I’ve been banging on about Viking stuff over on Twitter and on my Patreon for some time now. What really started me on this was the Viking roleplaying game (working title: The Fury of the Northmen; tagline: “the greatest Viking roleplaying game ever written,” a claim which I stand by) I wrote, which is only awaiting me getting the money to pay artists for me take the game to Kickstarter. But my interests in Viking stuff took on a life of its own, and now I’m writing a Viking novel and thinking about other ways I can incorporate all the reading I’ve done on the Vikings into something productive.
Over the past year and a half I’ve written a lot about the Vikings, and inevitably some people have asked me for my sources. So the following is my bibliography for The Fury of the Northmen, with everything I read that ended up in the book, one way or another (though not everything I read, naturally):
Adams, Anthony. “’He took a stone away’: Castration and Cruelty in the Old Norse Sturlunga Saga.” In Larissa Tracy, ed., Castration and Culture in the Middle Ages (2013).
Alexander, Marc. The Sutton Companion to British Folklore, Myths & Legends (2005).
Anthony, David W. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language (2007).
Arthur, Ross G. English-Old Norse Dictionary.
Back Danielson, Ing-Marie. Masking Moments: The Transitions of Bodies and Beings in Late Iron Age Scandinavia. PhD diss., 2007.
Bagge, Sverre. Cross and Scepter: The Rise of the Scandinavian Kingdoms from the Vikings to the Reformation (2014).
Bek-Pederson, Karen. The Norns in Old Norse Mythology (2011).
Bell, James. A New Comprehensive Gazetteer of England and Wales (1836).
Bonser, Wilfrid. “The Magic of the Finns in Relation to That of Other Arctic Peoples.” Folklore 35.1 (1924):57-63.
Borovsky, Zoe. “Never in Public: Women and Performance in Old Norse Literature,” The Journal of American Folklore 112.443 (Winter, 1999):6-39.
Bosworth, Rev. Joseph. A Compendious Anglo-Saxon and English Dictionary (1898).
Briggs, Katherine. A Dictionary of Fairies (1976).
Brooks, N.P. “England in the Ninth Century: The Crucible of Defeat.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 29 (1979): 1-20.
Brunning, Stu. “A ‘Divination Staff’ from Viking-Age Norway at the British Museum,” Acta Archaeologica 87.1 (2016): 193-200.
Cheong, Michael. The Boundaries of Demonic Influence in Anglo-Saxon England, c. 700-1066. MA diss., 2013.
Christensen, J.M., and M. Rhyl-Svendsen. “Household Air Pollution from Wood Burning in Two Reconstructed Houses from the Danish Viking Age,” Indoor Air 25.3 (June 2015):329-340.
Clarke, Robert Connell. “The History of Hemp in Norway,” Journal of Industrial Hemp 7.1 (2002):89-103.
Clover, Carol J. “Regardless of Sex: Men, Women, and Power in Early Northern Power,” Speculum 68.2 (1993):363-387.
Cole, Richard. “Racial Thinking in Old Norse Literature: The Case of the Blámaðr,” Saga-Book 39 (2015): 5-24.
Cox, Darrin M. Explaining Viking Expansion. MA thesis, 2002.
Davidson, Hilda Ellis. The Lost Beliefs of Northern Europe (1993).
Davidson, Hilda Ellis. The Road to Hel: A Study of the Conception of the Dead in Old Norse Literature (1968).
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose.
Foot, Sarah. “The Making of Angelcynn: English Identity before the Norman Conquest,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6 (1996): 25-49.
Forbes, Alexander Roberts. Gaelic Names of Beasts (Mammalia), Birds, Fishes, Insects, Reptiles, Etc (1905).
Frankki, James. “Cross-Dressing in the Poetic Edda: Mic muno Æsir argan kalla,” Scandinavian Studies 84.4 (2012):425-437.
