(Ebook) The Hammer and the Cross. A New History of the Vikings by Robert Ferguson ISBN 9780141017754, 0141017759

(Ebook) The Hammer and the Cross. A New History of the Vikings by Robert Ferguson ISBN 9780141017754, 0141017759

Robert Ferguson is a sure guide across what he calls 'the treacherous
marches which divide legend from fact in Viking Age history'. His long
familiarity with the literary culture of Scandinavia - the eddas, the
poetry of the skalds and the sagas - is combined with the latest
archaeological discoveries and the evidence of picture-stones, runes,
ships and objects scattered all over northern Europe, to make the most
convincing modern portrait of the Viking Age in any language. The Hammer and the Cross
ranges from Scandinavia itself to Kievan Rus and Byzantium in the east,
to Iceland, Greenland and the north American settlements in the west.
Beyond its geographical boundaries the book takes us on a journey to a
misty region inhabited by Hallfred the Troublesome Poet, Harald
Bluetooth, Ragnar Hairy-Breeches, Ivar the Boneless and Eyvind the
Plagiarist, in which literature, history and myth dissolve into one
another.