The great success of this book is that it finds the ''little fragments of lives lived, the bits and pieces that fell between the cracks in the floorboards,'' and constructs a story that helps us comprehend the messiness of the period, in all its wonders as well as its horrors.--Matthew Gabriele, Washington Post Barraclough''s expositions are dense with fact but animated by garrulous humor.--Timothy Farrington, New York Times Perhaps the greatest virtue of this wonderful book. is that it captures the sheer strangeness, the ultimate unknowability, of the distant past. It''s tempting to imagine that if you stand on the shore of that island in Estonia, staring out across the waves and tasting the salt in the sea air, you''ll somehow catch the spirit of those first seafarers--Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times A history of the Vikings unlike any other, this is a scholarly delight, every page of which glitters with insight. Eleanor Barraclough surveys the great sweep of life in the northern world between the 8th and 11th centuries, poring over everyday artefacts from religious pendants and carved rune sticks to graffiti, board games and children''s toys. And although she''s terrific on the details of riddles and hair-combs, she''s even better on the sheer strangeness and unknowability of the distant past.--The Times, "The 21 best history books of 2024" Barraclough is excellent at describing these landed places, with their ''thickly squelching carpets and rounded hummocks of moss shade.

'' These kinds of passages crop up throughout the book, breathing life into the physical world of her subjects.--Steve Donoghue, Open Letters If each individual artifact reveals relatively little, the enormous array Barraclough assembles. adds depth to the traditional portrait of Viking culture.--The New Yorker Endlessly fascinating, authoritatively informative and, above all, great fun.--Heather O''Donoghue, Times Literary Supplement People love the blood-soaked sagas that chronicle the deeds of Viking raiders. But Barraclough, a British historian and broadcaster, looks beyond those soap-opera stories to uncover lesser-known details of Old Norse civilization beginning in A.D. 750 or so.

--New York Times, Editor''s Choice Barraclough keeps on expanding our horizons.--Literary Review Eleanor Barraclough has a gift for taking us beyond the familiar into a real, visceral, far more satisfying Viking world.--Dan Snow, author of On This Day in History Splendid. In lively prose, Eleanor Barraclough ranges from Greenland to Baghdad, showing us barrooms and bedrooms, daydreaming children at their lessons, gossiping neighbours, the scars of war, and much more besides. An intimate portrait of the Viking Age that is thoughtful, vivid and warm, while ignoring none of its hardships--highly recommended.--Neil Price, author of The Children of Ash and Elm: A History of Vikings A history of the Vikings that deploys their material legacy--from combs to slave collars, from skulls to sundials--to evoke the wonder of an entire civilization.--Tom Holland, author of Pax and co-host of The Rest is History A wondrous, gorgeously written book, breathing the Vikings into intimate, incandescent life: from glittering treasure to lost ephemera, racy runes to hidden tombs, Eleanor Barraclough reveals people both endearingly familiar, yet sometimes also bafflingly, even unnervingly, strange.--Rebecca Wragg Sykes, author of Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death, and Art A fascinating journey through all facets of the Viking world--especially what ordinary people experienced--beautifully collated from tiny bits of real evidence from archaeology and linguistics.

We feel firsthand the hardships of sailing and farming so far north, of the captives, and of women cooking and endlessly making cloth, clothing, and huge woolen sails for the boats--evidence that used to be ignored. Plus a delightful chapter on play and the many board games with which Viking families relaxed!--Elizabeth Wayland Barber, author of Women''s Work Barraclough''s Viking world is extraordinarily intimate - a rich tapestry of lives and things interwoven in lively prose. From board games to buried ships, and from the graffiti of bored teenagers to runic stones, this is history made material.--Madeleine Pelling, author of Writing on the Wall: Graffiti, Rebellion and the Making of the Eighteenth Century A satisfying plunge into Viking culture.--Kirkus Reviews Written in beautifully evocative prose, this book deserves a place on the shelf of everyone interested in Viking history.--Karen Bordonaro, Library Journal.