Else Roesdahl - The Vikings

PENGUIN BOOKS

THE VIKINGS

Else Roesdahl is Professor in Medieval Archaeology at the University of rhus, Denmark, and an honorary doctor of Trinity College, Dublin. She was Special Professor in Viking Studies at the University of Nottingham from 1989 to 1997 and again from 2000 to 2003. She has travelled and lectured over most of the Vikings world and has taken part in many excavations in Denmark and elsewhere.

Else Roesdahl was a consultant to the 19812 joint BritishDanish exhibition The Vikings in England and co-editor of the catalogue, and she has also written Viking Age Denmark (1982), a full statement of the Viking archaeology of her own country. She was the Academic Coordinator of the XXIInd Council of Europe exhibition From Viking to Crusader: Scandinavia and Europe 8001200, shown in Paris, Berlin and Copenhagen in 19923, and she was editor of the catalogue. In 1988 she was awarded the Sren Gyldendal prize for the Danish edition of The Vikings.

She is married to an economist, has a son and likes to sit in the garden with family and friends.

ELSE ROESDAHL

TRANSLATED BY SUSAN M. MARGESON AND KIRSTEN WILLIAMS

Second Edition

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

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First published in Denmark under the title Vikingernes verden by Gyldendal Copenhagen, 1987

First published in Great Britain under the title The Vikings by Allen Lane The Penguin Press 1991

Published in Penguin Books 1992

Revised edition published 1998

Copyright Else Roesdahl, 1987, 1998

This translation copyright Susan M. Margeson and Kirsten Williams, 1991, 1998

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author and the translators has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

ISBN: 978-0-14-194153-0

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Notes on Plates appear on the pages immediately after the Plates.

FIGURES

All the maps and some other drawings were made for the Danish edition of this book in 1987 by Orla Svendsen, Moesgrd Museum, Denmark. Place-names on maps were revised in 1990 for the English edition.

Orla Svendsen, 1987

After A. W. Brgger and H. Shetelig, The Viking Ships, 1951, p. 107

Orla Svendsen, 1987

Flemming Bau, Moesgrd Museum

After E. Nyln, Bildstenar, 1978, p. 73

After Vikingatidens ABC (ed. L. Thunmark-Nyln et al.), 1981, pp. 55, 201

Orla Svendsen, 1987

After K. Schietzel, Haithabu, Ausgrabungen in Deutschland, Monografien der Rmisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums 1, 1975, Teil III, p. 60

Orla Svendsen, 1987, after S. B. F. Jansson, Runinskrifter i Sverige, 1977, p. 27

After J. Skaarup, Stengade II, 1976, p. 57

After J. Graham-Campbell, The Viking World, 1980, p. 34. Drawing Frances Lincoln

Jens Kirkeby, Moesgrd Museum, after E. Moltke, Runerne i Danmark, 1977, p. 211

After H. Hildebrand, Sveriges Medeltid 18791903, reprinted 1983, vol. 1, p. 71

The Viking Ship Museum, Roskilde

Orla Svendsen, 1987, after a plan and information from the excavator Steen Hvass, Vejle Museum

ac after P. Hauberg, Myntforhold og udmyntninger i Danmark indtil 1146, 1900, Tab. I. df after B. Malmer, Mynt och mnniskor, 1968, pp. 1368, drawing B. Malmer, Stockholm

Orla Svendsen, 1989, after H. Jankuhn et al. (ed.), Archeologsche und Naturwissenschaftliche Untersuchungen an lnd-lichen und frhstdtischen Siedlungen, vol. 2, 1984, pp. 5, 11, 14, 186, 199

Flemming Bau, Moesgrd Museum, Denmark

After O. Olsen and H. Schmidt, Fyrkat: En jysk vikingeborg, 1, 1977, p. 83. Drawing H. Schmidt, Copenhagen

Orla Svendsen, 1987

After Vikingatidens ABC (ed. L. Thunmark-Nyln et al.), 1981, p. 271

After H. Arbman, Birka I: Die Grber, 1943, p. 189 (grave no. 581)

After K. J. Krogh, The Royal Viking-Age Monuments at Jelling, Acta Archaeologica, vol. 53, 1982, p. 189. Slightly adapted.

Orla Svendsen, 1989, after a photograph

After S. Margeson, The Vlsung Legend in Medieval Art, Medieval Iconography and Narrative: A Symposium, Odense, 1980, p. 192

Left: Orla Svendsen, 1989, after a photograph. Right: after D. M. Wilson and O. Klindt-Jensen, Viking Art, 1966, 1980, p. 72. Drawing Eva Wilson, London

After D. M. Wilson and O. Klindt-Jensen, Viking Art, 1966, 1980, p. 95. Drawing Eva Wilson, London

After E. Wilson, Early Medieval Designs from Britain, 1983, no. 48. Drawing Eva Wilson, London

Orla Svendsen, 1987

After E. Roesdahl, Viking Age Denmark, 1982, p.211. Drawing Orla Svendsen, 1979

Orla Svendsen, 1987, based on L. Musset, Naissance de la Normandie, LHistoire de la Normandie (ed. M. de Board), 1970, p. 104

Orla Svendsen, 1987

Age in the Isle of Man, 1974, p. 6, and on P. H. Sawyer, Kings and Vikings, 1982, p. 112

After D. M. Wilson and O. Klindt-Jensen, Viking Art, 1966, 1980, p. 113. Drawing Eva Wilson, London

Orla Svendsen, 1987

Patrick Wallace, National Museum of Ireland, reconstruction drawing 1986

Orla Svendsen, 1987, based on N. P. Brooks and J. A. Graham-Campbell, Reflections on the Viking-Age Silver Hoard from Croydon, Surrey, Anglo-Saxon Monetary History (ed. M. A. S. Blackburn), 1986, p. 108

Orla Svendsen, 1987

After P. H. Sawyer, The Age of the Vikings, 2nd ed. 1971, p. 161 (the map was first published by H. Smith in 1956)

Orla Svendsen, 1987