The Wolf Age

The Vikings, the Anglo-Saxons and the Battle for the North Sea Empire

By: Tore Skeie

Narrated by: Michael Page

The first major book on Vikings by a Scandinavian author to be published in English reframes the struggle for a North Sea empire and puts listeners in the mindset of Vikings, providing new insight into their goals, values, and what they chose to live and die for.

The Wolf Age takes listeners on a thrilling journey through the bloody shared history of England and Scandinavia, and on across early medieval Europe, from the wild Norwegian fjords to the wealthy cities of Muslim Andalusia.

Warfare, plotting, backstabbing, and bribery abound as Tore Skeie skillfully weaves sagas and skaldic poetry with breathless dramatization as he entertainingly brings the world of the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons to vivid life.

In the eleventh century, the rulers of the lands surrounding the North Sea are all hungry for power. To get power they need soldiers, to get soldiers they need silver, and to get silver there is no better way than war and plunder.

This vicious cycle draws all the lands of the North into a brutal struggle for supremacy and survival that will shatter kingdoms and forge an empire . . .

©2018 Gyldendal Norsk Forlag; English translation copyright 2021 by Alison McCullough (P)2022 Tantor

Brilliant!

This is a masterful weaving into one synchronous, fascinating story of the many and varied developments during the Viking era among regions adjacent to the North Sea, and successfully makes sense of it all from a Scandinavian perspective.

Riveting history/Perfect pronunciation!

Couldn’t put this down. Fascinating. Got the paperback too. But hearing all the names pronounced correctly was wonderful. Excellent narration.

A great history book

One of my favorite books on the subject of Northmen and there invasion of Great Britain.

excellent history

if you are interested in Norse history start here, you will be satisfied but want more

A solid overview

This is definitely a book written for the casual history reader. Fairly high level and written more as a narrative than a history. The reader, however, makes it tough to follow. He has reads with his thick British accent which is fine, but then he pronounces all of the Viking\Norse\Scandinavian names and places in, I assume, an accent or how they would have been spoken at the time. Good luck understanding what some of the names are if you wanted to dig deeper into them.