--- title: Vikings & the Norse World description: The Norse raided, traded and settled from Newfoundland to Baghdad. You will learn Viking-age history and archaeology, Norse mythology and sagas, and how to separate evidence from popular myth. category: humanities subcategory: history difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced url: /subject/vikings-and-norse-world --- # Vikings & the Norse World The Norse raided, traded and settled from Newfoundland to Baghdad. You will learn Viking-age history and archaeology, Norse mythology and sagas, and how to separate evidence from popular myth. ## Available Resources 4 Books • 2 Websites ## Podcasts ### 1. Saga Thing **Author:** John Sexton and Andy Pfrenger Two medievalist professors read through the Icelandic sagas one at a time, walking chapter by chapter through plot, manuscript context and current scholarship, then closing each saga with a mock verdict. Running since 2013. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://sagathingpodcast.wordpress.com/ **Tags:** icelandic-sagas, old-norse-literature, medieval-scandinavia, saga-scholarship, manuscript-tradition ## Youtubes ### 1. Jackson Crawford's Old Norse Channel **Author:** Jackson Crawford Channel by a credentialed Old Norse philologist. Hundreds of short lectures on Old Norse grammar and pronunciation, runes, eddic poems and saga passages, regularly testing popular claims about Norse mythology and Viking history against the manuscript and runic evidence. He explicitly separates attested medieval material from modern neopagan and white-nationalist inventions - the myth-versus-evidence skill. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.youtube.com/@JacksonCrawford **Tags:** old-norse-language, norse-mythology, runes, eddic-poetry, icelandic-sagas, viking-history ## Websites ### 1. The Viking Age - National Museum of Denmark Curator-written articles on Viking-age daily life, food, religion, weapons, ships, runestones and silver hoards, each tied to excavated objects in the museum's collection such as the Jelling monuments, Mammen grave and Trelleborg ring fortresses. One museum portal instead of dozens of Viking blogs. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-viking-age/ **Tags:** viking-age, viking-archaeology, runestones, viking-ships, viking-daily-life, danish-history ### 2. Viking Society for Northern Research - Free Publications Library Free PDFs of the Society's scholarly Old Norse editions, English translations, Old Norse textbooks and monographs, plus every issue of the journal Saga-Book back to 1895, each released two years after print publication. A single door to essentially all the free serious Old Norse material, which otherwise has to be assembled site by site. **Difficulty:** Advanced | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://vsnr.org/publications/ **Tags:** old-norse-texts, saga-translations, old-norse-language, saga-book-journal, medieval-scandinavia ## Books ### 1. The Poetic Edda: Expanded Second Edition **Author:** Jackson Crawford (translator) Verse translation from Old Norse of the mythological and heroic poems of the Poetic Edda, with introductions and notes. This expanded edition adds Svipdagsmal and four related poems, including Eiriksmal and Krakumal, giving readers direct access to primary Norse myth and legend. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/1647922496?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** poetic-edda, eddic-poetry, norse-mythology, old-norse-translation, heroic-legend ### 2. The Sagas of Icelanders (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) **Author:** Various; preface by Jane Smiley, introduction by Robert Kellogg Ten sagas and seven shorter tales in the modern scholarly translations made for the Complete Sagas of Icelanders project, including the Vinland sagas on Norse voyages to Greenland and North America, with maps and genealogies. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0141000031?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** icelandic-sagas, vinland-sagas, old-norse-literature, medieval-iceland, norse-exploration ### 3. The Viking Age: A Reader (Third Edition) **Author:** Angus A. Somerville and R. Andrew McDonald Primary-source anthology in fifteen chapters: Frankish and Anglo-Saxon annals, Arabic accounts of the Rus, runic inscriptions, skaldic verse and saga extracts, each with editorial headnotes on date, provenance and reliability. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/1487570473?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** viking-age, primary-sources, runic-inscriptions, skaldic-poetry, medieval-chronicles, rus-vikings ### 4. Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings **Author:** Neil Price Archaeologist Neil Price's 640-page synthesis of the Viking Age, covering cosmology, politics, slavery, seafaring and settlement from North America to the Asian steppe, built on excavation evidence rather than later medieval or romantic retellings. This is the single general history a newcomer should read, so it replaces the whole shelf of TV-tie-in Viking books. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/1541601114?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** viking-age, viking-archaeology, norse-cosmology, viking-expansion, early-medieval-scandinavia --- *This content is part of Dantes.io - Your Treasure Map to Knowledge* *Curated by humans at Dantes.io. Personal study use welcome; republishing this curation requires permission (team@dantes.io).* View this page online: https://dantes.io/subject/vikings-and-norse-world