seen there. p. 98] University, Sweden: https://www.arkeologi.uu.se/staff/Pre... 46 miles = 74 km north of Stockholm), 2020, 599 pp., ISBN 9780465096989, Library-of-Congress DL65, Dewey 948.022
Maps
1. Eastern Roman Empire, 565 CE at death of Justinian: limited to Greece, Italy, Balkans south of the Danube, western Turkey; none of France, Germany, or England; only the southernmost part of Spain. p. ix
2. Kingdoms in what is now Norway and Sweden, 500–1350 CE. p. x
3. Sites of first-phase Viking raids, 750–833 CE: most are on Irish coast; English monasteries and ports; French coastal towns. p. xi
4. Sites of Viking raids 834–999 CE: throughout France, Ireland, southern England. p. xii
5. Mediterranean raid 859–862 CE: from Loire mouth, coasting France, Spain, France, Italy, and back: p. xiii
6. Viking diaspora to Russia and Asia: p. xiv
7. Empire of Knut, 1035 CE: Denmark, south Sweden, Norway, England: p. xv
8. Iceland, Greenland, Canada, 870–1000 CE: p. xvi
Pronunciation pp. xvii–xviii
Þ, þ (thorn) th as in thin
Ð, ð (eth) th as in then
Æ, æ sounds like eye
á pronounced ow
é pronounced ay as in yay
í pronounced ee as in thee
ó pronounced owe
ú as the u in sure "with a rolling Scots accent"
y sounds like ew meaning yuck
ý longer, eww
å like oar
ä/æ like air
ö/ø like err
Óðinn OWEthinn Odin
Þórr Thor
The gods make the first man, Askr, the ash tree, and woman, Embla, the elm, from stumps of driftwood. p. 2.
The Old Norse sagas were written in Iceland from the late 1100s through the 1500s. The Viking Age was from around 750 to 1050 CE. pp. 17, 66. The sagas are Icelandic family sagas, tracing family history back to their Scandinavian ancestors; and, legendary sagas, including real events back to the early 400s with Attila the Hun, along with the supernatural. There's an Ektors saga, which is the Iliad translated into Old Norse, focusing on Hector, the doomed prince of Troy. p. 19. Old Norse poetry is older than the prose sagas. The /Prose Edda/, by Snorri Sturluson, circa 1230 CE, is a handbook for poets, and includes lots of poetry. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8... The /Poetic Edda/ is older poems collected in the 1200s. pp. 21, 513. The earliest poems date from the early 1000s, building on more ancient models. The /Poetic Edda/ is /the/ source of Norse mythology. Read Carolyne Larrington's English translation https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6... Read the Poetic Edda!
Norse myths, p. 517, 519:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9...
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. p. 479. "Please, read the sagas." p. 480.
All the surviving texts were written by Christians long after the Viking Age. p. 21. [Except: the eyewitness account of Ahmad ibn Fadlan of a Viking boat burial, in 922. It included the human sacrifice of a teenage slave girl, after she was used for sex by all the men. One-third of the dead chief's wealth went to supplying alcohol to keep the men drunk for the 10 days of funeral preparation; one-third for burial clothing; one-third to his heirs. Many Viking-era graves have been found containing a large male skeleton with an apparently teenage female skeleton. pp. 246–253, 260, 436. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... ] The Christians misunderstood the Viking story-world, and codified their misconceptions into the retrospective pagan orthodoxy they created. p. 208. [There's a Latin history of Norway older than Snorri's. p. 279. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles of the Wessex kings give contemporary accounts of Viking raids by surviving victims, late 700s– , pp. 275, 279–285, 515. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
The Royal Frankish Annals of Charlemagne's empire record Danish raids. pp. 289–290, 515. The 861-CE Annals of St. Bertin describe a Viking fleet as a coalition of independent bands. pp. 313, 515. Christian missionaries (unsuccessful to Sweden in 829) left contemporary records. p. 290. A Byzantine chronicle describes Viking berserkers. p. 325. One skaldic poem dates from around 900 CE. p. 325.]
"There is no fully comprehensible geography of the Norse cosmos." p. 32. [But see Rick Riordan's Magnus Chase books—he does a pretty good job!] At the center was Yggdrasill, /the/ tree, a great ash. In the beginning there had been nothing but the void of Ginnungagap, an infinite emptiness—yet not quite empty, for deep within it lay a sleeping potential, a power and presence inside the absence, waiting to be awakened. [Modern physics knows that empty space is far from empty: virtual processes are going on everywhere at all times: particles and their antiparticles spontaneously popping into and out of existence, moving forward and backward in time.] The first being in creation was the frost giant, Ymir. The first god was Búri, ancestor of the Aesir. Odin and his brothers began to shape the worlds. They kill Ymir, and make Midgard, the Middle Earth that is our world, from his corpse. pp. 33–39.
The goddess Freyja was the sort of sexually-independent woman that terrified the Church. pp. 41–42.
Days of the week: p. 46.
Sunday
Moonday
Týrsday
Wodensday
Thorsday
Freyrsday
Lördag—from the Old Norse for a hot thermal spring: bath night.
The Roman Empire sold weapons to Danes, hoping to keep the Germans in check. p. 70.
In the years 536 and 539/540, were two or more immense volcanic eruptions. p. 75 The second was Lake Ilopango, El Salvador. There may have been a third in 547. Dust veil curtailed plant growth. Endless winter. Famine, riots, civil unrest. p. 76. Worse in Scandinavia. Mean temperature fell 3.5ºC (6.3ºF). No crops in Norway & Sweden. Worst effects lasted 3 years. Impact lasted 80 years. p. 77. Survivors fought each other for what was left. Justinian plague 541 CE might have reached Scandinavia. Scandinavian population loss 50%. Many settlements abandoned.
Snorri's Edda describes Ragnarök: "First a winter will come. Great frosts, keen winds. The sun will do no good. There will be three of these winters together and no summer in between." p. 78. The sun blackens, the moon dims, the stars fall into the sea, steam covers the sky. "An axe age, a sword age—shields are riven—a wind age, a wolf age." p. 80.
Militarized elites arose in Scandinavia. p. 82.
Land in the north was several meters lower 1000 years ago: the land is still springing back from the disappearance of the immense weight of the ice-age icepack. Rivers, lakes, and harbors were deeper in the Viking Age than they are today. p. 83.
The largest mead-hall known was 80 meters (260 feet) long, at Borg in the Lofoten Islands of arctic Norway. p. 99.
Gems, ivory, and lizard skins from Sri Lanka, India, and Bengal, were imported to Scandinavia, 550–750 CE. p. 102. Scandinavia was the end of the Silk Road. Silk from China has been found in Scandinavian graves. p. 442. A sixth-century bronze Buddha from Afghanistan was brought to Sweden. p. 446.
The Viking world rested on slavery. pp. 140, 392. Viking raids were largely to gain slaves, most to sell. p. 141. A poem praising Harald Finehair (c. 850–932), greatest of the pirate sea-kings of Norway, says he gave his warriors gold and slave girls. pp. 145, 301–302, 316–317.
Up to 7% of men and up to 37% of women had been malnourished as children, in central Sweden in the Viking Age. p. 159. Unwanted children were thrown into the sea. p. 316.
Round trip, Denmark to England, 14 days by Viking longship, weather permitting. A 24-meter (79-foot)-long, 5-meter (16-foot)-wide 32-oar funeral longship, circa 890, in Harald Finehair's reign, was found in 1880. A 30-meter (98-foot)-long warship for an 80-man crew, with a draft of just 1 meter, from the 11th century, was found in Denmark. The largest Viking warship yet found is from the early 11th century, 32 meters (105 feet) long, for a single-watch crew of 80, that could've been doubled for war. Warships with sails from as early as 750 CE have been found. pp. 197–201. In winter, people and their animals used iron crampons on shoes or hooves.