Franks, Amy Jefford. Óðinn: A Queer týr? A Study of Óðinn’s Function as a Queer Deity in Pre-Christian Scandinavia. MA Thesis, 2018.
Franks, Amy Jefford. “Valf?ðr, V?lur, and Valkyrjur: Óðinn as a Queer Deity Mediating the Warrior Halls of Viking Age Scandinavia,” Scandia: Journal of Medieval Norse Studies 2 (2019): 28-65.
Friðriksdóttir, Jóhanna Katrín. Valkyrie: The Women of the Viking World (2020).
Gade, Kari Ellen. “Homosexuality and Rape of Males in Old Norse Law and Literature,” Scandinavian Studies 58.2 (1986):124-141.
Garde?a, Leszek. “A Biography of the Seiðr-Staffs. Toward an Archaeology of Emotions.” In Leszek P. Slupecki and Jakub Morawiec, eds, Between Paganism and the North (2009).
Garde?a, Leszek. “Into Viking Minds: Reinterpreting the Staffs of Sorcery and Unravelling ‘Seiðr,” Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 4 (2008):45-84.
Garde?a, Leszek. “’Warrior-women’ in Viking Age Scandinavia: A Preliminary Archaeological Survey,” Analecta Archaeologica Ressoviensia 8 (2013):273–340.
Garde?a, Leszek. “What the Vikings did for fun? Sports and pastimes in medieval northern Europe,” World Archaeology 44.2 (2012):234-247.
Griffiths, Bill. Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Magic (1996).
Gunnell, Terry. “Pantheon? What Pantheon? Concepts of a Family of Gods in Pre-Christian Scandinavian Religions,” Scripta Islandica 66 (2015):55-76.
Gunnell, Terry. “The Season of the Dísir: The Winter Nights, and the Disablót in Early Medieval Scandinavian Belief,” Cosmos (2000):117-149.
Hadley, Dawn M., et al. “The Winter Camp of the Viking Great Army, AD 872-3, Torksey, Lincolnshire,” The Antiquaries Journal 96 (2016):23-67.
Hall, Alaric. Elves in Anglo-Saxon England (2007).
Halliwell, James Orchard. A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words (1868).
Harrison, Mark, and Gerry Embleton. Anglo-Saxon Thegn, 449-1066 (1998).
Harrison, Mark, and Gerry Embleton. Viking Hersir, 793-1066 AD (1999).
Hazlitt, W. Carew. Faiths and Folklores (1904).
Heath, Ian, and Angus McBride. Vikings (1995).
Heide, Eldar. “Loki, the Vätte, and the Ash Lad: A Study Combining Old Scandinavian and Late Material,” Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 7 (2011):63-106.
Hill, David. An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England (1981).
Hindley, Geoffrey. A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxon: The Beginnings of the English Nation (2006).
Hraundal, Thorir Jonsson. “New Perspectives on Eastern Vikings/Rus in Arabic Sources.” Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 10 (2014):65-98.
Jakobsson, Ármann. “The Fearless Vampire Killers: A Note about the Icelandic Draugr and Demonic Contamination in Grettis Saga,” Folklore 120.3 (2009):307-316.
Jakobsson, Ármann. “The Flexible Masculinity of Loki,” Limes 13 (2020): 16-27.
Jakobsson, Ármann. “Horror in the Medieval North: The Troll.” Palgrave Handbook to Horror Literature (2018).
Jakobsson, Ármann. “The Trollish Acts of Þorgrimír the Witch: The Meanings of Troll and Ergi in Medieval Iceland,” Saga-Book 32 (2008):39-68.
Jakobsson, Ármann. “Vampires and Watchmen: Categorizing the Medieval Icelandic Undead,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 110.3 (2011):281-300.
Kershaw, Priscilla K. The One-Eyed God: Odin and the Indo-Germanic Männerbünde. PhD Diss. 1997.
Khai Tran. “Practitioners of Seiðr and the Struggle between Divine and Worldly Powers,” MA Thesis, 2018.
