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Title details for The Greatest Viking by Desmond Seward - Available

The Greatest Viking

The Life of Olav Haraldsson

by Desmond Seward
ebook
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Raider. Conqueror. King. Saint.
This is the story of Olav Haraldsson, the greatest Viking who ever lived.
A ruthless Viking warrior who named his most prized battle weapon after the Norse goddess of death, Olav Haraldsson and his mercenaries wrought terror and destruction from the Baltic to Galicia in the early eleventh century. Thousands were put to the sword, enslaved or ransomed. In England, Canterbury was sacked, its archbishop murdered and London Bridge pulled down. The loot amassed from years of plunder helped Olav win the throne of Norway, and a century after his death he was proclaimed ‘Eternal King’ and has been a national hero there ever since.
Despite his bloodthirsty beginnings, Olav converted to Christianity and, in a personal vendetta against the old Norse gods, made Norway Christian too, thereby changing irrevocably the Viking world he was born into. Told with reference to Norse sagas, early chronicles and the work of modern scholars, Desmond Seward paints an intensely vivid and colourful portrait of the life and times of arguably the greatest Viking of them all.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 3, 2023

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781788855679

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781788855679
      • File size: 9058 KB

  • Accessibility

    No publisher statement provided

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Library Journal

      November 11, 2022

      Murderer, predator, saint: rare is the historical figure to whom all three descriptors apply. But King Olav II, aka St. Olav, aka the Eternal King of Norway, was just such a person. The late British historian Seward (1935-2022; The King over the Water) has written a deeply absorbing biography of King Olav II that aims above all to unify his behavior and outlook as a Viking king and all he exhibited as a Christian saint. In this book, readers see that he was a brutal Viking ruler raised on a steady diet of pillaging and cruelty; at the age of 12, he was already carrying out raids with his own longboat in Sweden, Finland, and Gotland. Olav found faith, converted his people, and ultimately united a patchwork of territories into a unified Norway. Why exactly did a Viking ruler turn his back on the Norse gods and embrace a foreign faith for his people? Like many elements of his life, it's not entirely clear. VERDICT While some of Seward's conjectures may leave readers unsatisfied, this is, nevertheless, a riveting, and detailed account of the life and times of an enigmatic ruler.--Colin Chappell

      Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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