Viking Dead


Book Description

Northern Europe, 976 AD. Bjólf and the viking crew of the ship Hrafn flee up an unknown river after a bitter battle, only to find themselves in a bleak land of pestilence. The dead don’t lie down, but become draugr – the undead – returning to feed on the flesh of their kin. Terrible stories are told of a dark castle in a hidden fjord, and of black ships that come raiding with invincible draugr berserkers. And no sooner has Bjólf resolved to leave, than the black ships appear... Now stranded, his men cursed by the contagion of walking death, Bjólf has one choice: fight his way through a forest teeming with zombies, invade the castle and find the secret of the horrific condition – or submit to an eternity of shambling, soulless undeath!




Eaters of the Dead


Book Description

From the bestselling author of Jurassic Park, Timeline, and Sphere comes an epic tale of unspeakable horror. It is 922 A.D. The refined Arab courtier Ibn Fadlan is accompanying a party of Viking warriors back to their home. He is appalled by their customs—the gratuitous sexuality of their women, their disregard for cleanliness, and their cold-blooded sacrifices. As they enter the frozen, forbidden landscape of the North—where the day’s length does not equal the night’s, where after sunset the sky burns in streaks of color—Fadlan soon discovers that he has been unwillingly enlisted to combat the terrors in the night that come to slaughter the Vikings, the monsters of the mist that devour human flesh. But just how he will do it, Fadlan has no idea.




Laughing Shall I Die


Book Description

Laughing Shall I Die explores the Viking fascination with scenes of heroic death. The literature of the Vikings is dominated by famous last stands, famous last words, death songs, and defiant gestures, all presented with grim humor. Much of this mindset is markedly alien to modern sentiment, and academics have accordingly shunned it. And yet, it is this same worldview that has always powered the popular public image of the Vikings—with their berserkers, valkyries, and cults of Valhalla and Ragnarok—and has also been surprisingly corroborated by archaeological discoveries such as the Ridgeway massacre site in Dorset. Was it this mindset that powered the sudden eruption of the Vikings onto the European scene? Was it a belief in heroic death that made them so lastingly successful against so many bellicose opponents? Weighing the evidence of sagas and poems against the accounts of the Vikings’ victims, Tom Shippey considers these questions as he plumbs the complexities of Viking psychology. Along the way, he recounts many of the great bravura scenes of Old Norse literature, including the Fall of the House of the Skjoldungs, the clash between the two great longships Ironbeard and Long Serpent, and the death of Thormod the skald. One of the most exciting books on Vikings for a generation, Laughing Shall I Die presents Vikings for what they were: not peaceful explorers and traders, but warriors, marauders, and storytellers.




Odin's Whisper


Book Description

The Viking period, which stretched from the eighth to the eleventh century, left behind half a million graves, many containing whole ships, sumptuous goods, and even the bodies of slaves or loved ones sacrificed alongside those who had died. Revealing that it was in death that the Viking view of life was most clearly distilled, Odin s Whisperuses Norse mythology and recent archaeological evidence to draw a compelling picture of the Viking mind. In this in-depth account, Neil Price argues that it is by understanding Viking burial that we can best understand the thought and mythology of this fascinating culture. Price contextualizes how Vikings grasped death within theRagnarokthe immense battle of the living, dead, gods, and humans that would ultimately consume the world in fireand illustrates that their conception of the afterlife was seen only as a respite before this end. He also shows that this violent view of the afterlife informed their funeral practice, divulging blood-curdling accounts of the sacrifices and rapes that occasionally marked burials. Filled with striking illustrations and reconstructions of graves, Odin s Whispercasts new light on Norse beliefs about death and, in turn, what these notions tell us of their beliefs about life."




