Reddit mentions: The best scandinavian history books

My husband and I honeymooned in Norway and Sweden in December a few years back. We were coming from Washington, D.C., and the climate and darkness in Oslo/Stockholm was indeed very similar to DC (it will be darker the further north you go, of course). We had a great time! Who knew we'd end up living here a few years later... I think you'll have a wonderful visit, even if you're here when it's cold and dark. The special things to do in Norway mostly relate to the outdoors (hiking, cross-country skiing, floating around the fjords) or seeing the famous Stave churches or museums relating to Viking culture, though there are excellent art and music venues in the larger cities (you can see Munch's "The Scream" in Oslo!).

Even in the snow and rain, the fjords are gorgeous, so I would look into visits in Bergen or Stavanger. These are also two of the largest cities in Norway (and very charming), so you will have good lodging options if you stay there a bit. Oslo is a fun city with great museums, outdoor spaces and parks (we went to the Vigeland sculpture garden after it had snowed and it was gorgeous, if freaking cold), and a pretty thriving cultural scene.

Epic scenery describes most of Norway and the outdoors isn't far from anywhere you'll go. The country is fairly rural and there's a robust hiking/outdoor culture, so you can find great opportunities to hike, ski, etc. no matter where you go - I mean, you end up in the woods if you take the tram 15 minutes north in Oslo, which is the most built-up part of Norway. So any place you choose is probably going to meet your scenery requirements, both from the train window and once you arrive.

The Arctic Circle is not trivial to get to and will be really dark in Jan/Feb. If you want to go (it's during the season for the Northern Lights), note that the train will only go as far as Bodø, so you'll likely need to fly if you want to see Svalbard or Tromsø. (I mean, you could drive, but it's a 24 hour drive from Oslo to Tromsø - quite a commitment for a time-limited trip.)

Overall, it's pretty easy to travel around Norway without a car. Most towns are pretty pedestrian-friendly and there's an excellent train system linking most of the country together. Buses are affordable, there's a 130 year-old boating company (Hurtigruten) that connects the cities along the coast, etc. However, traveling between cities will take some time: Norway is about 1500 miles long and 250 miles across with mountains in between, so although the view is gorgeous, it will take a while to get from one place to another unless you fly. Both Norwegian and SAS fly between Norwegian cities, so if you're short on time or don't want to spend half a day on the train, look into flights.

I loved visiting here on our honeymoon and really enjoy living here. It's a country with a spectacular landscape, a very enthusiastic outdoor culture, and charming little towns. A few things to consider: it is a slightly expensive place to visit (on par with Manhattan in terms of food and lodging), so plan out your expenses accordingly; the quality of the food is good but Norwegian food culture is much simpler than you'll find in southern Europe (in fact, you might be surprised by the number of Italian restaurants in Oslo - I was); and basically everything is closed on Sunday, so plan accordingly.

Honestly, if your prep time is limited, I'd recommend buying a good travel book (I like the DK series) and seeing what catches your eye. Rick Steves also has good recs for visiting Norway, so check out his site. Otherwise, I read a few histories of Norway and Oslo before we came, which helped guide what I found most interesting here.

Good luck and congratulations! I'm sure you'll have a fantastic trip.

Since I'm a bit overwhelmed by all the questions right now, I'm going to copy and paste two answers I've given to similar question in earlier threads. (One of which is a copy-and-paste job itself.)


1. General books:

I'm going to copy and paste an answer I once gave to someone who asked me for book recommendations via private message.

>Hi there!

>No Problem! Always glad to help. If you need a quick overview over the topic or are rather unfamiliar with it The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings gives a good first impression. Else Roesdahl's The Vikings is a bit more in depth but with less pictures. There's also Peter Sawyer's Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings. All three of those are slightly outdated but they give a great first impression of the Age. If money's thight, start with Sawyer, then Roesdahl, then the atlas.

>If you want to go more in depth there's The Viking World by Stefan Brink and Neil Price. Do not confuse it with the book of the same name by Graham-Campbell and Wilson, which is rather outdated. This "Viking World" is a collection of essays by the world's leading experts on the period an the de facto standard of the discipline at the moment. It's well worth the price.

>If you are (or at least read) German (which is possible from your username) try to get the current catalogue of the Haithabu museum. It gives a good overview over that important trading settlement. Or even better: visit there! (Or any of the large Scandinavian National Museums (Moesgård, Statens Historiska museet, or the Viking ship museums in Roskilde and Oslo, respectively).

>If you are interested in the world of the sagas you can't go wrong with Jesse Byock's Viking Age Iceland.

>If you are looking for a quick ressource or if you have a specific question there's the site of The Viking Answer Lady. She appears to be a reenactor not a scholar but her answers are very well sourced and I have yet to find a major error on her site. Or you can always ask me/post to AskHistorians...

>cheers, wee_little_puppetman


Also, you might want to check out this huge annotated Viking movie list.

There's also a rather good three part BBC series on the Vikings on Youtube.

And for some quick Viking fun there's the animated short The Saga of Biorn.

Oh, one more thing: You might also enjoy Viking Empires by Angelo Forte, Richard Oram and Frederik Pedersen. It goes beyond the traditional end of the Viking Age into the Middle Ages and should therefore tie in nicely to your main interest in the crusades.



2. Sagas

Egils saga and Njáls saga are usually the ones that are recomennded for first time readers. They feel very modern in their narrative structures. Grettis saga is also quite good for a start. And then maybe Laxdæla saga. If you aren't specifically interested in Iceland and want to start with something that conforms more to the public picture of "Vikings" try Eiriks saga rauða, Jómsvíkinga saga or Sverris saga. But afterwards you have to read at least one Icelander saga (i.e. one of the ones I mentioned first)!

Icelandic sagas are fascinating but you have to commit to them. Don't be disappointed if a chapter begins with two pages of the family tree of a minor character! And always keep in mind that this is medieval literature: although it might look like it it is not history. These things were written in the 12th to 14th centuries, even if the take place much earlier!

I'm no expert in Medieval or Old-Norse studies, however I've do have an interest in it & from some searching on various different aspects of the Vikings I come across these:

The Cambridge History of Scandinavia: Volume 1. Prehistory to 1520 it's a anthological survey book consisting of both historiographical and hagiographical (biographies of saints) primary & secondary sources ranging from prehistory ( before historical events were documented) through to medieval history of Scandinavia. It's quite pricey but definitely worth the money if your serious...

