Gratianus

My next book, The Conversion of Scandinavia: Vikings, Merchants, and Missionaries in the Remaking of Northern Europe, is now safely submitted to the publisher, Yale University Press. In the end, it came out at 91,801 words in a preface, an introduction, and twelve chapters. It is such a relief to get this off my shoulders, after years and years of work, during which I have actually drafted the book three times. I was not happy with either of the first two drafts (neither of which was entirely complete), so they went into the recycling bin. Now I am happy enough with the result, and it will be exciting to see what reactions I will get.

I think the cover will be honored with this beautiful image of a Viking-Age armring in the shape of a snake or a dragon from Northern Sweden.



Note: I have the proper permissions to print the image in the book, but not here on the blog, so what you see above is actually an image published by the Historiska museet on their website and linked from here. The original context is here.