Preface

1. Du Chailu, a French Canadian, is best known as the African explorer who rediscovered the gorilla; he was born in 1835 and died in 1903.
2. Keary, who was novelist, poet, and philosopher, besides historian and numismatist, was on the staff of the Medal Room from 1872 until 1887 and also assisted the Museum for a short time during the War.
      
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       burdened with footnotes nor embarrassed by the inclusion of too much perplexing controversial matter. On the contrary I want merely to be the forerunner of some luckier author of the future and I have done my best for him by trying to set down the complete narrative, as it is at present understood, in a severely plain and useful form. The fact is that were I not convinced that there is really a need for a general history of the vikings of this sort I should have abandoned my project on the grounds that the time was badly chosen for writing a general summary of viking history. Even for such quiet folk as students of early history these are stirring days; veteran certainties of the textbooks are dissolving into the miasma of legend while new interpretations of the historical material are assuming the semblance of established, and often astonishing, facts. It has been discovered for example that the customary condensed version of the first sagas in Heimskringla provides not only an insufficient but a misleading account of the formation of the kingdom of Norway, and I recommend to those who know only the traditional tale a most provocative and disconcerting little book by Johan Schreiner called Olav den hellige og Norges samling (Oslo, 1929). So, too, in Denmark and Sweden the last few years have witnessed a drastic revaluation of the evidence derived from the earliest written records. And this is not all, for recent archaeological research has afforded with a prodigality that I confess surprises me a wealth of trustworthy data that ultimately cannot fail to enlarge our knowledge of viking history. Naturally I have tried to keep apace with these vigorous advances in learning, but knowing as I do the energy and thoroughness with which historical and archaeological investigations are now being prosecuted by scholars in the northern countries and in the lands that were colonies of the vikings, I am bound to anticipate the publication of many important and revolutionary contributions to the history of the Northmen in the course of the next few years. This is as it should be and I am glad. But I shall fail in my duty to the reader if I do not warn him that even now large slices of this history are being industriously shovelled into the melting-pot by my learned colleagues and friends.
       I want most gratefully to record the help I have obtained from these scholars. They are many and they live far-scattered
       --in this country, in Scandinavia and Denmark, in Iceland, in Germany, in France, and in America; to one and all of them I offer my thanks; but I name here only Mr. Jón Stefánsson and Professor Halldór Hermannson, who have been kind enough to help with the proof-reading and to whom I am indebted for some
      
      
      
      
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       valuable suggestions. I must also acknowledge gratefully the assistance of another and indispensable proof-reader, my wife, and in conclusion, I desire to thank the Trustees of the British Museum for permission to reproduce illustrations from one of the Museum guides, and Dr. P. Nörlund, Mr. S. Bengtsson, Mr. W. Berthelsen, and Mr. O. Böhm for permission to use photographs taken by them.
T.D.K.
20, BRAMHAM GARDENS
      
LONDON
      
August, 1930