{"id":21915,"date":"2026-04-16T17:45:45","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T21:45:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=21915"},"modified":"2026-04-16T17:45:45","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T21:45:45","slug":"24-hours-in-the-viking-world-by-kirsten-wolf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=21915","title":{"rendered":"’24 Hours in the Viking World,’ by Kirsten Wolf"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I run into many people <\/strong>who are looking for books to introduce them to the Vikings. Kirsten Wolf\u2019s 24 Hours in the Viking World<\/a><\/em> isn\u2019t a bad book for the purpose, in spite of some weaknesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plan of the book is a little strange, but it\u2019s 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\u2019 locations and historical dates are not coordinated \u2013 the reader is shuttled back and forth in time and space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u201cHang in there.\u201d And the characters \u2013 especially the men \u2013 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the plus side, author Wolf is not a partisan of the \u201cLagertha Party\u201d in Viking studies. When she recounts the famous Vinland episode where Leif Eriksson\u2019s sister Freydis brandishes a sword to scare off the \u201cscraelings<\/em>,\u201d we\u2019re told she has no idea how to use a sword. I\u2019m not sure I\u2019d have gone that far myself, sexist though I am. Ditto for her statement that Icelandic women had \u201cno legal rights.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One chapter involves a baker at Hedeby in Denmark. Oddly, his name is given as Hans Jensson. That\u2019s a bizarre name choice for a Viking, as both \u201cHans\u201d and \u201cJens\u201d are colloquial versions of the Christian \u201cJohn.\u201d And it took time for those adaptations to evolve. I don\u2019t think those names existed as such in the Viking Age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, 24 Hours in the Viking Age<\/em> isn\u2019t a bad introduction to Viking everyday life. I recommend it moderately.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I run into many people who are looking for books to introduce them to the Vikings. Kirsten Wolf\u2019s 24 Hours in the Viking World isn\u2019t a bad book for the purpose, in spite of some weaknesses. The plan of the book is a little strange, but it\u2019s part of a series of similar books set … Continue reading ’24 Hours in the Viking World,’ by Kirsten Wolf<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,15],"tags":[5921,1584],"class_list":["post-21915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonfiction","category-reviews","tag-24-hours-in-the-viking-world","tag-kirsten-wolf"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21915"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21918,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21915\/revisions\/21918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}