Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings

To precede this review, I would like to clarify my level of expertise. I am not a scholar, nor do I have any formal education in the studies of the Viking Age. I have studied the Viking Age and Norse mythology recreationally for over three-and-a-half years (though my casual interest dates back 17 years), and I have read English translations of both eddas, many sagas (definitely not all!), and several nonfiction books focusing on the Viking Age and Norse mythology. I do not speak or read Old Norse or any modern Scandinavian languages. All that said, any knowledge I possess is at the mercy of others scholars I have read and/or listened to, and their translations of the source material and sagas.With that being said, I found a lot to enjoy in Neil Price's The Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings. Price delves into extraordinary detail about some of the minutiae of life for the Scandinavians during the Viking Age, so much so that many have decried this work as a glorified textbook and far too academic in nature. I myself applaud these choices by Price to discuss many of the aspects of Scandinavian life and culture that are not covered in more mainstream works regarding this culture, and given Price is an archaeologist, he is able to provide an insight that is shockingly rare to find among published Viking Age scholars.However, given my current knowledge of the Viking Age, I found some of Price's claims odd. Yes, there is the issue that reviewers seem to hone in on the most: Viking Age Scandinavians' attitudes toward LGBT+ issues. I will not spend much time on this, as it has already been discussed ad nauseum by other reviewers, but despite my hopes, I have to agree that his claims that Viking Age Scandinavians had more progressive (by modern US standards) views on gender seems a bit far-fetched. There is nothing wrong with speculating, but by the end of this book, what he initially clarifies is speculation he later states as fact. Based on both the sagas and law codes that have been recovered, Scandinavians during this time period were not tolerant of homosexuality (at least male-on-male homosexuality) or cross-dressing, so it is a stretch to assume they embraced transgenderism, to say the least.More importantly, there are other claims he makes that do not seem to be based on the source material (namely, skaldic/eddic poetry and the sagas). I could pick several examples, but I will only discuss the one I feel most qualified to speak on. While discussing "Hervararkviða" (known as "The Waking of Angantýr" in modern English), Price makes two verifiably false claims: 1) That the eleven berserkers who were buried alongside Angantýr are his bodyguards; and 2) Hervor seeks the cursed sword, Tyrfing, for revenge. Nowhere in this poem or the accompanying saga, Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks (The Saga of Hervor and Heidrek), are either of these claims verified. In fact, the first claim—that the eleven other berserkers are Angantýr's bodyguards—is contradicted in the poem, where the eleven other berserkers are Angantýr's brothers (they are referred to as the sons of Arngrím), and the saga. Additionally, nowhere in the poem is it stated that Hervor seeks Tyrfing for revenge of any sort. (In any case, the murderer of the only person she would seek revenge for—her father, Angantýr—was killed during his duel with Angantýr.)These may seem like insignificant, nitpicky details, but they call into question the veracity of other claims made by Price. (And indeed, these are far from the only claims made that do not seem to have any basis in the source material.) The issue seems to lie in the sources that Price sites, which very largely consist of other scholars who have written works about specific topics. The problem here is that scholars sometimes interpret the source material in ways that fit their idea of what the literature is conveying, which unfortunately is not always based in the facts as we currently know them, but rely on speculation.Rather than in-text citations to reference his claims, Price (somewhat understandably) includes a "References" section at the end of the book. However, this allows some claims (such as the example of the claims made about "Hervararkviða") to be included in the book without any citation, further calling into question the source of some of Price's claims. As someone who questions virtually everything, this becomes a hard pill to swallow as more and more facts that pop up in the book seem to conflict with the source material and other scholars' claims. This, as well as some jarring shifts in the book's tone (vacillating between formal and extremely informal writing, including cheeky asides taking a too-contemporary tone from the point-of-view of Viking Age Scandinavians), are why I rated this book three stars.I do not mean for this review to claim I know more than an accomplished archaeologist who has devoted his life to the study of the Viking Age. I objectively do not. However, even with my limited knowledge, I have read many of the sources and so can confirm that some of the claims in The Children of Ash and Elm stretch the truth, if they are not outright incorrect. In a field of study that relies largely on scholars sharing information with one another, seeing a scholar's reference section chock full of works by other scholars to inform his perspective rather than the eddas, sagas, and law codes themselves, raises questions about how many of the "facts" are actually factual as opposed to subjective interpretation. Unfortunately, the only way to definitively answer that question would be to read each work cited by Price, and I regrettably neither have the time nor money to do that. As it stands, I have to approach The Children of Ash and Elm with a fair amount of skepticism, based on the knowledge that some claims in the book are not presented accurately.

