Book Review: The Wolf Age by Tore Skeie

I was recently in the United States and dropped into Barnes & Noble to pick up a book (I am Canadian). Turns out that I grabbed The Wolf Age: The Vikings, the Anglo-Saxons and the Battle for the North Sea Empire by Tore Skeie. I am not going to lie, I mean I think Vikings are pretty cool, but really I was attracted to the book by the cover and the crazy good title.  A thoughtful package to a book can open covers so to speak, even if a book can't be judged by its cover.

Buy it on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3RNMXpb

When I started reading it, I was surprised to learn that Tore Skeie is a Norwegian historian and that the book was translated from the Norwegian language. The Wolf Age (originally published in Norway as Hvitekrist) is his first major work to be translated into English and it really does have a Scandinavian centered perspective, so it was very cool.  For the most part, books on Norse history I have read have been from the English perspective.

The Wolf Age chronicles the violent and politically complex 11th-century struggle for supremacy between Scandinavian and English rulers, which ultimately lead to the formation of the short-lived 'North Sea Empire' under Cnut the Great. As an aside, why has Cnut declined as a name?  It's pretty awesome!

After an interesting introduction that provides a short look into the Norse chroniclers who memorized and later wrote the sagas of the Norse warriors, the book gets going with Sweyn Forkbeard’s power play in Denmark.  After taking power from Harald Bluetooth, Forkbeard launches relentless raids along the English coast. The raids cause massive problems for the Anglo-Saxon king Ethelred, and his power leadership causes massive challenges in the attempts to deal with the Viking invaders.  

Ultimately, Sweyn Forkbeard’s son Cnut the Great would conquer the Anglo-Saxon kingdom and hold power briefly. Yet, this is not the only conflict covered in the book. Norse warlords from Norway, Denmark and Sweden all negotiating the changing power dynamics looking for wealth and control in their own lands.

Generally, I would say that The Wolf Age would be best for someone that already has read generally in the history of the Vikings or the Norse. The scope here is mostly limited to the period of Sweyn Forkbeard and his son Cnut’s invasions and conquest of England, although Tore does dig into the conflicts in Scandinavia that took place with lesser kings and leaders.

Not only is it limited in time-period that it covers, it also has limited cultural or social history. There is not too much on the Norse sea-faring culture, its religions, family structures, its general worldview.  This book is really about war and conflict, the struggle for power in north western Europe.

All of that said, I really loved this book and would absolutely recommend this book to anyone looking to dig in on a specific period of the Viking age. The characters were fascinating, the writing brilliant.  Awesome read! 

Publication date: Nov 2022  | Publisher: Pushkin Press    | Page Count:  384

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