The new elites who rose to power in the 5th and 6th centuries claimed descent from Odin, Freyr, and the other gods. pp. 208–210. Remains of a temple at Uppåkra, Sweden, date from the 3rd through 11th centuries CE. pp. 211–213.
Circa 550–750 CE, endemic warfare among petty Scandinavian kingdoms. p. 274. Polygyny, concubinage, and perhaps female infanticide left an underclass of young men without inheritance or marriage prospects. pp. 316–317.
Circa 750 CE, (pp. 275–) Swedes raid Estonia.
Late 700s–800s, Britain, Scotland, Ireland, France, Netherlands swarm with Vikings. Locals build bridges as river blockades. pp. 284, 335–. Beginning in 834, Vikings regularly raided in fleets of hundreds of ships. p. 338.
The first raiders of Britain were from southwestern Norway. p. 284.
Circa 753, Swedes set up a "Wild East" trading post at Staraya Ladoga, by the mouth of the Volkhov river at Lake Ladoga, 100 miles (160 km) upstream (east) of where 1000 years later would be St. Petersburg.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/59%...
pp. 296–299 and glossy photo. The currencies were furs, silver, and slaves. p. 298.
From here, one could go upriver through Lake Ilmen, up the Lovat River, then portage to the Dniepr, down to the Black Sea and Constantinople. pp. 366, 425, 428. But that's a long portage, from around what's now Velikiye Luki to Smolensk, 238 km (148 miles).
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Velik...
By the 8th century, Constantinople had over 500,000 population. p. 367. In the 9th century, Baghdad had up to 900,000 people. p. 439. A runestone in Sweden commemorates a son who died in Uzbekistan. p. 440.
Swedes who traded via the river routes were known in Constantinople as Rus, by 839 CE. p. 368. The name may have come from Roslagen, Sweden. p. 369.
Rus also plied the Don and Volga rivers toward the Islamic, Khazar, Magyar, and Bulgar worlds. pp. 424–425, 438.
By the 10th century, the Russian state begins to form, centered on Kiev and Novgorod. p. 431, 437
Pirate "sea-kings" with their armies arise in southwest Norway in the 8th century. pp. 299–. Some of the agricultural-elite Norwegians settled Iceland, beginning around 870 CE, to escape pirate rule. Harald Finehair (circa 850–932) ruled Norway circa 872–930. pp. 303, 378.
The first generation of Iceland settlers cut down the forests that had covered the island. It's been barren and treeless since. p. 476. Iceland was wracked by blood-feuds. Norway reasserted control in the 13th century. p. 478.
The act of acquiring silver was as important as the silver. p. 309. Reputation.
The main export of Viking-age Scandinavia was violence. p. 314.
Every year from 834 through 838, Danes sacked and burned the wealthy Dorestad emporium, on the Rhine in Holland, killing, taking shiploads of slaves. https://www.google.com/maps/place/51%...
pp. 340–. Also Utrecht and Antwerp repeatedly, and the Thames. They scourged Ireland, mid-830s to 850. Monasteries, markets, settlements.
840–860, Viking attacks increased, penetrating deep into France, thanks to civil war among Charlemagne's grandsons. 843, Vikings set up a year-round base at the Loire mouth. 845, 120 ships attack Paris. Parisians pay Ragnar lothbrok's followers 7,000 pounds of silver and gold to leave. The first of many payments. Attacks of 100 to 260+ ships in France, Frisia and Brittany in the 850s and 860s. 851, year-round in England. p. 343. Also at mouths of the Seine and Somme. Vikings sack, slaughter, burn towns throughout France.
862, Charles the Bald, Charlemagne's grandson, has fortified bridges erected. This cramps the Vikings' style. p. 345. By 865, only 40 and 50 ships on the Loire and Seine, not hundreds.
865–880, the "great heathen army" goes en masse to England. Starting on the Thames and East Anglia. p. 346. 866, Vikings take York: their stronghold for the next century. p. 347. 871, Vikings attack Wessex. By 874, only Wessex is in English hands.
In 876 the Vikings began to settle down in Northumbria: farming.
878, English cede north and east of England to the Vikings. p. 349.
877–886, Vikings again attack France, which was again in civil war over succession to the throne. They're eventually bought off. By 890, France is again politically stable and effectively defending against Vikings. p. 351.
In the 800s, Vikings extorted 30,000 pounds of silver from France: one-seventh of the entire coinage of the century. Plus grain, livestock, produce, horses, wine, cider, … for doing nothing. Between 830 and 890, 120 named settlements in France were destroyed.
Danish king Harald Bluetooth was baptized circa 965. p. 452. After his overthrow, the Odin cult revived. p. 457. Christianity spread in Norway in the 990s. Christianization of Sweden took until the 1220s. p. 458. Rus kings in Kiev were baptized in the mid-900s. Scandinavians were pilgrimaging to Jerusalem in the 11th century. p. 463.
Iceland officially converted to Christianity around 1000 CE. p. 481. Greenland was colonized in the 980s. p. 482. Twenty-five ships left Iceland bound for Greenland: 14 arrived. Greenlanders eventually starved to death after overexploiting the soil, and several bad years. pp. 485–486. The Norse toehold in Newfoundland was repelled by natives. p. 490.
Very short quiz:
https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...
Maps
1. Eastern Roman Empire, 565 CE at death of Justinian: limited to Greece, Italy, Balkans south of the Danube, western Turkey; none of France, Germany, or England; only the southernmost part of Spain. p. ix
2. Kingdoms in what is now Norway and Sweden, 500–1350 CE. p. x
3. Sites of first-phase Viking raids, 750–833 CE: most are on Irish coast; English monasteries and ports; French coastal towns. p. xi
4. Sites of Viking raids 834–999 CE: throughout France, Ireland, southern England. p. xii
5. Mediterranean raid 859–862 CE: from Loire mouth, coasting France, Spain, France, Italy, and back: p. xiii
6. Viking diaspora to Russia and Asia: p. xiv
7. Empire of Knut, 1035 CE: Denmark, south Sweden, Norway, England: p. xv
8. Iceland, Greenland, Canada, 870–1000 CE: p. xvi
Pronunciation pp. xvii–xviii
Þ, þ (thorn) th as in thin
Ð, ð (eth) th as in then
Æ, æ sounds like eye
á pronounced ow
é pronounced ay as in yay
í pronounced ee as in thee
ó pronounced owe
ú as the u in sure "with a rolling Scots accent"
y sounds like ew meaning yuck
ý longer, eww
å like oar
ä/æ like air
ö/ø like err
Óðinn OWEthinn Odin
Þórr Thor
The gods make the first man, Askr, the ash tree, and woman, Embla, the elm, from stumps of driftwood. p. 2.
The Old Norse sagas were written in Iceland from the late 1100s through the 1500s. The Viking Age was from around 750 to 1050 CE. pp. 17, 66. The sagas are Icelandic family sagas, tracing family history back to their Scandinavian ancestors; and, legendary sagas, including real events back to the early 400s with Attila the Hun, along with the supernatural. There's an Ektors saga, which is the Iliad translated into Old Norse, focusing on Hector, the doomed prince of Troy. p. 19. Old Norse poetry is older than the prose sagas. The /Prose Edda/, by Snorri Sturluson, circa 1230 CE, is a handbook for poets, and includes lots of poetry. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8... The /Poetic Edda/ is older poems collected in the 1200s. pp. 21, 513. The earliest poems date from the early 1000s, building on more ancient models. The /Poetic Edda/ is /the/ source of Norse mythology. Read Carolyne Larrington's English translation https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6... Read the Poetic Edda!
Norse myths, p. 517, 519:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9...
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. p. 479. "Please, read the sagas." p. 480.