This is a good read for those of you who want to learn more about the Vikings and their times from a current archaeological point-of-view.Scientific measurements are getting more precise and nuanced all the time. Genetic traces can identify ethnicities and genders of persons long dead (A few surprises here), and radiocarbon isotopes can tell you where a person was born and raised, where they lived as an adult, and of course we already know (habeas corpus) where they died.We also have relatively new insights about the effects of certain natural catastrophies on matters such as climate change - it is now thought that a series of unusually large volcanic eruptions which occurred in the 6th century A.D. in southeastern Asia may have kicked up enough dust around the planet to cause the climate to cool precipitously for up to eighty years - an event which apparently caused a large scale die off of the Scandinavian population due to agricultural collapse, and which was the motivating driver behind the ‘Migration Period’, when northern peoples went south crashing into the Roman frontier in order to survive the cold-induced famine.The author also has some cautionary notes about what our northern friends were really like. One of my favorites was:‘When one looks closer, the real power,and the means of producing it, can take unexpected forms. Some years ago, a prominent historian despaired of the constant focus on the Vikings as maritime warriors, and instead stressed the fact that most of the Scandinavian population stayed at home on the land and never did any harm to anyone. The time of the Vikings, he claimed, was really ‘the Golden Age of the pig farmer.’ He had a point, though he got the animal wrong: The Scandinavian landscape of the late Viking period was a world of sheep.’ (For making ship’s sails and warm clothing)Also, everything hideous that the Arab traveler Ibn Fadlan described with regard to that gang of Russian Volga Vikings he met up with has been shown archeologically to be more or less true.Bottom line is, Tolkien’s stories are about Vikings and their religion the way they should have been, not the way they actually were.PS. The author (Neil Price) is an engaging and informative speaker, and has lectures on this subject readily available on You-tube.

Overall, the breadth of the subject matter covered was very good. I didn't much like the speculation on perceptions of gender and some other topics as the evidence seemed too slender to make such assumptions. Very readable though as the author writes for a lay audience.

If you, like me, have read many older books on the Viking Age and come away dissatisfied with the proffered hypotheses on why the Vikings exploded out of Scandinavia, then this book is for you. Professor Price's background of the complex political, economic, and social processes that lead the Vikings to expand both East and West, and his description of the impacts of the resulting conflicts, conquests, and diaspora makes for a compelling explanation of what happened. Dr. Price's story is strengthened by his adept blending of differing sources of evidence (archaeological, written, etc.).With that said, other reviewers' criticisms of Price's musings on the Vikings and LGBTQ lifestyles are valid. Price's seeming attempt to make the Vikings (and perhaps his own career focus?) acceptable to 'woke' academia is an embarrassing and lame waste of page... after page... after page... as he drones on in gushing terms about the possibility that some Vikings were sexual 'explorers'. It seems like he tries to make up for the lack of any supporting evidence by sacrificing more words to the theme.Oh well. You can easily skip or skim read the queer-themed parts, and enjoy the rest of the book, which is evidence-backed, comprehensive, coherent and informative.

One would imagine that, in a history of the Vikings, a chapter entitled 'Border Crossings' might be about... what... invading France? Raiding Ireland and England, maybe? But no, in this book it's about the author's attempts to 'recover Viking-Age queerness.'Fine, if that's what you want to read about, but really, give the rest of us who aren't interested in saving the Valkyries from the 'male gaze' or learning how 'our preferred forms of address... acknowledges and empowers who we each feel ourselves to be...' some kind of warning so we don't waste our money.