>The first part of the volume surveys the prehistoric and historic Scandinavian landscape and its natural resources, and tells how man took possession of this landscape, adapting culturally to changing natural conditions and developing various types of community throughout the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages. The rest - and most substantial part of the volume - deals with the history of Scandinavia from the Viking Age to the end of the Scandinavian Middle Ages (c. 1520). The external Viking expansion opened Scandinavia to European influence to a hitherto unknown degree. A Christian church organisation was established, the first towns came into being, and the unification of the three medieval kingdoms of Scandinavia began, coinciding with the formation of the unique Icelandic 'Free State'.

The History of Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Denmark,Finland and Iceland) is similar to Cambridge History yet significantly cheaper

The Viking World by Stefan Brink & Neil Price is a mid-range anthological book compromising of many articles from various scholars.

>I would really appreciate material that covers linguistics.....philology, morphology and the like
As for the other categories, I would really appreciate some introductory material on archaeology.

This book will probably be the best one for you because it includes all of the above.

Myth and Religion of the North: the Religion Ancient Scandinavia this book is a good overview of the different mythologies before the christianisation of the nordics.

Women in the Viking Age is a good book on the niche subject area of Women roles within the viking age nordics & its various colonies (from Greenland to Russia). Jesch uses various pieces of evidence from archaeological finds, runic inscriptions, historical records & Old Norse literature.

I would also recommend you look into the Icelandic sagas & Eddas. I'd use SagaDB because there are many various different icelandic sagas & in a variety of languages including English, Icelandic & Old Norse. If you'd like to go about learning O.N. you check the Viking Society for Northern Research or check out the books: A New Introduction to Old Norse: I Grammar: 1 or Viking Language 1: Learn Old Norse, Runes, and Icelandic Sagas

If you're interested at all in the presence of the Vikings (and later scandinavians) in Eastern Europe check out Viking Rus: Studies on the Presence of Scandinavians in Eastern Europe

Hopefully this helps if you have any more specific questions don't be afraid to ask :)

Welcome welcome! As this other fella pointed out the longship is great but there are some other books you could get as well. Here's my recommendations for starting material.

This book is mainly about Saxton Pagans. It's a great introduction to alot if the general ideas of Norse Mythology. It's also short, and very easily worded. Super light and easy read.

Travels Through Middle Earth. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0738715360?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

This book is quite a bit of fiction. Neil is an outstanding an accomplished writer and as such even if he makes some stuff up reading the myths through his eyes is amazing and a great way to get your feet wet.

Norse Mythology https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393356183?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Now some people hate McCoy. He sometimes likes to assert his personal opinions as fact. I happen to agree with alot of what he says. This is a more scholarly approach to the myths. Once you have the basic ideas down this can be a great introduction to archaeology and the actual historical fact.

The Viking Spirit: An... https://www.amazon.com/dp/1533393036?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

All Scandinavian countries have been in the process of decentrilization for the last 4-5 decades. Its been a slow transition from nationalized industries and companies to privatized markets with strong welfare programs. The changes in the tone of the red greens from revolutionary to just a left-wing party with regards to Danish politics, is not only a clear sign of this phenomenon, but also indicative of the fact that not only are they not revolutionary, but they're moving further and further away from it. This goes for all the other parties in Denmark, and most of Scandinavia. There is nobody who wants to de-privatize the entire market and turn it into stateless communes, nothing even close. They're all toying with different versions of welfare states, in which the grand majority of the nation's GDP will be private and allocated on free-market systems.


This has been the story of the Scandinavians over the past 40-50 years. They were always close leaders of Marx and other revolutionaries, and had been applying their ideas for a long time. I'm from Canada, and our early labour movements in the late 1800s and early 1900s benefitted from Fins migrating to Canada, who were already very radical communists. Nonetheless, over the years, with advancements in the social sciences, sciences and technology, they started to notice that Marx's criticism of capitalism was spot on! However, his solution wasn't as well formed as we thought. The path to prosperity, they learned was, letting the markets do their jobs because their way better at allocating goods and services, and then taxing the living crap out of the wealthy (and middle class), so that we see literally no homelessness or poverty (which they virtually don't when compared to their OECD counterparts). I mean, its not the craziest thing to believe that some old philosophers of revolutionaries from the 1800s might not know how to properly protect the proletariat in a world run by computers, automated machines, jets and planes that fly across the world in a few hours, wireless communication and algorithms shaping our decisions in a world 8x bigger than their's. Also, Marx was actually a fan of capitalism and read Adam Smith carefully. He himself didn't even offer a clear solution, because he believed it was a deterministic process (historical materialism) and that communism was an inevitability, not something that was necessarily going to be forced through activism. The means of production will advance and become so productive that we will have to allocate resources top-down, rather than some invisible hand. But along the path, he did believe, communist societies actually wouldn't be ideal.


I think this inkling that you have, that there is a strong revolutionary spirit among working classes across the West to bring about full-fledged communism or socialism, I think you have it overblown. There are young college educated kids who's lives are in good condition who tend to want that, but most super poor people in the West will look at you funny if you go, "Hey, what if we took every owner, took the company away from them, and made ourselves the owners!" They would look at you funny. Most people you're talking about within these parties simply have different views on how a welfare-state should be run, but they all deeply believe in markets. You can be anti-capitalist and still believe in markets, they're not mutually inclusive. There's nothing wrong with trading things, its about which types of trading/exchange/economic system leads to suffering and oppression for the working class. I think the Scandinavians found they still had a lot of hunger and oppression under nationalist/communist societies they evolved out from. They saw welfare states actually bring the goods in more effectively. And the red greens, along with most Danish parties that have been around for decades, have completely changed their tone on communism and revolution.