Kolberg, Are Skarstein. “Did Vikings Really Go Berserk? An Interdisciplinary Critical Analysis of Berserks,” The Journal of Military History 82 (2018):899-908.
Kolberg, Are Skarstein. “There is Power in a Cohort: Development of Warfare in Iron Age to Early Medieval Scandinavia,” The Journal of Military History 83 (2019):9-30.
Konstam, Angus. Viking Warrior Operations Manual (2018).
Kvilhaug, Maria. The Maiden with the Mead: A Goddess of Initiation in Norse Mythology? MA diss., 2004.
Lapidge, Michael, John Blair, Simon Keynes, eds.. The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England (2014).
Levick, Ben, and Roland Williamson. “For What It’s Worth.”
Lewis, James R., and Murphy Pizza, eds. The Handbook of Contemporary Paganism (2009).
Lindow, John. Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs (2001).
Lindow, John. Old Norse Mythology (2021).
Loyn, H.R. “Gesiths and Thegns in Anglo-Saxon England from the Seventh to the Tenth Century.” English Historical Review 70.277 (Oct. 1955): 529-549.
Lund, Anna Bech. Women and Weapons in the Viking Age. MA Thesis, 2016.
MacNeill, Ryan. “The Great Heathen Failure: Why the Great Heathen Army Failed to Conquer the Whole of Anglo-Saxon England.” MA Thesis, 2019.
Maddox, Timmis. “A Storm of Swords and Spears: The Weapon Dancer as an Enduring Symbol in Prehistoric Scandinavia,” Cogent Arts & Humanities 7:1 (2020):1-24.
Mayburd, Miriam. ““Helzt þóttumk nú heima í millim…” A reassessment of Hervör in light of seiðr’s supernatural gender dynamics,” Arkiv för nordisk filologi 129 (2014):121-164.
McKinnell, John. Meeting the Other in Norse Myth and Legend (2005).
McKinnell, John. “On Heiðr,” Saga-Book 25.4 (2001):394-417.
McKitterick, Rosamond, ed. The New Cambridge Medieval History II: c. 700-c. 900 (2008).
McLeod, Shane. “Warriors and women: the sex ratio of Norse migrants to eastern England up to 900 AD,” Early Medieval Europe 19.3 (2011):332-353.
Mitchell, Stephen A. “Warlocks, Valkyries and Varlets: A Prolegomenon to the Study of North Sea Witchcraft Terminology,” Cosmos 17 (2001):59-81.
Murphy, Luke John. “Herjans dísir: Valkyrjur, Supernatural Femininities, and Elite Warrior Culture in the Late Pre-Christian Iron Age,” MA Thesis, 2013.
Nicolle, David, and Angus McBride. The Armies of Islam, 7th-11th Centuries (1995).
Orchard, Andy. Cassell’s Dictionary of Norse Myth & Legend (2002).
Orlove, Ben, et al. “Recognitions and Responsibilities: On the Origins and Consequences of the Uneven Attention to Climate Change around the World.” Current Anthropology 55.3 (2014): 249-275.
Pálsson, Heimir, ed. The Uppsala Edda (2012).
Paz, James. Non-Human Voices in Anglo-Saxon Literature and Material Culture (2017).
Pelteret, David A.E. “Slavery in Anglo-Saxon England.” In The Anglo-Saxons: Synthesis and Achievement, J. Douglas Woods and David A.E. Pelteret, eds. (1986).
Piggott, Reginald. “Southern England in the Ninth Century.”
Pintar, Andrea. “Valkyries or Valiant Women: The World of Women, Weapons, and War in Viking Age Scandinavia,” Lecture, 2018.
Price, Neil. “The Archaeology of Seiðr: Circumpolar Traditions in Viking Pre-Christian Religion,” Brathair 4.2 (2004):109-126.
Price, Neil. Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings (2020).
Price, Neil. “Mythic Acts: Material Narratives of the Dead in Viking Age Scandinavia,” More Than Mythology: Narratives, Ritual Practices and Regional Distribution in Pre-Christian Scandinavian Religions (2012).
