What happens when the line between a real human being and an apocalyptic myth vanishes into the mists of history?
If you are tired of sanitized, pop-culture retellings of the Viking Age, it is time to step onto the damp oak planks of a longship and experience the 9th century as it truly was. In 845 AD, a ruthless Norse chieftain known in Frankish annals as Reginherus sailed 120 ships straight up the Seine, shattered the armies of King Charles the Bald, and held Paris hostage until he was paid 7,000 pounds of pure silver. He was real. He bled, he conquered, and he died. Yet, within a few centuries, his real identity was swallowed whole by dragon-slaying legends, magical breeches, and poetic deaths in pits of squirming vipers.
Winston Maddox's "Ragnar Lothbrok: How a 9th-Century Sea King Transformed into Scandinavia's Most Famous Legend" is not a dry academic list of dates-it is a rigorous, pulse-pounding forensic investigation into dark-age warfare, historiography, and political propaganda. For the seasoned history buff who demands primary source critical analysis, this book tears down the romanticized curtain of 13th-century Icelandic sagas and pits them directly against the cold, panicked entries of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles and Carolingian monastic texts. You will explore how documented historical figures-like Ivar the Boneless, Bj顤n Ironside, and Halfdan-used the shadowy memory of a legendary father to legitimize the bloodiest invasion of Anglo-Saxon England in history: the Great Heathen Army.
Feel the biting cold of the North Sea, smell the woodsmoke and iron of early medieval siege warfare, and witness how medieval Christian scribes transformed destructive sea-kings into apocalyptic monsters to explain divine wrath. Maddox dissects the evolution of the famous "snake pit" execution motif, analyzes the strategic psychological terror used by Norse warbands, and reveals how Scandinavian poets reconstructed pagan warlords into chivalric archetypes centuries after their deaths. This is history written for those who want to feel the weight of the axe, understand the cold political calculation behind Viking raids, and discover how real historical events are weaponized into immortal folklore.
Are you ready to abandon the fiction and finally face the real Scourge of Christendom?
外文書商品之書封，為出版社提供之樣本。實際出貨商品，以出版社所提供之現有版本為主。部份書籍，因出版社供應狀況特殊，匯率將依實際狀況做調整。
無庫存之商品，在您完成訂單程序之後，將以空運的方式為你下單調貨。為了縮短等待的時間，建議您將外文書與其他商品分開下單，以獲得最快的取貨速度，平均調貨時間為1~2個月。
為了保護您的權益，「三民網路書店」提供會員七日商品鑑賞期(收到商品為起始日)。
若要辦理退貨，請在商品鑑賞期內寄回，且商品必須是全新狀態與完整包裝(商品、附件、發票、隨貨贈品等)否則恕不接受退貨。