I would recommend you read this book, its a staple on the history of the Nordic Model, it outlines in details how the parties (and other Scandinavian ones) have evolved over the past century, - https://www.amazon.ca/Nordic-Model-Welfare-Historical-Reappraisal/dp/8763503417


And this is a good paper that condenses this books info - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20004508.2018.1429768

Side-note, this is an interesting passage -

>in a thought-provoking essay, Terry Eagleton, a visiting professor at Lancaster University, in England; the National University of Ireland; and the University of Notre Dame, explains that Marx's view of capitalism was more nuanced than simple hatred. He writes:

>"This is not to suggest for a moment that Marx considered capitalism as simply a Bad Thing, like admiring Sarah Palin or blowing tobacco smoke in your children's faces. On the contrary, he was extravagant in his praise for the class that created it, a fact that both his critics and his disciples have conveniently suppressed. No other social system in history, he wrote, had proved so revolutionary. In a mere handful of centuries, the capitalist middle classes had erased almost every trace of their feudal foes from the face of the earth. They had piled up cultural and material treasures, invented human rights, emancipated slaves, toppled autocrats, dismantled empires, fought and died for human freedom, and laid the basis for a truly global civilization. No document lavishes such florid compliments on this mighty historical achievement as The Communist Manifesto, not even The Wall Street Journal."

I mean I'm mostly interested in investigations of historicity - like historical religious and legendary figures (Jesus, the patriarchs, Ragnar, etc.).

It's very hard to determine if Ragnar was a real person, but, interestingly, all of his 'sons' are - as is Rollo. Not much is known about Rollo before he showed up in France, but that whole arc is completely true - they gave him land in what is now called Normandy (heh) to protect against other Viking invaders. The great heathen army was also real and was led by figures such as Ivar, Bjorn, Ubbe, etc. but it's not likely that they were literally brothers.

Other real historical characters are sprinkled throughout with varying degrees of importance, like Leif, who was Ragnar's friend in the early seasons, whose father was not so subtly called Erik (ahrm).

If you think about it, though, there was almost certainly a Norse man who spearheaded the first raids to England, the very first of which actually did land at Lindisfarne (you can still visit there, so high on my list!!) - so it's likely that there really was a lauded heroic figure in the culture at that time, and the leaders of the heathen army could have been seen as 'figurative sons' - the last few episodes depicting it showed that the whole society rallied around the idea of avenging Ragnar, even if they weren't related to him, because he was such an important figure. Could be a grain of truth in that.

Anyways, it's mostly speculative. While the show gets a bit magical and tries to tie down mostly legendary tales in real characters, it is remarkably accurate in both major plot points and in the way the world is depicted. After 4 seasons of Vikings I tried to watch Marco Polo on Netflix and couldn't get more than 3 episodes in. I now have an insatiable appetite for seeing things more or less as they were - Marco Polo was NOT trained in kung fu by a fucking blind ninja. There need to be more realistic historical shows.

Bit of a rant, but I hope that if you have interest in it you go and read some of the translations of Ragnar's Sons and Beowulf and stuff like that! I know Michael recommended some books, but I quite like this one.

Bear with me here, I swear I will get to the food stuff, but first a bit of background.

The sources we have for these voyages (a collection of sagas and two other works known as "The Book of the Icelanders" and "The Book of Settlement") are all at least 2-4 centuries later than the supposed dates of exploration. This is a fairly typical problem in Scandinavian history. These are oral tales handed down for several generations and then written. The info in them is thus problematic. All that being said, archaeological evidence and our understanding that just because something is "fantastic" doesn't make it "fantastical" all point to a Scandinavian presence at the very northernmost areas of Canada.

North Atlantic travel and exploration consists of four major locations: Iceland, Greenland, Helluland (likely the island of Baffin in far northern Canada) and Vinland (modern Newfoundland).

Travelers to North America would have been coming from Iceland (the major North Atlantic settlement area) and Greenland (much less well settled and abandoned by the 14th century).

And now on to the food. Fish, fish, and fish would have been a primary food source. Some fresh, much of it salted and preserved. Blubber and whale meat are a possibility as well (though they probably would not have actively whaled during their voyages). Meat (seal and caribou especially if coming from Greenland), salted or even fresh. Also sea-birds. For a particularly amusing glimpse of what things might have looked like, check out this (admittedly very blurry) video of a reenactment of a voyage from Ireland to America, in which a fellow is picked up solely for his ability to catch birds and fish.

They would also have had livestock, pigs, sheep, and perhaps even cattle, that could be fresh slaughtered but would ideally have been kept for secondary production (cheese, milk, wool etc.). We know from archaeological remains and from patterns of settlement westward that these voyages would have included both men and women and thus probably were supplied with the necessary goods (including farm animals) to at least begin settlement. This means that they might also have had cereal for planting and cultivation.

It is best to think of the voyagers to America and the North Atlantic as rather distinct from the "Vikings" most famous for raiding England, Ireland and Francia in the 9th century. These are not bands of warriors looking to make money and head back home to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. They are explorers and above all settlers, looking for new lands and new opportunities.

Sources: The first and best place to go is The absurdly large edited volume, The Viking World which has several articles on North Atlantic settlement and travel, all of which have bibliographies.

Happy reading!

I was actually going to take a class on the Vikings this spring for kicks (main area of study is Near Eastern archaeology). While I ended up not being able to take the class due to time, I did keep the books since they did a pretty good job of introducing the topic to someone who never had any exposure to it before; not to mention they were extremely interesting!

A History of the Vikings by Gwyn Jones: Kind of dry, but very informative and helpful.

Medieval Scandinavia: From Conversion to Reformation, circa 800-1500 (Nordic Series) by Birgit and Peter Sawyer: If I recall correctly, the husband and wife who wrote this are both archaeologists. This was a pretty accesible book.

Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga edited by William F. Fitzhugh and Elisabeth Ward: Lots of information with lots of pictures!

Silver Economy in the Viking Age edited by James Graham-Campbell and Gareth Williams: This is also available on Amazon, but I had originally just bought the e-Book rental through this link. This book mostly concentrates on the archaeology of the Viking Age, if that's what you're looking for. I think I might just buy this book soon, haha.

Hopefully that helped a bit!

--edit--

/r/AskHistorians also seems to recommend The Viking World by Stefan Brink (as mentioned by /u/ThrostThrandson) and Exploring the World of the Vikings by Richard Hall. That subreddit has compiled a pretty extensive book list for a wide variety of subjects, if that interests you as well.

