Abstract
The Vikings enjoy a public name recognition shared with few other ancient cultures today.1 This hold on the imagination has a long pedigree, extending back to the late Middle Ages when they formed the stuff of saga-writing and legend, through their rediscovery during the Enlightenment and their gradual incorporation into the political fan- tasies of National Romanticism. When these were in turn usurped by the darker fictions of the Third Reich and its spurious myths of racial origins, the academic study of the Viking Age would take decades to recover from the contamination. Perennially drawing new audiences through exhibitions, documentaries and books, today they also saturate our popular culture in the form of everything from comics and movies to football teams, brand names, shipping lines and even spacecraft.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
J. Banett, ‘What Caused the Viking Age?’, Antiquity, 82 (2008), pp. 671–85.
F. Herschend, ‘Wikinger’ [Vikings], Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde, 34 (2006), pp. 55–9.
W. Camden, Britain, or, a Chorographica.il Description of the Most Flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: Bishop and Norton, 1610 [1586]), p. 194.
E.g. B. Hudson, Viking Pirates and Christian Princes: Dynasty, Religion and Empire in the North Atlantic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 24
See M. Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700–17SO (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987)
N. Price, The Viking Way: Religion and War in Late Iron Age Scandinavia (Uppsala: Uppsala University Press, 2002), p. 332.
N. Price, ‘Belief and Ritual’, in G. Williams, M. Wemhoff and \P. Pentz (eds), Viking (Copenhagen: National Museum of Denmark, 2013), pp. 164–95.
H. Birkeland, Nordens historié i middelalderen etter arabiske kilder (The Medieval History of the Nordic Region in Arabic Sources) (Oslo: Dybwad, 1954)
J. Montgomery, ‘Ibn Fadlân and the Rusiyyah’, Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, 3 (2000), pp. 1–25.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2014 Neil Price
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Price, N. (2014). Ship-Men and Slaughter-Wolves. In: Amirell, S.E., Müller, L. (eds) Persistent Piracy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137352866_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137352866_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-46940-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-35286-6
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)