They were still more successful when they attacked rich, undefended monasteries or established new colonies in such places as Iceland or Greenland - although in the latter country they would eventually be driven off by Eskimo counter-attacks.

An illustrated guide to Viking warfare from strategy and weapons to culture and tradition: “a very excellent introduction to the Viking age as a whole” (Justin Pollard, historical consultant for the Amazon television series Vikings). From the time when sailing was first introduced to Scandinavia, Vikings reached virtually every corner of Europe and even America with their raids and conquests. Wherever Viking ships roamed, enormous suffering followed in their wake, but the encounters between cultures also brought immense change to both European and Nordic societies. In Vikings at War, historian Kim Hjardar presents a comprehensive overview of Viking weapons technology, military traditions and tactics, offensive and defensive strategies, fortifications, ships, and command structure. The most crucial element of the Viking’s success was their strategy of arriving by sea, attacking with great force, and withdrawing quickly. In their militarized society, honor was everything, and ruining one’s posthumous reputation was considered worse than death itself. Vikings at War features more than 380 color illustrations, including beautiful reconstruction drawings, maps, cross-section drawings of ships, line-drawings of fortifications, battle plan reconstructions, and photos of surviving artifacts, including weapons and jewelry. Winner of Norway’s Saga Prize, Vikings at War is now available in English with this new translation. “A magnificent piece of work [that] I’d recommend to anyone with an interest in the Viking period.” —Justin Pollard, historical consultant for the Amazon television series Vikings

Updated to reflect recent archaeological discoveries and overflowing with color illustrations, this book is the definitive introduction to the art of the Viking Age. The Viking Age in Europe lasted from the time of the first major Viking expeditions in 800 CE to the widespread adoption of Christianity in Scandinavia some 300 years later. During that time, Viking art and culture spread across continental Europe and into the world beyond. Written by a leading authority on the subject, this book introduces readers to the intricate objects and beautiful art styles that developed during the Viking Age. Beginning with an introduction to the geographical and historical background of Viking culture, author James Graham-Campbell chronicles the six main styles of Viking art, examining how they emerged and interacted with one another, as well as how the religious shift from paganism to Christianity impacted Viking art and its legacy. More than 200 high-quality illustrations depict everything from delicate metalwork, elaborate wood carvings, ornate weapons, and fine jewelry to grand ships, the Gotland picture stones, and archaeological traces left by the Vikings around the Western world. Now revised and updated with recent archaeological discoveries, Viking Art is a perfect guide—including a timeline and maps—for all those interested in the arts of this vibrant and fascinating culture.

It is a new beginning for Kratos. Living as a man, outside the shadow of the gods, he seeks solitude in the unfamiliar lands of Norse mythology. With new purpose and his son at his side, Kratos must fight for survival as powerful forces threaten to disrupt the new life he has created. The volume is an intimate chronicle of the years-long odyssey to bring Kratos and Atreus's beautiful and brutal world to life. Step into Midgard and explore beyond, as Dark Horse Books and Santa Monica Studio proudly present the quintessential companion to the enormously anticipated God of War. This is a document unlike any other that sets readers on an exhaustive behind-the-scenes journey to witness the creation of an epic of tremendous scale.

Passed down from the time of Kahless, ten precepts have shaped Klingon culture andindoctrinated Klingons in the Way of the Warrior. With this new translation, people from all walks of life—and all worlds—can harness the ancient Klingon wisdom and learn to embody courage, discipline, and honor. • Choose your enemies well. • Strike quickly or strike not. • Always face your enemy. • Seek adversity. • Reveal your true self in combat. • Destroy weakness. • Leave nothing until tomorrow. • Choose death over chains. • Die standing up. • Guard honor above all.

Presents a history that traces the 300-year saga of the pirates and warlords who poured out of Scandinavia between the eighth and eleventh centuries, terrorizing, conquering, and settling vast stretches of Europe. This work provides an account of this early medieval period that became known as the Viking Age.

Follow an epic story of the Viking Age that traces the historical trail of an ancient piece of jewelry found in a Viking grave in England to its origins thousands of miles east in India. An acclaimed bioarchaeologist, Catrine Jarman has used cutting-edge forensic techniques to spark her investigation into the history of the Vikings who came to rest in British soil. By examining teeth that are now over one thousand years old, she can determine childhood diet—and thereby where a person was likely born. With radiocarbon dating, she can ascertain a death-date down to the range of a few years. And her research offers enlightening new visions of the roles of women and children in Viking culture. Three years ago, a Carnelian bead came into her temporary possession. River Kings sees her trace the path of this ancient piece of jewelry back to eighth-century Baghdad and India, discovering along the way that the Vikings’ route was far more varied than we might think—that with them came people from the Middle East, not just Scandinavia, and that the reason for this unexpected integration between the Eastern and Western worlds may well have been a slave trade running through the Silk Road, all the way to Britain. Told as a riveting history of the Vikings and the methods we use to understand them, this is a major reassessment of the fierce, often-mythologized voyagers of the North—and of the global medieval world as we know it.

A history of Britain in the violent and unruly era between the first Scandinavian raids in 789 and the final expulsion of the Vikings from York in 954. In 865, a great Viking army landed in East Anglia, precipitating a series of wars that would last until the middle of the following century. It was in this time of crisis that the modern kingdoms of Britain were born. In their responses to the Viking threat, these kingdoms forged their identities as hybrid cultures: vibrant and entrepreneurial peoples adapting to instability and opportunity. Traditionally, Alfred the Great is cast as the central player in the story of Viking Age Britain. But Max Adams, while stressing the genius of Alfred as war leader, law-giver, and forger of the English nation, has a more nuanced narrative approach to this conventional version of history. The Britain encountered by the Scandinavians of the ninth and tenth centuries was one of regional diversity and self-conscious cultural identities, depicted in glorious narrative fashion in The Viking Wars.

A History of the Arms, Armor, and Individual Fighting Strategies of Medieval Europe's Most Feared Warriors A source of enduring fascination, the Vikings are the most famous raiders of medieval Europe. Despite the exciting and compelling descriptions in the Icelandic sagas and other contemporary accounts that have fueled this interest, we know comparatively little about Viking age arms and armor as compared to weapons from other historical periods. We know even less about how the weapons were used. While the sagas provide few specific combat details, the stories are invaluable. They were written by authors familiar with the use of weapons for an audience that, likewise, knew how to use them. Critically, the sagas describe how these weapons were wielded not by kings or gods, but by ordinary men, as part of their everyday lives. Viking Weapons and Combat Techniques provides an introduction to the arms and armor of the people who lived in Northern Europe during the Viking age, roughly the years 793-1066. Using a variety of available sources, including medieval martial arts treatises, and copiously illustrated with images of historical artifacts, battle sites, and demonstrations of modern replicas of Viking weapons, the author and his colleagues at Hurstwic (a Viking-age living history organization) and at the Higgins Armory Sword Guild have reconstructed the combat techniques of the Viking age and what is known about the defensive and offensive weapons of the time in general. Throughout, the author corrects some popular misconceptions about Viking warriors and warfare, such as the belief that their combat techniques were crude and blunt rather than sophisticated. In addition, the book provides an overview of Viking history and culture, focusing on the importance of weapons to the society as well as the Vikings' lasting impact on Europe through their expeditions of trade and exploration.

George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels and HBO's Game of Thrones series depict a medieval world at war. But how accurate are they? The author, an historian and medieval martial arts expert, examines in detail how authentically Martin's fictional world reflects the arms and armor, fighting techniques and siege warfare of the Middle Ages. Along the way, he explores the concept of "medievalism"--modern pop culture's idea of the Middle Ages.