Children of Ash and ELM

A definitive new history of the Vikings

The Viking Age -- between 750 and 1050 -- saw an unprecedented expansion of the Scandinavian peoples. As traders and raiders, explorers and colonists, they reshaped the world between eastern North America and the Asian steppe. For a millennium, though, their history has largely been filtered through the writings of their victims. Based on the latest archaeological and textual evidence, Children of Ash and Elm tells the story of the Vikings on their own terms: their politics, their cosmology, their art and culture. From Bj rn Ironside, who led an expedition to sack Rome, to Gudrid Thorbjarnard ttir, the most traveled woman in the world, Price shows us the real Vikings, not the caricatures they've become in popular culture and history.