God's Viking: Harald Hardrada: The Life and Times of the Last Great Viking

by Nic Fields

Harald Hardrada is perhaps best known as the inheritor of ‘seven feet of English soil’ in that year of fateful change, 1066. But Stamford Bridge was the terminal point of a warring career that spanned decades and continents. Thus, prior to forcibly occupying the Norwegian throne, Harald had an interesting (and lucrative) career in the Varangian Guard, and he remains unquestionably the most notable of all the Varangians who served the Byzantine emperors: in the latter employment he saw active service in the Aegean, Sicily, Italy, Anatolia, Syria, Palestine and Bulgaria, while in Constantinople he was the hired muscle behind a palace revolution. A man of war, his reign in Norway was to be taken up with a wasteful, vicious and ultimately futile conflict against Denmark, a kingdom (like England) he believed was his to rule. We follow Harald’s life from Stiklestad, where aged fifteen he fought alongside his half-brother king Olaf, through his years as a mercenary in Russia and Byzantium, then back to Norway, ending with his death in battle in England.

Genres: History

624 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 1, 2021

About the author

Dr Nic Fields started his career as a biochemist before joining the Royal Marines. Having left the Navy, he went back to University and completed a BA and PhD in Ancient History at the University of Newcastle. He was Assistant Director at the British School of Archaeology, Athens, and is now a lecturer in Ancient History and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh.

Reviews

[Emmanuel Gustin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has an unavoidable and an avoidable weakness. The unavoidable weakness is that we do not know that much about the life of Harald Hardrada, unfortunately. Nic Fields can only give us a sketchy outline of his existence, as an exile, a mercenary, a king, a corpse. The myth of Harald "the hard ruler" has a lasting appeal, but it overwhelmed the story of his life. Fields has to fill the gaps with speculation and a lot of historical background, so that we would at least understand the time Harald lived in, if not the man.

But there the avoidable weakness of this book arises. Perhaps it was simply published against a deadline, in too much haste. For all practical purposes, this is just a first draft. Rough, unfinished, full of repetitions and rambling asides, references to material that is missing. There are tantalising references to the persona of Harald as it still appears in Icelandic stories, but these are not retold. Substantial sections, such as those on viking weaponry and ships, seem to be lifted almost verbatim from the website of Hurstwic (http://www.hurstwic.org). With permission, I hope; they are mentioned briefly in the text but I did not find an explicit acknowledgment.

The structure of the book is neither thematic nor chronological. Rather, the necessarily sketchy biography of Harald is fleshed out with bits that are thrown in seemingly randomly, at the whim of the author, hopping back and forth in time. Altogether, although the author has a PhD in history, the book could have been written more professionally. It would have benefitted a lot from several additional review cycles and a good editor.

A disappointment, then.