All the surviving texts were written by Christians long after the Viking Age. p. 21. [Except: the eyewitness account of Ahmad ibn Fadlan of a Viking boat burial, in 922. It included the human sacrifice of a teenage slave girl, after she was used for sex by all the men. One-third of the dead chief's wealth went to supplying alcohol to keep the men drunk for the 10 days of funeral preparation; one-third for burial clothing; one-third to his heirs. Many Viking-era graves have been found containing a large male skeleton with an apparently teenage female skeleton. pp. 246–253, 260, 436. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... ] The Christians misunderstood the Viking story-world, and codified their misconceptions into the retrospective pagan orthodoxy they created. p. 208. [There's a Latin history of Norway older than Snorri's. p. 279. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles of the Wessex kings give contemporary accounts of Viking raids by surviving victims, late 700s– , pp. 275, 279–285, 515. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
The Royal Frankish Annals of Charlemagne's empire record Danish raids. pp. 289–290, 515. The 861-CE Annals of St. Bertin describe a Viking fleet as a coalition of independent bands. pp. 313, 515. Christian missionaries (unsuccessful to Sweden in 829) left contemporary records. p. 290. A Byzantine chronicle describes Viking berserkers. p. 325. One skaldic poem dates from around 900 CE. p. 325.]
"There is no fully comprehensible geography of the Norse cosmos." p. 32. [But see Rick Riordan's Magnus Chase books—he does a pretty good job!] At the center was Yggdrasill, /the/ tree, a great ash. In the beginning there had been nothing but the void of Ginnungagap, an infinite emptiness—yet not quite empty, for deep within it lay a sleeping potential, a power and presence inside the absence, waiting to be awakened. [Modern physics knows that empty space is far from empty: virtual processes are going on everywhere at all times: particles and their antiparticles spontaneously popping into and out of existence, moving forward and backward in time.] The first being in creation was the frost giant, Ymir. The first god was Búri, ancestor of the Aesir. Odin and his brothers began to shape the worlds. They kill Ymir, and make Midgard, the Middle Earth that is our world, from his corpse. pp. 33–39.
The goddess Freyja was the sort of sexually-independent woman that terrified the Church. pp. 41–42.
Days of the week: p. 46.
Sunday
Moonday
Týrsday
Wodensday
Thorsday
Freyrsday
Lördag—from the Old Norse for a hot thermal spring: bath night.
The Roman Empire sold weapons to Danes, hoping to keep the Germans in check. p. 70.
In the years 536 and 539/540, were two or more immense volcanic eruptions. p. 75 The second was Lake Ilopango, El Salvador. There may have been a third in 547. Dust veil curtailed plant growth. Endless winter. Famine, riots, civil unrest. p. 76. Worse in Scandinavia. Mean temperature fell 3.5ºC (6.3ºF). No crops in Norway & Sweden. Worst effects lasted 3 years. Impact lasted 80 years. p. 77. Survivors fought each other for what was left. Justinian plague 541 CE might have reached Scandinavia. Scandinavian population loss 50%. Many settlements abandoned.
Snorri's Edda describes Ragnarök: "First a winter will come. Great frosts, keen winds. The sun will do no good. There will be three of these winters together and no summer in between." p. 78. The sun blackens, the moon dims, the stars fall into the sea, steam covers the sky. "An axe age, a sword age—shields are riven—a wind age, a wolf age." p. 80.
Militarized elites arose in Scandinavia. p. 82.
Land in the north was several meters lower 1000 years ago: the land is still springing back from the disappearance of the immense weight of the ice-age icepack. Rivers, lakes, and harbors were deeper in the Viking Age than they are today. p. 83.
The largest mead-hall known was 80 meters (260 feet) long, at Borg in the Lofoten Islands of arctic Norway. p. 99.
Gems, ivory, and lizard skins from Sri Lanka, India, and Bengal, were imported to Scandinavia, 550–750 CE. p. 102. Scandinavia was the end of the Silk Road. Silk from China has been found in Scandinavian graves. p. 442. A sixth-century bronze Buddha from Afghanistan was brought to Sweden. p. 446.
The Viking world rested on slavery. pp. 140, 392. Viking raids were largely to gain slaves, most to sell. p. 141. A poem praising Harald Finehair (c. 850–932), greatest of the pirate sea-kings of Norway, says he gave his warriors gold and slave girls. pp. 145, 301–302, 316–317.
Up to 7% of men and up to 37% of women had been malnourished as children, in central Sweden in the Viking Age. p. 159. Unwanted children were thrown into the sea. p. 316.
Round trip, Denmark to England, 14 days by Viking longship, weather permitting. A 24-meter (79-foot)-long, 5-meter (16-foot)-wide 32-oar funeral longship, circa 890, in Harald Finehair's reign, was found in 1880. A 30-meter (98-foot)-long warship for an 80-man crew, with a draft of just 1 meter, from the 11th century, was found in Denmark. The largest Viking warship yet found is from the early 11th century, 32 meters (105 feet) long, for a single-watch crew of 80, that could've been doubled for war. Warships with sails from as early as 750 CE have been found. pp. 197–201. In winter, people and their animals used iron crampons on shoes or hooves.
The new elites who rose to power in the 5th and 6th centuries claimed descent from Odin, Freyr, and the other gods. pp. 208–210. Remains of a temple at Uppåkra, Sweden, date from the 3rd through 11th centuries CE. pp. 211–213.
Circa 550–750 CE, endemic warfare among petty Scandinavian kingdoms. p. 274. Polygyny, concubinage, and perhaps female infanticide left an underclass of young men without inheritance or marriage prospects. pp. 316–317.
Circa 750 CE, (pp. 275–) Swedes raid Estonia.
Late 700s–800s, Britain, Scotland, Ireland, France, Netherlands swarm with Vikings. Locals build bridges as river blockades. pp. 284, 335–. Beginning in 834, Vikings regularly raided in fleets of hundreds of ships. p. 338.
The first raiders of Britain were from southwestern Norway. p. 284.
Circa 753, Swedes set up a "Wild East" trading post at Staraya Ladoga, by the mouth of the Volkhov river at Lake Ladoga, 100 miles (160 km) upstream (east) of where 1000 years later would be St. Petersburg.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/59%...
pp. 296–299 and glossy photo. The currencies were furs, silver, and slaves. p. 298.
From here, one could go upriver through Lake Ilmen, up the Lovat River, then portage to the Dniepr, down to the Black Sea and Constantinople. pp. 366, 425, 428. But that's a long portage, from around what's now Velikiye Luki to Smolensk, 238 km (148 miles).
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Velik...
By the 8th century, Constantinople had over 500,000 population. p. 367. In the 9th century, Baghdad had up to 900,000 people. p. 439. A runestone in Sweden commemorates a son who died in Uzbekistan. p. 440.
Swedes who traded via the river routes were known in Constantinople as Rus, by 839 CE. p. 368. The name may have come from Roslagen, Sweden. p. 369.
Rus also plied the Don and Volga rivers toward the Islamic, Khazar, Magyar, and Bulgar worlds. pp. 424–425, 438.
By the 10th century, the Russian state begins to form, centered on Kiev and Novgorod. p. 431, 437
Pirate "sea-kings" with their armies arise in southwest Norway in the 8th century. pp. 299–. Some of the agricultural-elite Norwegians settled Iceland, beginning around 870 CE, to escape pirate rule. Harald Finehair (circa 850–932) ruled Norway circa 872–930. pp. 303, 378.
The first generation of Iceland settlers cut down the forests that had covered the island. It's been barren and treeless since. p. 476. Iceland was wracked by blood-feuds. Norway reasserted control in the 13th century. p. 478.
The act of acquiring silver was as important as the silver. p. 309. Reputation.
The main export of Viking-age Scandinavia was violence. p. 314.
Every year from 834 through 838, Danes sacked and burned the wealthy Dorestad emporium, on the Rhine in Holland, killing, taking shiploads of slaves. https://www.google.com/maps/place/51%...
pp. 340–. Also Utrecht and Antwerp repeatedly, and the Thames. They scourged Ireland, mid-830s to 850. Monasteries, markets, settlements.