This is the most comprehensive history of the Vikings that I have ever read. It covers all the areas of known Viking activity and gives us many new insights into the lives of the people from Scandinavia and elsewhere during the time of the Vikings.Neil Price does not confine himself to the traditional starting and finishing dates of the Viking Age and demonstrates that there were no such dates in reality. He shows too, that the influence of the Vikings covered a huge geographical area from North America in the west to Byzantium, and points even further, in the east. By carefully considering each direction in which they moved and looking at the probable motivations behind their expeditions and their frequent build up overtime into settlement and conquest, Professor Price provides a detailed portrait of their histories. These are based not just on past scholarship but also on the many recent finds, new ways of interpreting them, and on the very many discussions within and outside of academia.Neil Price does not neglect the fact that much of the Viking economy depended oh the human trade; capturing, using and selling slaves from many different regions. This is often barely mentioned in many histories but is given its proper place in this book together with the violence, misery and distress that this would have caused. Without slave taking and forced labour there would have been no Viking Age. Many of the slaves and their descendants, wherever they came from, were eventually absorbed into their respective section of Viking society. Of course, there were many other contemporary societies, besides the Vikings, that also dealt in slaves.Throughout the book’s pages the worldview of the Vikings and their beliefs is always there in the background. Again, the author is able to tell us much about the way that they thought and how they saw many aspects of their lives by critically considering the poems and literature and by analysing imagery, artefacts and the thoughts of many scholars and others. The Vikings were active for around three to four hundred years and beliefs will have varied from region to region and over time and eventually were replaced in most areas by Christianity, sometimes forcibly by Scandinavian kings. Viking society was never static and always developing and innovating.With the skill of a storyteller, Professor Price brings his subjects to life and guides us through their vast and complex story. I highly recommend this book but appreciate that not everyone will like it, those who somehow think that the Vikings were some sort of pure ethnic group for example (they never were), or those who are only focussed on their macho image; they were much, much more than either of those portrayals. Neil Price’s work is important and needs to be read. Too many people want to misrepresent history for their own ends and sadly the Vikings can be used by those with their own agendas.

A terrible disappointment for the general reader, I think. Clearly excellent scholarship and potentially fascinating and comprehensive overview of the Vikings. But I found it muddled and repetitive to a point where I lost track of the whole picture that the reviews had led me to expect. Badly needed a sympathetic but ruthless editor if it was to reach a wider readership. Might seem a harsh reaction but it was shared by two other readers who are historically minded.

The Children of Ash and Elm is a fascinating and comprehensive look at the Viking Age, really exploring what it was to be living in that time and place. There are no horned helmets or singing Valkyries here, and the author is quite (correctly) scathing about the co-option of the Viking myth by white supremacists in more recent times.I found the section on slavery and the position of thralls in society to be particularly interesting as I’d never really considered that aspect before when thinking of the Vikings.I also downloaded the Audible version of the book and found it to be very well read. The pronunciation of unfamiliar Scandinavian words was excellently done and the reader’s pleasant voice enhanced the experience for me.

Still wading through it. 60% or so and so far it's mainly been an archaeological and social rambling review rather than a history that builds on characters. There are some themes and some insights but they are not obvious. The author seems to have a good knowledge of the subject and would probably have an erudite discussion with other academics but the rest of us have to work hard to maintain attention. The attempts to work in an LGBTQI theme seems a bit pc and forced but it is original in terms of books I have read I suppose. References to elites also seems to be a bit of a nod to modern concepts of hierarchy. The book identifies that there was some form of hierarchy in Viking society but I am not very clear on how it worked. Looks like there will be a bit more in terms of identifiable characters and their deeds in the later part of the book if I can last the course. In summary it's informative re the archaeology and culture but a bit of a slog to get through and you have to make an effort to concentrate. But that may just be me of course.