Pirates Merchants Devils and Dark Deeds: Trade, Exploration and Religion from the Ice Age to the Viking Age

Culture is a journey of experiential discovery in an ever-changing

landscape. Our Northern history remains largely unsung, eclipsed by the

glamour of the classical world and its colourful legacy of Romanised culture.

But there is another world, no less vibrant and exciting, no less fascinating

or challenging. Locked into our DNA is a very diff erent history . .

In its immersive wonder we can find answers to age old challenges

concerning how culture evolves, what were the catalysts, who were

the antagonists, who were the oppressed, the exploited, what were

the real events, and who was really behind the violence in the tussle

for power a thousand years ago. Removing layers of accumulated

concepts regarding faith, myth and magic, this book exposes the

socio-religio-political machinations that rocked the northern world,

changing its landscape, the people and their beliefs

systems irrevocably.

From Rock Art to Pazyryk Mummies, Coffin Boats to Royal

Scythians, from the Sami to the Evenki, from Ethnicity to the

Enarei priesthood, and from Thunder spirits to the Northern

Crusades, the threads that bind them all are founded in trade.

Trade is the currency and agent for change in the world impacting

everything from war to religion. The Cosmic Mill turns, churning

magic and myth into profi t and fear.

Here be pirates and dragons.....