The Children of Ash and Elm

In practice, the Viking raiders were never a bolt from the blue, unknown barbarian sails on a North Sea horizon. Their victims had encountered Scandinavians many times before, but as traders rather than agents of chaos; the surprise was in the violence, not the contact.

In poetry, the English called them wælwulfas, ‘slaughter-wolves’, and with good reason—but the Vikings even said it themselves. Here is the great tenth-century Icelandic warrior-poet Egil Skalla-Grímsson, describing his raiding experiences (in an effort to impress a woman at a feast, which also tells you something about him): Farit hefi ek blóðgum

the compelling intricacies of their worldview and the wonderful fact that they each carried within them the personification of luck and a female spirit-guide.

what systems theorists call singularities—relatively small social changes in themselves but with long-term and large-scale impacts. They can be hard to get a grip on, often the result of many separate elements suddenly coming together in what may be a more-or-less random manner. Once set in motion, however, they can be difficult or even impossible

Special burial clothes are also made for the dead chieftain, on which no less than a third of his wealth is spent (this has worrying implications for the archaeologist, in that these things are made for the grave). Another third of his wealth goes to the brewing of appropriate quantities of alcohol, while only the remaining third is inherited by hi

The rite of boat burial precedes the Viking Age by several centuries and encompasses every type of water craft. People could be interred in little one-person rowboats, in graves cut to look like them, or even just with a plank or two of boat timbers that apparently sufficed to make the same connection with less outlay

Birds of prey, absurdly expensive creatures such as falcons and several species of hawk, are also found. Then there are the true exotica: owls, eagles, and cranes, for example. The Gokstad ship burial even contained a peacock.

In the Åland islands between Sweden and Finland, the ashes of the dead were accompanied by a unique rite: on top of the ceramic urn containing the human remains, a miniature clay bear or beaver paw was placed. This rite is found only on Åland and in specific clusters of graves on the Volga and Kljaz’ma rivers in Russia—presumably the burials of tra

The Saga of Grettir, for example, actually describes the looting of a chamber grave that is a perfect match for the archaeology. When the thief digs down through the mound, he first cuts through the roof timbers and then falls into a foul-smelling space below, landing among horse bones at one end of a chamber. Stumbling forward and groping about in