When I started watching this show a few years ago I ended up buying quite a few books about Norse Mythology and Asatru (the reconstruction religion that is becoming more popular).

Here are a few good ones

The Norse Myths This is a good basic breakdown of the stories in the Sagas/Eddas and is easy to read.

Viking Age: Everyday Life During the Extraordinary Era of the Norsemen This is a fantastic book that really isn't related to the myths (there is a religion section) but this is a great book that goes over the everyday lives of Vikings and their families. Everything from political structure down to what they ate and how they dressed. It also has great illustrations.

The Prose Edda: Norse Mythology (Penguin Classics) - one of the source materials of the myths.

The Sagas of Ragnar Lodbrok - I dont have this one personally but it is on my list to buy.

If you want to read about the reconstruction religion that has gained in popularity since the 70s check this book out. Essential Asatru: Walking the Path of Norse Paganism - This is another easy to read book that not only goes over the basics of the Myths/Gods but also goes over the ceremonies and rituals of those who choose to practice today what the Vikings practiced. Minus the live sacrifices... those have been replaced with food and drink thankfully.

If you are just wanting to dip your toes into learning about the myths I cannot recommend the first link more than enough. It is far easier to read than the Eddas/Sagas and from what I understand from other subs is a widely regarded starting point.

Also check out /r/norse and /r/asatru.

Hi all, this is not strictly mythology, but a historical figure who certainly has a lot of myths and legends surrounding him. In this book, I discuss if Ragnar Lothbrok was actually a single man, or made up from the stories of many ancient Norse warriors. So I thought this Kindle ebook on might be interesting to members of the community, it's free to download until April 8th.

If you enjoy it, an honest review on Amazon would be appreciated. But if you have any criticism, I would prefer you let me know via PM or leave a message here instead of leaving a negative review, so I can get it corrected right away for future readers.

Thanks!

The link above is for the US Amazon site, for your country's regional equivalent, you can change the URL suffix such as:

Canada - https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B06XXWMXRR

UK - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XXWMXRR

There's lots! Of course, that means it's sometimes hard to pick out highly specialized articles from more general updates on the state of the field, which I suspect is what you're going for. Don't get daunted if this seems too dense; sometimes it's just good to know a bit about what's out there.

As a starting point, I'd recommend taking a look at Brink and Price, eds., The Viking World (2008) [Amazon link so you can preview the table of contents]. I'd start with the introduction (it's short), then technology and trade, and then urbanism or any other sections that seem necessary for you.

An older book, but one that's still very influential is Hodges and Whitehouse's Muhammad, Charlemagne, and the Origins of Europe (1983). It will give you a good idea of what scholars think was happening, but there's been a lot of research and updates to it over the last 30 years. Before you cite Hodges and Whitehouse, I'd cross reference it with a more recent work, using the table of contents or index to focus your reading. In particular, I'd look at Skre's Means of Exchange (2007) (see especially Skre's intro and conclusion as well as Kilger's "Kaupang from Afar") and McCormick's Origins of the European Economy (2001). They're both great works, but based on how you described your project, I wouldn't risk getting stuck in a quagmire trying to read them both all the way through.

Finally, there's a few terrific articles that should be read if you can:

• Steven P. Ashby, “What Really Caused the Viking Age? The Social Context of Raiding and Exploration,” Archaeological Dialogues 22.1 (2015): 89-106. [Sorry: the link doesn't give the full article, just the abstract.]
  
  
• James Barrett, “Rounding Up the Usual Suspects: Causation and the Viking Age Diaspora,” in Atholl Anderson, James H. Barrett, and Katherine V. Boyle, eds., The Global Origins and Development of Seafaring (Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2010), 289-302.
  
  
• Ulf Näsman, “Exchange and Politics: The Eighth–Early Ninth Century in Denmark,” in Inge Lyse Hansen and Chris Wickham, eds., The Long Eighth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2000): 35-68.
  
  
• Søren M. Sindbæk, “Silver Economies and Social Ties: Long-Distance Interaction, Long-Term Investments – and Why the Viking Age Happened,” in James Graham-Campbell, Søren M. Sindbæk, and Gareth Williams, eds., Silver Economies, Monetisation and Society in Scandinavia, AD 800–1100 (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2011), 41–65.

You may want to go to reddit history and just ask for books about Early Middle Age Europe or specifically ones about Britain, Cnut the Great and Leif Erikson. Or askhistorians is another great one. You want to focus on the Early Middle Ages (when it starts is debatable but around 600 - 1066 AD) as that is what Vinland is dealing with.


One good one is Millennium by Tom Holland it's around the turn of the 11th century when Vinland Saga takes place so that might be of interest.

Amazon link

For something more related to the Vikings and Norse Scandinavia.

Amazon Link

You also might want to check out historical podcasts like the British History Podcast which is incredibly detailed and they might give you some sources on that. Also there are quite a few on the Vikings. Lots of varied podcasts on a variety of historical topics and they regularly will interact with listeners if you're interested in their sources.

Link

Link 2

> I would be interested in reading a good history of Sweden (in English) if you have any recommendations. Websites or movies would be great too.

You got some replies about food, but I thought I'd give some tips on this one!

A History of Sweden by Hernan Lindqvist
A Journey through Swedish History by Herman Lindqvist
A history of Sweden by Lars O Lagerqvist

These are more general books about the history of Sweden, by Swedish historians. Herman Lindqvist in particular is fairly well known here as an author of popular history books. This page has a list of books about Swedish history, though I don't know the authors.

Hope you find it interesting!

There were swords that looked as equally great or better that would of had silver and copper inlaid in the hilt, pommel and even the blade sometimes. That cross guard on that sword is way too thick, heavy and of no design that I have seen from any archeological finds which makes this sword inspired at best. While the pattern on the blade may work, the Norse would have engraved the weaving pattern and inlaid it with silver or had pattern welded design. A better example of "king" swords that are more accurate and reenactment approved come from Templ.net and look like this, this, this, or even this[http://www.templ.net/pics-weapons/143-sword/143-hilt-v.jpg].

You want to see a catalogue of real Viking Age swords and how they are categorized, I suggest this book since some of the swords they had back in the day even for jarls or freemen were extraordinarily embelished.