840–860, Viking attacks increased, penetrating deep into France, thanks to civil war among Charlemagne's grandsons. 843, Vikings set up a year-round base at the Loire mouth. 845, 120 ships attack Paris. Parisians pay Ragnar lothbrok's followers 7,000 pounds of silver and gold to leave. The first of many payments. Attacks of 100 to 260+ ships in France, Frisia and Brittany in the 850s and 860s. 851, year-round in England. p. 343. Also at mouths of the Seine and Somme. Vikings sack, slaughter, burn towns throughout France.
862, Charles the Bald, Charlemagne's grandson, has fortified bridges erected. This cramps the Vikings' style. p. 345. By 865, only 40 and 50 ships on the Loire and Seine, not hundreds.
865–880, the "great heathen army" goes en masse to England. Starting on the Thames and East Anglia. p. 346. 866, Vikings take York: their stronghold for the next century. p. 347. 871, Vikings attack Wessex. By 874, only Wessex is in English hands.
In 876 the Vikings began to settle down in Northumbria: farming.
878, English cede north and east of England to the Vikings. p. 349.
877–886, Vikings again attack France, which was again in civil war over succession to the throne. They're eventually bought off. By 890, France is again politically stable and effectively defending against Vikings. p. 351.
In the 800s, Vikings extorted 30,000 pounds of silver from France: one-seventh of the entire coinage of the century. Plus grain, livestock, produce, horses, wine, cider, … for doing nothing. Between 830 and 890, 120 named settlements in France were destroyed.
Danish king Harald Bluetooth was baptized circa 965. p. 452. After his overthrow, the Odin cult revived. p. 457. Christianity spread in Norway in the 990s. Christianization of Sweden took until the 1220s. p. 458. Rus kings in Kiev were baptized in the mid-900s. Scandinavians were pilgrimaging to Jerusalem in the 11th century. p. 463.
Iceland officially converted to Christianity around 1000 CE. p. 481. Greenland was colonized in the 980s. p. 482. Twenty-five ships left Iceland bound for Greenland: 14 arrived. Greenlanders eventually starved to death after overexploiting the soil, and several bad years. pp. 485–486. The Norse toehold in Newfoundland was repelled by natives. p. 490.
Very short quiz:
https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...
May 15, 2025
I learned a lot but parts of it were fairly dry surprisingly. I know it’s different subject matter but in terms of a sweeping history, it’s safe to say Price doesn’t quite have the gift of prose that Mrs. Barbara W. Tuchman had in A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century.
January 12, 2023
When covering information that can be objectively inferred from the written records and archeology, this is a great book. On the other hand this book rightly condemns people in recent generations for viewing the vikings through their own ideology. At the same time the author makes wild presumptions about the ideas held be viking age people. The entirely modern idea of feminism and the subsequent ideologies it has spawned have absolutely no comparable basis in the viking age. To think that is the case is hypocritical and ludicrous.
July 21, 2025
Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings
by Neil Price
I love a good history book, and this is definitely that. It's very thorough, interestingly written, and covers everything I could possibly think of in relationship to the Vikings and more.
by Neil Price
I love a good history book, and this is definitely that. It's very thorough, interestingly written, and covers everything I could possibly think of in relationship to the Vikings and more.
April 25, 2021
In de eeuwen sinds de grote plundertochten is het beeld van de Vikingen vele malen bijgesteld - en aangepast. In de 18e en 19e eeuw werd het beeld, onder invloed van nationalistische en romantische denkbeelden, neergezet van een edele wilde. De nazi's eigenden zich een vals arisch archetype toe. Maar al deze perspectieven gaan voorbij aan hoe zij de wereld zelf zagen. Wie waren zij werkelijk, wat dreef hen en hoe dachten zij? Op die laatste vragen wil Neil Price een antwoord geven.
Het stereotiepe beeld van een woest bebaarde, met een bijl zwaaiende krijger met een helm met hoorns blijft niet overeind. Integendeel, Neil Price weet op bedaarde manier veel nieuwe inzichten te geven in de wereld van de Vikingen die ik op veel punten moest bijstellen. In die zin is deze Nieuwe Geschiedenis waarlijk nieuw en gaf het me goede inzichten in het Vikingtijdperk.
Het eerste deel van het boek (De Schepping van Midgaard) geeft een beeld van de maatschappij, met nadruk op de religie, de rollen van de mannen en de vrouwen en de omgang met de doden. Het tweede deel (Het Vikingfenomeen) plaatst de Viking in zijn tijdperk, met de logica achter de plundertochten, de economische drijfveren erachter en de politiek van de krijgsheren. 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.
Verwacht dus geen verhalen van bloeddorstige plundertochten maar eerder een mooi overzicht in de denkwereld en tijdperk van de Vikingen. Al met al een mooi gebalanceerd overzicht voor iedereen die kennis wil maken met het fenomeen Viking.
Het stereotiepe beeld van een woest bebaarde, met een bijl zwaaiende krijger met een helm met hoorns blijft niet overeind. Integendeel, Neil Price weet op bedaarde manier veel nieuwe inzichten te geven in de wereld van de Vikingen die ik op veel punten moest bijstellen. In die zin is deze Nieuwe Geschiedenis waarlijk nieuw en gaf het me goede inzichten in het Vikingtijdperk.
Het eerste deel van het boek (De Schepping van Midgaard) geeft een beeld van de maatschappij, met nadruk op de religie, de rollen van de mannen en de vrouwen en de omgang met de doden. Het tweede deel (Het Vikingfenomeen) plaatst de Viking in zijn tijdperk, met de logica achter de plundertochten, de economische drijfveren erachter en de politiek van de krijgsheren. 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.
Verwacht dus geen verhalen van bloeddorstige plundertochten maar eerder een mooi overzicht in de denkwereld en tijdperk van de Vikingen. Al met al een mooi gebalanceerd overzicht voor iedereen die kennis wil maken met het fenomeen Viking.
December 27, 2020
This is a well-written and well-sources book about viking history. It was fascinating and easy to read. It did make me wonder how much less violence and plunder might have happened if the ratios between men and women were more equal in Viking culture? Or if women had more rights?
December 1, 2024
Even though the Viking age only lasted for about 300 years , from the eighth to eleventh century, and they had very little written history, they still capture the imagination because they only cared about two things: raidin’ and tradin’!
They started out attacking monasteries, killing monks and bringing the loot home. Fast forward a few hundred years and Christianity was supplanting their own pagan faith, which I think most would agree had the cooler lore. But as usual, the church won in the end. The Vikings went from raping and strangling their dad’s hottest slave at his boat funeral to raidin’ for Jesus.
The Viking raids were so successful that for a short time England had a Viking king, badda boom badda bing!
Most of what we do know about them comes from Arab traders and the victims of their predations in England and France, but they may have made it as far as Egypt and definitely northern Canada.
This book was informative and well written but I think every historical book is a product of its own time. You can tell the era they’re written in by their differing paradigms.
This book, published in 2020 is almost apologetic about its subject. the “toxic masculinity” commonly associated with the Vikings seems to be a sore point for the author. Despite all evidence of socially enforced gender roles and documented homophobia, the author repeatedly, wildly speculates about gender fluidity and other modern concepts. Undoubtedly there were gay people (probably secretly) in their society and there were some female leaders and warriors, but they were extraordinary exceptions. It would have been less distracting if he just unapologetically stuck to the subject, there’s no need to apologize for people who lived more than a thousand years ago or to judge them by 21st century morality.
He even softened the language he used to describe some of their practices. Instead of saying ���slave” or “slavery” as they were well known to keep and traffic in the practice. He refers to slaves as “unfree people” which is not only distracting but can serve to muddy the waters. Just tell me the history and let me judge it for myself.
Read
September 18, 2024Neil Price is the top researcher in the field of Viking Age Scandinavia, having written The Viking Way: Magic and Mind in Late Iron Age Scandinavia, which everyone else references. The Children of Ash and Elm, however, seems to be aimed at lay people. It does discuss archeological evidence at length, and provides many photos of artifacts, but it also includes some speculations that I hear other scholars are not happy about. Price offers general references for each chapter, but not footnotes with specific page numbers, and I was unable to locate the sources for some of his most interesting claims. But I'm not a scholar in the field, so can be easygoing about the interpretations Price makes from limited evidence, especially since they are quite imaginative and compelling.
