John Carr is primarily a historian of the Mediterranean region. He has taken it upon himself, for some reason, to write a hagiography of Saint Olaf of Norway. His book, The Viking Saint, in my view, provides a cautionary example for anyone who decides to write in a field where they don’t know their way around.

The Viking Saint is a genuine hagiography, a book openly intended to glorify its subject and promote his veneration in the church. (I don’t know that Carr is a Catholic, but he gives that impression). As a result, it’s rather credulous, even for a Christian reader like me. Olaf’s deeds (often autocratic and bloody) are always given the most positive interpretation.

The main source is Snorri Sturlusson’s Heimskringla. That’s an approach I generally approve of, while recognizing that it requires supporting research from other sources. I think Carr uses the wrong supporting material, and not nearly enough of it. On top of that, he frequently misunderstands Snorri.

The book opens immediately with a big historical howler – he claims that it’s plausible that Olaf Haraldsson’s destruction of London Bridge, during his service with King Ethelred the Unready, was the origin of the “London Bridge is falling down” nursery rhyme. It is not plausible. (I explain this in the Afterword to my novel, The Elder King.)

The errors go on and on. He thinks that Olaf’s father, King Harald of Grenland, was raised in Greenland (Grenland is in fact a farm). He takes it for granted that Olaf was a direct descendant of King Harald Fairhair (that’s disputed) and the sole legitimate claimant to the throne of Norway (he wasn’t). He thinks King Halfdan the Black ruled from Trondheim (not true). He thinks Viking slave hunting among the Slavic tribes resulted in the coinage of the word “slave” (it came later). He confuses King Harald Greycloak of Norway with King Harald Bluetooth of Denmark. He thinks Queen Gunhild, wife of Erik Bloodaxe, was killed in the St. Brice’s Day Massacre (it was another woman, possibly fictional). He thinks the Norwegian name for a free farmer, “bonder,” means bondsman.

Carr errs again when he tells us that astronomy has confirmed that an eclipse occurred, as the saga says, on July 29, 1030, the date of Olaf’s death at the Battle of Stiklestad. This is not true – the eclipse came about a month later (I discuss this in the Afterword to The Baldur Game).

In more subjective matters affecting my own area of interest, I disagree sharply with Carr’s assessment of Erling Skjalgsson of Sola. He considers Erling a mere opportunist, a rebellious vassal. He fails utterly to recognize the serious constitutional questions on which Olaf and Erling clashed.

One of the most startling statements I found in The Viking Saint was author Carr’s contention that there were “no political overtones” to the rise of St. Olaf’s cult. It takes a pretty narrow pair of blinders not to notice how the Olaf legend served the political purposes of Norwegians eager to throw off Danish control.

A good biography (even a good hagiography) of Saint Olaf would be welcome. And it’s perfectly legitimate to take a different position than mine on the issue of Viking democracy, as opposed to monarchy. Let a thousand flowers bloom.

But a biography ought to be properly vetted. Actual historians of the period should go over the manuscript to weed out errors that even an amateur like me can find so easily.

The Viking Saint, sadly, is not a book I can honestly recommend.