With English history, I would start with the Romans. The "very short introduction" books have shown up in my old reading lists on multiple occasions at university.



I would then move on to the vikings. Again look at "a very short introduction". I would also look at "The Viking World". This is the textbook I used at Uni.


(Now we get to medieval England, my favourite) Look at the history of the medieval church christianity was central to medieval life. Look at the Black Death King Death: The Black Death and its Aftermath in Late-Medieval England, it is one of my favourite books of all time and an absolute pleasure to read. This book is a very good overview of medieval Europe This book is also a very good, but brief, introduction. I would read that one before the other one.


The Hundred Years war is an important part of English and French history. The Hundred Years War is a good brief book.



Now we get to the War of the Roses (if you like game of thrones, this is what it is based on). Hicks, M. A., The war of the Roses (2003). He wrote another longer book in 2010. Both are very good, but the 2003 book is much much smaller.


I never studied the Tudors or Stuarts at uni but I am sure someone else would be able to direct you to good books. When buying books look for "University Press" books. They are written buy lecturers and professors, world leaders in their field.


The Empire Project is a very good book, but not as small as the others I have suggested (well, except for the viking age one).


Don't be disheartened by the amount of books I have suggested, I promise the majority are tiny and pictures do take up a lot of room. If you were to combine them, they probably would be as many words as 2 big books. Wait for the books to become cheap or call up a university second hand book shop to see if they have them in stock. Again I highly recommend the "a very short introduction" books if you want to get to know an area of history without making the commitment of buying larger more expensive books. If you want my old reading lists I can send them too you if you PM me.

You will get more out of them without question, but is that "more" worth the effort? I don't think so, unless you want to really nerd out and/or pursue the subject academically. Get some good, recent translations by folks like Jackson Crawford or Carolyne Larrington. And then if you are still looking to squeeze some "more" out of the texts, go get some good, thorough introductive litterature to contextualize the sagas and poems you are reading, like The Vikings, A Handbook to Eddic Poetry, Norse Mythology: A Guide to Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs, The Viking World etc.

And this is coming from someone who do know Old Norse.

> I never said it was, but it is the suggested bare minimum if you actually want to construct a fact backed statement.
(RE: Google Search).

That is the most delusional statement I have seen in some time. A Google search is not the bare minimum. The bare minimum is engaging your critical faculties. Google is a search engine which has an algorithm which is, to be honest, not perfect. Engage your brain and you actually are capable of making a huge number of fact based statements without Google. Or just regurgitate what the top ten results on Google are. Your choice.

> The very fact that your comment is a tirade about "socialist democracy" and not economics (which is the subject at hand) makes me believe you have 5 tabs of communist memes, rather than a legitimate fact based article or report open whilst you are making your arguments.

You genuinely are attempting to be insulting and failing. Why would I have five tabs of memes when I have copies of Grundrisse, Prison Notebooks, Wealth Of Nations, and so forth in the other room. It is not a tirade. And I do recommend "The Nordic Model: Scandanavia since 1945"

You clearly come from an overly sheltered background where your intellectually
enfeebled guardians - regretting adoping you after your parents discarded you
when you failed to be potty trained at 18 months - pandered to your every
delusional whim and further ensured your critical faculties would never be used
for anything other than choosing which rock to cling to.

That is a bit closer to a tirade. You really need to gather up some skills in rhetoric. As to fact based article: how about a wealth of experience; does the clickbait of the internet truly trump actually putting the effort in to understand issues; I doubt it.

As to Economics: it is nonsense of the highest ordure - or order, take your pick. Not a conclusion come to lightly. You would be best spending your intellectual efforts in improving your own mind. Seriously, you are clearly not prepared to engage in critical thinking or to entertain any idea that is outside your comfort zone.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Vikings-A-History-ebook/dp/B002TV07E2/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368241864&sr=1-4&keywords=vikings

Pretty good book, lots of information. A bit dry though, pretty much written for people already immensely interested in the topic and not really designed to capture the attention of a random reader.

http://www.amazon.com/Vikings-Atlantic-William-F-Fitzhugh/dp/1560989955/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368241957&sr=1-7&keywords=vikings

A little bit better in my opinion. Lots of images so you can see what is being referenced instead of trying to imagine it.

As for the figure head, I can't tell you exactly where it's from. All i can say is it's a modern interpretation of a dragon figurehead, with some embellishments, especially with the figures forming the top side rails.

I'm sorry, but I don't have a specific source for this right now. My knowledge mainly comes from various books, lectures, youtube channels focused on history or articles from the Internet. But as far as literature is concerned, I can certainly recommend to you History of Vikings by Gwyn Jones, imo it's great starting point for learning more about vikings and Norsemen in general, as it covers wide range of topics in Norse culture, but doesn't get deep enough to confuse you.

Definitely more broad than you sound like you are looking for but I really enjoyed Byron Nordstrom's Scandinavia since 1500. There is so much in English about the Viking era, this had a lot of value to me just for excluding that era and focusing on how the modern Scandinavia came to be. It looks like it is available on questia (a single month sub is a bit cheaper than buying the book from Amazon).

> that makes his works fundamentally a scholarly endeavor in the way that most other fantasy works aren't.

I'd say that's accurate. I mean he was literally filling in a gap in English history where he felt there should be recorded myths in the way that they existed for Germanic and Viking cultures. And considering that Scandinavian and Anglo Saxon tribes were closely related to the Germanic tribes of mainland Europe, they would have very similar traditions and stories. The Norse/Vikings even occupied portions of England at one point, so their ideas were well-propagated.

I recommend checking out The Viking Spirit by Daniel McCoy. There are a ton of great reads on Norse history out there, and this one is a great and entertaining amalgamation of many of those sources.

I found The Viking Spirit: An Introduction to Norse Mythology and Religion by Daniel McCoy very easy to read as well as being factual and interesting, I'd highly recommend it as an introductory guide to Norse mythology.

I've been reading The Viking Spirit off and on. It's a pretty easy read and each "chapter" is a different story, so you can skip to pretty much anywhere in the book.

Not really sure how this sub feels about Daniel McCoy though. I haven't really read much else as far as mythology, that was just one of the first things to pop up on Amazon at a decent price.