While it might not be Price's most rigorous work, it is beautifully, viscerally written, turning what might have been a dry text into a novelistic pleasure.
Magic workers “straddled the rivers between the realms, leaving footprints on both banks.”
“Sól, the shining sun-woman, is swallowed whole, the lamp of the day extinguished forever.” The moon's “dying light spattering the world like blood as it dims to black.”
While it might not be Price's most rigorous work, it is beautifully, viscerally written, turning what might have been a dry text into a novelistic pleasure.
Magic workers “straddled the rivers between the realms, leaving footprints on both banks.”
“Sól, the shining sun-woman, is swallowed whole, the lamp of the day extinguished forever.” The moon's “dying light spattering the world like blood as it dims to black.”
July 6, 2023
I picked this up hoping to read a history of the Viking World. I’m not sure what this was but it wasn’t a history.
This is a deeply woke-washed, academic sociology piece with an emphasis on the Vikings as the case study.
The author seems intent on cramming down the idea that, laughably, the VIKINGS 😂 had a hundred different genders. While ALSO being deeply misogynistic and patriarchal with societally defined gender roles. EXCEPT when they were feminists. Unless perhaps what we perceive as female burials due to clothing and jewelry might be men dressed up as women. There were trans Vikings, apparently 😂 according to this author. Sure bro.
The anti-Christian bias throughout the book is overt. Which, the author is entitled to his opinion- however when presenting historical facts, the aggressive approach toward the people who were not brutally blood sacrificing human beings… does nothing for his credibility.
At the end of the book he credits the Vikings with being inclusive while also overturning and reorienting society. Rejecting what was and creating something new. So… somehow the VIKINGS became a Marxist ideal.
Just. Skip this one entirely.
This is a deeply woke-washed, academic sociology piece with an emphasis on the Vikings as the case study.
The author seems intent on cramming down the idea that, laughably, the VIKINGS 😂 had a hundred different genders. While ALSO being deeply misogynistic and patriarchal with societally defined gender roles. EXCEPT when they were feminists. Unless perhaps what we perceive as female burials due to clothing and jewelry might be men dressed up as women. There were trans Vikings, apparently 😂 according to this author. Sure bro.
The anti-Christian bias throughout the book is overt. Which, the author is entitled to his opinion- however when presenting historical facts, the aggressive approach toward the people who were not brutally blood sacrificing human beings… does nothing for his credibility.
At the end of the book he credits the Vikings with being inclusive while also overturning and reorienting society. Rejecting what was and creating something new. So… somehow the VIKINGS became a Marxist ideal.
Just. Skip this one entirely.
December 28, 2020
For those looking for a modern re-telling of the famous Viking sagas, you’re in the wrong place. Famous Viking exploits do come up, but merely to illustrate a point about Viking culture, religion or politics. Price is more interested in helping us understand who the Vikings were as a people. Gender relations, trade, religion and community are the main areas of focus. That’s not to say that Price ignores the raiding and violence that have made the Vikings famous today, quite the contrary. The Vikings were a violent people, and for hundreds of years it was the foundation of their economy. But they were also a much more complex society than how they are widely remembered today. This is a book for those who want to understand more than the sailing and raiding aspect of this culture. Price delves deep, but he never bores the reader with mundane details. I loved it, and now I kinda want to go back and watch the Viking series on History channel to see if they got it right or not. Highly recommended for history nerds.
November 2, 2020
Neil Price's The Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings was a bit of a hit-and-miss for me. Some chapters were fascinating, and I flew through them. Most of Part 1, The Making of Midgard, which discussed Viking society, was particularly excellent. I also enjoyed the chapter on Viking expeditions to North America. And having recently read The Bear and the Nightingale, I was excited to see the Rus' make an appearance.
I should also affirmatively state that I appreciated Price's repeated cautions against romanticizing the Vikings, and just generally doing his best to avoid giving fodder to readers who would use this work for nefarious means. Frankly, it sucks that we have to worry about Nazis whenever researching and writing about the Vikings. But we do, and I'm glad Price acknowledged that. He also does a good job pushing back on the notion that the Vikings were in any way a "pure" Nordic race, and notes all the ways in which they mixed with and embraced other peoples and cultures. Well done, sir.
But back to the book itself. It's mostly great, but there are these long chapters in the middle that dig into the details of Price's specific field -- archaeology -- and everything started to drag for me. Archaeology books are just not for me. (Museums with ancient artifacts? Awesome! Books about academic archaeology? Terrible.) This is the third book I've read this year that dealt heavily with it, and I'm done. (The other two were The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World and 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. Both were admirable, but tedious whenever they delved into archaeological details.) I'm done with graves in all their forms -- burials, cremations, and, most especially, mounds. I'm done with descriptions on how their occupants were murdered. I'm done with spatial description of ancient settlements. I'm done with the constant speculations about finds, followed immediately by cautious caveats about how we can't really know. Mostly, I'm constantly frustrated because I find archaeological conclusions suspect, but also wish there were more of them -- rather like that Woody Allen quip about the restaurant with terrible food and small portions.
Now, it's not Neil Price's fault that I find archaeology tedious, but I will gently observe that he's also not the world's best writer. He's not terrible, but the words "mundane" and "mediocre" apply here. In Children of Ash and Elm, he seemed to be trying to balance a dry academic tone and a more conversational, accessible style. I think he just should have chosen one or the other, because merging the two didn't work for me. There were long paragraphs where I spaced out for a bit, reading the words but not really living them. Catching myself doing this, I would shake my head, yawn, and ask whether it was worthwhile going back to re-read ... and it seldom was.
Worst of all, Price writes these cringe-worthy, interior monologues that try to get the reader into the head of a Viking. Here's one of them:
"Feel like a Frisian meal this evening? Try Radbod's [tee-hee!] tavern by the docks--those Saxon merchants we met last month in Hedeby said it was amazing. And you should taste Ulf's beer next door, he uses heather!"
And another, supposedly something a young Viking woman may have thought about a handsome warrior back from raiding with a slave girl--
"And there's that tall one again, good-looking despite the scar, with the gold-hilted blade (which he didn't have last year). This is the third ship he's sailed with, and he's got another stripe on his teeth. Ignore that frightened girl he brought home with him--that's just to be expected, and anyway she can't even speak the language; and he does keep looking at you. But you'll be the judge of where that might lead."
Yikes. I could see some readers finding these charming. Or maybe Price has found stuff like this to be effective teaching in a classroom. But they just didn't work for me, and I found them more jarring than immersing.
To be fair, Price's editor could have also done a better job. I found a few flat out errors (like when he talks about Vikings in England reaching "as far east as Cornwall") and also some just weird writing, like when he describes fledgling Viking market towns as "aspirational centres of early trickle-down economies," when I think he meant experiments in mercantile trade? I mean, as an American reader who ties "trickle down" economics to Reagan and the (ongoing) conservative revolution of the 1980s, I could not figure out what Price meant here.
But I digress. Overall, Children of Ash and Elm was a decent read. It certainly whetted my appetite to read more about the Vikings, and I fully intend to take Price up on his suggestion to go read the Icelandic sagas. But is it actually the "definitive" popular work on the Vikings that I expected? Not really. Long stretches get too bogged down in archaeological detail, and Price also skips over lots of things I would have wanted to learn more about, like the language the Vikings spoke, Old Norse. Which is good news, I guess, for the person out there who wants to write that book.
I should also affirmatively state that I appreciated Price's repeated cautions against romanticizing the Vikings, and just generally doing his best to avoid giving fodder to readers who would use this work for nefarious means. Frankly, it sucks that we have to worry about Nazis whenever researching and writing about the Vikings. But we do, and I'm glad Price acknowledged that. He also does a good job pushing back on the notion that the Vikings were in any way a "pure" Nordic race, and notes all the ways in which they mixed with and embraced other peoples and cultures. Well done, sir.
