THE LAST VIKING: The True Story of King Harald Hardrada

1-227910

Combines Norse sagas, Byzantine accounts, Anglo-Saxon chronicles, and even King Harald's own verse and prose into a single story that depicts the violence and spectacle of the late Viking era and delves into the dramatic events that brought an end to almost three centuries of Norse conquest and expansion.

Offers a riveting biography of King Harald that seems more like a movie than history, but truth is often stranger than fiction. The number of narrow escapes he had as a youth and young man boggles the imagination as he fought, fled to Sweden, then to Kiev, and then to Constantinople. He seems to have been a charming rascal who backed his ploys with warrior prowess -- especially as he learned court intrigue in the Byzantine Imperial palace. -- RL