I would recommend The Viking Age: A Reader, it's pretty much the book about the vikings, also includes a lot of information on both early viking religion/myth as well as how it evolved with the introduction of Christianity. Also: Vikings. So that's cool.

As far as Mythology is concerned, if you are looking for a good non-fiction place to start, I would reccomend "Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs" by John Lindow

If you are interested in the History and Culture from a non-fiction standpoint, I started with "A History of the Vikings" by Gwyn Jones

Else Roesdahl's The Vikings is a pretty good place to start.

Others have also mentioned some of the sagas: Njal's Saga, The Saga of the Volsungs. Beowulf takes place in Scandinavia.

Somerville and Mcdonald's The Viking Age: A Reader is a nice collection of translated historical texts and documents. It includes a description of the Lindisfarne raids and some of the subsequent reactions of priests and kings from The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

I made an audible account a couple months back and I picked up The Age of Vikings by Anders Winroth. It's got a lot of really interesting information on early Scandinavia and the impact of Norsemen during the middle ages. I don't absorb academic and historical texts well as it usually ends up as an impromptu nap. Listening while I work is much easier for me to glean information. There's a couple sagas and Edda's I've got lined up for my next purchases that I'm really looking forward to.

https://www.amazon.com/Age-Vikings-Anders-Winroth/dp/0691169292

I was interested in the Vikings and Scandinavian history a few years back. I read a selection of things that were Viking histories and English histories that pertained to the Vikings. As far as Egyptian history I read a few egyptian history book my university has and I also read a book called Religion and Magic in Ancient Egypt by Rosalie David. It traced the history of Egyptian faith practices from the civilization's beginning through its growth into an empire and its later years as a Roman province. And for the Latin American Civilizations and feudal japan i cant help you there. Also, check out the History subreddit's reading list https://www.reddit.com/r/history/wiki/recommendedlist

Vikings: https://www.amazon.com/Sea-Wolves-History-Vikings/dp/1909979120/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1486836520&sr=8-2&keywords=vikings+book

https://www.amazon.com/Penguin-Historical-Atlas-Vikings-Hist/dp/0140513280/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1486836584&sr=8-10&keywords=vikings+book

Egypt: https://www.amazon.com/Religion-Magic-Ancient-Egypt-Rosalie/dp/0140262520

I've been reading The Sea Wolves A History of the Vikings :

It's pretty good and informative. It covers both sides of any kind of "war" the Vikings were involved at any time.


https://www.amazon.com/Sea-Wolves-History-Vikings/dp/1909979120/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486156143&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Sea+Wolves+A+History+of+the+Vikings

I'm a little more then half way through The age of the Vikings, so far it's been really good. A decent overview, but also does a good job of digging into the details.

Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga is a good read on Viking history. For a more indepth study of Viking culture i'd recommend The Vikings by Else Roesdahl

Viking nonfiction:

Want something fun?
Viking: The Norse Warrior's [Unofficial] Manual

Want something a little more academic?
Gods and Myths of Northern Europe

A few resources for anyone wanting to learn more about crafting Viking-age swords:

• WATCH Secrets of the Viking Sword (NOVA) on YouTube
  
• Hurstwic's page on Viking Age Arms
  
• Fantastic Reddit thread from /r/SWORDS - "What kinds of weapons did Vikings use besides the traditional swords and axes, and why was the particular style of sword they used selected?"
  
• Wiki entry
  
  Edit: Further reading (tried to find free, online sources)...
  
  
• ‘A Metallurgical Study of some Viking Swords' by Alan Williams
  
• Scandinavian bronzecasting in the Viking Age and the Early Middle Ages by Anders Söderberg Found Here
  
• Viking Age Ironworking: The Evidence from Old Norse Literature by Mark E. Hall Found here
  
• Swords of the Viking Age by Ian Peirce Found on Amazon
  
  
  

The Viking World edited by Stefan Brink in collaboration with Niel Price.

The book is made up of small chapters and articles usually just a few pages long each (all written by respected academics), each of which introduces and explains the main themes you encounter in the study of the Vikings and their world, with bibliographies for further reading.

I can't recommend it enough, it has helped me out even now I am reading for an MA on the Vikings.

Check out the contents page on the preview Amazon offers.

Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:

Amazon Smile Link: http://smile.amazon.com/The-Vikings-History-Robert-Ferguson/dp/0143118013/ref=sr_1_1


|Country|Link|
|:-----------|:------------|
|UK|amazon.co.uk|
|Spain|amazon.es|
|France|amazon.fr|
|Germany|amazon.de|
|Japan|amazon.co.jp|
|Canada|amazon.ca|
|Italy|amazon.it|
|China|amazon.cn|




This bot is currently in testing so let me know what you think by voting (or commenting). The thread for feature requests can be found here.

Here is a quick entertaining read to start you out: Viking: The Norse Warrior's [Unofficial] Manual

For a bit deeper reading this one is a decent overview of all things viking: The Vikings: A History by Robert Ferguson

The Nordic Model- Embracing globalization and sharing risks An MIT report.

The Nordic Model: Scandinavia since 1945 (Contemporary Worlds) By senior lecturer in contemporary Scandinavian history at the University College, London.

I’d also consider Viking Economics, more of an advocates take.

Hey man, thank you very much! Only one little thing, the links for Canada and UK you posted are from an Egyptian Mythology book, not this one, the correct ones should end in B06XXWMXRR:

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XXWMXRR
Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B06XXWMXRR

On the rare occasion when I have little to do (cough), I purchase a book on Kindle and read it on my monitor using my browser at http://read.amazon.com . I'm currently reading The Vikings: A History. The last one I read, which I highly recommend, was Letter to a Christian Nation.

I'd recommend Nordstrom's "Scandinavia since 1500" for a broad overview:

https://www.amazon.com/Scandinavia-Since-1500-Byron-Nordstrom/dp/0816620989

Another decent book is Herman Lindqvist's "A History of Sweden" (which obviously focuses on Sweden, not Scandinavia):

https://www.amazon.com/History-Sweden-Herman-Lindqvist/dp/9113014552

Hvis du vil have det nyeste forskning på området, så vil jeg anbefale The Viking World. Den giver et ganske godt indblik i, hvor lidt vi egentlig ved om vikingetiden og hvor meget det hele er omdiskuteret. Den forholder sig ikke kun til Skandinavien, men også deres virke i Europa og andre steder i verden.