But back to the book itself. It's mostly great, but there are these long chapters in the middle that dig into the details of Price's specific field -- archaeology -- and everything started to drag for me. Archaeology books are just not for me. (Museums with ancient artifacts? Awesome! Books about academic archaeology? Terrible.) This is the third book I've read this year that dealt heavily with it, and I'm done. (The other two were The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World and 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. Both were admirable, but tedious whenever they delved into archaeological details.) I'm done with graves in all their forms -- burials, cremations, and, most especially, mounds. I'm done with descriptions on how their occupants were murdered. I'm done with spatial description of ancient settlements. I'm done with the constant speculations about finds, followed immediately by cautious caveats about how we can't really know. Mostly, I'm constantly frustrated because I find archaeological conclusions suspect, but also wish there were more of them -- rather like that Woody Allen quip about the restaurant with terrible food and small portions.
Now, it's not Neil Price's fault that I find archaeology tedious, but I will gently observe that he's also not the world's best writer. He's not terrible, but the words "mundane" and "mediocre" apply here. In Children of Ash and Elm, he seemed to be trying to balance a dry academic tone and a more conversational, accessible style. I think he just should have chosen one or the other, because merging the two didn't work for me. There were long paragraphs where I spaced out for a bit, reading the words but not really living them. Catching myself doing this, I would shake my head, yawn, and ask whether it was worthwhile going back to re-read ... and it seldom was.
Worst of all, Price writes these cringe-worthy, interior monologues that try to get the reader into the head of a Viking. Here's one of them:
"Feel like a Frisian meal this evening? Try Radbod's [tee-hee!] tavern by the docks--those Saxon merchants we met last month in Hedeby said it was amazing. And you should taste Ulf's beer next door, he uses heather!"
And another, supposedly something a young Viking woman may have thought about a handsome warrior back from raiding with a slave girl--
"And there's that tall one again, good-looking despite the scar, with the gold-hilted blade (which he didn't have last year). This is the third ship he's sailed with, and he's got another stripe on his teeth. Ignore that frightened girl he brought home with him--that's just to be expected, and anyway she can't even speak the language; and he does keep looking at you. But you'll be the judge of where that might lead."
Yikes. I could see some readers finding these charming. Or maybe Price has found stuff like this to be effective teaching in a classroom. But they just didn't work for me, and I found them more jarring than immersing.
To be fair, Price's editor could have also done a better job. I found a few flat out errors (like when he talks about Vikings in England reaching "as far east as Cornwall") and also some just weird writing, like when he describes fledgling Viking market towns as "aspirational centres of early trickle-down economies," when I think he meant experiments in mercantile trade? I mean, as an American reader who ties "trickle down" economics to Reagan and the (ongoing) conservative revolution of the 1980s, I could not figure out what Price meant here.
But I digress. Overall, Children of Ash and Elm was a decent read. It certainly whetted my appetite to read more about the Vikings, and I fully intend to take Price up on his suggestion to go read the Icelandic sagas. But is it actually the "definitive" popular work on the Vikings that I expected? Not really. Long stretches get too bogged down in archaeological detail, and Price also skips over lots of things I would have wanted to learn more about, like the language the Vikings spoke, Old Norse. Which is good news, I guess, for the person out there who wants to write that book.
September 8, 2025
Erudīti vēsturnieki, kuri spēj sarakstīt aizraujošas grāmatas labā, viegli uztveramā valodā, tomēr informatīvi, jāsargā par katru cenu. Godīgi atzīstos, ka pirms šīs grāmatas izlasīšanas, manas zināšanas par vikingiem bija diezgan seklas un klišejiskas, tajā skaitā Toma Hidlstona Lokijs. Tagad es esmu izglītota, pārsteigta un apburta, cik kompleksa, daudzveidīga, sarežģīta, plaša, bagāta un arī vardarbīga bija vikingu ēra. Tiešām lieliska vēstures grāmata.
August 20, 2025
Very well done history of the Vikings. I enjoyed the way the writer blended the cultural, historical and religious/mythological aspects of these people. Great informative read. Very recommended
July 10, 2025
This was very good! Extremely readable without sacrificing historical detail.
The thing that struck me the most was the idea that the Vikings’ apocalyptic emphasis on Ragnarok emerged from their experience of ecological/climate disaster when three volcanoes erupted simultaneously and turned the skies black for multiple years, all their crops died, and many people did too. It called to mind a book I read maybe 10 years ago on Southeast Asia, which talked in length about the ways in which that region was rocked by natural disaster after natural disaster (volcanos, tsunamis, you name it they got it) during a particular medieval-ish period whose exact dates I’ve forgotten. (1) It is (darkly) comforting to think about others who have faced climate disaster, and to consider *how* they did that, and whether there are lessons to be learned for us today, and (2) it is also (darkly) comforting that just maybe those SE Asian islanders and these Nordic soon-to-be-called-Vikings were in fact facing the *same* climate disaster. Aww, isn’t it sweet how ecological devastation brings us all closer together? ;)
(For the record, I realize that this book is specifically *not* saying that the Vikings reacted to environmental collapse by being friendly and peaceful with each other. However… I gotta find some positives!)
There was a whole lot of other interesting stuff in here, although I mostly didn’t take notes. I will ~highlight~ a few things:
- the sorcerers and their phallic wands/staffs, this is absolutely real and hilarious;
- the idea that the burial mounds might open up and the dead will just be chilling in there, sitting at their desk or whatever;
- as usual and no matter how many times I hear about it, the idea that the Vikings just casually traveled all the way to Constantinople so often there was a specific guard that was down to hire whichever of them were passing through - like, what am I doing with my life (and I’m not even getting into their pit stop for cheap lumber AKA North America);
- the Vikings as colonizing the colonizers… sorry England and France, 1066 was actually Viking (descendent) vs. Viking (descendent), Anglo-Saxons and Franks please don’t think it was ever your show; and
- the Viking funeral as contemporaneously memorialized by Ahmad ibn Fadlān was - wild, unhinged, horrifying, bizarre, I am out of adjectives and I haven’t come even close to being done describing it. !!
My one qualification is that I did occasionally find the writing style to be a little too casual - but I think I am probably not the main audience for this book to the extent that I’m complaining it’s not academic enough, and in fact there was a whole section at the end where he listed good sources & scholars &c, which basically redeemed things in my eyes.
I’m also leaving these here so I can remember they sounded like a fun read:
- The Waking of Angantyr
- The Saga of Burnt Njál
- The Saga of Grettir
I read this in paperback (Basic Books/Hachette, Apr. 2024 printing) and it was excellently designed, great font etc. (print book interior design by Amnet Systems) and a gorgeous cover (designed by Chin-Yee Lai). Would definitely recommend it as a gift for the kind of person who would like this kind of thing as a gift.
The thing that struck me the most was the idea that the Vikings’ apocalyptic emphasis on Ragnarok emerged from their experience of ecological/climate disaster when three volcanoes erupted simultaneously and turned the skies black for multiple years, all their crops died, and many people did too. It called to mind a book I read maybe 10 years ago on Southeast Asia, which talked in length about the ways in which that region was rocked by natural disaster after natural disaster (volcanos, tsunamis, you name it they got it) during a particular medieval-ish period whose exact dates I’ve forgotten. (1) It is (darkly) comforting to think about others who have faced climate disaster, and to consider *how* they did that, and whether there are lessons to be learned for us today, and (2) it is also (darkly) comforting that just maybe those SE Asian islanders and these Nordic soon-to-be-called-Vikings were in fact facing the *same* climate disaster. Aww, isn’t it sweet how ecological devastation brings us all closer together? ;)
(For the record, I realize that this book is specifically *not* saying that the Vikings reacted to environmental collapse by being friendly and peaceful with each other. However… I gotta find some positives!)
