24 Hours in the Viking World: A Day in the Life of the People Who Lived There

Spend 24 hours immersed in the rich and fascinating everyday lives of the Vikings.

Between the infamous Lindisfarne raid in 793 CE and the Norman conquest of 1066, the peoples we now know as the Vikings became one of the most far-ranging and influential civilizations in history. The Vikings are frequently portrayed as raiders, marauding across medieval Europe and Britain, but the culture and society of the medieval Nordic peoples were so much more diverse, multifaceted, and influential than they are often depicted.

In 24 Hours in the Viking World, author and Viking expert Kirsten Wolf chronicles an hour in the life of 24 individuals from every corner of Viking society over the course of a single day. From the warrior to the thrall, the shipbuilder to the farmer, the poet to the oracle, each chapter offers a snapshot of the world as it was in medieval Scandinavia and an insight into how these people lived, loved, worked, fought, and died.

24 Hours in the Viking World presents an absorbing, grounded, and tangible look at what it was really like to be alive during this pivotal era in history.

Kirsten Wolf is a Professor and Torger Thompson Chair at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A native of Denmark, she received her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Scandinavian languages from University College London. She is the author of several books, including Vikings: An Encyclopedia of Conflict, Invasions, and Raids (with Tristan Mueller-Vollmer) (2022), and Viking Age (2013).