Well, they did have a technological advantage in the form of viking longships. These ships were long, shallow bottomed, flexible ships that were both graceful as well as being some of the fastest ships in the viking's geological sphere of influence. They were highly efficient in the sea as well as in the small rivers and fjords of Scandinavia and their shallow hulls allowed them to travel up mainland rivers, even reaching as far as Paris, France before the end of the viking age. The ships also allowed for long, fast voyages along coasts carrying vikings as far from Scandinavia as Italy, Turkey, Russia, North Africa and Canada.

Another piece of the reason they were so successful was that they often targeted under-manned monasteries, churches and small villages. 8th to 12th century England was not united by any means; you had North Umbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Wessex and all the smaller states within those areas that were not always at peace with each other, requiring fighting forces that were not seen to be as needed on the north and northeast coasts of England and modern Scotland.

Now we come to combining these two factors in viking tactics. Vikings were raiders, at least in the beginning, and were not setting out to conquer lands and steal fortifications as in your typical medieval battle. They use a hit-and-run style of raiding that left their victims little to no time to call for aid. They would spend their winters at home preparing their ships, weapons and bodies for the summer raids and after the spring crops had been planted they were off in search of the most plunder they could bring back with the smallest amount of risk involved. To a viking, it didn't matter if you were a soldier or a monk, if they engaged you in a fight and you lost, they were entitled to what you owned as they considered this a fair fight. So, in that way, they may have also had a psychological advantage as well. Other monks and god-fearing men heard account of these ruthless demons (some letters from monks who escaped the vikings survive these encounters) and fear and infamy about them spread through the British isles.

If you’re interested in further reading I highly recommend “The Viking World” https://www.amazon.com/Viking-World-Routledge-Worlds/dp/0415692628

If you’re interested in reading a letter written about the vikings by a monk whose monastery was attacked by vikings, Yale has an online transcription available here: https://classesv2.yale.edu/access/content/user/haw6/Vikings/higbald.html

This one is kinda funny but still factual. Viking: The Norse Warrior's [Unofficial] Manual https://www.amazon.com/dp/0500251940/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_AKTLub0VK71KG

The Viking World is about as comprehensive of a volume as you could need. There are plenty of sections dealing with women in the Viking world. The work is scholarly but not unapproachable.

The Viking World edited by Stefan Brink is a great source, filled with up-to-date papers written by some of the best scholars in Viking Age history and archaeology. It has chapters detailing everything from Norse-Sami relations, Scandinavian coinage to a few chapters regarding the impact by Scandinavians on the people they interacted with. I definitely recommend it.

The impact of the Scandinavian Invasions on Celtic Speaking Peoples is a bit dated, but is cool to have as a historiographical piece because so many of their interpretations have been proven wrong by new archaeological evidence and less narrow/literal readings of cherry picked primary sources (Binchy, for example, was a genius in the field of early Irish law tracts, however only reading law tracts will give you a very skewed view of how Irish society functioned). I only bought it because it's on sale and because it includes D A Binchy's classic "Changing of the old order" paper, even though new research has shown his theory of the vikings dragging the Irish out of an "old order" to be wrong.

The Penguin Atlas of Medieval History - Colin McEvedy 1961 for an overview.
2008, erudite conference output in Chapters 37 to 40
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Viking-World-Routledge-Worlds/dp/0415692628

Peirce, "Swords of the Viking Age": https://www.amazon.com/Swords-Viking-Age-Ian-Peirce/dp/1843830892

Petersen, "De Norske Vikingesverd": https://archive.org/details/DeNorskeVikingesverdEnTypologisk-kronologiskStudieOverVikingetidens_105

... partial translation into English at http://www.vikingsword.com/petersen/

That's all i need. I don't care if he takes it from others as long as most of the stuff about Vikings are covered

EDIT: Do you know anything about this one? http://www.amazon.com/A-History-Vikings-Gwyn-Jones/dp/0192801341/ref=cm_lmf_tit_1

I'm quite nervous about buying the wrong book xD

>Iona Abbey, perhaps the most important Christian site in all of Britain

If there is a site to compete with Iona, it's Lindisfarne, which was attacked and destroyed by the Vikings in 793. This was a major blow to the English.

About the uniting of England, it's not that the Heptarchy joined forces to fight, but rather all the kingdoms had been overrun with the sole exception of the West Saxons. When King Alfred defeated the Vikings he established himself as overking of all England. His grandson Athelstan was the one who beat the Vikings back once and for all. The Vikings of Dublin (a town they had founded) had united with the Scots and these were defeated by Athelstan in 937. (There really was no uniting with Scotland at this point).

As for sources, pretty much any history of the Vikings will have this information. This one and this one are both good. The basic histories of Anglo-Saxon England will also have the information.

Unless I have the wrong book somehow, it's available on Kindle. Added to my wishlist for some point in the future when I actually get through all the books I've already bought. Or, you know, a few of them.

Okay, let me break this down for you in very simple terms:

Every single book I have bought on Viking history goes to extensive lengths IN THE FUCKING INTRODUCTION to detail how Women were treated vastly different to modern day societies (even books written in the 1930s acknowledge this) and that they were warriors. Every. Single. Fucking. Book.

But no, you, who have obviously never read into the subject, know better. You want a list of books? I can provide that.

Book one

Book two

Book three

>Hell's Angels podcast, I don't care

And that's your ignorance showing once again. The podcast is fully sourced and it's done by a guy who majored in History. I'm not sure if he has a Bachelors or a Masters, but he has a degree specifically in History, and he fully sources everything for his podcast. It's not at all some "feminist agenda" podcast, it's actually good history.

LINK

I'm fucking done dude. You are ignorant, and instead of learning about it you arrogantly rant about this stuff.

Okey dokey, so, lets start from the beginning. First "Medieval Europe" covers about 1000 years of history, across an entire continent, and dozens of different cultures. Where and when are just as important as what. Making generalizations is pretty much impossible. For the purposes of this, I will be sticking to the typical conditions in England and southern France. Northern europe operated on a COMPLETELY different, and MUCH more egalitarian set of rules. I will touch on that later.