There was a whole lot of other interesting stuff in here, although I mostly didn’t take notes. I will ~highlight~ a few things:
- the sorcerers and their phallic wands/staffs, this is absolutely real and hilarious;
- the idea that the burial mounds might open up and the dead will just be chilling in there, sitting at their desk or whatever;
- as usual and no matter how many times I hear about it, the idea that the Vikings just casually traveled all the way to Constantinople so often there was a specific guard that was down to hire whichever of them were passing through - like, what am I doing with my life (and I’m not even getting into their pit stop for cheap lumber AKA North America);
- the Vikings as colonizing the colonizers… sorry England and France, 1066 was actually Viking (descendent) vs. Viking (descendent), Anglo-Saxons and Franks please don’t think it was ever your show; and
- the Viking funeral as contemporaneously memorialized by Ahmad ibn Fadlān was - wild, unhinged, horrifying, bizarre, I am out of adjectives and I haven’t come even close to being done describing it. !!
My one qualification is that I did occasionally find the writing style to be a little too casual - but I think I am probably not the main audience for this book to the extent that I’m complaining it’s not academic enough, and in fact there was a whole section at the end where he listed good sources & scholars &c, which basically redeemed things in my eyes.
I’m also leaving these here so I can remember they sounded like a fun read:
- The Waking of Angantyr
- The Saga of Burnt Njál
- The Saga of Grettir
I read this in paperback (Basic Books/Hachette, Apr. 2024 printing) and it was excellently designed, great font etc. (print book interior design by Amnet Systems) and a gorgeous cover (designed by Chin-Yee Lai). Would definitely recommend it as a gift for the kind of person who would like this kind of thing as a gift.
January 13, 2021
Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings by Neil Price, is a fantastic new history of the Vikings - in this book considered to be the peoples of Scandinavia roughly from the collapse of the Roman Empire to the 11th century, when the kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden and Norway emerged. The Vikings are commonly known for their violent raids on mainland Europe and Britain in the early medieval period, but Price shows a much more complex and nuanced side to the Vikings. In depth analysis of their cultural, social, mythological/religious and political structures, as well as the economic incentives that influenced their decisions, is examined in depth. Contained in this book are some fascinating examinations not only on the Vikings themselves, but also human thought, history and philosophy. Price shows that the Vikings were not an isolated peoples that screamed out of Scandinavia in 793 to sack an obscure monastery in England, but instead a complex, nuanced people who had close trading and cultural ties to Germany and the Latin world for centuries before.
Some fascinating information on Viking mythology is contained within. Far from being all about Odin and Valhalla, the Vikings worshipped a pantheon of Gods who were tightly bound to the Vikings perceptions of their surroundings. Thor and Loki of the Aesir are well known, but a full further family of Gods, the Vanir, exist, as well as numerous planes of existence, and other mythological creatures. This effected the Vikings perceptions of self and place, putting them firmly in a world populated by gnomes and dwarves, elves and Valkyrie. Price examines the Vikings sense of self and finds some fascinating evidence within the archeological record; people seem to have up to five competing self identities, based on status, family, profession, place and ones own luck. This made for a variety of options within Viking society, on how to live and interact with ones communities. Even so, the Viking's buck the tropes set out in recent television series; women had the right to divorce for numerous reasons, and had a lot of agency within the law and estate. Even so, Viking society was very misogynistic. Domestic abuse was common, men had the right to polygamy while women could only have one husband. And the domain of lawmaking and politics seems to have been purely male dominated. From a military standpoint, the average Viking warrior was certainly male, although there are some examples of ambiguous graves where all the trappings of a warrior are found, but the body in the grave is female. Examples of this are present within the Viking sagas as well.
The Vikings are of course most famous for their raids and expeditions, which took them from the rivers of central Russia to the shores of Abbasid Caliphate, the coasts of Western Europe, and into the uncharted territories of the North Atlantic, even settling onto the shores of North America. The Vikings were colonizers, raiders and interested in expansion. The reason why is largely unknown, although numerous theories abound, including unrest due to warring polities and the slow centralization of political power on mainland Scandinavia, a lack of eligible brides for the average warrior, environmental impacts from a warming period, and so forth. Any and all of these may provide the answer, although it is certainly not for any one particular reason, as most moments in history seem to attest too. This fascinating part of European history is particularly interesting, and reveals much about human interaction, philosophy and so much more.
One thing this book did very well is its offering of a holistic and exploratory view of history. Far from a dogmatic approach to considering history, this book looks at a particular topic with ambiguity, examining multiple points of view, and how they interact with the written and archaeological record. Price is adept at both breathlessly considering historical scenarios, while also pouring cold water on them, leaving them to speculation and hopefully, further examination when more evidence arises. This book was clear, concise and analytical, while also allowing lots of space for fun examinations, easy to digest prose, and moments of fancy from the author. This is a great example of a well rounded history book, being both not too technical, and not too journalistic - instead making a book that really nails the best of both worlds form these two forms of historiography. This was a fascinating and wholly engaging book, and an easy recommendation for those looking for a modern history book on the Vikings focusing on how they lived, and why they engaged with the world as they did.
Some fascinating information on Viking mythology is contained within. Far from being all about Odin and Valhalla, the Vikings worshipped a pantheon of Gods who were tightly bound to the Vikings perceptions of their surroundings. Thor and Loki of the Aesir are well known, but a full further family of Gods, the Vanir, exist, as well as numerous planes of existence, and other mythological creatures. This effected the Vikings perceptions of self and place, putting them firmly in a world populated by gnomes and dwarves, elves and Valkyrie. Price examines the Vikings sense of self and finds some fascinating evidence within the archeological record; people seem to have up to five competing self identities, based on status, family, profession, place and ones own luck. This made for a variety of options within Viking society, on how to live and interact with ones communities. Even so, the Viking's buck the tropes set out in recent television series; women had the right to divorce for numerous reasons, and had a lot of agency within the law and estate. Even so, Viking society was very misogynistic. Domestic abuse was common, men had the right to polygamy while women could only have one husband. And the domain of lawmaking and politics seems to have been purely male dominated. From a military standpoint, the average Viking warrior was certainly male, although there are some examples of ambiguous graves where all the trappings of a warrior are found, but the body in the grave is female. Examples of this are present within the Viking sagas as well.
The Vikings are of course most famous for their raids and expeditions, which took them from the rivers of central Russia to the shores of Abbasid Caliphate, the coasts of Western Europe, and into the uncharted territories of the North Atlantic, even settling onto the shores of North America. The Vikings were colonizers, raiders and interested in expansion. The reason why is largely unknown, although numerous theories abound, including unrest due to warring polities and the slow centralization of political power on mainland Scandinavia, a lack of eligible brides for the average warrior, environmental impacts from a warming period, and so forth. Any and all of these may provide the answer, although it is certainly not for any one particular reason, as most moments in history seem to attest too. This fascinating part of European history is particularly interesting, and reveals much about human interaction, philosophy and so much more.
One thing this book did very well is its offering of a holistic and exploratory view of history. Far from a dogmatic approach to considering history, this book looks at a particular topic with ambiguity, examining multiple points of view, and how they interact with the written and archaeological record. Price is adept at both breathlessly considering historical scenarios, while also pouring cold water on them, leaving them to speculation and hopefully, further examination when more evidence arises. This book was clear, concise and analytical, while also allowing lots of space for fun examinations, easy to digest prose, and moments of fancy from the author. This is a great example of a well rounded history book, being both not too technical, and not too journalistic - instead making a book that really nails the best of both worlds form these two forms of historiography. This was a fascinating and wholly engaging book, and an easy recommendation for those looking for a modern history book on the Vikings focusing on how they lived, and why they engaged with the world as they did.
