“In the Viking Age and the centuries that preceded it, northern Europe’s unpredictable climate periodically forced barbarian tribes to go in search of new resources. In our supposedly enlightened age, the search for such resources has been sublimated, corporatised, sanitised perhaps, but it has not receded.

“You did not, I hope, steal this book from someone else. The clothes on your back were not snatched from Irish monks, and you did not appropriate your money by smashing up priceless holy relics, but there is still a perilously thin line that separates you from the hungry and the cold, and from the need to secure food and warmth. Few of us are more than a few months away from bankruptcy. We hand over new forms of manngjöld, hoping to shield ourselves against misfortune by paying tax and insurance. Our faith in our governments and welfare systems keeps us from having to consider what we would do if they were not there.

“While the Vikings are inhabitants of the past, the forces that created them are not. Ours is still a world with famines, floods and incidents of over-population. Our battles over resources are fought by proxy in distant lands, but they are still fought. You do not lead a band of men to take from those less able to protect themselves, but somewhere far away, others do on your behalf. It takes only the tiniest turn of fate, the slightest lapse of law, to make Vikings of us all.”

From A Brief History of the Vikings by Jonathan Clements.