The Greatest Viking: The Life of Olav Haraldsson

Olav Haraldsson, a ruthless Viking warrior, conquered and converted Norway to Christianity, earning him the title of "Eternal King" and a national hero in Norway.

Format: Hardback
Length: 272 pages
Publication date: 03 November 2022
Publisher: Birlinn General

Olav Haraldsson, the greatest Viking to have ever lived, is the subject of this narrative. Olav Haraldsson, a ruthless Viking warrior who named his most prized battle weapon after the Norse goddess of death, and his mercenaries caused terror and destruction from the Baltic to Galicia in the early eleventh century. Thousands were put to the sword, enslaved, or ransomed. Canterbury was sacked, its archbishop murdered, and London Bridge pulled down in England. The loot amassed from years of plunder helped Olav win the throne of Norway, and a century after his death, he was proclaimed 'Eternal King' and has been a national hero there ever since. Despite his bloodthirsty beginnings, Olav converted to Christianity and, in a personal vendetta against the old Norse gods, made Norway Christian too, thereby changing irrevocably the Viking world he was born into. Told with reference to Norse sagas, early chronicles, and the work of modern scholars, Desmond Seward paints an intensely vivid and colourful portrait of the life and times of arguably the greatest Viking of them all.

Weight: 484g
Dimension: 161 x 241 x 29 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781780277950