July 28, 2022
Neil Price doet wat hij belooft in zijn titel: hij biedt een grondige, quasi complete geschiedenis van de Vikingen. “Nieuw” in die zin dat hij zich vooral baseert op de meest recente onderzoeken, waarbij hij ook openlijk niet akkoord gaat met bepaalde eerdere opinies of ideeën, en deze duidelijk van tafel gooit. Neil Price is zelf professor aan de Universiteit van Uppsala in Zweden, en heeft al een groot deel van zijn leven gewijd aan de Vikingen en onderzoek hiernaar, dus hij spreekt met verstand van zaken.
Door deze ervaring en kennis kan hij een levendig beeld schetsen van de Vikingwereld, ondanks dat dit toch als een wetenschappelijk boek kan gezien worden. De schrijver doet duidelijk veel moeite om zijn werk zo toegankelijk mogelijk te maken, zonder in te boeten op kwaliteit: er zijn verschillende foto’s toegevoegd, alsook een aantal pagina’s in kleurendruk, en daarnaast zijn er verschillende Vikingroddels en allerhande verhalen in opgenomen (legendes, vertalingen van Runen uit het dagelijkse leven, …), wat de geschiedenis concreter en dichterbij brengt. Ook zijn vertelstijl is vlot, en met hier en daar een vleugje humor.
Ook in het geval dat hij het als wetenschappelijk onderzoeker zelf ergens niet mee eens is, zal hij toch ook steeds meegeven wat zijn collega’s binnen het vakgebied over een bepaalde kwestie te zeggen hebben, waardoor ik de schrijver nog meer apprecieer. Toch is dit boek soms wel wat droog, maar het is wel fijn om van begin tot eind mee te worden genomen in de Vikingcultuur.
Ik las dit boek deels in Denemarken, waarbij we ook regelmatig Vikinguitstapjes maakten, en het was dan wel fijn om ook over deze plaatsen in dit boek te lezen.
Dus ook al ging het lezen soms minder vlot, toch heb ik dit boek graag gelezen, en ben een stuk wijzer geworden.
Door deze ervaring en kennis kan hij een levendig beeld schetsen van de Vikingwereld, ondanks dat dit toch als een wetenschappelijk boek kan gezien worden. De schrijver doet duidelijk veel moeite om zijn werk zo toegankelijk mogelijk te maken, zonder in te boeten op kwaliteit: er zijn verschillende foto’s toegevoegd, alsook een aantal pagina’s in kleurendruk, en daarnaast zijn er verschillende Vikingroddels en allerhande verhalen in opgenomen (legendes, vertalingen van Runen uit het dagelijkse leven, …), wat de geschiedenis concreter en dichterbij brengt. Ook zijn vertelstijl is vlot, en met hier en daar een vleugje humor.
Ook in het geval dat hij het als wetenschappelijk onderzoeker zelf ergens niet mee eens is, zal hij toch ook steeds meegeven wat zijn collega’s binnen het vakgebied over een bepaalde kwestie te zeggen hebben, waardoor ik de schrijver nog meer apprecieer. Toch is dit boek soms wel wat droog, maar het is wel fijn om van begin tot eind mee te worden genomen in de Vikingcultuur.
Ik las dit boek deels in Denemarken, waarbij we ook regelmatig Vikinguitstapjes maakten, en het was dan wel fijn om ook over deze plaatsen in dit boek te lezen.
Dus ook al ging het lezen soms minder vlot, toch heb ik dit boek graag gelezen, en ben een stuk wijzer geworden.
July 26, 2022
This might be my ever first trashy non-fiction book.
I thought I was in for a disappointing ride when Price used the words 'slut-shaming' to describe the attitude of one of the Viking gods in the early pages.
Price's virtue signalling was palpable throughout the entire read. It felt like I was reading the essay of a 'woke' teenager.
The Children of Ash and Elm is poorly written and edited. I doubt regular readers of history will find much here. Don't waste your money.
I thought I was in for a disappointing ride when Price used the words 'slut-shaming' to describe the attitude of one of the Viking gods in the early pages.
Price's virtue signalling was palpable throughout the entire read. It felt like I was reading the essay of a 'woke' teenager.
The Children of Ash and Elm is poorly written and edited. I doubt regular readers of history will find much here. Don't waste your money.
March 17, 2023
Propaganda. Did not finish.
March 4, 2022
Fascinating survey of our knowledge of the Viking world. Crazy how archaeology and related disciplines have really advanced over the last couple of decades and just keep paying off. There's a really great look at a massive burial site found off the coast of Estonia as recently as 2012.
Did a thread of interesting excerpts here.
Did a thread of interesting excerpts here.
October 13, 2020
Neil Price is a scholar that I've admired for many years and I've frequently returned to works of his over and over for my own research so I was thrilled to receive an ARC of The Children of Ash and Elm. To be frank, this is one of the best books on the Vikings I've ever read and that is for many reasons. One of those reasons is how Neil Price writes. This is not a dense nonfiction where you feel like you're in over your head. He writes in a way that feels conversational and also relates the Vikings to the modern-day in extremely interesting ways.
Another thing of major value here is that Neil Price does not do what so many scholars before him have done; he doesn't separate things into different arenas. This book makes it clear that the same people conquering Iceland and sailing to North America were also present in Russia at the same. This is of great importance to a beginner in this time period, in my opinion.
Neil Price also has the gift of asking "what if" in an incredibly nuanced way. He proposes ideas about different archaeological digs or events in Viking society that seem viable, especially because he backs them up with his own research. On the whole, I just adore this book. It might be my favorite Viking nonfiction of all time (and that's saying something as this is one of my niche time periods). It has some outstanding new research and ideas for those returning to the world of the Vikings and is a great place to begin for those who are new.
Thank you to Netgalley and Basic Books for the opportunity to read this ARC.
Another thing of major value here is that Neil Price does not do what so many scholars before him have done; he doesn't separate things into different arenas. This book makes it clear that the same people conquering Iceland and sailing to North America were also present in Russia at the same. This is of great importance to a beginner in this time period, in my opinion.
Neil Price also has the gift of asking "what if" in an incredibly nuanced way. He proposes ideas about different archaeological digs or events in Viking society that seem viable, especially because he backs them up with his own research. On the whole, I just adore this book. It might be my favorite Viking nonfiction of all time (and that's saying something as this is one of my niche time periods). It has some outstanding new research and ideas for those returning to the world of the Vikings and is a great place to begin for those who are new.
Thank you to Netgalley and Basic Books for the opportunity to read this ARC.
October 7, 2020
If sometimes one sentence characterises a book, I'd choose this one:
If you truely believed-in fact 'knew'-that the man living up the valley could turn into a wolf under certain circumstances, what was it like to be his neighbour? What was it like to be married to him?
As Price admits, no one can answer that question. But it's worth asking. As an attempt to understand a mentality this book is thought provoking and thorough. Price is open eyed about the brutality of the Viking world, but he's also aware of how various and strange it was.
It's hard not to like an archeologist who can write so well, who obviously enjoys his subject, and who doesn't dismiss the written sources but actively enjoys them.
Here's he's doing all of that, explaining why he's included some of the poetry in the original language:
When properly recited in appropriate surroundings, Viking-Age poetry can taste like cold iron on the tongue, its complex rhyme schemes building upon one another like layers of frost-treacherous and beautiful.
If you truely believed-in fact 'knew'-that the man living up the valley could turn into a wolf under certain circumstances, what was it like to be his neighbour? What was it like to be married to him?
As Price admits, no one can answer that question. But it's worth asking. As an attempt to understand a mentality this book is thought provoking and thorough. Price is open eyed about the brutality of the Viking world, but he's also aware of how various and strange it was.
It's hard not to like an archeologist who can write so well, who obviously enjoys his subject, and who doesn't dismiss the written sources but actively enjoys them.
Here's he's doing all of that, explaining why he's included some of the poetry in the original language:
When properly recited in appropriate surroundings, Viking-Age poetry can taste like cold iron on the tongue, its complex rhyme schemes building upon one another like layers of frost-treacherous and beautiful.
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