The Viking Funeral


Book Description

Driving along the freeway, Shane Scully glances over and sees Jody Dean, his oldest friend and LAPD colleague, at the wheel of an adjacent car. Why is Scully so surprised? Because it's been two years since Jody committed suicide in the Rampart Division parking lot by blowing his brains out with a service revolver. Shane served as a pallbearer at the funeral. What Scully will discover is that Jody and five other cops who are supposed to be dead are anything but; originally sent deep undercover to bust an extremely violent criminal network, they have become the LAPD's worst nightmare. Calling themselves the Vikings, they are rogue cops who know how the system works. In order to penetrate the group and set his cover, Scully is supposed to shoot his fiancée, Alexa. The setup goes awry and Shane finds himself looking down at his future wife's body. He is soon driven into the corridors of near-madness and into the bed of an extremely beautiful and utterly ruthless corporate seductress who threatens to destroy his soul. Shane's desperate and deadly undercover journey takes him from the embrace of Alexa and his teenage son, Chooch, to the Caribbean island of Aruba--to the decadence of Columbia's opulent palaces and the desperation of its deadly streets. In Viking Funeral, an electrifying thriller from Stephen J. Cannell, Sergeant Scully is driven to the psychological brink, his life in the hands of the most dangerous killer he's ever known--his closest childhood friend.




The Analysis of Burned Human Remains


Book Description

This unique reference provides a primary source for osteologists and the medical/legal community for the understanding of burned bone remains in forensic or archaeological contexts. It describes in detail the changes in human bone and soft tissues as a body burns at both the chemical and gross levels and provides an overview of the current procedures in burned bone study. Case studies in forensic and archaeological settings aid those interested in the analysis of burned human bodies, from death scene investigators, to biological anthropologists looking at the recent or ancient dead. - Includes the diagnostic patterning of color changes that give insight to the severity of burning, the positioning of the body, and presence (or absence) of soft tissues during the burning event - Chapters on bones and teeth give step-by-step recommendations for how to study and recognize burned hard tissues




The Road to Hel


Book Description

This 1943 book uses a variety of evidence from archaeology and literature concerning Norse funeral customs to reconstruct their conception of future life.




The Public Archaeology of Death


Book Description

Foreword / Jodie Lewis -- Dead relevant : introducing the public archaeology of death / Howard Williams -- The St Patrick's Chapel excavation project : public engagement with the rescue excavation of an early medieval cemetery in south west Wales / Marion Shiner, Katie A. Hemer and Rhiannon Comeau -- Death's diversity : the case of Llangollen Museum / Suzanne Evans and Howard Williams -- Displaying the deviant : Sutton Hoo's Sand people / Madeline Walsh and Howard Williams -- Grave expectations : burial posture in popular and museum representations / Sian Mui -- Photographing the dead : images in public mortuary archaeology / Chiara Bolchini -- Death on canvas : artistic reconstructions in Viking age mortuary archaeology / Leszek Gardeła -- Envisioning cremation : art and archaeology / Aaron Watson and Howard Williams -- Controversy surrounding human remains from the First World War / Sam Munsch -- Here lies "ZOMBIESLAYER2000", may he rest in pieces : mortuary archaeology in MMOS, MMORPGS, and MOBAS / Rachael Nicholson -- Death's drama : mortuary practice in Vikings season 1-4 / Howard Williams -- Afterword / Karina Croucher




The Dead Fathers Club


Book Description

A ghost story with a twist, from Matt Haig, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Midnight Library. "Matt Haig has an empathy for the human condition, the light and the dark of it, and he uses the full palette to build his excellent stories." —Neil Gaiman, author of American Gods Philip Noble is an eleven-year-old in crisis. His pub landlord father has died in a road accident, and his mother is succumbing to the greasy charms of her dead husband's brother, Uncle Alan. The remaining certainties of Philip's life crumble away when his father's ghost appears in the pub and declares Uncle Alan murdered him. Arming himself with weapons from the school chemistry cupboard, Philip vows to carry out the ghost's relentless demands for revenge. But can the words of a ghost be trusted any more than the lies of the living?




The Sagas of Ragnar Lodbrok


Book Description

Although based on historical persons from the 9th century, Ragnar Lodbrok and his sons are the subjects of compelling legends dating from the Viking era. Warriors, raiders, and rulers, Ragnar and his sons inspired unknown writers to set down their stories over seven centuries ago. This volume presents new and original translations of the three major Old Norse texts that tell Ragnar's story: the Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok, the Tale of Ragnar's Sons, and the Sogubrot. Ragnar's death song, the Krakumal, and a Latin fragment called the List of Swedish Kings, complete the story. Extensive notes and commentary are provided, helping the reader to enter the world of these timeless stories of Viking adventure.