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

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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.

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. Everyone had their own identity – their self-image – and its outward projection; some of them were familiar to us, others frighteningly alien”. Too many people want to misrepresent history for their own ends and sadly the Vikings can be used by those with their own agendas. Nor is he afraid to face up to the absences and random gaps in the source material (such as what their music sounded like), and the confusions and inconsistencies that come from dealing with human nature.Its consequences included an urban revolution in the Scandinavian economies and the reorganization of the countryside, paralleled by the consolidation of royal power and the rising influence of a new faith. Every year from 834 through 838, Danes sacked and burned the wealthy Dorestad emporium, on the Rhine in Holland, killing, taking shiploads of slaves. He also reminds us of the simultaneous familiarity and strangeness of the past, of how much we cannot know, alongside the discoveries that change the landscape of our understanding. Het stereotiepe beeld van een woest bebaarde, met een bijl zwaaiende krijger met een helm met hoorns blijft niet overeind. Yo buscaba una historia de la presencia y expansión de los vikingos, que sabía habían llegado desde Norteamérica hasta Rusia y más al este.

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. He cuts through centuries of received wisdom to try to see the Vikings as they saw themselves - descendants of the first human couple, the Children of Ash and Elm. It is a fascinating and extensive examination of the Vikings, children of the great ash tree Yggdrasill, their culture, explorations and sweeping travels. 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.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. illuminated manuscript depicting Ivar Ragnarsson (nicknamed the Boneless), with his brothers Halfdan and Ubbe.