Vikings. Always classic and always in fashion. Some readings

Cover background: (c) TVNorge. From his tv show The last Viking (The last Viking). Norwegian actor, director and presenter Trond Espen Seim.

Vikings. Few towns so famous, so full of myths and legends. Classics in the History of Humanity that do not go out of style. Neither in literature. I dedicate this article to you because I am celebrating today the 47 October that falls to one: that creature that adorns the background of the cover and that shows that the gods sons of Odin still continue to walk the Earth for the blessing of mortals that we only crawl on. her. There they go 7 selected readings of various genres.

The viking - Bobbi Smith

We start with a romance novel. If there can be a more appropriate, hackneyed stereotype that gives more play in this genre, it is that Viking to use as the one on that cover also to use.

Vikings - James L. Nelson

We go to historical novel with an important author of the genre, the American James L. Nelson. This is the first title of a saga dedicated to them.

We are in the year 852 d. C.. Vikings have been jumping into the sea for years, conquering and plundering territories. They have finally reached the coasts of England and Ireland. And although at the beginning these expeditions were for that loot, they have ended up settling there, despite the opposing resistance, as they are in Ireland.

Thorgrim the Night Wolf and Ornolf the Tireless meet an Irish ship carrying a precious object: a crown. They seize it in violent combat but ignore its significance to the people of Ireland and the power it bestows on the king who has it. So they will be involved in a plot of intrigue and violence in medieval Ireland, where local kings fight each other and invaders from the north to seize power.

Northumbria, the last kingdom - Bernard Cornwell

One of the great masters of the international historical novel could not leave protagonists like the Vikings to dedicate a saga, that of Saxons, Vikings and Normans, which consists of 7 books.

The English writer sets this series in the Viking invasions of Great Britain during the reign of Alfred the Great. And it starts in the year 866 when uthred, a young Anglo-Saxon of aristocratic descent, lives between two worlds. The Vikings they kidnapped him as a child and that helps him to know and be able to judge the customs, beliefs and rites of Saxons and Danes. Little by little he earns his respect for his audacity and bravery, but there comes a time in which your identity is questioned.

There is a recent british tv series, from 2 seasons, about the saga called The last king.

Series titles so far:

1. Northumbria, the last kingdom,
2. Svein, the one with the white horse, 
3. The Lords of the North, 
4. The song of the sword 
5. The land on fire 
6. Death of kings
7. Uhtred the heathen

Brief history of the Vikings - Manuel Velasco

This historical essay focuses more on the origin and appearance of the Vikings in Europe between the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries. Thus we see and learn about the rich Viking culture, we witness their value as warriors, sailors and shipbuilders, and we also discover their Comercial activity, which led them to establish a route from Greenland to Constantinople, and even to Baghdad.

The daily life of artisans, peasants and merchants and, of course, it tells about his mythology and religious practices. Includes a final appendix with a list of Viking names, kings of the different Nordic regions, profiles of curious characters, places of interest, or information on current replicas of the drakkars, plus a chronology detailed viking era.

Asshur - Francisco Narla

Another great of the historical novel, but patriotic this time, it immerses us in an adventure that is well worth discovering and reading. Assur is a Galician boy who lives in Outeiro, a small town that also suffers from viking raids that threaten the prosperous Compostela when the year goes by 968 d. C..

An orphan and with his brothers captured by the invaders, Assur will undertake a great adventure to know his whereabouts. For this you will have the help of Gutier de Leon, infanzón of Count Gonzalo Sánchez, who welcomes him under his tutelage, with Jesse ben benjamin, a kind Jewish doctor, and with weland, a Norman mercenary in the service of Christians. But everything will get complicated when he too be caught and taken to the cold northern lands.

Saga of the Greenlanders & Saga of Eirik the Red - Anonymous Icelandic XNUMXth century

Antón and Pedro Casariego Córdoba as translators bring us these two sagas that narrate how their protagonists, Icelanders of Norwegian origin, discover and colonize Greenland, arrive in American lands and try to settle there around the year 1000. And we continue a little in Galicia because it was the same time when Vikings of the same origin attacked Santiago de Compostela and made incursions against the Umayyad caliphate and Asturias.

Corpse Eaters - Michael Crichton

And I end with an adventure that, for the laziest, had a Film adaptation of some relevance with Warrior number 13.

In the XNUMXth century the caliph of Baghdad sends an ambassador to the King of the Bulgarians, but the emissary is kidnapped by the Vikings. The diplomat will gradually end learning and fascinated by customs barbarians of their captors. And next to them and their boss buliwyf Go on an intriguing adventure: fight against unknown creatures, «lthose who eat the dead».