I run into many people who are looking for books to introduce them to the Vikings. Kirsten Wolf’s 24 Hours in the Viking World isn’t a bad book for the purpose, in spite of some weaknesses.
The plan of the book is a little strange, but it’s part of a series of similar books set in various historical periods and places, so readers must appreciate it. Each chapter is devoted to a single hour of the day. For each hour, we focus on one Viking Age character. These characters’ locations and historical dates are not coordinated – the reader is shuttled back and forth in time and space.
We see men commit murders, build ships, and compose poems. We see women give birth, prepare feasts, and take up unaccustomed weapons in defense. Each situation is described in detail, so that some aspect of Viking life is illuminated. New Viking enthusiasts will learn much here.
The weakness of the book is in the dramatizations The author, an academic at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, knows her material but is not gifted in scene-setting or dialogue. The dialogue is too modern (in my view), with characters delivering lines like “Hang in there.” And the characters – especially the men – are generally more sensitive in their conversations with their wives than I suspect real Viking men were. The characters, in short, talk like modern people dressed up in Viking clothes.
On the plus side, author Wolf is not a partisan of the “Lagertha Party” in Viking studies. When she recounts the famous Vinland episode where Leif Eriksson’s sister Freydis brandishes a sword to scare off the “scraelings,” we’re told she has no idea how to use a sword. I’m not sure I’d have gone that far myself, sexist though I am. Ditto for her statement that Icelandic women had “no legal rights.”
One chapter involves a baker at Hedeby in Denmark. Oddly, his name is given as Hans Jensson. That’s a bizarre name choice for a Viking, as both “Hans” and “Jens” are colloquial versions of the Christian “John.” And it took time for those adaptations to evolve. I don’t think those names existed as such in the Viking Age.
Still, 24 Hours in the Viking Age isn’t a bad introduction to Viking everyday life. I recommend it moderately.