To many, the word 'Viking' invites visions of violence. But plunder, rape and pillage do not tell the full story. In this fresh narrative history, Thomas Williams, a curator of the British Museum exhibition Vikings: Life and Legend, reframes the story of the Vikings. Weaving new academic research with an exploration of the physical remains and landscapes that the Vikings fashioned and walked, this book offers a vital evocation of a forgotten world, its influence on British language, literature, place names and folklore, its echoes in later history and its implications for the present.