The Battle of the North

Tore Skeie has established himself as an outstanding mediator of our medieval history. This impression is by no means undermined by this tremendously well-written book about a violent man who became a saint...Tore Skeie’s language is at once rich and precise...It is masterfully executed.

This true story is like The Lord of the Rings, only better...Tore Skeie is a first-rate author, the essence of Peter Englund and Sir Walter Scott...What a wonderful story this is!

Remember this name if you’ve never heard it before: Tore Skeie. What guts, what talent for writing and storytelling this historian and author has! Just hold on tight: The Battle of the North is almost like reading in a wind tunnel. There is a force to this material that pulls the reader from the present day back through the centuries, with a well-written and fascinating text.

If you’ve never read about Olav Haraldsson before, the thought of him as a saint will seem absurd after reading Tore Skeie’s brilliant book The Battle of the North...A fresh breeze of a history book, extremely well written.

In his story of Olav the Holy, Tore Skeie lets the sources sprinkle poetic stardust on his down-to-earth prose...The portrayals of the caliphate in Al Andalus and of the Anglo-Saxon realm in themselves are worth the price.

If you’re going to read one book that explains the Viking era, this is a great place to start.