Price, Neil. The Viking Way: Magic and Mind in Late Iron Age Scandinavia (2019).
Raffield, Ben. “Band of Brothers: A Re-Appraisal of the Viking Great Army and Its Implications for the Scandinavian Colonization of England.” Early Medieval Europe 24.3 (2016): 308-337.
Raninen, Sami. “Queer Vikings? Transgression of gender and same-sex encounters in the Late Iron Age and early medieval Scandinavia,” Suomen Queer-tutkimuksen Seuran lehti 3.2 (2008):20-29.
Richards, Julian D. Viking Age England (2013).
Romdale, Lars. “Loki: Thoughts on the Nature of the God, a Queer Reading.” Master’s Thesis, 2018.
Romgard, Jan. “Did the Vikings trade with China? On a controversial passage in Ibn Khordahbeh’s Book of Itineraries and Kingdoms,” Forn Vännen: Journal of Swedish Antiquarian Research 111 (2016): 229-242.
Rooth, Anna Birgitta. Loki in Scandinavian Mythology (1961).
Ross, Margaret Clunies, Kari Ellen Gade, Guðrún Nordal, eds. The Skaldic Project.
Schnurbein, Stefanie von. “The Function of Loki in Snorri Sturluson’s ‘Edda,’” History of Religions 40.2 (2000):109-124.
Schnurbein, Stefanie von. “Shamanism in the Old Norse Tradition: A Theory Between Ideological Camps,” History of Religions 43.2 (2003):116-138.
Scott, Forest S. “The Woman Who Knows: Female Characters of Eyrbyggja Saga,” Parergon 3 (1985):73-91.
Searle, William George. Onomasticon Anglo-Saxonicum: A List of Anglo-Saxon Proper Names From the Time of Beda to that of King John (1897).
Shippey, Tom. Laughing Shall I Die: Lives and Deaths of the Great Vikings (2018).
Simek, Rudolf. Dictionary of Northern Mythology (2007).
Skre, Dagfinn, and Frans-Arne Stylegar. Kaupang: The Viking Town (2004).
Solli, Brit. “Queering the Cosmology of the Vikings: A Queer Analysis of the Cult of Odin and ‘Holy White Stones,’” Journal of Homosexuality 54.1/2 (2008):192-208.
Starkey, Kathryn. “Imagining an Early Odin,” Scandinavian Studies 71.4 (1999):373-392.
Storms, G. Anglo-Saxon Magic (1948).
Sundqvist, Olof. “On Freyr—the ‘Lord’ or the ‘Fertile One’? Some comments on the discussion of etymology from the historian of religions’ point of view,” Onoma 48 (2013): 11-35.
Szabo, Viki Ellen. Monstrous Fishes and the Mead-Dark Sea: Whaling in the Medieval North Atlantic (2008).
Thomas, Val. “Medical and Magical Treasures in Anglo-Saxon Herbals.”
Vikings of Bjornstad. Old Norse Dictionary: English to Old Norse.
Wade, Jenny. “The Castrated Gods and their Castration Cults: Revenge, Punishment, and Spiritual Supremacy,” International Journal of Transpersonal Studies (2019):1-28.
Watts, D.C. Elsevier’s Dictionary of Plant Lore (2007).
Weil, Martha S. “Magiferous Plants in Medieval English Herbalism.” Master’s Thesis, 1972.
Westwood, Jennifer. Albion: A Guide to Legendary Britain (2017).
Whitby, Emma. Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic (2013).
Williams, Gareth. England 865-1066: Viking Warrior versus Anglo-Saxon Warrior (2017).
Wise, Terence, and G.A. Embleton. Saxon, Viking, and Norman (1995).
Yorke, Barbara. Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England (1990).
Zappatore, Francesca, “Maiden Warriors in Old Norse Literature,” MA thesis, 2018.