The Viking Myth

Vikings are a part of everyday life. Their omnipresence is remarkable for people who lived around a thousand years ago. They are a marketing device, a tourist attraction, and a subject on the national curriculum. They appear at museums, Viking festivals, comic strips, films, novels, and children's history books. They are a focus of academic controversy, with scholars waging an ongoing war over the proper interpretations of the Viking past. They lend themselves readily to use in constructing various national and regional identities.

Vikings are a vibrant part of modern popular culture. Although the Viking Age ended nearly a millennium ago, Viking images are everywhere today, functioning as marketing devices, role models, and sources of regional/national pride and identity. This audiobook examines the causes of the Vikings' adoption as popular cultural icons and how Vikings are used.

The book also turns to a chronological overview of political, literary, and archaeological developments that have influenced the evolution of Viking images.