Customer Reviews

Viking Weapons and Combat Techniques

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Well researched and immanently readable, Viking Weapons and Combat Techniques is an excellent contribution to the literature. A conversational tone and ample use of illustrations/photos keep the content accessible to novices while moving those with more than a passing interest to the next level of understanding. William Short's background as a research scientist comes through in his ability to synthesize information from multiple and disparate sources into a coherent story of a fascinating (and often misunderstood) people.

Viking Weapons and Combat Techniques is an excellent and innovative book written by a scientist who understandably approaches the subject with a scientific point of view. While the book is academic in nature, it's also very easy to read and digest. Short gives a good overview of Viking culture and the weapons they used. He then speculates how those weapons were used based on information drawn from a variety of resources, including the author's years of experience in Western Martial Arts and hands-on research with reproductions of Viking weapons. In fact, the author dedicates an entire chapter to describing his resources, which include archaeological finds, medieval and Renaissance combat documents, Icelandic sagas, art, and forensics. In other words, these are the puzzle pieces, and Viking Weapons and Combat Techniques is the picture the author created using those puzzle pieces. He also explains the limitations of his research on Viking combat techniques. The book is peppered with specific examples, illustrations, and photos that support his findings. For example, when Short mentions a specific passage from a saga, he clearly explains why he's using it as an example and how that passage ties into the subject matter at hand. One of Short's strengths is the level of detail he presents about Viking culture and how each detail gives insight to how, where, and why Vikings fought. This book is a treasure for a wide audience, from novices who want to learn about Vikings to expert practitioners of Western Martial Arts.

This wonderful book fills the gap that has existed since the publication of Oakeshott's "The Archaeology of Weapons" and Davidson's "The Sword in Anglo-Saxon England."
Synergistically combining the physical and literary evidence of the past with modern reconstruction and interpretation, the text brings the sagas to life while giving us a deeper understanding of how the Viking thought about and may have used the weapons of the day. The profuse & diverse illustrations bring out many subtle details of the artifacts that are typically not found outside of obscure archaeological reports and add a deeper context to the mix. A welcome addition to the Viking literature.

While this book provides a nice, brief overview of VIking society & arms & armor, it completely fails to deliver when it comes to Combat Techniques. Throughout the text, the author repeatedly points out there is little historical or archaeological evidence upon which to base a reconstruction of Viking martial arts. Likewise, there are no known primary printed manuals sources. Instead of sticking to the little that can be teaser out of sagas & surviving weapons of the period, the author speculates based on Medieval manuals that use different weapon types & post-date the Viking period by many hundreds of years. Statements by the author, such as, such & such technique from Talhoffer's manual of 1467, are well suited to this a certain Viking weapon, is in no way evidence that the Viking people used such techniques.

In short, this book might be of interest to those new to this field of study, as an overview of the weapons employed by Vikings, but it completely falls down when it comes to recreating any of the martial arts that might have been used by these people.

I recently purchased this book. The best thing I can say about it is that it was good for a laugh. I have been doing Viking reenactment for eight years with steel weapons. By the looks of the shields, it's obvious they have never actually put any of their theories to the test. A few specifics should show the weakness of this book.
The description of shields creates shields that are heavy, this makes them really slow. On page 39, they show their recommended fighting stance. The reaction time with this stance (especially with those big, heavy shields) would be too slow to prevent someone getting inside those shields and killing you.
On page 41, he discusses fighting against a Dane Axe. He says, "Would a person be able to maintain a grip on the shield under the impact of a blow like this? Would bones break? What would be an appropriate follow-up attack? We hope that further research and experiments will answer some of these questions." Having been attacked at full strength from a Dane Axe, I can tell him the answers to these questions. Yes, you can maintain your grip, your bones don't break, the shock is absorbed by your elbow and the proper follow-up is to step in and kill him. His proper mode of research would be to ask someone who has actually fought against someone with a Dane Axe, not theorizing about it.
On page 93, he shows a lunge with a spear. On a purely theoretical level, this may look like a good attack. In real life, it's terrible. Such an attack has no control, making it extremely easy to parry. There is also no power in it. Rather than an attack to highlight, this is an attack to avoid.
This book shows the problems that are created when theories are not tested.

This is a carefully written and well presented book. The layout and presentation is very clear and well done. There are many photographs in black and white which are clear and well used to supplement the text. As a single book on fighting with sword and shield the book stands up well. This is because it is based on medieval techniques from extant manuals. This is, however, the problem. The book has little to do with vikings. The extensive examples of technique are off the pages of medieval manuals and the author fails to demonstrate they are representative of the viking era. The many quotations come from Icelandic saga literature which is of 13th century date. This means the discussion is about medieval techniques represented in medieval accounts. It is not surprising there is a correlation. The pictures also are of Icelandic subjects in the main. What is not Icelandic is of Renaissance or Chinese in origin. Altogether this book could better be entitled 'Combat Technique in Medieval Iceland'.