Yes, of course there were non-white people in medieval europe. Moors from north africa who invaded what is now southern spain, and parts of italy. They ruled for about 500 years. They were expelled in the early 1200's. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_conquest_of_Hispania).

In addition, merchants from the middle east were common in some parts of medieval europe. Things were actually pretty shitty for them, due to the legal structure.

Speaking of the legal structure, laws as we think of them today didn't per se exist, and could vary wildly from one town to the next. They were closer to an amalgam of local custom and general policy. A codified legal system was pretty much nonexistent in that period. None of which applied to foreigners (which included simple non-residents in many area), including the aforementioned merchants, who had no recourse. It was pretty much open season on them anywhere outside the major cities and trade routes.

The other thing that's very very important to consider, is that the rules the commoners lived by (the overwhelming bulk of the population) were very VERY different from the rules the nobility lived by. But to address your bullet points:

Warning: Most of my resources are in the form of books, scholarly research, basically non-digital format. I will, unfortunately, be making heavy use of wikipedia for this. I will include a bibliography at the end to get you started.

1. Nobility only for arranged marriages. In fact, a ritualized, sanctioned marriage performed by an official was a relatively late development. In most places, the custom was simply to pledge yourself to each other (it was a good idea to have a witness, but usually people just took the couple's word for it). The church cracked down on the practice later, actually requiring it to be sanctioned by a priest. Within the lower classes, arranged marriages were uncommon, though by custom both families were supposed to agree. How this relates to the first part of this is that they had no actual authority to declare a couple not married, so eloping was stupidly common.
   
   
2. That's odd, because a whole lot of them did! It's good to remember that this all happened a LONG time ago, however, we do have tax and census records available for large swaths of english, french, and italian history. The only profession that appears to be exclusively male is blacksmithing, and the only profession that appears to be exclusively female is weaving. Outside of that, we have plenty of documentation, mostly records of women suing each other over business deals (medieval europeans were shockingly litigious). As far as restricted professions go, apparently nobody told Trota of Salerno that (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trota_of_Salerno). Or Christine de Pizan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_de_Pizan).
   
   Women joined and formed both craft and merchant guilds (basically, early unions) with regularity. In england, when the wool trade exploded in the late middle ages, many women became quite wealthy as wool merchants.
   
   
3. Nobody was allowed to divorce anybody. It was a running problem. I seem to recall a certain english king flipping off the pope and founding his own religion over this. Divorce simply didn't exist, there was only annulment, which could only be granted on the grounds that the marriage was illegitimate to begin with. That is, within the full christianized areas. Celtic and Norse society allowed for both temporary marriages, and women could divorce at will. But let's not go down that rabbit hole, just yet.
   
   
4. Okay, so this is a little complicated, but bear with me:
   
   Medieval custom and commonlaw was based on the family unit. By default, the husband became the head of that family unit. When a woman married into a family, her holdings became part of that family unit, and ownership defaulted to the husband (note the aforementioned lack of divorce). In the event of an annulment, the entire marriage was declared void, including any transfer of property, which was then returned to the wife, who then became an independant unmarried adult, identical to a widow. In the event that the husband died (which was absurdly common), the wife (NOT the eldest male child) was then considered head of household, and assumed ownership and responsibility for all the holdings and the behavior of her family (the exact same rights and responsibilities the husband had).
   To better understand this dynamic, take a modern marriage. When people are married, property becomes joint property, and no decisions regarding it may be made without the consent of both parties. Now imagine that there was no such thing as divorce. The dynamic becomes nearly identical to a medieval marriage. The only thing that has changed, functionally, is that the husband is no longer criminally liable for the actions of his wife (actually, a relatively recent development, less than 150 years). It was, effectively, joint property. Misuse of the wife's property was grounds for annulment. If you want to read about a vary famous instance, Elanor of Aquitaine (who I strongly advise picking up a biography or two on) had her marriage annuled.
   
   Grounds for annulment also included: marital rape, adultry, infertility, drunkeness, excessive physical abuse (domestic violence was commonplace and went both ways, all ways really, people just in general beat the hell out of each other, husbands beat wives, wives beat husbands, husbands and wives beat children, everybody beat servants, servants beat each other, really the top of the beatings food chain was the king, who didn't get beaten by anybody, and got to beat everybody. Yay beatings!)
   
   
5. This is pretty much true, but see previous comments on property ownership.
   
   Now, as promised, when you get to northern europe and parts of modern germany, things change completely. Women could divorce at will, for any reason or none, and a wife's property was never considered part of her husbands property. Women could inherit without restriction, and did all the time.
   
   If I may wax a bit wroth for a moment, one of the biggest hurdles to understanding the period is the goddamn fucking !@$%^!#! peice of shit Victorian mother!$%!@ who were VERY invested in revisionist history, and shit all over actual historical scholarship. The second hurdle is fucking hollywood goddamn movies who wouldn't know historically accurate if it bit them on their fat asses. An excellent example of this is the persistient myth of knights being craned onto their horses. This was the direct result of a shitty ass Henry V made in 1944 by Laurence Olivier, where the historical consultant begged him not to put the scene in, but he did it anyway.
   Anywho, /rant off.
   
   On to the resources!
   
   If you can find it, and don't have to pay a fortune for it, 'Women and Gender in Medieval Europe' is a fantastic resource, though quite heavy (both in physical and reading weight).
   
   Another good place to start, and significantly more accessable:
   
   http://www.amazon.com/Womens-Lives-Medieval-Europe-Sourcebook/dp/0415466830/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397269083&sr=1-2&keywords=medieval+women
   
   This is a rather basic and trite overview, but not inaccurate, and very accessable:
   
   http://www.amazon.com/Women-Middle-Ages-Joseph-Gies/dp/0060923040/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397269226&sr=1-1&keywords=women+in+the+middle+ages
   
   Some information on Norther Europe, not women specific, but a great read:
   
   http://www.amazon.com/The-Vikings-History-Robert-Ferguson/dp/0143118013/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397269319&sr=8-1&keywords=vikings+ferguson
   
   Aaaaaand here's a light treatment that you can watch while eating popcorn:
   
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL5CviNAhnk
   
   Feel free to PM me if you want to continue the discussion.